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By Root 20442 0

on my poore credytt, I never delt with her Majestic concerning any of those captaines, nor anything that your Lordships spake yesterday before me; but true it is, I spake before the Earle of Essex and Sir John Norris, it was pittie that young captaines should be accepted and the old refused. True it is that I toulde them also that the lieutenants of the shire knew not those captaines so well as ourselves. On my creditt, my meaning was the deputies lieutenants, the which, as it was toulde me, had made all these captaines. My speeches are no lawe, nor scarce good judgment, for the warrs were unknowen to me 22 yeres agon. Notwithstanding, it shall satisfie me, that the greatest generalls in that time took me to be a souldier, for the which I will bring better proofs than any other of my qualitie shall deny. Humbly desiring your Lordships' accustomed good favor towards me, I reste to spend my life alwaies at her Majestie's pleasure, and at your Lordships' devotion. (27th March 1591.)"

Within a short period of the arrival of Sir Roger Williams he had dispersed the enemy and opened up the road to the suburbs of Paris; which city was then held by the combined forces of the League and the Spanish. I cannot learn whether Southampton accompanied the troops in the proposed attack on Paris or continued his travels into the Netherlands and Spain. Some verses in Willobie his Avisa suggest such a tour at this time. He was back in England, however, by September 1592, when he accompanied the Queen and Court to Oxford. It is probable that Florio accompanied the Earl of Southampton upon this occasion, and that the nobleman's acquaintance with the mistress of the Crosse Inn, the beginning of which I date at this time, was due to his introduction. Florio lived for many years at Oxford and was undoubtedly familiar with its taverns and tavern keepers.

In depicting Parolles as playing Pander for Bertram, and at the same time secretly pressing his own suit, I am convinced that Shakespeare caricatured Florio's relations with Southampton and the "dark lady." It is not unlikely that Florio is included by Roydon in Willobie his Avisa among Avisa's numerous suitors.

The literary history of All's Well that Ends Well, aside from internal considerations, suggests that it was not composed originally for public performance, nor revised with the public in mind. It appeared in print for the first time in the Folio of 1623, and it is practically certain that no earlier edition was issued. If we except Meres' mention of the play, Love's Labour's Won, in 1598, the earliest reference we have to All's Well that Ends Well is that in the Stationers' Registers dated 8th November 1623, where it is recorded as a play not previously entered to other men. There is no record of its presentation during Shakespeare's lifetime.

Though the old play of Love's Labour's Won mentioned by Meres has been variously identified by critics, the consensus of judgment of the majority is in favour of its identification as All's Well that Ends Well. In no other of Shakespeare's plays—even in instances where we have actual record of revision—can we so plainly recognise by internal evidence both the work of his "pupil" and of his master pen. As I have assigned the original composition of this play to the year 1592, regarding it as a reflection of the Queen's progress to Tichfield House and of the incidents of the Earl of Southampton's life at, and following, that period, so I infer and believe I can demonstrate that its revision reflects the same personal influences under new phases in later years.

In February 1598 the Earl of Southampton left England for the French Court with Sir Robert Cecil. He returned secretly in August and was married privately at Essex House to Elizabeth Vernon, whose condition had recently caused her dismissal from the Court. Southampton returned to France as secretly as he had come, but knowledge of his return and of his unauthorised marriage reaching the Queen, she issued an order for his immediate recall, and upon his return in November committed him, and even