Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 1).pdf/161

 available. The royal Waymaker studied the roads, and the Guard the security of the neighbourhood. The local officials were required to see that a sufficient provision of food, drink, and fuel was secured, and to furnish that important safeguard, a certificate that their districts were free from the dangerous infection of the plague. The 'gestes' were also published in the household, and individual courtiers hastened to send them to their friends, and to give advice to those scheduled as royal hosts about the kind of entertainment which the sovereign would expect. There is plenty of evidence in the private correspondence of the period that the honour of a royal visit was not anticipated without some anxieties. That of Sir William More at Loseley contains several references to the subject. There is a letter from Sir Anthony Wingfield, who tells More that he has reported to the Lord Chamberlain 'what fewe smal romes and howe unmete your howes was for the Quenes majesty'. She had decided to go to a manor-house of her own, but had again changed her mind. Wingfield had spoken to Lord Admiral Clinton, 'for that ytt shalbe a grete trouboul and a henderanes to you', and advises More to try his influence with Leicester. This must have been written before the present fine house at Loseley, built during 1562-8, was sufficiently completed to house the Queen. More, however, had a visit in 1567, and another in 1576, after which his neighbour, Henry Goringe of Burton, who expected one in 1577, wrote to ask him 'what order was taken by her Maiesties offycers at that tyme that her grace was with youe, and whether your howse were furnyshed with her highnes stufe, wyne, beer, and other provycion, or that you purveyd for the same or any parte thereof'. He had a third in 1583, of which he was warned by Sir Christopher Hatton in a letter of 4 August, directing him to see everything well ordered, and the house 'sweete and cleane'. There had been a 'brute' of infection, but this was now reported as 'a misinformation'. On 24 August, Hatton wrote again. More should 'avoyd' his family, and make everything ready 'as to your owne discretion shall seeme most needefull for her maiesties good