This meme claims the 17th Earl of Salisbury went intonv9luntary exile for seven years for farting in front of Elizabeth I. What really happened? And what else can you tell me about behaviour expectations in Elizabeth's court?

That'd be the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. Knowing that this story is about de Vere is an important aspect, since he is certainly one of the most interesting characters of the Elizabethan Era (in my humble opinion). But I'll get back to that in a minute.

An important thing to look at up front is the source of this story. It hails from John Aubrey's Brief Lives, a manuscript that Aubrey donated in the final years of his life to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It was published, in a truncated form, in 1813, and then again, in a more complete form, in 1898. I am telling you this to illustrate the periods of time between when the supposed events took place, when they were written about, and when that information was even made publicly available. Aubrey, himself, lived from 1626 to 1697, well after the characters in this apparent biographical excerpt lived.

So, naturally, there is a lot to question as to the veracity of this story. John Aubrey's writings are now considered very foundational for modern biographical writing, but less because of their accuracy and reality, and more for their tone and style. Much of Aubrey's research was done by speaking to acquaintances and gathering character information, rather than necessarily factual, textual information. Thus, his Brief Lives read more like what we might call a gossip column today, rather than a encyclopedia entry, and that is why, in and of itself, Brief Lives was, and remains, an important piece of literature.

However, that doesn't necessarily make every story within it true. And regarding Edward de Vere, there are certainly historiographical reasons to doubt it.

Edward de Vere was the only son of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, who died in 1562, when Edward was 12. Edward became a ward of the Crown, and was raised by Sir William Cecil, one of Queen Elizabeth's chief advisors, whose daughter de Vere eventually married.

By all contemporary accounts, de Vere was certainly a big personality. He had a passion for patronage of the arts, as well as writing poetry and plays. He also had a passion for violence, at his best, being a tournament jouster, and at worst, violently exploding upon people who issued him even the slightest perceived insult. This, along with his affair with Elizabeth's courtier Anne Vavasour, led to a late life downturn in his image.

De Vere was markedly easy with money (the Queen, herself, even said as much, publicly calling him "unthrifty" in 1574), and this financial instability would lead him into involvement in a number of scandals in the early 1580s. One such scandal involved de Vere apparently funding an expeditionary to France to take part in the Catholic-Huguenot conflict, on the side of the Catholic King Henry III. However, when he returned to England, he quickly turned over some former Catholic compatriots to the authorities, Lord Henry Howard and Charles Arundell. What proceeded was a drawn-out court battle, that saw de Vere accused of a number of crimes to weaken his character, ranging from theft, to murder for hire, to pederasty. Paired with the scandal of de Vere's affair, his reputation (and his aspirations for high office within Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council) was essentially ruined. He spent his last years in the wind, so to speak, collecting an annuity from the Queen, and slowly selling off his estate to anyone interested.

But this question isn't really asking for a biography of de Vere, so much as a confirmation of a particular story. And on that account, I can't exactly settle it. Is it possible that Edward de Vere left Queen Elizabeth's court on account of an errant fart? Theoretically, yes. De Vere was immensely loyal to the Queen, regardless of his often erratic behavior in her demesne. It is not impossible to imagine that, something as simple as a fart might have encouraged him to self-impose exile.

On the other hand, historically, there isn't much to back this up. The story claims that de Vere self-exiled to Travell for 7 years. The problem with this is that there isn't really a seven year gap in his court presence at any time in his life. He left the court on numerous, recorded occasions, but he always tends to reappear within a year or two.

When you add in the notion that his moral and physical character were often ridiculed by opponents, there is certainly enough doubt to cast this story as "unlikely."

Oh and he is also one of the names thrown around in the discussion of the theory of alternative authorship of Shakespeare's works. Very interesting guy. Did he fart in front of the Queen so obtusely that he left the court for 7 years? Unlikely.

SOURCES:

John Aubrey's Brief Lives, collected 1696, published in material 1898, recollected in complete form by Kate Bennett, 2015

B.M. Ward's The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604: From Contemporary Documents, 1928 (great document source)

Percy Allen's The Life of Edward de Vere as 'William Shakespeare', 1932 (less good, but still some good primary sources within)

Alan Nelson's Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 2003 (one of the best, complete biographies of the man, that doesn't get too bogged down in the Oxfordian Conspiracy)

EDIT: Also, to clear something up: the source says "he went to Travell, 7 yeares." This is simply an archaic spelling of "travel", not a place. Sorry if that wasn't clear.