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Thomas Churchyard's Lost Osterley Play, the Devices of War, and Sir Thomas Gresham

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Topic: Thomas Churchyard's Lost Osterley Play, the Devices of War, and Sir Thomas Gresham

Research Result

Thomas Churchyard's Churchyards Challenge (1593, TCP A18722) preserves a first-person list of works that includes:

The deuises of warre and a play at Awsterley, her highnes being at sir Thomas Greshams.

This is a direct printed witness that Churchyard associated a play at Osterley with Queen Elizabeth's presence at Sir Thomas Gresham's house. Sir Thomas was the paternal uncle of Henry Neville's mother and therefore Henry's maternal great-uncle. Churchyard later supplied the dedicatory epistle for the 1594 English translation of Giacomo di Grassi's fencing manual. These facts create a specific Gresham-household, theatrical, and publication connection.

Two aspects remain unresolved and must not be silently combined.

First, the phrase may list two separate works: “the devices of war” and “a play at Osterley.” The Folger's Elizabethan Court Day by Day explicitly labels them “Two separate works” in its 1593 notes. The original page has now been checked, however, and the printer presents the whole phrase as one list item, with no punctuation after warre, a comma after Awsterley, and a period only after Greshams. This does not prove one work: a single catalogue entry can coordinate two works with and. It does show that “two separate works” is an editorial reading rather than a division marked in the 1593 punctuation or layout. Therefore the Osterley play cannot presently be described as a martial or fencing play.

Second, Churchyard supplies no date. The Folger routes the play to Elizabeth's 10–12 May 1576 Osterley visit. E. K. Chambers instead wrote that a lost device and play at Osterley “may belong” to the Queen's February 1578 visit. The Lost Plays Database places the title under 1579 but has no developed title entry explaining that assignment. The current book-safe date is therefore: during Sir Thomas Gresham's lifetime, probably 1576 or 1578.

Source-Control Summary

Quoted Source Passages

Churchyard's own list, 1593

The deuises of warre and a play at Awsterley, her highnes being at sir Thomas Greshams.

Folger's 1576 chronological note

On one occasion there was a play by Thomas Churchyard

The play is not extant.

Chambers's 1578 alternative

A lost device and play at Osterley by Churchyard ... may belong to this visit.

These quotations establish the direct title/location statement, the modern 1576 route, and the explicit uncertainty behind the 1578 alternative. Folger's 1593 chronology separately labels the devices and play “Two separate works.”

1. Churchyard's Exact Printed Statement

The passage occurs in a retrospective list of Churchyard's works and court entertainments. Nearby items include his Bristol and Norwich devices, speeches shown by men and boys during progresses, and verses given to the Queen. The list is important because it is not a later antiquarian attribution; Churchyard is cataloguing his own production.

The syntax is nevertheless compressed. It does not state whether deuises of warre is the title of the Osterley play, another entertainment at the same event, or a separate work elsewhere in the list. Folger's editorial chronology chooses the last interpretation.

The page image is now public and controlled: *Churchyards challenge*, Archive leaf n8. Each neighboring work begins as a fresh typographical entry. The Osterley words begin with one large initial T; the second line is indented as a continuation; there is no punctuation after warre; and the period follows Greshams. The local XML agrees, placing the whole phrase inside <item xml:id="A18722-e830">, with the nearest page break tcp:5218:5. The book therefore presents one printed list entry that may coordinate two works.

2. The 1576 Osterley Visit

The Folger chronology records Elizabeth at Osterley with Sir Thomas Gresham from 10–12 May 1576. During the visit, Gresham's park pales were damaged or burned in a protest against enclosure; later Privy Council correspondence ordered investigation and punishment.

There is a day-level conflict inside the documentary record. The Folger's separate enclosure note quotes a Middlesex indictment dating the attack to the night of 6 May and early hours of 7 May, while saying that the Queen, Privy Council, and attendants were then at Osterley Park House. The chronology marks the 6 May date [sic] but does not resolve it against the 10-12 May itinerary. The 22 May Privy Council letter says only that the pale was burned “at that time when the Queen's Majesty was there.” The 1576 presence is well documented; the exact days require reconciliation.

The same Folger entry says:

On one occasion there was a play by Thomas Churchyard

and then cites the Churchyards Challenge list. It also states:

The play is not extant.

This makes 1576 the best developed modern chronological route. It is still an editorial association, not a date printed by Churchyard.

3. The 1578 Alternative

Chambers's court calendar records another visit to Osterley in approximately February 1578. His note says:

A lost device and play at Osterley by Churchyard ... may belong to this visit.

“May belong” is deliberately non-final. The note proves that an earlier major court-theatre historian did not consider the 1576 assignment certain.

The two visits should be investigated through the underlying Walsingham diary, court accounts, Privy Council papers, Gresham correspondence, and household expenses. A payment to Churchyard, players, musicians, costumers, carpenters, or property makers could settle the date.

4. Why the Lost Plays Database Needs Follow-up

The Lost Plays Database lists Churchyard, “The devices of war and a play at Osterley,” host Thomas Gresham, on its 1579 page. Unlike developed Lost Plays entries, the title is not linked to a dedicated record explaining sources, date, auspices, or alternative titles.

The placement may reflect a broad dating convention, association with Churchyard's 1579 A General Rehearsal of Wars, or another bibliography, but that cannot be assumed. The Lost Plays entry should be treated as a research lead requiring editorial clarification, not as proof of a 1579 performance.

5. The Gresham–Neville Relationship

Sir Thomas Gresham was the younger brother of Sir John Gresham, Henry Neville's maternal grandfather. He was:

The Osterley play therefore occurred in the household of a close and consequential kinsman, not at the home of an unrelated court patron. Whether Henry attended is unknown. In 1576 he was still a child; in 1578 he was in his early teens. No guest list has been found.

6. Churchyard's Later Grassi Dedication

In 1594, Churchyard signed the dedicatory epistle to the English translation of Giacomo di Grassi's True arte of defence. Addressing Lord Burgh, governor of Brill, he says he promoted a translated Italian book because knowledge of arms and weapons defends:

life, countrie, & honour

This gives Churchyard an independently documented interest in martial instruction and publication. It does not solve the Osterley phrase. The devices of war may have been a separate pageant or text; the play's genre and subject remain unknown.

The connection to Billingbear is likewise open. The 1780 catalogue contains the original Italian Grassi of 1570, now apparently represented by Audley End object 81035053. No source yet says Churchyard owned, gave, sold, or knew that particular volume.

7. Osterley, Architecture, and Performance Space

Historic England records that Gresham acquired Osterley in 1562 and rebuilt the house in the 1570s. Later descriptions call it a large brick house in a park with ponds and mills. Much of the present fabric reflects Robert Adam's eighteenth-century transformation, so the current rooms cannot automatically be treated as the 1570s performance space.

Research should reconstruct the Tudor plan through archaeology, early surveys, building accounts, and estate maps. If the play was performed outdoors, in the courtyard, or during the progress arrival, the “play” may have resembled a household entertainment or pageant rather than a commercial-theatre script.

8. Further Research Avenues

Ask Lost Plays for its dating source

Request the source behind the 1579 placement and ask whether an unpublished entry, bibliography, or editorial note distinguishes the devices from the play.

Search Revels and progress accounts

Search for Churchyard, Gresham, Osterley/Awsterley/Austerley, players, garments, weapons, pageants, carpenters, painters, musicians, and payments in records surrounding both May 1576 and February 1578.

Search the Gresham archive

Target estate, household, merchant, and correspondence papers for entertainment expenses. Because Gresham's financial records can be unusually detailed, even an indirect payment could identify performers or materials.

Reconstruct Churchyard's work list

Collate every item in the Challenge list against known publications and events. Its punctuation and ordering may show when a conjunction joins titles and when it separates them.

Investigate manuscript afterlife

Nichols later searched unsuccessfully for the Osterley work and suggested that some progress entertainments circulated in manuscript. Search CELM, Folger, BL, Bodleian, Hatfield, Loseley, and family catalogues for title variants and anonymous Osterley/Gresham entertainments.

Citations

Notes on Access