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Pioneer Works of DiscoVERy

A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres was first published anonymously in 1573 with a Latin Posie Meritum petere, grave, on the title page where an author’s name ordinarily appeared. Two years later the contents of A H S F were rearranged, altered, and published as The Posies of George Gascoigne. In 1576, copies of Posies (not of A H S F) were confiscated by Her Majesty’s Commissioners. Clearly something was amiss. Literary editors, however, have chosen to ignore the significance of Posies’ omissions, additions and differences from A H S F. A H S F passed into literary bibliography as the work of the soldier-of-fortune George Gascoigne and, for what on its face it appeared to be, a collection of innocent verses and narrative tales.

In his 1926 edition of A H S F, Ward rejected the commonly received idea that A H S F was written by Gascoigne and advanced the theory that A H S F was in fact compiled, edited and contributed to by Edward de Vere, 17^th Earl of Oxford.

In a 1926 edition of A H S F, Captain Bernard M. Ward advanced the theory that: —

(1) A H S F was a first attempt in Elizabeth’s reign of a poetical anthology. It was compiled, edited, and contributed to by Edward de Vere, 17^th Earl of Oxford and Lord Great Chamberlain of England;

(2) the posy on the title page, and signed to sixteen of the hundred poems, was Lord Oxford’s;

(3) the signature Si Fortunatus Infoelix was the posy of Christopher Hatton, a commoner, fast-rising in the Queen’s favor;

(4) the initials F.I. (deliberately altered to F.J. in Posies) stood for the principal letters in Hatton’s posy — thus doing away with the (1573) linking of Hatton, in an embarrassing way, to the story of F.I.’s

Ward concluded, "The full story of Flowres remains to be told." During the following years he unearthed and published biographical and historical data bearing on the matter. In this 2^nd edition of A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres Ward’s later articles and discoveries are collated by Ms Miller with Ward’s earlier 1926 work.

From historical, manuscript, allegorical, and allusive references — from the political and social relationships of the times — Ms Miller has shaped a fascinating picture of Elizabeth’s court, illuminating the shadowy foreground of the Shakespearean era. She spotlights the intrigues, jealousies, political schemes, and social etiquettes of the time. Rivalries for the Queen’s favor and for advancement at court set the scene for the struggles for power between the arrivistes, of which Hatton was front-runner, and the feudal aristocracy, for which the scion of that "ancient and Very family of Vere" was standard bearer.