humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

On Feb 16, 2:55=A0am, "Peter Farey"
wrote:
> John Andrews wrote:
> > > > (There's no reason why you should have, but you never
> > > > responded to my post outlining how easy and indeed likely
> > > > it was for Shakespeare to have had access to the damned
> > > > Strachey account in the autumn of 1610 - when Leonard
> > > > Digges visited Thomas Russell at his house in Aldington
> > > > near Stratford. We know of Shakespeare's links to both
> > > > men - close links - and we know that Shakespeare was in
> > > > Stratford at this time from a London legal document.
> > > > Was Stratford so full of events that autumn that Shake-
> > > > speare wouldn't have found time to talk with Digges and
> > > > look at the letter he had brought to show his stepfather?
> > > > I know it's inconvenient for your theory, but you could
> > > > at least try to show why it is unlikely to have occurred.)
>
> and
>
> > Digges and his brother were members of the consortium
> > who paid for the failed expedition. It would have been
> > incumbent on Strachey to communicate to them what had
> > happened. If a long account was written of the storm,
> > Digges and the other consortium members would have been
> > first in the queue to see it.
>
> Whilst I don't accept Lynne's contention that *The
> Tempest* was written in 1603 or thereabouts, I don't
> accept these statements either.
>
> I may be wrong, but there is as far as I know no record
> of Leonard Digges having ever been connected with the
> Virginia Company (which I take to be the consortium you
> mention) whether as one of the 52 members of its Council
> or even one of the 655 individuals listed as its members.
>
> His elder brother Sir Dudley was a member of both groups,
> but appears fourth from the end of the Council list, with
> no fewer than 15 'Lords' and 33 other knights apparently
> ahead of him in the pecking order. That he would have
> been anywhere near first in the queue to see the document,
> let alone have the opportunity to take a personal copy of
> it for his brother's use, simply beggars belief.

Ah, the big names would have seen the document first, not the brains?
Anyway, I think the letter went to a private party, and she had copies
made and distributed to her crowd.

--Bob G.