Thomas Underhill (1545-1591) of Greenwich and Kenilworth

In 1563 Thomas Underhill was assigned the role as Keeper of the Wardrobe for Robert Dudley at Kenilworth Castle. Robert Dudley would subsequently invest 60,000 pounds[i] to convert Kenilworth into a place suited to receive the Queen during her ceremonial ‘progresses’ around her realm.[ii] As an indication of Dudley’s suitability for hosting Elizabeth and his taste for entertainment, in June 1559 Dudley formed a company of players. At the head of this company was James Burbadge, an associate of Shakespeare. [iii]  These players undoubtedly played an important role in festivities held at Kenilworth Castle.

Thomas Underhill would accompany Leicester to the Netherlands, where Leicester directed Protestant efforts against the Spanish.[iv]

For Hugh Underhill to be serving Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich, and his son to be serving Robert Dudley at Kenilworth, was to place two members of the Underhill family as witnesses to one of the greatest intrigues of their time. Much has been said about the purported relation between Elizabeth and Dudley that began during their imprisonment in the Tower of London shortly after the rule of Queen Mary I began, and that continued long thereafter.

Queen Elizabeth I is reported to have visited Kenilworth Castle several times in 1566, 1572, and 1575. The last visit is remembered as the most lavish. Elizabeth brought several hundred people with her to visit and was entertained for 18 consecutive days that cost Dudley almost a thousand pounds a day. One guest declared afterwards, “For the persons, for the place, time, cost, devices, strangeness and abundance of all… I saw none anywhere so memorable.”[v] This had the effect of nearly bankrupting Dudley too for this was among the most lavish celebrations ever held in England at the time.

People from throughout the countryside are reported to have visited Kenilworth during the festivities in 1575. John Shakespeare was a well-to-do citizen of Stratford. Given the station he rose to in life, there likely would have been a friendship between the Underhill and Shakespeare families.[vi] That makes the likelihood very good that John Shakespeare brought his son William Shakespeare who was 11 years old to the pageant at Kenilworth.[vii] A passage from A Midsummer-Night’s Dream is considered by some proof that Shakespeare was present for the festivities:

A mermaid on a dolphin’s back

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious sounds

That the rude sea grew civil at her song.

This passage is said to be reminiscent of features of the Kenilworth pageant. The minstrel Arion appeared on a dolphin’s back singing, and other player representing Triton in the likeness of a mermaid, commanded the waves to be still. Then fireworks were like shooting stars that feel to the water, as a passage from Oberon later stated:

Shot madly from their spheres

To hear the sea-maid’s music.

Thomas Underhill had married Magdalen Amyas (1553-1597) in 1570 and had a son John Edward Underhill (1574-1608). Following Leicester’s death in 1589, Thomas Underhill and his son John Edward Underhill would remain at Kenilworth as part of the retinue of Robert Dudley, Leicester’s heir. [viii]  

Hugh Underhill would continue to distinguish himself in service to Queen Elizabeth I. In 1572 he married his second wife Katherine Manning, nearly 30 years his junior, and would have a second son by her named George Underhill who was born in 1573. George would graduate from Oxford University in 1588, and have a first wife of unknown name who died in 1604. His second wife’s name was Elizabeth, and together they also had a daughter named Elizabeth.[ix]

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[i] http://books.google.com/books?id=jqgQAAAAYAAJ&dq=shakespeare%20kenilworth&pg=PA12#v=onepage&q=shakespeare%20kenilworth&f=false

[ii] http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/kenilworth-castle/history/ Accessed October 2, 2010

[iii] Notices illustrative of the drama, and other popular amusements, chiefly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: incidentally illustrating Shakespeare and his contemporaries; extracted from the chamberlains' accounts and other manuscripts of the borough of Leicester, By William Kelly (Published by J. R. Smith, 1865)

[iv] Breen,63

[v] Elizabeth I by Anne Somerset (1992, Macmillan)

[vi] http://books.google.com/books?id=pS8sAAAAYAAJ&dq=Here%20lyeth%20buried%20under%20this%20stone%20Edward%20Underhill&pg=PA104#v=snippet&q=john%20underhill&f=false

[vii] http://books.google.com/books?id=jqgQAAAAYAAJ&dq=shakespeare%20kenilworth&pg=PA12#v=onepage&q=shakespeare%20kenilworth&f=false

[viii] Breen,63

[ix] http://www.angelfire.com/ny/chickened/underhillfamily.html

[x] Crossing to Freedom by Elizabeth Wells Bardwell (2002, iUniverse)

John Underhill of Ettington Manor

Ettington Manor has roots going back before the Norman Conquest. The Domesday Book in 1085 noted the “Manor of Eatington” was occupied by Saswalo. This same figure Saswalo or Sewallis was the first ancestor of the House of Shirley that would gain possession of Ettington. Later, the same figure by the name of Saswalo founded and endowed  a church at Ettington that was tied to the Priory at Kenilworth. The Priory had been established between 1139 and 1147, and was located in Kenilworth approximately 17 miles north of Ettington.[ii] Establishment of the church at Ettington in the 12^th century started an exchange that was religious and later cultural, linking these two places together for centuries to follow.

 [iii] [iv]

Lower Ettington Manor House and Old Church

Members of the House of Shirley would rise to positions of great importance in England. Sir Hugh Shirley was the Grand Falconer to King Henry IV in 1400. He lost his life in the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, when dressed as a decoy. He was mistaken as the King by the enemy and killed. [v] Sir Hugh’s heroic efforts later would be immortalized by Shakespeare in his play Henry IV, in which King Henry said:

Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like
Never to hold it up again! the spirits
Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arms:
It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee;
Who never promiseth but he means to pay.

Sir Hugh Shirley’s son Ralph was the next to acquire Ettington. Ralph Shirley distinguished himself at the siege of Harlefleur in 1415. He was also a principal commander at the Battle of Agincourt, where he had a retinue of seven men at arms and twenty-three archers. This Battle was remembered as a decisive victory of England over a superior French force which outnumbered them nearly six to one. The use of the longbow especially was particularly decisive. Later Shakespeare would use this battle as the centerpiece of his play Henry V.

John Underhill acquired an 80 year lease for Ettington from Sir Ralph Shirley in 1509. Underhill’s wife Agnes Porter was the daughter and heir of Thomas Porter who was a former lessee of Ettington Manor.[vi] Sir Ralph Shirley would eventually die in 1517, and his son Francis Shirley would go on to inherit Ettington following his father’s death.[vii] John Underhill himself died in 1518. Both he and later his wife Agnes would be laid to rest in the Chapel of St. Nicholas on the grounds of Ettington. [viii]

Underhill and Porter would have three sons, all who would go on to positions of importance. These include William Underhill (1475-1542), Thomas Underhill (1485-1520), and Edward Underhill (1486-1547). The will of John Underhill clearly stated that if his eldest son William Underhill died without heirs, that his lands would pass on to his second eldest son Thomas and his heirs. William Underhill lived long enough for a fresh one-hundred year lease to be made to him by the son of Sir Ralph Shirley, Francis Shirley, in 1541.

William Underhill unfortunately died the following year in 1542 with “no issue.” Thomas Underhill and his wife Anne Wynter of Hudington, who herself came from a long line of nobility, were the last two in their respective families to remain Catholic. Thomas Underhill had long since been dead by the time his brother William died in 1542. This meant that the property would then pass on to Edward Underhill, the last surviving son of John Underhill and Agnes Porter. [ix] By the time of his death in 1547, Edward Underhill gained lease not only to Ettington but also to the Manor of Herbury and lands in Stratford-upon-Avon. This was merely prelude to the accomplishments of his son William Underhill (1512-1570) who would go on to study law and amass substantial landholdings of his own, while rising to a position of prominence as a member of the Inner Temple in London. [x]

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[i] Lower Eatington : its manor house and church By Evelyn Philip Shirley Published by Priv. print. at the Chiswick press, 1869. p. 8.

[ii] The fortunes of a Norman family: the de Verduns in England, Ireland and Wales, 1066-1316 By Mark S. Hagger (Published by Four Courts Press, 2001. p.36.

[iii] Lower Eatington : its manor house and church By Evelyn Philip Shirley Published by Priv. print. at the Chiswick press, 1869

[iv] http://books.google.com/books?id=JTlAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U1hF1nBhmpyOhYVjzfPRy9xYUFyug&ci=112,305,647,845&edge=0

[v] Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 1, page 1416. Hereinafter cited as Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition.

[vi] http://books.google.com/books?id=phsIAAAAIAAJ&dq=narrative%20of%20the%20days%20of%20the%20reformation&pg=PA132#v=onepage&q=edward%20underhill&f=false

[vii] Sir Ralph Shirley was the son of John Shirley and Eleanor Willoughby.2 He married, firstly, unknown wife (?).1 He married, secondly, Elizabeth Walsh, daughter of Thomas Walsh.1 He married, thirdly, Jane Sheffield, daughter of Sir Robert Sheffield and Jane Lounde, circa 1514.1,3 He died in 1517.1

     Sir Ralph Shirley was invested as a Knight, Order of the Bath (K.B.).1 He fought in the Battle of Stoke on 16 June 1487. http://thepeerage.com/p28316.htm#i283152

[viii] “Underhill Places in Staffordshire and Warwickshire,” News and Views, vol. 38, issue 3, Underhill Society of America, August 2005. p.10.

[ix] Underhill genealogy, Volume 5 by Josephine C. Frost, Edwin R. Deats, Harry Macy, Carl J. Underhill, Underhill Society of America. Published privately by M.C. Taylor in the interests of the Underhill society of America, 2002.

[x] Shakespeare's Warwickshire contemporaries By Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (1907, Shakespeare Head Press). p.227.