There are a number of references to this site in Surrey Archaeological Collections (SAC). Vol. 1,p.211 refers to it being on the summit of a hill, on an old trackway leading up from Cold Harbour, which was cut below the ground surface and crossed Mear Bank, an ancient raised ridge, just before Beggars Bush. The track formed the boundary between Croydon & Beddington, going on to Foxley Gate.
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Posted: April 4th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Beddington, Surrey, Twelve Ingenious Characters, anthologies | No Comments »
This site is recorded in many sources, and is now connected to a house near a crossroads, and there is another Beggars Bush nearby. There is also a naming story involving Charles I, which would provide an earlier date for the name. However, the story is doubtful, and doesn’t actually use the phrase Beggars Bush, though the context is consistent with the literary usage. It is better evidence of the distribution of the literary phrase than of the place name.
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Posted: April 4th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Evenjobb, Powys, Presteigne, The Play, naming story | 7 Comments »
The satirical verse On the Dominical Nose of O[Liver] C[Romwell] contains evidence of the popularity and distribution of the play The Beggars Bush. It refers to the character Higgen, the Orator Beggar.
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Posted: March 30th, 2011 | Filed under: The Play | Tags: Henry Tubbe, The Lame Commonwealth, The Play | No Comments »
In England’s Improvement by Sea and Land to outdo the Dutch without fighting Andrew Yarranton wrote “We are almost as Beggars-bush, and we cannot tell how to help our selves”. The work was one of the first promoting inland navigation on rivers & canals, amongst other modern economic ideas (including the establishment of a national land registry). It was influential because it gave the economic arguments for such projects rather than the technical aspects of their construction.
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Posted: March 30th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Andrew Yarranton, Dublin, Literary | No Comments »
You will have gathered that this is not a simple linear narrative which starts at the beginning and goes on to an end. Even the flexibility of linking and tagging entries doesn’t allow me to present a coherent narrative. I have attempted to do that in a mindmap – like this site it is still incomplete and confusing but it is as complete and clear as I can make it.
The Beggars Bush Mindmap – March 2011
Posted: March 28th, 2011 | Filed under: Speculations | Tags: Literary | 1 Comment »
This is a droll in The Wits, by Francis Kirkman (1673) which is based on the text of Act 2, Scene 1 of Beggar’s Bush, by Fletcher & Massinger.
This text is taken from “The Wits, or Sport Upon Sport”, ed. J. J. Elson (1932). The spelling is uncorrected.
The notes on canting are based on the glossary in A. V. Judges, The Elizabethan Underworld. [1]
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Posted: March 28th, 2011 | Filed under: The Play | Tags: Clause, Francis Kirkman, John Fletcher, John Taylor, Literary, Philip Massinger, The Lame Commonwealth, The Play, beggars | No Comments »
The Oath at Beggars Bush or to Make a Man a Fool is an unpublished manuscript poem collected in Wales. The poem contains advice to a countryman travelling to London. The phrase does not appear in the text. The usage in the title is mocking – the advice in the verse would lead the reader to look foolish and lose all credit. It is in keeping with other works which treated country people visiting London as foolish; “coneys”, “gulls” or “clowns”.
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Posted: March 28th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Literary, proverb | No Comments »
John Day uses the phrase Beggars Bush in the common literary usage twice in publications which cannot be precisely dated. Day was a jobbing playwright, working for Philip Henslowe and others. The old DNB described him as “one of the most neglected playwrights of the Elizabethan period: a distinction which is, for the most part, justified”. Ben Jonson described him as a “rogue” and he probably killed the playwright Henry Porter with a rapier. However, we may have sympathy with his own description of himself that in the end “notwithstanding . . . Industry . . . he was forct to take a napp at Beggars Bushe”.
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Posted: March 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Ben Jonson, Francis Kirkman, Henry Chettle, Henry Porter, Literary, Saxton, proverb | No Comments »
Henry Porter’s use of the literary phrase Beggars Bush is consistent with other early literary examples. It occurs in a play, now, like the author, largely forgotten. Like most other early writers he makes use of the vernacular, especially proverbs. There is some evidence linking Porter and his play to an area where there are early examples of the place name. His life and death link him to other writers who used the phrase, one of whom probably killed him.
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Posted: March 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Ben Jonson, Brian Twyne, Henry Chettle, Henry Porter, John Day, Literary, Marprelate Tracts, Oxford, Philip Henslowe, proverb | No Comments »
A Wonderfull … Astrologicall Prognostication (1591) is a pamphlet by “Adam Fouleweather Student in Asse-tronomy” which has been attributed to Thomas Nashe (“unconvincingly” according to DNB). It was one of a trio of mock prognostications, the others by ‘Francis Fairweather’ and ‘Simon Smellknave’ do not survive. It ridicules the popular prognostications that were published with almanacs. It claimed it was “Discovering such wonders to happen this yeere, as neuer chaunced since Noes floud. Wherein if there be found one lye, the author will lose his credit for ever.”
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Posted: March 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, County Offaly, Godmanchester, Henry Chettle, Martin Marprelate, Poor Robin, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe | No Comments »
