Neville to Richard Beaumont (1606?)

Topic: Neville to Richard Beaumont (1606?)

1. Verified Sourced Facts

• The controlling public witness located in this pass is the Roxburghe Club volume Beaumont Papers. Letters Relating to the Family of Beaumont, of Whitley, Yorkshire, from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries, edited by Rev. W. D. Macray and printed by Nichols and Sons in 1884.
• The printed title page says the letters were edited "from the originals in the Bodleian Library"; this packet has not yet identified the exact Bodleian shelfmark for Neville's letter.
• The printed letter is headed:

"Sir Henry Neville to the same."

"Noble Sir, [1606?]"

• The printed text occupies printed pp. 13-14 of the Beaumont volume. Archive.org's OCR text was checked directly on 2026-05-29.
• The letter is addressed to Sir Richard Beaumont at London and signed:

"Your faithfull frend, kinsman and servant"

"Hen: Neville."

"Billingbeare, Wensday night."

• The letter is not securely dated to 1606-01-01; that value in the local letter-image packet is a corpus placeholder for an uncertain 1606? printed date.
• The letter gives direct Neville-side venison, keeper, walk, and household-conveyance evidence:

"half a buck"

"none in my walk"

"a pasty of venison"

"the side of a stag"

"my cooke and keeper"

"the coole conveyance"

• The same letter turns from venison to estate/legal agency over the deed of S[outh] Cave, asking Beaumont to sell the property outright if he can meet with a suitable price or purchaser.
• The local letter-image packet preserves two Archive.org page images for the printed witness: page-image leaf n52 for printed p. 13 and leaf n53 for printed p. 14.
• The direct play packet for Merry Wives of Windsor independently verifies the Folger text lines in 1.1 around venison and a hot venison pasty. The Beaumont letter is therefore useful as parallel Neville household material, not as proof of borrowing or authorship.

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• The preserved Ken Feinstein blog post of 22 Jan. 2019 pairs the venison passage in this letter with Merry Wives of Windsor 1.1.
• That comparison remains an interpretive layer. This packet now separates the direct Beaumont printed witness from the blog argument.

3. Quoted Source Text

Beaumont Papers printed witness

• "Noble Sir, [1606?]"
• "half a buck"
• "none in my walk"
• "a pasty of venison"
• "the side of a stag"
• "my cooke and keeper"
• "the coole conveyance"
• "the deede of S[outh] Cave"
• "Your faithfull frend, kinsman and servant"
• "Billingbeare, Wensday night."
• "Sir Richard Beaumont, knight, at London."

Merry Wives comparison layer

• Merry Wives 1.1: "I thank you for my venison"
• Merry Wives 1.1: "we have a hot venison pasty to dinner."

4. Citations

• Macray, W. D., ed. Beaumont Papers. Letters Relating to the Family of Beaumont, of Whitley, Yorkshire, from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries. London: Nichols and Sons, 1884, printed pp. 13-14. Archive.org witness: https://archive.org/details/beaumontpapersle00roxb/page/12.
• Archive.org OCR text checked directly from beaumontpapersle00roxb_djvu.txt on 2026-05-29; extracted passage begins "Sir Henry Neville to the same" and continues across printed pp. 13-14.
• letter_beaumont_1606.md, local letter-image packet with Archive.org page-image leaves n52 and n53.
• Local Archive.org page image for printed p. 13: beaumontpapersle00roxb_page_13_leaf_n52.jpg.
• Local Archive.org page image for printed p. 14: beaumontpapersle00roxb_page_14_leaf_n53.jpg.
• "Neville to Richard Beaumont 1606." Henry Neville Research Wiki, http://nevilleresearch.com/index.php?title=Neville_to_Richard_Beaumont_1606. Local preservation: wiki_beaumont_letter_1606.md.
• Feinstein, Ken. "Henry Neville, Shakespeare, and Merry Wives of Windsor." kenfeinstein.blogspot.com, 22 Jan. 2019, https://kenfeinstein.blogspot.com/2019/01/reason-1-henry-neville-lived-most-of.html. Local preservation: blog_henry_neville_shakespeare_merry_wives_2019-01-22.md.
• Shakespeare, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1.1, Folger Shakespeare Library local text: act-01_scene-01.txt.
• play_merry_wives_of_windsor.md, related play packet.
• hunting_hawking_parliamentary_evidence_and_canon_vocabulary.md, related hunting vocabulary and evidence packet.

5. Notes on Access

• This packet is no longer dependent on the wiki page for the core letter text; the printed Beaumont Papers witness has been checked directly.
• The printed witness is strong enough for household-hunting, venison, keeper, and South Cave agency context, but it remains a printed edition rather than the manuscript itself.
• Do not cite the local 1606-01-01 corpus date as an exact date. Use 1606? unless a manuscript or calendar source supplies a firmer date.
• The Merry Wives comparison should be phrased as a local-material parallel: Neville's household letter shows the same social world of venison gifts and venison pasty, while the play text must remain its own direct witness.