Identifying 'Mr Pett': A Forgotten Early Modern Playwright

On May 17, 1600, Philip Henslowe lent Admiral's Men actor Robert Shaw six pounds as full payment for the two authors of the (now lost) play Strange News Out of Poland. The authors were the established professional William Haughton and the otherwise unknown 'mr pett'.1 The identity of Pett has remained an enigma. F. G. Fleay suggested that Henslowe meant to write 'Chett', for 'Chettle'.2 W. W. Greg, however, noted that Henslowe never abbreviated Henry Chettle's name unless he was pressed for space (which he is not in the Poland entry) and he never appended the honorific of 'mr' to his name.3 The name Pett is fairly common and belongs to an extended family best known for its involvement in early modern England's maritime industries. At least one earlier Pett - John Pett, a gentleman of Kent - wrote a pamphlet for publication: his 1583 The great circle of Easter is a collection of charts, calendars, and Latin verses meant to aid readers in working out when, in a given year, different movable feast days would fall. Nothing else about John Pett is known, but his work hardly qualifies him for the ranks of poet; indeed, he claims in his preface to readers that he has borrowed the verses in his pamphlet from other sources and that he himself suffers from 'vnskilfulnes in Poetry'.4 Greg and more recent historians who have examined Henslowe's papers have neglected to notice that circumstantial evidence does exist for three candidates for the mysterious 'Mr Pett', namely, three brothers from the famous shipbuilding family.The first, and least likely, candidate is Phineas Pett (1570-1647), son of Master Shipwright of Deptford, Peter Pett. Phineas was Peter's eldest son from his second marriage. The details of his life and family are documented in his manuscript diary (British Library Harley MS 6279). Phineas came to the profession of shipbuilder reluctantly; he seems to have been intended for either the church or law. Only at his father's death did he turn to the family trade and in the winter of 1595-6 he agreed to be an ordinary workman for his older brother Joseph. While in Joseph's hire, he spent money on clothing 'in very good fashion,' he wrote, 'always endeavouring to keep company with men of good rank, far better than myself'.5 In February 1598 he rented a fine house at Limehouse for £11 per year and furnished it 'to some charge'.6 These expenditures compounded with other problems to shrink Phineas's cash flow: just before this time, his brother Joseph and stepfather Thomas Nunn, minister of Weston (who would, not long after, murder Phineas's sister, Abigail, for not adequately cleaning his riding cloak) embezzled a substantial portion of his father's inheritance. Work was Phineas's only option. He found occasional appointments rectifying disordered accounts of various maritime agents, but little income came of it. At times, the work only stirred up resentment against him: in 1599, for example, Treasurer of the Navy, Fulke Greville - who disliked him because he was friends with the Surveyor, John Trevor - withheld twenty pounds due him for work on the Navy's behalf.These times were difficult for Phineas: 'From midsummer, all the ensuing year [1598], till Christmas I lay still and idle without any manner of employment or comings in but what my servants got with working now and then abroad, which was very little and hardly able to buy me food'.7 Perhaps, in desperate need of income, Phineas picked up his pen and, as someone with an interest in and experience of overseas travel and as an acquaintance of the Lord Admiral, agreed to write for the Admiral's Men a sensational new play about news abroad. On June 25, 1600, Phineas received a commission from the Lord Admiral to take over as shipwright at Chatham. Since he moved to the town only two days later, this may explain his sudden disappearance from Henslowe's records. Lacking any evidence that Phineas ever wrote poetry or plays, however, or ever even displayed any interest in doing so, he is quite likely not the playwright Henslowe refers to in his diary. …