Ben Jonson at Althorp: Stage Direction as Memoir

Abstract

ALTHORP, Althrop. The ancestral seat of Earl Spencer has been much in view since it now memorializes Diana, Princess of Wales. But the name puzzled commentators. During broadcast commentaries, speakers took care to pronounce it ‘Althrop’. Herford and Simpson, in the second volume of their edition of Jonson (1923), note of ‘Althrope’ that ‘this pronunciation is still locally current’.1 By the time they arrived at volume ten (1950), they stated that ‘Althrop’ was the old pronunciation of Althorp, ‘but it is rare now: the fifth Earl Spencer always used it’.2 The present Earl Spencer has now laid it down that the correct pronunciation is as spelt, ‘Althorp’. The guides on the estate loyally follow this edict. Jonson’s stay at Althorp led to ‘A Particular Entertainment of the Queen and Prince their Highnesse to Althrope, at the Right Honourable the Lord Spencers, on Saterday being the 25. of June 1603 as they came first unto the Kingdome; being written by the same Author, and not before published’. That was the 1604 quarto. In 1616 Jonson brought out his Works, in folio, in which the place is again ‘Althrope’. The Entertainment, an early essay in the masque genre, commemorates a notable occasion. The old Queen, Elizabeth I, had died in March 1603. Her successor was James, the sixth of Scotland, the first of England, who in the summer made his way from Edinburgh to London. En route he accepted many offers of hospitality at the great houses, the owners desperate to secure the favour of the new King. One such was Sir Robert Spencer, who, says the Dictionary of National Biography, ‘at the accession of James I was reputed the wealthiest man in England’. Much of Spencer’s money came from sheep-breeding, to which he had devoted himself. He wished to secure his status under the new regime, and pulled off his coup: the Queen and Prince stopped off for four days at the Spencer family seat.