Beggars Bush: A Perambulation through the Disciplines of History, Geography, Archaeology, Literature, Philology, Natural History, Botany, Biography & Beggary

Philip Henslowe c.1555-1616

Philip Henslowe provides a link between the area of a cluster of early Beggars Bush place names in Sussex and many of the early authors who used Beggars Bush in their works. He is best known for his “Diary”, which is the main primary source for the day to day workings of Elizabethan theatre. He was an entrepreneur with wide business and family links in London and Sussex. I cannot show that he ever used the phrase, but he must have been aware of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted: June 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers, Speculations, The Play | Tags: , , , , , , , | No Comments »


Henry Chettle – probably not “H.C.”

The Dialogue of Silvynne and Peregrynne contains the earliest literary reference to an identified contemporaneous location, at Philipstown, (now Daingean), County Offally, Ireland;

“Then they passed aloofe for feare of the greate ordynaunce of the forte, which dismayed them mightely, but yet they burned the moste parte of the subberbs withowt the north gate called beggars bush to the hinderance, and undoinge of many an honest subiect.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments »


Ben Jonson The Staple Of News 1625

“I will take home the Lady to my Charge,

And these her Servants, and leave you my Cloke,

To travel in to Beggers Bush!”

Ben Jonson stood at the centre of the theatrical and literary life early modern England. He was connected with many writers who used the phrase Beggars Bush. Beggars Bush is mentioned in his late play when the character Peni-Boy senior reveals himself to his errant son, Peni-Boy junior. The usage is characteristic of the literary use of the phrase by Jane Anger and others. Peni-Boy junior, expecting an inheritance will instead fall into penury through his own folly. It is a state of being, not a geographical location.

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Posted: April 9th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »


John Day The Parliament of Bees c.1634

John Day uses the phrase Beggars Bush in the common literary usage twice in publications which cannot be precisely dated. Day was a jobbing playwright, working for Philip Henslowe and others. The old DNB described him as “one of the most neglected playwrights of the Elizabethan period: a distinction which is, for the most part, justified”. Ben Jonson described him as a “rogue” and he probably killed the playwright Henry Porter with a rapier. However, we may have sympathy with his own description of himself that in the end “notwithstanding . . . Industry . . . he was forct to take a napp at Beggars Bushe”.
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Posted: March 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »


Henry Porter The Two Angry Women of Abington 1598

Henry Porter’s use of the literary phrase Beggars Bush is consistent with other early literary examples. It occurs in a play, now, like the author, largely forgotten. Like most other early writers he makes use of the vernacular, especially proverbs. There is some evidence linking Porter and his play to an area where there are early examples of the place name. His life and death link him to other writers who used the phrase, one of whom probably killed him.
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Posted: March 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »


Adam Foulweather A wonderfull, strange and miraculous astrologicall prognostication 1591

A Wonderfull … Astrologicall Prognostication (1591) is a pamphlet by “Adam Fouleweather Student in Asse-tronomy” which has been attributed to Thomas Nashe (“unconvincingly” according to DNB). It was one of a trio of mock prognostications, the others by ‘Francis Fairweather’ and ‘Simon Smellknave’ do not survive. It ridicules the popular prognostications that were published with almanacs. It claimed it was “Discovering such wonders to happen this yeere, as neuer chaunced since Noes floud. Wherein if there be found one lye, the author will lose his credit for ever.”
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Posted: March 27th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments »


John Fletcher & Philip Massinger The Beggars Bush 1622

“The Beggars Bush” is a play written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger in 1622, but commonly included in the “Beaumont and Fletcher” canon. Through performance, print, characters and development of the original text it was likely to have made a substantial contribution to the survival and distribution of the literary phrase. As to the eponymous Beggars Bush itself the play is vague. It is a meeting place for the beggar characters, some of whom, it is revealed, are not beggars at all. It does not attempt to portray a real location – the play is not set in England but in and around Bruges.

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Posted: March 20th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers, The Play | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »


Philipstown, County Offaly, Ireland Beggars Bush 1597

This is a “frontier” site in an English plantation or colonial setting. It is not the earliest site in Ireland, which is Dublin, Donnybrook. The setting and background is very similar to the later frontier Beggars Bush sites at Charles River, Virginia and Albany, Cape Province. It must be a name given by the English where settlers faced danger from the original inhabitants and may have felt that the situation they found themselves in what far from what they had been lead to expect. As such the use of the name is entirely consistent with the contemporary literary usage, of being brought to ruin, perhaps by one’s own folly.
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Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »


Robert Greene A Quip for an Upstart Courtier 1592

“These with Syrenlike allurement so entised these quaint squires, that they bestowed al their flowers vpon them for fauours, they themselues walking home by Beggar’s Bush for a penance.”

Usage

This is earliest mention of Beggar’s Bush recorded in the OED. It is characteristic of the literary usages. The phrase is clearly a literary one, involving the fall of the favoured through their own foolishness. Elsewhere in the same work Greene uses the term Weeping Cross in the same context, which was earlier used by William Bullein.
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Posted: March 12th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , , | No Comments »