Note 1412 — BOOK IV THE PLAY-HOUSES (continued 3)

Fleetwood, writing to Burghley on 13 July 1578 (Rendle, Antiquarian, vii. 274, from S. P. D. Eliz. cxxv. 21), describes intrigues of the French ambassador ‘on the Thames side behind Paris Garden toward Lambeth, in the fields ... I got a skuller to Paris Garden, but the place was dark and shadowed with trees, that one man cannot see another unless they have lynceos oculos or els cattes eys, shewing how admirable a place it was for such doings. The place is that boowre of conspiracies, it is the college of male cownsell.... There be certain virgulta or eightes of willows set by the Thames near that place; they grow now exceeding thick, and a notable covert for confederates to shrowd in; a milkmade lately did see the French ambassador land in that virgulta’.