(It’s best to read Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six first.)
Let’s examine the ways in which the ‘historical’ Aemilia resembles the ‘fictional’ Avisa…..
Aemilia Lanyer…….
….. was born Aemilia Bassano……
……the daughter of Margaret Johnson and Baptista Bassano…….
……who were never officially married.
……Baptista was a black-skinned Sephardic Jew who, with his five brothers, came to England in the 1530’s…….
….. to take up posts as Court Musicians to King Henry VIII.
Avisa……
………it is implied in one part of Willobie his Avisa……..
………had Sir Walter Raleigh as her…..
………Sire……
But in the 1596 version of the poem…..
Aemilia…….
….(the true author of Willobie his Avisa. See: The ‘Willobie’ author revealed.)
…… writes:
Avisa both by sire and spouse
Was linked to men of meanest trade….
And ‘Peter Colse’ (another pseudonym) writes in Penelope’s Complaint……
Avisa…..filia pandochei….
i.e. Avisa was the daughter of an innkeeper, landlord or host…..
Baptista Bassano was not only a musician: he owned three tenements at his death…..
…….so he was also a landlord….
……and the Bassano family was given a licence to import Gascon wine in 1539 and 1542……
……so he could be associated with innkeepers and hosts….
But he fell on hard times……
…..and he died when Aemilia, was only seven years old.
She was ‘adopted’ by Susan Bertie, the Countess of Kent….
……who was, Aemilia says, the….
Mistress of my youth,
The noble guard of my ungovern’d days……
Aemilia also tells us that……
Great Eliza’s [Queen Elizabeth I] favour blest my youth…..
…..and that…..
this great lady whom I love and honour…
…from very tender years have known….
Elizabeth’s motto was…..
Semper Eadem……
……always the same….
…….and Aemilia quotes it in Salve Deus in her praise for Elizabeth…..
…….who would……
Still remain the same and still her own….
In Willobie his Avisa,
Avisa also signs herself…..Alwaies the same…
…………admiring the great Queen just as Aemilia does….
In 1973 the great historian A. L. Rowse……
……..discovered that the astrologer and follower of Paracelsus, Simon Forman……..
………. mentions Aemilia in his notebooks……
She first consulted him on 13th May, 1597……
She had been a courtesan up to 1592…..
…..and had experienced many miscarriages….
But in 1592 her pregnancy held….
As Forman notes, she had then been married off to the……
…..minstrel….
Alfonso Lanyer…..
….for colour….
….i.e. for show…
She told Forman……
She was paramour to my old Lord Hunsdon that was Lord Chamberlain and was maintained in great pride…..
Henry Carey, Lord Hundson…..
……..who had died the year before Aemilia’s visit to Forman…..
……..had been FORTY FIVE YEARS OLDER THAN AEMILIA…..
……..was a married man……..
……..and father of SIXTEEN children……
………(not to mention one or two illegitimate ones)
He was the son of Mary Boleyn……..
……..and was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Henry VIII……
So he was part of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘family’……
………and, as the Queen’s personal ‘bodyguard’
……..was often to be seen on Elizabeth’s arm.
Consequently, he would have had unrestricted access to the young Aemilia….
On 3rd June, 1597, Forman writes:
……. the old Lord Chamberlain kept her [Aemilia] long…She has £40 [£20,000] a year and was wealthy to him that married her in money and jewels [Alfonso Lanyer]….She can hardly keep secret……she was very brave in youth….
And, on 2nd September, Aemilia talks to Forman about….
A nobleman that is dead hath loved her well and kept her and maintained her long…
There is, as we have seen, a very similar ‘Nobleman’ in Willobie his Avisa who features in….
……the first trial of Avisa, before she was married, by a Nobleman: under which is represented a warning to all young maids of every degree that they beware of the alluring entisements of great men….
The Willobie Nobleman is
The first that saies to pluck the rose
That scarce appeared without the bud….
i.e when Avisa was scarcely pubescent……
……..and offers Avisa……
………as Hunsdon offered Aemilia…..
……..the chance …
To live in spite of every eye
And swim in silks and bravest shows…
(Aemilia told Forman she was…….
……very brave in youth….)
The Nobleman continues:
Silk gowns and velvets shalt thou have
With hoods and cauls fit for thy head;
Of goldsmith’s work a border brave,
A chain of gold ten double spread;
And all the rest shall answer this,
My purse shall see that nothing miss.
Two waiting maids, attendant still,
Two serving men, four geldings prest,
Go where you list, ride where you will,
No jealous thought shall me molest……
……and, like Hunsdon, the Nobleman offers Avisa a husband……
…….for colour …..
…….so she can be his secret mistress…….
……. under a veneer of respectability…
My house, my heart, my land, my life
My credit to they care I give:
And if thou list to be a wife,
In shew of honest fame to live;
I’le fit thee one, shall bear the cloak
And be a chimney for the smoke….
The Nobleman offers Avisa….
Forty angels to begin….
…in the way Hunsdon gives Aemilia…..
….forty pounds a year….
The Nobleman promises to give Avisa…….
…..all my jewels when I die……
A promise Hunsdon seems to have kept.
Forman states that Aemilia was……
….wealthy to him that married her in money and jewels….
……to the value of £4,000 – £200,000 in today’s money.
Avisa, drawing on her Christian faith,
……attacks the corrupt standards of the Nobleman…..
……who cites Cleopatra as a role model for Avisa….
Needs must the sheep strake all awry
Whose shepherds wander from their way?
Needs must the sickly patients die
Whose doctor seeks his life’s decay?
Needs must their people well be taught,
Whose chiefest leaders all are naught.
The blindfold rage of Heathen Queens [like Cleopatra]
Or rather Queens that know not God
God’s heavy judgements tried since
And felt the weight of angry rod…
God save me from that Sodom’s cry
Whose deadly sting shall never die….
To which the Nobleman makes the bitter riposte…..
Forgive me wench, I did mistake,
I little thought that you could preach….
Avisa’s tone here is exactly the tone of Aemilia’s moral indignation in Salve Deus….
The great Jehovah King of Heav’n and earth,
Will rain down fire and brimstone from above,
Upon the wicked monsters in their birth
That storm and rage at those whom he doth love:
Snares, storms and tempests he will rain and dearth
Because he will himself almighty prove…
BUT the big difference between Aemelia and Avisa is that……
AEMILIA SLEPT WITH HUNSDON…..
AVISA DID NOT SLEEP WITH THE NOBLEMAN……
What is going on?
TO FIND OUT, READ ON….
BY CLICKING: HERE!
The Shakespeare Code 
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