Boss of Billingsgate, The
"Boss of Billingsgate" (1603)
- John Day, Richard Hathway, and one or more "felowe poetes"
Historical Records
Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)
- F. 109 (Greg I.173)
Lent vnto Jube the 1 of marche 1602 to geue vnto}
John daye & hathwaye in earneste of a playe}
[called] the bosse of bellengesgate the some of …} xxxx s
Lent the 7 of marche 1602 in parte of paymente}
for the playe called the bosse of bellensgate vnto}
John daye & hathwaye the some of } xxxxs
- F.109v (Greg, I.174)
pd the 12 of marche 1602 for the company}
vnto John daye & his felowe poetes in fulle}
payment for his playe called the bossce of}
belleingesgate the some of …} xxxxs
Theatrical Provenance
The Admiral's men bought the play in March 1603, just as the playhouses were to be closed to observe the death of Queen Elizabeth; the company could not have known then that the playhouses would remain closed most of 1603 and into 1604 because of outbreaks of plague. There is no evidence to indicate whether The Boss of Billingsgate entered, then remained in the company's active repertory over this stretch of time.
Probable Genre(s)
Neither Harbage nor Wiggins hazards a guess.
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
Information welcome.
Critical Commentary
Fleay offers Wentworth Smith as a collaborator on the play (BCED I.108), but he doesn't list the play among Smith's known collaborations.
Greg confesses that "nothing is known" of the story, yet does identify the boss as a fountain and provide the title of the Lydgate ballad, "The marriage of London Stone and the fair pusell the bosse of Byllyngesgate" as printed in 1535 by Wynken de Worde in conjunction with Treatise of this Gallant (Greg II.227, Item 256).
Wiggins, based on the likelihood that the title refers to a fountain (real and metaphorical?), opines that the narrative could have addressed the origin of the fountain ("as a legacy from Mayor Richard Whittington") or told "a number of interlocking stories" related to the fountain and its geographical location (#1396). He considers without much enthusiasm the identification of Wentworth Smith as one of the unnamed poets.
For What It's Worth
The OED cites 1521 and "A Treatyse of this Galaunt with the marriage of the boss of Byllyngesgate vnto London Stone" as its earliest instance of the word "boss" in reference to a fountain. It cites further a saying dated 1539 that links the Boss of Billingsgate with Cheapside: "When the bosse of byllyngate wa[s]ythe so merye To daunce with a bagpipe at scala celi & the crose if chepeside dothe kepe a scole of fence" (Furnivall I.315).
The "treatyse" referred to is undoubtedly that by John Lydgate, popularly called "The Marriage of London Stone and the Boss of Billingsgate," 1521 (Greg notes a 1535 printing but made no further conjecture about a narrative connection).
In Lydgate's poem the speaker asks the indulgence of the auditors to help the bridal couple "bye their weddynge gere," which they cannot themselves do because "they be bothe naked/ & not worth an halfpenny knife." As if the celebrant, the speaker asks if anyone knows any impediment to the marriage. He identifies the bride as "the bosse at Byllyngesgate of beauty so fayre" and the groom as "London Stone/ curtes and gente." The speaker asks about impediments to the marriage, and London Stone repeats rumors ("euyll tunges") that the Boss "hath had a child./ By the well with two buckettes in bishop gate strete." Refusing to allow the rumor to disrupt the marriage, however, London Stone defends his bride:
- He that in sclaunder / ony will dysclose
- Of the deuylles rewarde / he shall not mysse
- Therfore let my wyfe and me alone.
- For by my study and wakynge many a nyght
- I knowe by the sterres / that shone by the moone,
- That fayre Bosse / hooly was in my syght
- And that to my nature / she shoulde be coequal.
- And remayne as my fere / euer in my syght.
The speaker then declares the couple "man and wyfe by dyuyne prouysyowne" and invites the auditors to join the revelry and dance; he closes with a blessing of the "goodly couple" and all present "Which brynge the herers / to lyfe eternall,/ Where god is regnynge permanent/ Amonge his aungelles celestyall."
The happy conclusion of the Lydgate poem captures the tone of one other detail in the OED about the Boss of Billingsgate, namely, that it is "sweet" or "spring" water.
RLK: whatever the narrative of the lost play, these linguistic and literary associations are festive than thus comedic; moderns schooled by Freud, if not also Elizabethans, cannot miss also the gendering of London Stone and his fair (and fertile) Bosse.
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by Christopher Matusiak, updated 7 March 2011; updated further by Roslyn L. Knutson on 11 April 2016.