Note 435 — IV PAGEANTRY

Sometimes the Chancellor brought distinguished foreign visitors, who were entertained with plays. In May 1569 Thomas Cooper, Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Christ Church, wrote to Leicester (Pepys MSS. 155), proposing 'a playe or shew of the destruction of Thebes, and the contention between Eteocles and Polynices for the governement therof', for a projected visit on 15 May by Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Châtillon, and asking help 'for provision for some apparaile' (not 'apparaiti', as the Hist. MSS. report on the Pepys MSS. has it). It is not certain that the visit actually took place (Boas, 158). But in 1583 Leicester brought Albertus Alasco, Prince Palatine of Siradia in Poland, who saw the Rivales and Dido of William Gager (q.v.) on 11 and 12 June. The plays were given at Christ Church by men of that and other colleges, with the assistance of George Peele (Boas, 179, from Holinshed and academic archives). In Jan. 1585 Leicester came again, with Pembroke and Philip Sidney, and saw Gager's Meleager at Christ Church, and possibly also a comedy at Magdalen. Apparel was borrowed from John Lyly, who was then connected with the Blackfriars theatre (Boas, 192, from academic archives).