Thomas Underhill (1545-1591) of Greenwich and Kenilworth

In 1563 Thomas Underhill was assigned the role as Keeper of the Wardrobe for Robert Dudley at Kenilworth Castle. Robert Dudley would subsequently invest 60,000 pounds[i]to convert Kenilworth into a place suited to receive the Queen during her ceremonial ‘progresses’ around her realm.[ii]As an indication of Dudley’s suitability for hosting Elizabeth and his taste for entertainment, in June 1559 Dudley formed a company of players. At the head of this company was James Burbadge, an associate of Shakespeare. [iii] These players undoubtedly played an important role in festivities held at Kenilworth Castle.

Thomas Underhill would accompany Leicester to the Netherlands, where Leicester directed Protestant efforts against the Spanish.[iv]

For Hugh Underhill to be serving Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich, and his son to be serving Robert Dudley at Kenilworth, was to place two members of the Underhill family as witnesses to one of the greatest intrigues of their time. Much has been said about the purported relation between Elizabeth and Dudley that began during their imprisonment in the Tower of London shortly after the rule of Queen Mary I began, and that continued long thereafter.

Queen Elizabeth I is reported to have visited Kenilworth Castle several times in 1566, 1572, and 1575. The last visit is remembered as the most lavish. Elizabeth brought several hundred people with her to visit and was entertained for 18 consecutive days that cost Dudley almost a thousand pounds a day. One guest declared afterwards, “For the persons, for the place, time, cost, devices, strangeness and abundance of all… I saw none anywhere so memorable.”[v]This had the effect of nearly bankrupting Dudley too for this was among the most lavish celebrations ever held in England at the time.

People from throughout the countryside are reported to have visited Kenilworth during the festivities in 1575. John Shakespeare was a well-to-do citizen of Stratford. Given the station he rose to in life, there likely would have been a friendship between the Underhill and Shakespeare families.[vi]That makes the likelihood very good that John Shakespeare brought his son William Shakespeare who was 11 years old to the pageant at Kenilworth.[vii]A passage from A Midsummer-Night’s Dreamis considered by some proof that Shakespeare was present for the festivities:

A mermaid on a dolphin’s back

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious sounds

That the rude sea grew civil at her song.

This passage is said to be reminiscent of features of the Kenilworth pageant. The minstrel Arion appeared on a dolphin’s back singing, and other player representing Triton in the likeness of a mermaid, commanded the waves to be still. Then fireworks were like shooting stars that feel to the water, as a passage from Oberon later stated:

Shot madly from their spheres

To hear the sea-maid’s music.

Thomas Underhill had married Magdalen Amyas (1553-1597) in 1570 and had a son John Edward Underhill (1574-1608). Following Leicester’s death in 1589, Thomas Underhill and his son John Edward Underhill would remain at Kenilworth as part of the retinue of Robert Dudley, Leicester’s heir. [viii]

Hugh Underhill would continue to distinguish himself in service to Queen Elizabeth I. In 1572 he married his second wife Katherine Manning, nearly 30 years his junior, and would have a second son by her named George Underhill who was born in 1573. George would graduate from Oxford University in 1588, and have a first wife of unknown name who died in 1604. His second wife’s name was Elizabeth, and together they also had a daughter named Elizabeth.[ix]

---