Revenger

Calais. Later he became an alderman, a governor of the East India Company, and Lord Mayor of London, and was knighted by King James I. One Spanish envoy said he was “the greatest pirate that has ever been in this kingdom.”

Roger Williams (1539-1595)

One of the foremost military men of Elizabeth’s reign, he first went to war aged seventeen and made his name in the Low Countries by fighting bravely in single combat against a Spanish champion. Neither man was hurt and they ended up having a drink together. Williams soon became the most trusted lieutenant of Sir John Norris, Elizabeth’s top general, but later the two men became rivals. After fighting all over Europe and writing important military books (including A Brief Discourse of War), Williams was drawn to Essex and called him “my great prince.” His main stumbling block to high office was that Elizabeth did not like him and once dismissed him from her presence, telling him “begone, thy boots stink.” Williams died of a fever.

Lexicon

Language in the sixteenth century was rich, poetic-and coarse. Here are a few of the many words I have gleaned over the years. (For a fuller lexicon, visit www.roryclements.com.)

alderliefest: most dear

all amort: dejected, miserable

apple squire: pimp, a harlot’s servant

argosy: large merchant ship

arquebus, arquebusier, hagbut, hackbut: matchlock weapon, muzzle-loading. The trigger brings the end of a slow-burning match into contact with the gunpowder that discharges the ball.

arras: tapestry or hanging of rich fabric with woven figures and scenes

attaint: to stain, disgrace, condemn; lose standing and property

auto-da-fe: execution of sentence of the Spanish Inquisition, often including a parade and sometimes including burnings of heretics

backed: dead

ban-dog: ferocious dog kept tied up

bark: small ship with standard rigging and build

bastardly gullion: bastard’s bastard

baudekin: brocade of gold thread and silk (the richest cloth)

beast: Antichrist (Puritan view of Pope and Roman Catholic priests)

bees, a head full of: full of crazy notions

bellman: watchman, town crier

belly-cheat: slang term for an apron

Bess o’Bedlam: madwoman

black book: prison register

blackjack: leather beer jug sealed with tar on the outside

bluecoat: serving-man

bodies (a pair of): bodice

brabble: quarrel, wrangle, noisy altercation

breechclout: cloth worn by American Indians about their waist

bridale: wedding feast

broadcloth: fine, wide, black plaincloth (such as a Puritan might wear)

bruit: to spread by rumor

buckler: small round shield

buttery: larder, service room for ale and general food stores

caliver: light musket fired without a rest

callet: whore or lewd woman

canary: light, sweet wine from the Canary Islands

careen: to turn a ship on its side to scrape its hull of weed and barnacles, and caulk

carrack: large merchant ship that could be converted into a warship. Three-master, square-rigged with high castles, fore and stern.

catchpole: arresting officer, a sheriff’s sergeant

churl: ill-bred, surly, base fellow; farmworker

coif: a lawn or silk cap

coining: forging money

coney, cony: a dupe

copesmate: comrade

coter: author, person responsible for a work

couch a hogshead: to lie down to sleep

cousin, cozen, cozenage, cozener: to dupe or cheat

cresset: iron basket (usually on top of a pole) in which pitch or oil is burned for light

crossbiter, crossbiting: swindler, swindling

culverin: long-range cannon with bore of about five inches, firing shot of seventeen to twenty pounds

cunning man: a sort of local detective; someone possessing keen intelligence or magical knowledge

daub: mud for building

dell: young vagrant girl, a wench

doddypoll: fool

dogswain: sort of makeshift covers or bedding

doublet: close-fitting jacket, with or without sleeves

doxy: loose woman, a vagrant’s wench

drab: low, sluttish woman, a whore

drink-penny: tip, gratuity

drolleries: comic entertainment of a fantastical kind

ducat: Spanish gold coin, eighth of an ounce. A silver ducat was worth five shillings six pence; a gold ducat, seven shillings.

electuary: medicine, a medicinal conserve or paste mixed with honey or syrup

Essex’s cheap knights: those he knighted after failed sorties such as Azores

factor: collecting agent

fain: to be inclined, compelled

fairy, faerie: spirit, often evil

fall in: to copulate

figure caster: astrologer

Flota: Spanish treasure fleet from the New World

flowers: menstruation, period

foreign officer: parish official charged with seeking out vagrants

foreparts: stomachers, ornamental clothing for women

frantic: insane

freebooter: plunderer

French hood: fashionable hood for women

French marbles, pox, crown, welcome: venereal disease

frenzy: madness

gage of booze: quart of ale