Note 193 — Chapter VI · 1562-1564

The official account makes no mention of this. It says only that great preparations had been made to represent Sophocles’ tragedy of Ajax Flagellifer. “But her Highness, as it were, tyred with going about the colleges and hearing disputations, and overwatched with former plays, … could not, as otherwise no doubt she would, … hear the said tragedy, to the great sorrow not only of the players but of the whole University.” If the scene as described by the Spaniard took place, it must have been at the house of Sir Henry Cromwell, the great Oliver’s grandfather, at Hinchinbrook, where the Queen slept on the night of the day she left Cambridge.