Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 Part 10

HENRY. Let us make a match at tennis.

JOHN. Agreed, this fine morning calls for it.

HENRY. And after, we will go to dinner, and after dinner we will see a play.

JOHN. The plaies they play in England are neither right comedies nor right tragedies.

HENRY. But they do nothing but play every day.

JOHN. Yea: but they are neither right comedies nor right tragedies.

HENRY. How would you name them then?

JOHN. Representations of history, without any decorum.

It shall later be shown that Chapman also noticed Florio's presumption in this instance, and that he recognised the fact, or else a.s.sumed as a fact, that Florio's stricture on English historical drama was directed against Shakespeare.

We may judge from the conversation between Henry and John that Southampton, in attaining a colloquial knowledge of French and Italian, entered into intimate relations with Florio, and from the interest that he displayed in dramatic affairs in later years, that during his first year in London he would be likely frequently to witness the performance of plays in the public theatres. It is probable, then, that he would have seen performances by both Pembroke's and Strange's companies in this year.

It is evident that an acquaintance between the Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare was not formed previous to Southampton's coming to Court in November 1590. A first acquaintance undoubtedly had its inception between that date and Southampton's departure for France early in 1592.

I shall now develop evidence for my belief that their first acquaintance was made upon the occasion of the Queen's progress to Cowdray and Tichfield House in August and September 1591.

I find no record in the State Papers concerning Southampton between the date of his departure from home for the Court in October 1590, and 2nd March 1592 (new style), when he wrote from Dieppe to the Earl of Ess.e.x.

We may, however, infer that he was still in England on 15th August 1591, the date of the arrival of the Queen and Court at Cowdray House. _It is evident also that the progress would not have proceeded a week later to his own county seat, Tichfield House, unless he was present._ We have evidence in the State Papers that the itineraries of the Queen's progresses were usually planned by Burghley; the present progress to Cowdray and Tichfield was undoubtedly arranged _in furtherance of his matrimonial plans for his granddaughter and Southampton_. The records of this progress give us details concerning the entertainments for the Queen, which were given at some of the other n.o.blemen's houses she visited; the verses, masques, and plays being still preserved in a few instances, even where she tarried for only a few days. The Court remained at Cowdray House for a full week. No verses nor plays recited or performed upon this occasion, nor upon the occasion of her visit, a week later, to the Earl of Southampton's house at Tichfield, have been preserved in the records. It is very probable, however, in the light of the facts to follow, _that our poet and his fellow-players attended the Earl of Southampton, both at Cowdray House and at Tichfield, during this progress_. In the description of the Queen's entertainment during her stay at Cowdray, I find a most suggestive resemblance to much of the action and plot of _Love's Labours Lost_. The Queen and Court arrived at Cowdray House at eight o'clock on Sat.u.r.day evening, 15th August. That night, the records tell us, "her Majesty took her rest and so in like manner the next, which was Sunday, being most royally feasted, the proportion of breakfast being 3 oxen and 140 geese." "The next day," we are informed, "she rode in the park where a delicate bower" was prepared and "a nymph with a sweet song delivered her a crossbow to shoot at the deer of which she killed three or four and the Countess of Kildare one."

In _Love's Labour's Lost_ the Princess and her ladies shoot at deer from a coppice.

PRINCESS. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in?

FOR. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

In Act IV. Scene ii., Holofernes makes an "extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer," which is reminiscent of the "sweet song" delivered to the Queen by "the nymph."

HOL. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a p.r.i.c.ket.

I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.

The preyful princess pierced and p.r.i.c.k'd a pretty pleasing p.r.i.c.ket; Some say a sore, but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; Or p.r.i.c.ket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one sorel.

Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.

_In a former publication I have shown that an antagonism had developed between Shakespeare and Chapman as early as the year 1594, and in a more recent one have shown Matthew Roydon's complicacy with Chapman in his hostility to Shakespeare, and also Shakespeare's cognizance of it._ I have displayed Shakespeare's answers to the attacks of these scholars in his caricature of Chapman as Holofernes, and of the curate Roydon as the curate Nathaniel. Chapman's attack upon Shakespeare in 1593 in the early _Histriomastix_ and his reflection of the Earl of Southampton as Mavortius give evidence that his hostility owed its birth to Shakespeare's success in winning the patronage and friendship of Southampton; unless Chapman and Roydon had already solicited this n.o.bleman's patronage, or had at least come into contact with him in some manner, and considered themselves displaced by Shakespeare, both the virulence of their opposition to our poet, and the manner and matter of Chapman's slurs against him in _Histriomastix_, and in the dedications of his poems to Matthew Roydon in 1594-95, are unaccountable.

It is likely that Matthew Roydon was one of the theological poets--who wrote anonymously for the stage--mentioned by Robert Greene in the introduction to _The Farewell to Folly_, which was published in 1591.

It is probable also that Roydon is referred to as a writer for the stage in Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, where, after indicating Marlowe, Peele, and Nashe, he says:

"In this I might insert two more who have both writ against (for) these buckram gentlemen."

Now seeing that both Roydon and Chapman are satirised by Shakespeare in _Love's Labours Lost_, it occurs to me that the "preyful Princess"

verses quoted above (which display parody in every line) are intended by Shakespeare to caricature the known work of the author of the sweet song delivered to the Queen by the nymph, and consequently that this song was from the pen of one of this learned couple. As I have already noticed, in the records of the Queen's stay at the other n.o.blemen's houses that she visited on this progress, many verses and songs appear which were written specially for these occasions, while no songs, nor verses, have been preserved from the Cowdray or Tichfield festivities, occasions when they would be likely to have been used, considering Southampton's interest in literary matters and the court paid to him by the writers of the day. Among the poems which I have collected that I attribute to Roydon, I have elsewhere noticed one that Shakespeare makes fun of at a later time in _Midsummer Night's Dream_--that is, _The Shepherd's Slumber_. This poem deals with the exact season of the year when the Queen was at Cowdray--"peascod time"--and also with the killing of deer,

"when hound to horn gives ear till buck be killed";

and in one verse describes just such methods of killing deer as is suggested, both in _Love's Labours Lost_ and in _Nichol's Progresses_, which latter records the entertainment for the Queen at Cowdray House.

"And like the deer, I make them fall!

That runneth o'er the lawn.

One drops down here! another there!

In bushes as they groan; I bend a scornful, careless ear, To hear them make their moan."

May not this be the identical "sweet song" delivered by the nymph to the Queen, and the occasion of the progress to Cowdray, in 1591, indicate the entry of Roydon and Chapman into the rivalry between Shakespeare and the scholars inaugurated two years earlier by Greene and Nashe?

This poem which I attribute to Roydon has all the manner of an occasional production and is about as senseless as most of his other "absolute comicke inventions." The masque-like allegory it exhibits, introducing "Delight," "Wit," "Good Sport," "Honest Meaning" as persons, was much affected by the Queen and Court in their entertainments. At the marriage of Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Worcester, in 1599, a masque was given for the Queen in which we are told eight ladies of the Court performed. One of these ladies "wooed her to dawnce, her Majesty asked what she was, affection she said, affection, said the Queen, affection is false, yet her Majesty rose and dawnced." During the stay at Cowdray similar make-believe and allegory were evidently used in the entertainments given for the Queen. Roydon's poem may, like _Love's Labours Lost_, be a reflection of such courtly nonsense.

During the first three days of the Queen's stay at Cowdray she was feasted and entertained (the records inform us) by Lady Montague, but on the fourth day "she dined at the Priory," where Lord Montague kept bachelor's hall, and whither he had retired to receive and entertain the Queen without the a.s.sistance of Lady Montague. This reception and entertainment of the Queen by Lord Montague was, no doubt, accompanied by fantastic allegory--Lord Montague and his friends playing the parts of hermits, or philosophers in retreat, as in the case of the King of Navarre and his friends in _Love's Labour's Lost_. The paucity of plot in this play has been frequently noticed, and no known basis for its general action and plot has ever been discovered or proposed.

At this time (1591) Shakespeare had been in London only from four to five years, and, judging from the prominence in his profession which he shortly afterwards attained, we may be a.s.sured that these were years of patient drudgery in his calling. Neither in his Stratford years, nor during these inceptive theatrical years, would he be likely to have had much, if any, previous experience with the social life of the n.o.bility; yet here, in what is recognised by practically all critical students as his earliest comedy, the original composition of which is dated by the best text critics in, or about, 1591, he displays an intimate acquaintance with their sports and customs which in spirit and detail most significantly coincide with the actual records of the Queen's progress, late in 1591, to Cowdray House, the home of the mother of the n.o.bleman whose fortunes, from this time forward for a period of from ten to fifteen years, may be shown to have influenced practically every poem and play he produced.

As the incidents of the Queen's stay at Cowdray are reflected in the plot and action of _Loves Labour's Lost_, so, in _All's Well that Ends Well_, or, at least, in those portions of that play recognised by the best critics as the remains of the older play of _Love's Labour's Won_, the incidents and atmosphere of the Queen's stay at Tichfield House are also suggested. The gentle and dignified Countess of Rousillon suggests the widowed Countess of Southampton; the wise and courtly Lafeu gives us a sketch of Sir Thomas Heneage, the Vice-Chamberlain of the Court, who married Lady Southampton about three years later. Bertram's insensibility to Helena's love, and indifference to her charms, as well as his departure for the French Court, coincide with the actual facts in the case of Southampton, who at this time was apathetic to the match planned by his friends, and who also left home for France shortly after the Queen's visit to Cowdray. Parolles is, I am convinced, a caricature from life, and in his original characterisation in _Love's Labour's Won_ was probably a replica of the original Armado of the earliest form of _Love's Labours Lost_. Both of these characters I believe I can demonstrate to be early sketches, or caricatures, of John Florio, the same individual who is caricatured in _Henry IV._ and the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ as Sir John Falstaff. The characterisation of Parolles as we have it in _All's Well that Ends Well_ is probably much more accentuated than the Parolles of the earlier form of the play, in which he would most likely have been presented as a fantastical fop, somewhat of the order of Armado. By the time the earlier play of 1591-92 was rewritten into its present form, in 1598, the original of the character of Parolles had in Shakespeare's opinion developed also into a "misleader of youth"; in fact, into another Falstaff, minus the adipose tissue.

As both _Loves Labour's Lost_ and _Love's Labour's Won_ (_All's Well that Ends Well_ in its early form) reflect persons and incidents of the Cowdray-Tichfield progress, it is evident that both plays were composed after the event. It is of interest then to consider which, if any, of Shakespeare's plays were likely to have been presented upon that occasion.

As this narrative and argument develop, a date of composition later than the date of the Cowdray progress--when Shakespeare first formed the acquaintance of the Earl of Southampton--and based upon subjective evidence regarding the poet's relations with this n.o.bleman, yet coinciding with the chronological conclusions of the best text critics, shall be demonstrated for all of Shakespeare's early plays with the exception of _King John_ and _The Comedy of Errors_. In all the early plays except these two I find palpable time reflections of Shakespeare's interest in the Earl of Southampton or his affairs. I therefore date the original composition of both of these early plays previous to the Cowdray progress, in September 1591. I have already advanced my evidence for the original composition of Shakespeare's _King John_ early in 1591.

I cannot so palpably demonstrate the composition of _The Comedy of Errors_ in this year, but, following the lead of the great majority of the text critics who date its composition in this year, and finding no internal reflection of Southampton or his affairs, I infer that it was written after the composition of _King John_, before Shakespeare had made Southampton's acquaintance and intentionally for presentation before the Queen and Court at Cowdray or Tichfield. The fact that _The Comedy of Errors_ is the shortest of all Shakespeare's plays, the farce-like nature of the play and its recorded presentation in 1594 before the members of Gray's Inn, with which Southampton was connected, marks it as one of the plays originally composed for private rather than for public presentation. It is evident that it never proved sufficiently popular upon the public boards to warrant its enlargement to the size of the average publicly presented play.

While I cannot learn the actual date at which Southampton left England, we have proof in a letter written by him to the Earl of Ess.e.x, that he was in France upon 2nd March 1592.

When we take into consideration the fact that this visit of the Queen's to Cowdray and Tichfield was arranged by Burghley in furtherance of his plans to marry his granddaughter to the Earl of Southampton, and that Shakespeare's earlier sonnets (which I shall argue were written with the intention of forwarding this match) are of a period very slightly later than this, it is evident that the incidents of the Queen's stay at Cowdray and Tichfield would become known to Shakespeare by report, even though he was not himself present upon those occasions. The plot of the first four Acts of _Love's Labour's Lost_, such as it is, bears such a strong resemblance to the recorded incidents of that visit as to suggest reminiscence much more than hearsay.

While Burghley in this affair was, no doubt, primarily seeking a suitable alliance for his granddaughter, the rather hurried and peremptory manner of Southampton's invitation to Court may partially be accounted for by other motives, when the conditions of the Court and its intrigues at that immediate period are considered.

The long struggle for political supremacy between Burghley and Elizabeth's first, and most enduring favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, came to an end in 1588 through the death of Leicester in that year. While Elizabeth's faith in Burghley's political wisdom was never at any time seriously shaken by the counsels of her more polished and courtly confidant, Leicester, there was a period in her long flirtation with the latter n.o.bleman when the great fascination, which he undoubtedly exercised over her, seemed likely to lead her into a course which would completely alter, not only the political complexion of the Court, but possibly also the actual destinies of the Crown. There was never at any period of their career any love lost between Burghley and Leicester; the latter, in the heyday of his favour, frequently expressed himself in such plain terms regarding Burghley that he could have had little doubt of the disastrous effect upon his own fortunes which might ensue from the consummation of Leicester's matrimonial ambitions. He, withal, wisely gauged the character and limits of Leicester's influence with Elizabeth. While Leicester played upon the vanities and weakness of the woman, Burghley appealed to the strong mentality and love of power of the queen; yet though he unceasingly opposed Leicester's projects and ambitions, wherein they threatened his own political supremacy, or the good of the State, he seems to have recognised the impossibility of undermining the Queen's personal regard for her great favourite, which continued through all the years of his selfish, blundering, and criminal career, down to the day of his death. While Leicester also in time appears to have realised the impossibility of seriously impairing Burghley's power, he, to the last, lost no opportunity of baffling that minister's more cherished personal policies. In introducing his stepson, Ess.e.x, to Court life and the notice of the Queen, in 1583, it is evident that he had in mind designs other than the advancement of his young kinsman. Ess.e.x, from the first, seems to have realised in whose shoes he trod, and for the first ten years of his life at Court fully maintained the Leicester tradition, and seemed likely in time even to refine upon and enhance it. Had this young n.o.bleman possessed ordinary equipoise of temper it is questionable if Burghley would later have succeeded in securing the succession of his own place and power to his son, Sir Robert Cecil. Preposterous as it may seem, when judged from a modern point of view, that the personal influence of this youth of twenty-three with the now aged Queen should in any serious measure have menaced the firm power and cautious policies of the experienced Burghley, we have abundance of evidence that he and his son regarded Ess.e.x's growing ascendancy as no light matter. From their long experience and intimate a.s.sociation with Elizabeth, and knowing her vanities and weaknesses, as well as her strength, they apprehended in her increasing favour for Ess.e.x the beginning and rooting of a power which might in time disintegrate their own solid foundations. The subtlety, dissimulation, and unrelenting persistency with which Burghley and his son opposed themselves to Ess.e.x's growing influence while yet posing as his confidants and well-wishers, fully bespeak the measure of their fears.

While Burghley himself lacked the polished manners and graceful presence of the courtier, which so distinguished Raleigh, Leicester, and Ess.e.x, and owed his influence and power entirely to qualities of the mind and his indefatigable application to business, he had come to recognise the importance of these more ornamental endowments in securing and holding the regard of Elizabeth. His son, Sir Robert Cecil, who was not only puny and deformed, but also somewhat sickly all his days, made, and could make, no pretensions to courtier-like graces, and must depend for Court favour, to a yet greater degree than his father, upon his own powers of mind and will. To combat Ess.e.x's social influence at Court, these two more clerkly politicians, soon after Ess.e.x's appearance, proceeded to supplement their own power by making an ally of the accomplished Raleigh; to whom, previous to this, they had shown little favour. They soon succeeded in fomenting a rivalry between these two courtiers which, with some short periods of truce, continued until their combined machinations finally brought Ess.e.x to the block. How Sir Robert Cecil, having used Raleigh as a tool against Ess.e.x, in turn effected his political ruin shall be shown in due course.

We shall now return to Southampton and to the period of his coming to London and the Court, towards the end of October, in the year 1590. A recent biographer of Shakespeare, writing of Southampton, sums up the incidents of this period in the following generalisation: "It was naturally to the Court that his friends sent him at an early age to display his varied graces. He can hardly have been more than seventeen when he was presented to his Sovereign. She showed him kindly notice, and the Earl of Ess.e.x, her brilliant favourite, acknowledged his fascination. Thenceforth Ess.e.x displayed in his welfare a brotherly interest which proved in course of time a very doubtful blessing." This not only hurries the narrative but also misconstrues the facts and ignores the most interesting phases of the friendship between these n.o.blemen, as they influenced Southampton's subsequent connection with Shakespeare. Ess.e.x may have acknowledged Southampton's fascination at this date, though I find no evidence that he did do so, but for the a.s.sertion that he "_thenceforth_" displayed in his welfare a brotherly interest there is absolutely no basis. All reasonable inference, and some actual evidence, lead me to quite divergent conclusions regarding the relations that subsisted between these young n.o.blemen at this early date. Southampton's interests, it is true, became closely interwoven with those of Ess.e.x at a somewhat later period when he had become enamoured of Ess.e.x's cousin, Elizabeth Vernon, whom he eventually married. The inception of this latter affair cannot, however, at the earliest, be dated _previous to the late spring of 1594_. At whatever date Southampton and Ess.e.x became intimate friends, there can be no doubt _that such a conjunction was contrary to Burghley's intentions in bringing Southampton to the Court in October 1590_. In making use of Raleigh to counteract Ess.e.x's influence with the Queen, the Cecils were well aware, as their subsequent treatment of Raleigh proves, that they might in him augment a power which, if opposed to their own, would prove even more dangerous than that of Ess.e.x; yet feeling the need of a friend and ally in the more intimately social life of the Court, whose interests would be identical with their own, they chose what appeared to them an auspicious moment to introduce their graceful and accomplished protege and prospective kinsman, to the notice of the Queen, whose predilection for handsome young courtiers seemed to increase with advancing age.

Ess.e.x, although then but in his twenty-sixth year, had spent nearly six years at Court. During this period he had been so spoiled and petted by his doting Sovereign that he had already upon several occasions temporarily turned her favour to resentment by his arrogance and ill-humour. In his palmiest days even Leicester had never dared to take the liberties with the Queen now, at times, indulged in by this brilliant but wilful youth. In exciting Ess.e.x's hot and hasty temper the watchful Cecils soon found their most effectual means of defence. Early in the summer of 1590, Ess.e.x, piqued by the Queen's refusal of a favour, committed what was, up till that time, his most wilful breach of Court decorum and flagrant instance of opposition to the Queen's wishes. Upon the 6th of April in that year the office of Secretary of State became vacant by the death of Sir Francis Walsingham. Shortly afterward, Ess.e.x endeavoured to secure the office for William Davison, who, previous to 1587, had acted in the capacity of a.s.sistant to Walsingham and was therefore presumably well qualified for the vacant post. Upon the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587, Elizabeth, in disavowing her responsibility for the act, had made a scapegoat of Davison, who, she claimed, had secured her signature to the death-warrant by misrepresentation, and had proceeded with its immediate execution contrary to her commands. Though she deceived no one but herself by this characteristic duplicity, she never retreated from the stand she had taken, but, feeling conscious that she was doubted, to enforce belief in her sincerity, maintained her resentment against Davison to the last.

Upon Elizabeth's refusal of the Secretaryship to his luckless protege, Ess.e.x, in dudgeon, absented himself from the Court, and within a few weeks chose a yet more effectual means of exasperating the Queen by privately espousing Sir Francis Walsingham's daughter, Lady Sidney, widow of the renowned Sir Philip. When knowledge of this latest action reached the Queen her anger was kindled to a degree that (to the Court gossips) seemed to preclude Ess.e.x's forgiveness, or the possibility of his reinstatement in favour. With the intention of increasing Ess.e.x's ill-humour and still further estranging him from the Queen, Burghley now proposed that all his letters and papers be seized. _He also chose this period of estrangement to introduce his prospective grandson-in-law, Southampton, to the Court._ The very eagerness of Ess.e.x's enemies, however, appears to have cooled the Queen's anger, as we find that within a month of Southampton's arrival at the Court--that is, on 26th November--Ess.e.x is reported as "once more in good favour with the Queen."

In the light of the foregoing facts and deductions, it does not seem likely that Burghley would encourage a friendship between Ess.e.x and Southampton. The a.s.sumption that he would (at least tacitly) seek rather to provoke a rivalry is under the circ.u.mstances more reasonable. Though I find no record in the State Papers of this immediate date that hostility was aroused between these young courtiers, in a paper of a later date, which refers to this time, I find fair proof that such a condition of affairs did at this period actually exist. In the declaration of the treason of the Earl of Ess.e.x, 1600-1, in the State Papers we have the following pa.s.sage: "There was present this day at the Council, the Earl of Southampton, with whom in former times he (Ess.e.x) _had been at some emulations and differences at Court_, but after, Southampton, having married his kinswoman (Elizabeth Vernon), plunged himself wholly into his fortunes," etc.

Though the matrimonial engagement between Burghley's granddaughter and Southampton never reached its consummation, and we have evidence in Roger Manners' letter of 6th March 1592 that some doubt in regard to its fulfilment had even then arisen in Court circles, we have good grounds for a.s.suming that all hope for the union was not abandoned by Burghley till a later date. Lady Elizabeth Vere eventually married the Earl of Derby in January 1595. This marriage was arranged for in the summer of the preceding year, and after the Earl of Derby had come into his t.i.tles and estates, through the death of his elder brother, in April 1594.

Referring again to the State Papers, we have on 15th August 1594 the statement of a Jesuit, named Edmund Yorke, who is reported as saying "Burghley poisoned the Earl of Derby so as to marry his granddaughter to his brother." Fernando Stanley, Earl of Derby, died under suspicious circ.u.mstances after a short illness, and it was reported at the time that he was poisoned. As he had recently been instrumental in bringing about the execution of a prominent Jesuit, whom he had accused of having approached him with seditious proposals, it was believed at the time that an emissary of that society was concerned in his death. While disregarding Yorke's atrocious imputation against Burghley, we may safely date the inception of the negotiations leading to Elizabeth Vere's marriage somewhere after 16th April, the date of the preceding Earl's death; Burghley did not choose younger sons in marriage for his daughters or granddaughters. Thus we are fully a.s.sured that, at however earlier a date the prospects for a marriage between Southampton and Lady Vere were abandoned, they had ceased to be entertained by the early summer of 1594. Shortly after this, Southampton's infatuation for Elizabeth Vernon had its inception. The intensity of the young n.o.bleman's early interest in this latter affair quite precludes the necessity for Shakespeare's poetical incitements thereto; we may therefore refer the group of sonnets, in which Shakespeare urges his friend's marriage, to the more diffident affair of the earlier years and to a period antedating the publication of _Venus and Adonis_ in May 1593. A comparison of the argument of _Venus and Adonis_ with that of the first book of Sonnets will indicate a common date of production, and that Shakespeare wrote both poems with the same purpose in view.