The story of /X/ and /ç/ 1500-1700

In general, the kinds of evidence we find in such sources suggest that by the late
sixteenth century there existed many sets of alternants showing a contrast between the
presence or absence of a post-stressed vowel [X] / [C] voiceless fricative. Consider the
remarks by Edmund Coote in his English Schoole-maister of (1596) (Coote 1596: p.
24), an ‘Introductory manual for the teaching of English’, where he observes of the
digraph <gh> that they

(except in Ghost) are of most men but little sounded, as might, fight: pronounced as mite,
fite: but in the end of a word, some countries sound them fully, others plow, bou, slou:
Thereupon some with burrough, some borrow: but the truest is both to write and
pronounce them.

Again, in his dialogue in Chapter 6 (p. 33) where ‘is set downe an order, how the
teacher shall direct his schollars to oppose one another’ occurs the exchange:

Robert: How spell you might?

Iohn: m, i, g, h, t.
Robert: Why put you in (gh) for m, i, t, e spelleth mite?
Iohn: Truth, but with (gh) is the truer writing, and it should have a little
sound.

Here the suggestion seems to be that the ortographic <gh> representation is for some
speakers phonetically redundant, while for others it has the status of whatever is meant
by ‘a little sound’.

(From Ch. Jones (1989): A History of English Phonology. London. Longman)

William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost (c. 1594) Act V, Scene I. [The Arden
Edition, 4th ed., 1956; more detailed notes will be found there.]
Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL.

[Draws out his table-book

Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the
staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such
insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of
orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det,
when he should pronounce debt, -d, e, b, t, not d, e, t; he clepeth
a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh
abbreviated ne. This is abhominable, which he would call
abominable, it insinuateth me if insanie: ne intelligis domine: to
make frantic, lunatic.

(From M. Wakelin (1988): The Archaeology of English. London. B.T. Batsford)