Chapter XXX: Sixteenth Century Women Students 295 (6)

The country was then stirred to its heart by the threatened Spanish invasion; gentlemen all over the country served in the ranks; it is possible that Shakespeare either served on board a ship or in the army at Tilbury, which the Queen herself went to address. If he did, he would be among the disbanded men in 1588, still seeking a post. There were men of lower rank he was almost sure to know; Sadler and Quiney, the grocers in Bucklersbury; John Shakespeare, the bit-maker of St. Martin in the Fields (not the later John of St. Clement Danes); Mathew Shakespeare, the goldsmith, who had married the sister of George Peele, the dramatist. With none of these did he seem to associate himself. But we have testimony that he did associate himself very freely with Richard Field. We see the suggestions of the books printed by him on many a page of Shakespeare’s works, and reading through the signs of his familiarity with the printer’s art we may well believe that he tried to give some return for hospitality by helping Field as much as he _dared_ do. There was a limit, for the Stationers’ Company was very jealous of unapprenticed workmen, and fined Richard Field for keeping one. But there was nothing to prevent Shakespeare from helping in reading and correcting proof, and in 1589 Field brought out Puttenham’s “Art of English Poetry,” a liberal education to a would-be writer. Other special works were on Field’s shelves. A new edition of “Ovid,” Sir Thomas North’s translation of “Plutarch’s Lives,” “Salust du Bartas,” books on Music, Medicine, History, and Philosophy, which we can also see reflected in Shakespeare’s works. I could never satisfy myself with a natural reason for the inter-weaving of Giordano Bruno’s thought into the sonnets until I found that Vautrollier had printed his works, which were condemned, and he himself had to fly the country on account of them, flying, however, no further than Scotland, where the King welcomed him, and let him print his own new book “The essayes of a prentis, in the divine Art of Poesy.”

From the beginning of Shakespeare’s career he must have earned the epithet applied to him later by a fellow dramatist, Webster, who, in the introduction to Vittoria Corambona, spoke of “The right happy and copious _industry_ of Master Shakespeare.”

He was preparing for a patron by the time he found one, but he had been forced, through the stress of circumstances, to take advantage of the only opportunity which had been opened to him, that is, on the stage, where his handsome figure would recommend him, and he probably had some influence through Warwickshire acquaintances. But it would take three years at least for any one to acquire the position outlined by Greene, so we may suppose that he entered the theatre as a “servitor” or apprentice in or about 1589. His work must have, at first, been hard, as he had to be trained, and from the Sonnets it was evidently distasteful.

The consideration of all the various opinions on, and interpretations of, the Sonnets would necessitate more space than can at present be given. Writers have differed widely concerning their autobiographical value, and those who do believe them to be autobiographical, disagree concerning the identity of the persons addressed, of the rival poets, and of Mr. W. H.

I believe that the Sonnets are a source of some authority, both biographical and autobiographical, but that they cannot be interpreted in crude realism. Shakespeare was not a prose diarist of the twentieth century, but a poet on the rising high tide of the most creative period of English literature, in the first fervours of poetic inspiration and romantic personal affection. After a period of trial, during which he had been agonizing in order to live and to support the lives of those that were dear to him, he had met some one who had the supreme inspiration to encourage and to help him in the way he needed.

Many of the allusions to conversations, common experiences, and common studies, are lost to the readers of later days, but some of the links of association may be restored by careful comparison. Sometimes the poet was only treating a common theme in hackneyed phrases, sometimes he was only transmuting current philosophy into verse, But sometimes he was trying to express feelings that lay too deep for words; his love and gratitude occasionally led him to impulsive exaggerations, his susceptibility to hasty misunderstandings. He knew how “to tear a passion to tatters, to very rags,” when his thoughts hurtled against each other from their very abundance and exuberance. But the twined threads of biography and autobiography are there, on which to string the pearls of Shakespeare’s thought. These threads can only be wound round the neck of Henry, the third Earl of Southampton.

No wrong has ever been done to Shakespeare’s memory so great as the publication of what has been called “the Herbert-Fitton theory.” The only cure for this, as for any other heresy, is _more study_, patient, unprejudiced, wide-reaching, long-enduring study, not only in the direct biography of the two men, but in contemporary life, thought, and literature. The theory was only possible to a real worker like Mr. Tylor, because he neglected the Baconian scientific advice, “to search after negatives.” He only attended to facts that seemed to support his hypothesis, and turned from those that opposed it, even when laid before him. Yet he has found followers numerous enough and important enough to be combated because they blind the multitude to other truths.

The Herbert-Fitton theory assumes that the Sonnets must have been written after the arrival of Lord Herbert at Court. This was in the spring of 1598, he being then eighteen years old. We are asked to imagine therefore that Shakespeare instantly was introduced to him, immediately began to write quatorzains, or disingenuously pretended to do so for the _first time_ at this late date in the sonnet-harvest, ascribing to the newly-arrived Lord Herbert, not only inspiration, but _education out of rude ignorance_, and the guidance of his _pupil-pen_, _after_ he had written, not only both of his poems, but his “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Merchant of Venice,” many other plays, and some of the Sonnets themselves in other plays.

It presumes that he must have warmed up, for this inexperienced young lord, not only the same feelings that he had formerly expressed for another, but the same _phrases_ that he had already _published_. The whole beauty of “_the passion_” dies out before the supposition. We cannot read the Sonnets as hackneyed imitations of past fashions. They have all the _verve_ of a fresh impulse, all the ideal transport of newly discovered power, all the original treatment of newly acquired music. Little in the data fits the supposition. Lord Herbert was _not_ the sole hope of his great house, having both a father and a brother; he was _not_ a _fair_ youth, but exceptionally dark; he wore no long locks, curling “like buds of marjoram”; his breath could hardly have exhaled the odours of flowers (S. 99), seeing that a diarist states that his chief comfort was in the use of _tobacco_.

The lady with whom he was associated has been proved, on the other hand, to have been, _not_ dark, but fair, _not_ married and old in the world’s ways, but a bright young foolish girl of twenty-two, a favourite of the Queen and the Court, over-impulsive and credulous certainly, and probably vain and ambitious. But it was one thing, in the lax customs of the times, to became entangled with the handsomest and richest young bachelor of the Court, under the evident expectation of matrimony, and another to have risked her good name in going forth to tempt, with experienced wiles, in her even earlier years, the somewhat well-balanced heart of a middle-aged play-actor and moralist. What the propounders of this theory make of Shakespeare’s manliness or morality it is hard to say. An unwarrantable stain has been thrown on the girl’s character because Will Kemp, one of Shakespeare’s company in 1600, dedicated to her his “Nine Days Dance to Norwich.” But his lack of the supposed intimacy is shown on the title-page by the error even in her Christian name. The dedication was quite a natural one from the best dancer on the stage to the best dancer at Court. In the famous “Masque of the Nine Muses,” performed at Court at the marriage of “_the other Lord Herbert_,” “Mistress Fitton led, and went to the Queen, and wooed her to daunce. Her Majestie asked her what she was? ‘Affection!’ she said. ‘Affection?’ said the Queen, ‘Affection is false.’ Yet her Majestie rose and dawnced” (“Sydney Papers,” 23rd June 1600). Now I believe she should have said “Terpsichore,” which would account for both the Queen’s remark and Kemp’s dedication.

We are asked to believe that all the three-years story of the Sonnets had happened, and that Meres had had time to complete his notices of Shakespeare based on them, and get his book passed by the censor, and registered, _within six months_!

Finally, this theory pre-supposes that Thomas Thorpe, in 1609, would, upon the sole ground of two common initials, have taken the unwarrantable liberty of addressing in such familiar terms as “Mr. W. H.” the chief nobleman of the land, who, being the eldest son of an earl, had, from birth and baptism been designated Lord Herbert. Thorpe would not have been so short-sighted. That he was not so, can be proved from his dedications of Healey’s books[34] to the same nobleman in 1610 and 1616. The latter I found among Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s “Prologues,” and first published it _in extenso_ in relation to this controversy in the “Shakespeare Jahrbuch,” Berlin, 1890, to show how Thorpe really dedicated, “out of what frenzy one of my meannesse hath presumed to commit this Sacrilege.”

No, Pembroke was impossible!

In Shakespeare’s poems, dedications, and sonnets the songs and praises were--

To one, of one, still such and even so.--S. 105.

and that _one_ was the Earl of Southampton.[35] His life and character alone provide all the essential desiderata; his dates alone fit into the chronology of the sonnet sequences and give Shakespeare his natural place in the history of literary development; his life alone gives a natural and unstrained account of “Mr. W. H.”

We do not know the exact circumstances under which Shakespeare met the Earl of Southampton.

Probably the young noble, in an outburst of sympathetic admiration and gratuitous criticism, greeted him with easy patronage on the stage, said to him, “You ought to learn to write poetry for yourself, come, and I will show you how,” took him home, gave him some more or less good advice on accent, manner, dress, law, literature, versification, and courtly tastes, for which posterity is grateful to him. Kind offices, on the one hand, were responded to by gratitude and adulation on the other. Hardly had Shakespeare been introduced to the Earl than he was made acquainted with the skeleton in the closet. To understand this we must turn to the fortunes of Southampton, or rather, in the first place, to those of his mother. For he was essentially “his mother’s boy,” though no critics have followed out her career in relation to Shakespeare’s environment. She was the daughter of Anthony Browne, Viscount Montague, and Jane, daughter of the Earl of Sussex. Her grandfather, Sir Anthony Browne, was considered the handsomest man in the country in Henry VIII’s time, and all the family were noted for personal beauty. She inherited a goodly share, as may be seen by her portrait, taken in 1565, at the age of thirteen, when she married Henry, second Earl of Southampton. This is now in the possession of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck.[36] It probably hung on the wall of Southampton’s home in Holborn when Shakespeare sung:

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.--S. 3.

Her elder son had died before his father, her second, Henry, had become sole heir to his great house when he was eight years old. He seems to have inherited, not only her beauty and her natural tints, as may be seen by his fine portrait also preserved at Welbeck, but to have resembled her in her characteristics. Cultured in taste, with a strong appreciation of humour, refined in sentiment, religious in spirit, she was generally able to control the self-will of her temper by a strong sense of duty, though sometimes her hasty impulsiveness verged almost on imprudence; faithful and self-forgetting in her affections, yet, through her very sensitiveness, easily offended; Mary, Countess of Southampton, does not seem to have been very happy in her marriage. Her somewhat severe husband had conceived some unjust cause of jealousy against her after his temper had been soured by his imprisonment in the Tower for the matter of the Duke of Norfolk and Mary Stuart. She wrote to her father on 21st March 1580, “My Lord sent me word it was not his intention to keep me prisoner, only he barred me of his board and presence ... neither could I take that but in the highest degree of imprisonment, howsoever it pleased him otherwise to esteem it.... I sent what I wrote _by my little boye_, but his heart was too great to bestow reading on it, coming from me.” Possibly his misunderstanding was the precursor of illness, for he died the following year (1581). He left her as bare as he could, and she wrote to the Earl of Leicester, entreating his kind offices on behalf of herself and her children, Henry and Mary. (These letters are among the MSS. of Cottrel Dormer, Esq., but being evidently misdated in the second appendix to “Rep. of Roy. Hist. Com.,” I applied to the present owner, who kindly allowed me to see them.) Her son became, of course, a royal ward, and he and his great possessions were put under the supervision of Lord Burghley. Camden warmly praises Southampton, and says “he spent his young years in the study of learning and good letters, and afterwards confirmed that study with travel and foreign observation.”

In December 1585 he was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he became M.A., 6th June 1589, and was incorporated of Oxford. Before leaving College he enrolled himself a member of Gray’s Inn, 1587, where he seems to have studied as creditably as he had done at Cambridge.

But domestic trouble was rising. Burghley was impressed with the engaging personality, as well as the extensive possessions of young Henry Wriothesley, and, backed by a guardian’s privilege, wanted to secure him for his granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Vere, the daughter of the Earl of Oxford. The young Earl seems to have become, under the persuasions of his mother and grandfather, to some extent, engaged. It was a suitable marriage in every way, had but the young people loved each other.

The poor Countess had been handicapped in the battle of life, because her husband’s family and her own, as well as she herself, had persisted in the expensive indulgence of exercising the rites of the Catholic religion. She well knew the enormous advantage it would be to the family to be known to be “connected with my Lord Burghley,” the “searchings” and “fines” it would help her to evade, the public offices it would secure to her son.

She urged him to complete the arrangements, his grandfather urged him, too. Perhaps, because of the very urging, the burden of matrimonial responsibilities became more and more distasteful. Dreams of military glory under his admired Earl of Essex disturbed his studies in old Gray’s Inn. Burghley began to make inquiries. He could not understand how any young man in his senses could refuse such a splendid offer, or even hesitate in accepting it. He suspected interlopers. He fancied that Sir Thomas Stanhope might be trying to win him for his daughter; but that gentleman wrote a long and very full explanatory letter to Burghley on 10th July 1590, clearing himself of any such treacherous presumption.

The Countess had, it is true, gone with her son to see Mr. Harvey, who lived next door, and he had asked them to sup with him, that was all. Lady Southampton had told him “She knew what a stay you would be to him and to her ... in good fayth she would do her best in the cause.... She did not find a disposition in her son to be tied as yet; what will be hereafter time shall try, and no want shall be found on her behalf.” Burghley seems next to have consulted Viscount Montague, who replied on 19th September 1590 from Cowdray that he had “tried as orderly as he could, first to acquaint his mother, and then himself with your lordship’s letter, his lordship being with me at Cowdray....” His daughter had told him that she did not know of her son’s fancy having changed to any other maiden, and the youth had replied that “Your lordship was this last winter well pleased to yield unto him a further _respite_ of one year to ensure resolution in respect of his young years.” I told him that the year was almost up, and said “that it was natural your lordship should wish to have the matter about his granddaughter settled.” The most he could get out of his grandson was a promise that he would himself carry his answer to Lord Burghley, and Montague arranged that he and his daughter should take him to London at the beginning of the term.

On the 6th of October Southampton completed his seventeenth year. He took, if he did not receive, another “year’s respite,” and on 2nd March following, 1590-1, he wrote from Dieppe to the Earl of Essex offering him the service of his sword. The Earl of Essex had lately married the widow of Sir Philip Sydney, much to the Queen’s wrath, and he was in some trouble himself. He did not risk accepting the offer of the Royal ward.

Southampton was recalled to London, and _then_, in the April of 1591, he probably first met, at least as a friend, that inland-bred actor, who so strangely fascinated him, and soothed him somewhat in his regret at being forbidden to follow Lord Essex. Someone suggested to the Countess, or to the new poet himself on her behalf, that he, a married man, should try to make the young lord “Suivez raison” (the family motto of the Brownes). The most likely person to do so was the stalwart and prudent Mr. William Harvey, who had won golden opinions from all sorts of people at the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and who was a devoted friend of the family. If we allow ourselves to realize the likelihood of this, we find one key to the mystery of the dedication to the sonnets lying ready to hand in a place where no one before has looked for it. (See my article, “Who is Mr. W. H.?” “Athenæum,” 4th August 1900.)

It was held a part of the higher culture, then, to be able to write verses and to sing them to the lute, and, as such, doubtless Southampton had essayed to do after the model of Thomas Watson at least, and we have noted what had been published by that date.

Manuscript copies of the verses of the Earl of Essex, poured forth when he wanted “to evaporate his feelings in a sonnet,” would probably also be found in that Holborn home, when, in that “mutual improvement society for two,” the principles of literature were discussed. The young Earl, with his beautiful expressive eyes lit up by intellectual fire, with his fair face, rich attire, gracious manners, ingenuous outlook into life and philosophy, and enthusiastic inclination to help, made a real conquest of the hungering home-sick heart of the poor player, and such a love was kindled as had not been sung since the days of Jonathan and David. It was because Shakespeare could feel as well as write that he found the sonnet silver and left it golden. Mr. Wyndham, in his splendid introduction to the “Poems of Shakespeare,” leaves nothing unsaid concerning their aesthetic charm. Excepting the first few I do not think the order of the sonnets at all correct. Some critics accept the 107th as necessarily the last, and we know that those to the lady should have been sandwiched in between those to the youth if the date of production had been the principle of arrangement. Within the two series also the order has evidently been disturbed somehow.

We know that they are not all on the same level of merit; neither do I think them all constructed with the same “intention.” The last two evidently should come first, two forms of expressing the same idea from foreign sources which had probably been read to the poet by the patron.

Those to the youth were evidently intended to be sent, and were sent: the earliest ones probably through his mother. Those to the lady were written, as Goëthe puts it, “to work off a feeling,” or to shape the expression of “a passion.” The poet might have _sung_ them to the lady, but he would not risk the chances of _sending them in black and white_. When the feeling had “evaporated” they would be sent in block to the friend, and thus be kept together, though possibly multiplied in copies among friends, one of whom must have proved unfaithful, or Jaggard would not have secured two by 1599.

It was doubtless with some sense of self-reproach that Shakespeare, yielding to the family arguments, turned the engines of his new power upon his patron, urging him to marry. Training and straining are both too visible in the admonitory sonnets, which smell of Sidney’s “Arcadia.” The first seven sonnets, to which I would add the eleventh and twelfth, make a sequence by themselves. The second sequence shows deepening affection, freer hand, more original conceptions. He bids the youth wed to complete a harmony, to make war with Time, and to do so “_for love of me_,” S. 10. Started as a literary experiment they developed more and more into the expression of personal feeling, and the advice to matrimony became subordinate, In the 13th Sonnet the poet first addressed the youth as “love”; in the 20th and 21st he took him as the inspiration and his muse.

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion.--S. 20.

So is it not with me as with that muse
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse.--S. 21.

It was something for a poet living lonely in London to have such a wholesome and safe source of inspiration. The young noble was vain, and there was a subtle charm in being thus sung to by one whose genius he thought he had evoked. He listened more patiently to his poet than he had done to his mother and friends, but of course the sonnets had no effect in mending his misogynic mood. Their writer never expected they would do so, probably did not even wish it. The first double set of twenty-five was marked out by a separation which is recorded in history.

The Queen was to be at Cowdray, Viscount Montague’s country house, from the 15th until the 22nd of August 1591, and the youth would be summoned to his grandfather’s assistance. The Queen and Court afterwards went on to his own house at Tichfield. Special opportunities would be certain to be made for him on this occasion. Essex was not at Court, and Sir Fulke Greville and others were trying to replace him by this friendly rival. Every young nobleman of the day was trained to act in courtly devices, and much depended on compliment with Elizabeth. Shakespeare would very likely have given his “sweet boy” return lessons in dramatic art, which he is nearly sure to have tried to display on this important occasion.

During this first period of separation, as Shakespeare wrote, there had been dawning on him the conception of a poem, by which he might at once take his position in the world of letters, honour his friend’s teaching, and in a somewhat allegorical fashion, after the Spenserian “second intention,” show how the entreaties of Venus fall unheeded upon ears intent on other music, and upon hearts filled with other interests. I do not wish now to go into any criticism of “Venus and Adonis,” but comparison makes it clear that the Sonnets were written about the same time, and addressed to the same person.

Describe Adonis,[37] and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you!--S. 51.

The work on the poem checked the supply of Sonnets. Through the next year it developed, a joy apart from the strains of the miserable time. It was a year quite black enough to colour all poor grumbling Greene’s bitter spite against the “Johannes Factotum,” who could both act and redact plays; a year gloomy enough to tone the picture of the reverse poem which came insistently into Shakespeare’s brain to complete his “Venus” conception. For he began to take two sides to paint his pictures even then, as he always afterwards did.

Another separation had taken place. In the autumn of 1592 Southampton was in the Queen’s train at Oxford, acknowledged by all to be the brightest ornament of her Court. Probably by the end of 1592 Shakespeare sent him the completed manuscript of his poem, with the private dedication of the 26th Sonnet, before he began to arrange about the publication of his “written ambassage,” bidding him keep it

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And _puts apparel on my tattered loving_
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:--S. 26.

that is by having it printed and bound.[38] By 18th April 1593 the Archbishop of Canterbury had licensed it, and Richard Field had entered it as his copy in the Stationers’ Registers. A more timid prose dedication faced the critical world. The poet would not shame his friend, nor commit him to anything, until he knew how the public would receive him. Then came a surprise doubtless to both of them, and certainly to others. Adonis leaped at once into popularity! I noted that before he had completed _his first Essay of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesy_, Shakespeare had sketched the outline of the “graver labour,” alluded to in the Preface to his “Venus and Adonis.” Some of the later Sonnets seem to be studies for _Tarquin_, as some of the earlier had been studies for _Adonis_. It is worth considering Sonnet 129 in this light.

The Sonnets had been affected by the appearance of “Astrophel and Stella” in 1591, and the author was probably incited by the appearance of Daniel’s “Delia” and Constable’s “Diana” in 1592 to new variations.

After Southampton’s return to London he seems to have become interested in other poets, and to have spent some of the hours hitherto devoted to Shakespeare with other literary acquaintances. Thence sprang the allusions to the “alien pens” (S. 87), the “better spirit” (S. 80), the “proud full sail of his great verse.” Doubtless the chief rival was Chapman, who even then was doing worthy work. But he has left no notice of the Earl of Southampton until much later years. Evidently the young Earl, moved by his poet’s suffering, had granted that he “_was_ married to his muse,” and had refused to become the special patron of other _poets_. Indeed, he had shown a fit of answering jealousy, alluded to in Sonnet 109. But all frictions were smoothed away, and the happy friend and triumphant poet was able to redeem his promise and to publish his “graver labour” in May 1594, expressing his love to his patron in nearly the same terms as he had used in Sonnet 26. His “Lucrece” assured his position in the literary world and cleared his character in the eyes of sober men.

I have said that I do not think the order of the sonnets correct, that the love-sonnets should have been interleaved with the others, that they had not been sent, and that they did not mean so much as they seemed to import. Nevertheless, it seems evident that in the plague year, with all its depressing influences, in the absence of his friend, Shakespeare himself had been tempted by a dark-eyed witch, a married woman, experienced in coquettish wiles. We do not _know_ who the lady was. I do not think she was a _lady_ at all in the Court sense of the word. Many coincidences support my opinion that she was a rich citizen’s wife (some of these had been educated by wealthy fathers to the level of the culture of the time in art and music); a citizen’s wife who had been married just long enough to feel a sense of ennui creep into her leisurely life, and a desire for new conquests to awake in her vain heart. Such a one he might have met in the very house he must most have frequented. I do not _know_ anything about the moral principles of Mrs. Jacquinetta Field, and do not wish to bring my views as a personal _charge_ against her. But she fulfilled all the necessary external conditions, and she was a Frenchwoman, therefore likely to have dark eyes, a sallow complexion, and that indefinable _charm_ so much alluded to. Such a woman might very well have ignored young Shakespeare when he first came, poor and unknown, about her husband’s house, But when she found him popular and making his way among the aristocracy she might suddenly have become interested in him, and tried to attract him. Other men’s sonnets had taught her how to act. She tuned her sweetest music to his tastes, and played remorselessly upon her poet’s heart. After the publication of “Venus and Adonis” by Richard Field, she might achieve her desire of meeting Shakespeare’s Earl. She entangled him for a short time in a game of bagatelle, in order to torture her victim, though it really seems to have cured him. And _then_, it was all over, there was no treachery, no cruelty, it was all a mistake, _a comedy of errors_. The echo of the explanations ring through Shakespeare’s plays, as well as through his sonnets. A strange outside reflection of this little domestic drama seems clearly intended in “Willobie’s Avisa,” registered on 3rd September 1594, in which Shakespeare’s “Lucrece” is definitely mentioned, and H. W. and W. S. alluded to, under conditions that strongly suggest the story of the Sonnets. It shows the picture of a wonderfully admired woman of incorruptible chastity, beset by many wooers, these two among them. “W. S. determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, H. W., then it did for the old player.” Many strange parallels between the book and the sonnets might be noted, and I have a shrewd suspicion that the dark lady herself was a moving spirit in its publication. Personalities were evidently intended and resented, and the book was “called in.” But the pain of the publication rankled in Shakespeare’s heart:

’Tis better to be vile, than vile esteemed.--S. 121.

In the same month as Shakespeare brought out his “Lucrece,” the Countess of Southampton married Sir Thomas Heneage, a trusted friend of the Queen’s, and Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household. Henceforth Court patronage was opened to Shakespeare, and during the following Christmas holidays, for the first time, his name was entered in the accounts of the Privy Chamber, as having played before the Queen at Greenwich. Curiously enough, on the evening of the same day, his company is recorded to have appeared suddenly amid the confusion of the Gray’s Inn Revels, and to have performed “The Comedy of Errors” on the stage designed for graver concerts. This led to great trouble in Gray’s Inn, and mysterious investigations, in which an enchanter was blamed. Nobody asked _who paid the players_? I have always fancied Southampton did, and that _he_ introduced them, for how, without the permission of some fellow of Gray’s Inn, could they have had access to the stage.[39] Bacon was employed to write a device to “restore the honour of Gray’s Inn,” lost on The Night of Errors.

In two ways, both painful to the poet, during the following year, while Sir Thomas Heneage’s illness absorbed the attention of the Countess of Southampton, his young friend’s name had become bandied about among the gossiping cliques of Paul’s Walk. His friends, Sir Charles and Henry Danvers, instigated by personal revenge, for some cause unknown, had, in January 1594-5, taken their servants and gone out deliberately to murder two men, the Longs, which they had succeeded in doing. They stalled their horses in Southampton’s stables at Tichfield that night, and when they went to London next day he rode with them and helped them to escape to France. It is very difficult to understand the meaning of this episode in his life, for the Danvers remained his friends. The other was more natural. Southampton, “having passed by the ambush of young days,” at last fell incurably in love with the fair Mistress Elizabeth Vernon (the daughter of Sir John Vernon), cousin of the Earl of Essex, and Maid of Honour to the Queen. He needed no sonnets now to urge him to marry, but the Queen forbade the banns. He hovered round the Court, the “Sydney Papers” state that he was, in the absence of Essex, “a careful waiter here, and _sede vacanto_ doth receive favours at her Majesty’s hands, all this without breach of amity between them.” But it was the _other Elizabeth_ who drew him thither. Hasty and impulsive as he was, “My Lord Southampton doth with too much familiarity court the fair Mistress Vernon, while his friends, observing the Queen’s humour towards my Lord of Essex, do what they can to bring her to favour him, but it is yet in vain,” wrote Rowland Whyte, 22nd September 1595.

This gossip sunk into Shakespeare’s heart. He knew that he might be blamed by some, as the Earl’s adviser, and he called him to task in Sonnets 95 and 96. After the commencement of this absorbing passion the sonnets gradually ceased. Probably Shakespeare realized that his reign was over. None seem to suggest Southampton’s voyages, knighthood, marriage, or subsequent imprisonment. For the allusions in Sonnet 107 must not be confused with this.

Having interwoven many of the phrases, ideas, and even situations of the sonnets into his plays, having _thrown in_ even some of the verses entire, Shakespeare’s fame became fixed in 1598 by the liberal praise of Francis Meres, Professor of Rhetoric at Oxford, who noted not only the plays and the poems, but “the sugred sonnets among his private friends.”

By some means, pirate Jaggard got possession of two of these private sonnets, culled those already printed in the plays, stole many verses from other writers, among them the “Paris to Helen” and “Helen to Paris” of Thomas Heywood, and published them in 1599 as “‘The Passionate Pilgrim,’ by William Shakespeare,” eager to exploit the value of his name.

To reclaim his own, Heywood published them, as he had intended, in his “Troia Britannica,” registered before 1609. Apparently Jaggard published a second edition, probably in 1609. In the postscript of his “Apology for Actors,” 1612, Heywood complained of Jaggard’s “manifest injury,” and stated that the reputed author was much offended with the publisher for “having altogether unknown to him, presumed to make so bold with his name.”

This is interesting to us, because it is the only recorded notice of Shakespeare’s opinion of his publishers. Indeed it is just possible that Shakespeare permitted, if he did not suggest, the publication of his Sonnets, in order, by showing all that he laid claim to, at once to punish Jaggard, and protect Heywood and other injured poets. In spite of Heywood’s and Shakespeare’s protest, Jaggard brought out a third edition of the “Passionate Pilgrim” in 1612, stating that they were “newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespeare. Whereunto is newly added two Epistles, the first from Paris to Helen, and Helen’s answer back again to Paris.” But pressure was evidently brought to bear upon Jaggard, for though this stands in the title-page, the epistles _do not appear in the text_.

To whatever cause we owe it, the Sonnets were published in 1609, long after the vogue of sonneteering had passed, by T. T., _i.e._ Thomas Thorpe, with an address to Mr. W. H. The chief battlefield in the history of the sonnets has been over the meaning of those initials. I believe, as I have said above, that they mean Mr. William Harvey.

Sir Thomas Heneage had died in 1595, leaving the Countess of Southampton the second time a widow, in trouble over his bills, and not over well treated by her friends. Shortly after her son’s stolen marriage to Elizabeth Vernon in 1598 she had promised to marry her faithful friend, now her knight, Sir William Harvey. Her action roused the indignation of her son at first, and caused discomfort among her friends. Harvey’s family and position were not equal to hers, and matrimony in a mother is sometimes inconvenient to a son. The Earl of Essex himself took the trouble to counsel her gravely. But like her son she held her own way through thick and thin, and married Sir William Harvey that same year. She died in 1607, and it was reported by Chamberlain that “she had left the best part of her stuff to her son, and the most part to her husband.” It is very likely that a manuscript copy of “Shakespeare’s Sonnets” would be left among “the most part,” and it is quite possible that after consultation with Southampton and Shakespeare, Harvey, always a patron of letters, prepared them himself to be published.

Thomas Thorpe was too glad of the chance of becoming a merchant adventurer on the sea of publication. If, as I have shown to have been possible, Sir William had, in the first instance, suggested the writing of the early sonnets, the meaning of Thorpe’s address is clear. It was quite usual to address a gentleman as “Mr.” after his knighthood. Lady Southampton always spoke of her second husband as Mr. Heneage. Further, since the death of his first wife, in 1607, Sir William had consoled himself with a bright young bride, Mistress Cordelia Ansley, of Lee. It would therefore be perfectly consonant with Thorpe’s gratitude and his character to wish “Mr. W. H. all happinesse, and that eternitie promised by the everlasting poet.”

The “eternity” intended might have been that of a long line of descendants to keep up his noble name[40] (for it was a Thorpe who wrote the address).

It may be urged that I cannot _prove_ this. I acknowledge it. But surely an explanation so simple and one that fits so naturally into the whole known series of facts, may be justly considered and duly treated as a good working hypothesis, until something better may be discovered.[41] And the surest way to learn more of Shakespeare is to learn more about his friends.

_“Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,”
vol. xxviii (read 24th June 1908)._

PS.--I had embodied most of these facts in the preface to my edition of “Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” 1904 (De La More Press) and in my articles in the “Athenæum.”

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Greene’s “Groatsworth of Wit,” 1592.

[32] See my articles in the “Athenæum,” “The Metrical Psalms of the Court of Venus,” 24th June 1899, and “The Authorship of the New Court of Venus,” 1st July 1899.

[33] Sonnet xx, 2.

[34] See my article, “Athenæum,” March 1898, “The Date of the Sonnets.”

[35] The Wriothesley motto was “Ung par tout, tout par ung.”

[36] See my “Date of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” “Athenæum,” 19th and 26th March 1898.

[37] It is curious that the allegorical “second intention” in the poem should have been applied by Thomas Edwards, so early as 1595, to the poet himself.

[38] The plague began on 20th October 1592 and ran on through 1593.

[39] See my article, “The First Official Record of Shakespeare’s Name,” “Shakespeare Jahr-Buch,” 1895, Berlin.

[40] He was afterwards ennobled as Lord Harvey of Kidbrooke, and Baron de Rosse in Ireland.

[41] It has been accepted by Dr. Brandl and published in his Introduction to his translation into German of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 1913.

XVI

WILLIAM HUNNIS, GENTLEMAN OF THE CHAPEL ROYAL

It has hitherto been a matter of surprise to the students of Elizabethan literature, that a writer who seemed to them so commonplace should have held such a high position in the opinion of his contemporaries as William Hunnis evidently did. This apparent anomaly set me seeking for something in the man that did not appear in his works, or appeared there only suggestively. Every dictionary that included his name added, “of his life very little is known.” When I grasped the meaning of his association with the Kenilworth festivities, I realized that his life was worth working out in relation to that of Shakespeare. One thing I have been fortunate enough unexpectedly to find: the William Hunnis of Elizabeth was only a survival of the William Hunnis of Mary. Throughout the earlier reign he was the centre of a group of dissatisfied subjects, whose souls were stirred within them by the miseries of their country, and who kept plotting in a haphazard and disconnected manner until their final discovery in 1556, when severity silenced them. The Protestant doctrines and the Protestant spirit of individual independence could, no doubt, find some means of reconciling treason to a Catholic sovereign and faithfulness to a distressed fatherland, crushed under a detested Spanish oppression. His was a period of unrecognized incongruities. An imitator of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet (d. 1542) in his first literary effort, a metrical translation of the Psalms published in 1550, it is evident that he shared in the feelings of Thomas Wyatt the son about the Spanish marriage, even if he did not join in his “plot” in 1553-4.

He was a friend of John Rogers, once Prebendary of St. Paul’s, the co-worker with Tyndale in editing “Matthews’ Bible,” and he had seen his friend burned at Smithfield on 4th February 1554-5. A few days after he had been implicated in a plot “to kill the King and after him the Queen,” while they were witnessing the “Juego de Cañas,” the Moorish game of throwing cane lances on horseback, brought over here by the Spaniards, at the wedding festivities of Lord Strange and the Lady Margaret Clifford.[42] Whether the “gentlemen of the Chapel Royal” were to be among the mounted performers, and thereby veil their purpose, or whether they expected to take advantage of the excitement and confusion prevailing, I know not. Nothing happened. Caution overcame their courage.

It is probable this was the real foundation of the rumour of what Rapin calls “the forged conspiracy pretended to be discovered before Philip left” in September 1555. (Bk. xvi, p. 242, ed. 1733.)

The burning of four Bishops, thirteen clergymen, and sixty-seven persons this year for religion; the increasing unpopularity of Philip, his neglect of the Queen and infringement of his marriage articles; the patriotic dread of seeing England overrun with Spaniards and its troops and money drawn into the Spanish wars; all these causes had combined to deepen the general discontent. Patriotic unity was even stronger than religious bonds; and a wider conspiracy, including many Catholics, was formed at the end of the year, aided by the shifty policy of the French King, also bitterly anti-Spanish. In January 1555-6 there was a close meeting of the chief conspirators, to plan how best to remove from the treasury the money destined for Philip, and to use it in a national war against the Spaniards, the Queen among them. One of their number, John Dethicke of Westminster, proposed they should invite to join them “William Hunnis, a very handsome man.” Thomas Whyte, “he who afterwards betrayed them,” made a difficulty about admitting a stranger to their secrets, “for fear of disclosing” (doubtless the others already knew his name), and then John Dethicke answered Whyte, “We shoulde not nede to dowt this man, because before at the Jugo de Cano or Barryers, he, Allday, Cornwalle and others to the number of twelve, were appointed to have slayen the Queen’s Majestie, and after that the King’s Majestie.” Being asked how this took not effect, he said: “There was such a cowardness and fear in their stomachs when they sholde have done it, that they made scrupulnes who sholde begynne--knowing that whoever should have been ruler afterwards would have been bound to have made an example of them.” This at least proved William’s inclination to action (tempered though it was with prudence), and prepared the conspirators to welcome him. But the matter was clinched by Dethicke’s telling them that Hunnis had _already_ “been aboute to counterfeit the Keys of Brigham, and stele away the treasure.” When asked how he could have come to the handling of them, Dethicke said Hunnis was very familiar with Nicholas Brigham, the Keeper of the Treasure House at Westminster, and with his wife. His special knowledge, skill, and opportunities made him a valuable acquisition.

Shortly after, in the beginning of February, as Hunnis himself narrates in his examination, John Dethicke, “understanding that I had some skyll and practice in the syens of alchemy, and more, knowing me to be, by means of certain suites in Ireland, in many men’s dangers, debated with me in this wise, ‘Mr. Hunnis, I have but small acquaintance of you, and that which is, came of my friend, Mr. Rogers, for whoes sake and yor own, I should be glad ye should do well ... for I take you to be a constant young man.’” Thereupon Mr. Dethicke tempted him to exercise his skill in “coining” in Dieppe Castle, as the French King had promised £100,000 to aid the conspirators. Through an amusing series of conversations, in which the acuteness as well as the caution of Hunnis is evident, the various plans of the conspirators were explained, further than the “oath” of Dethicke should have allowed to a member yet unsworn. “Thereunto,” quod he, “Beshrew that head. Thou hast a cursed brain, and forasmuch thou hast so truely gessed, I put thee out of dowte that same is our intention, for the French Kinge hath promised our gents on the other syde to ayd them with shippes and vitalls and ordenance, and all that we shall require shallbe to ayd them withall.” “This,” quod I, “doth lyke me very well.” Nevertheless Mr. William Hunnis very sensibly saw the possible dangers, and desired to know what friends they were likely to have. Dethicke told him of some thirty knights, and a great many noblemen, of Mr. Bethell and Mr. Thomas Whyte, and notably of Sir Peter Carew, the fellow of Wyatt in his ill-fated rising. “He is as sure on our syde, as I have you by the arm.” Suddenly Dethicke recollected himself, and warned Hunnis that if he disclosed the names and plans he had now heard, he would soon be despatched by a dagger from an unknown hand. “Why Sir,” quod I, “what nedeth ye thus to dowt of me?” “No, fayth,” quod he, “I dowt thee not, but as friend, I willed wysh thee fyrst to be slaine so that they might have their enterprise.”

Through further examinations we find that shortly after, Bethell, preparing a ship by the aid of John Benbow, of the Chapel Royal, and others, invited Hunnis to “go a-fishing with him.” Here, too, his humour and acuteness seem to have forced Bethell to lay bare the plans of his department of the conspiracy. “I would be loth to spend my time in fishing, I would rather go a piracying,” which remark Bethell seemed to disapprove of. Nevertheless Hunnis concluded, “I would very faine go with you, only I shall not be ready so soon.” Another time he asked Bethell “Do ye here of any news abrod that certen men should arrive in this land from beyond the seas?” Says he, “In faith I car not what I hear, but for myself I will be sure to serve my country truely.” “And howe?” “To kepe that no stranger shall land!” “Captain, that is well said!” answered Hunnis. This was at the very beginning of March, when they met at Fleet Bridge, and the Captain, having been to buy an ensign, told Hunnis that his boat was due by this tide at St. Katharine’s, and that he had harnesses and coats of mail aboard for over 109 men.

Hunnis was also consulted about the transcript of King Henry’s will made by Henry Peckham for Sir Anthony Kingston, who believed that this will, properly read, and also the laws of the realm, would support the plan of the Western conspirators “to send the Quenes Highness over the seas to the King, to make the Lady Elizabeth Queen, and to marry her to the Earl of Devonshire.” Kingston encouraged them all, saying, “I tell you true that the Lady Elizabeth is a goodly liberall dame, and nothing so unthankfull as her sister is, and she taketh this liberality of her mother, who was one of the bountifullest women, but you have served the unthankfullest mistress on the erth, and all she has done, has been agaynst her father, and her brother, or else to our sweet Lady Elizabeth.”

Allday attempted also to win Roger Carter, one of the King’s servants at Westminster, saying that Dethicke had sent him to open matters to him and to tell him that “Hunnis also was privie to the plot”; but Carter after a sleepless night had told Allday that he would have nothing to do with it, and willed both Dethicke and Hunnis “to leave all such practises, or he would turn Displayer.”

Nevertheless they worked on, without telling him any more.

Constant communications went on with Henry Dudley, the Ashtons, and other gentlemen abroad; with the “Pirates” and the leaders of the movement in the West, and with the French King, for a convoy. The conspirators had progressed so far that they had entered the Treasure House on the 6th of March, and finding the box too heavy had planned to force it open, and take the treasure in portable packages through Rossey’s garden to the boat that would await them on the river by the steps on the 17th of March. On the 16th they took the final solemn oath to hold by each other, and John Throgmorton, the real leader of the London party “said he wished his dagger was in the Queen’s heart, and in that of her Council.” On the 17th twenty of the chief of them were arrested, and conveyed to the Tower. I know that Mr. Froude gives it as the 18th, following Machyn and others. But the “Tower accounts” of the year contain the expenses for boarding Throgmorton, Daniell, Peckham and others, and are dated from the 17th.[43] I suppose therefore the arrest took place on the evening of the 17th, and became known to the people on the morning of the 18th. The name of Hunnis does not appear in this bill, but that only proves that he did not pay for extra diet. His name is given in Machyn’s list under the spelling Heneges, which Froude misrendered into Thomas Heneage. His name appears twice on the first list of conspirators. He was captured about the same time, and lodged near the others in the Tower; his conversations upon “prudence” and “purgatory,” spoken through the walls of cubicles and subdivided cells, are recorded among the confessions of Peckham. It must have been a trying time. The heat of action and the hope of success had died out of him, the certainty of danger, the dread of torture and of destruction surrounded him. Four days after his incarceration he would hear (for jailers then spoke to their prisoners) of the burning of Cranmer, while one after the other of his fellow prisoners was tortured. On the 21st of April his friend and leader, the one brave man among all the batch of prisoners, John Throgmorton, was tried at Southwark, along with Uvedale, Governor of the Isle of Wight, and they were executed together at Tyburn on the 28th. On the 5th of May, Hunnis himself was arraigned at Guildhall in company with Henry Peckham, John Daniell, William Stanton and Edward Turnour; on the 7th Peckham and Daniell were condemned, and the others afterward.