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Shakespeare's Richard II and the Essex Conspiracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

EM Albright
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Extract

The critics have emphasized the “romantic” aspects of Shakespeare's work to such an extent as almost to ignore any possible connection of his plays with the people of his day and the problems that occupied their minds. His characters are treated as sheer creations who live in a sort of vacuum. But there are numerous indications that Shakespeare was not utterly detached from the life that was going on about him.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 1927 , pp. 686 - 720
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 This parallel was first traced by Richard Simpson, in “The Politics of Shakespeare's Historical Plays,” Trans. of the New Shakespeare Soc'y, ser. 1, pt. 2 (1874), pp. 396-441. Cf. his “The Political Use of the Stage in Shakspere's Time,” Ibid., pp. 371-395. The report of the meeting of the Society shows that the idea of political discussion by Shakespeare was received with extreme disfavor.

2 Elizabeth's unfair persecution of the unfortunate Davison enlisted the enthusiastic interest of Essex, whose best trait of character was his desire to help those he thought worthy when they were out of favor. Essex wrote to King James on April 18, 1587, begging him to intercede for the abused and beloved secretary. Cf. W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, II, 184.

3 See letters to Essex concerning Perez in Salisbury Papers, V, passim, and Lives and Letters of the Devereux, passim; and letters concrning Perez in Letters of Philip Gawdy (Roxburghe Club), p. 91, for September, 1594.

4 “Political Propaganda and Satire in A Midsummer Night's Dream,” Mod. Philol., XXI (1923), 53-89, 133-155.

5 On the apparent corruption of the text of this scene, see A. W. Pollard, Introduction to his facsimile of Quarto 3, 1598.

6 Camden, in his Annals, (ed. Hearne, 1717, p. 867) refers to it in this way: Exoletam tragœdiam de tragica abdicatione Regis Ricardi secundi in publico theatro coram conjurationis participibus data pecunia agi curasset.

7 Howell, op. cit., I, 1410 ff.

8 S.P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXVIII, art. 78.

9 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXVIII, art. 85.

10 Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, II, 75.

11 Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, III, 540.

12 John Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, III, 552 (from the original paper written by Lambarde). Cf. a note of a manuscript of the Earl de la Warr, Hist. MSS Comm., Reports, IV, 300.

13 See S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1592-3, vol. CCXL, art. 99 and art. 143. Cf. pamphlets on “The Cæcilian Republic.”

14 Roxburghe Club ed., p. 40. As Harington's father was married to a daughter of Henry VIII, and later to one of Elizabeth's favorite maids of honor, he was probably in a position to know Elizabeth's state of mind.

15 Hayward shows similarly strong feeling in treating this act of Richard in his history.

16 W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, passim.

17 W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, I, 313. On “Doleman's” probable intentions toward Essex, cf. Sir John Harington, Tract on the Succession (1602), pp. 74. ff.

18 Salisbury MSS., V, 487.

19 Ibid., V. 533.

20 Court and Times of James I, (Ed. by R. F. Williams), I, 61.

21 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1595-7. vol. CCLXIV, art. 10.

22 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXVIII, art. 54.

23 W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, II, 9-10.

24 Page 10; cf. page 14.

25 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXV, art. 31, 1.

26 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXV, art. 28.

27 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXV, art. 5. (Italics mine).

28 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXIV, art. 58.

29 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXIV, art. 58.

30 Ibid., vol. CCLXXIV, art. 61.

31 Ibid., vol. CCLXXV, art. 25, 1.

32 Ibid., vol. CCLXXV, article 25, and vol. CCLXXVIII, art. 17.

33 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1598-1601, vol. CCLXXVIII, art. 63.

34 Tract on Succession, p. 76, and p. 91.

35 This is a reminder of Holinshed's remark on the exaction by Edward TV, in 1473, from wealthy persons. He called the grant a “benevolence; notwithstanding that many with grudge gave great sums toward that new found aid, which of them might be called ‘A malevolence.’”

36 It is the structure rather than the diction that I think may be affected by Hayward here. As to diction, the one line shows a verbal resemblance to the old play of Richard II (I, iii, 110): “They would not taxe and pyll the commons so.” I have found rather similar wording in several works.

37 Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, II, 25-6. Essex presumably knew White's attitude; for he maintained White's son as his companion through college.

38 There are reminders of this oration also in the Archbishop's invocation to arms in Shakespeare's Henry V, I, ii, 103.

39 In III, ii, he refers to Richard II as that “skipping king” who made himself common. And, according to Holinshed, he “wan himselfe more hatred” for taxes, subsidies, punishments, etc., “than in all his life time . . . . had beene possible for him to haue weeded out and remoued.”

40 Recently, in Shakespeare's Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More, More's use of this argument in reducing a mob to obedience has been used as evidence of Shakespeare's authorship of the fragment “D” in which it occurs. But there is certainly no good evidence that Shakespeare in his own person believed in the King as a figure of God and therefore above the criticism of the subject.

42 Commentators have pointed out Daniel's agreement with Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry IV, pt. 1, in making Queen Isabel mature in the former, and Hotspur a youth in the latter. They disagree as to which author is the earlier in his treatment,—especially as to Richard II. The difficulty arises chiefly through the doubts as to the 1595 issues of the Civil Wars (in relation to an apparent addition of Book V in some and to a reissue of remainders in 1599), and partly through a failure to compare all issues on the points where Daniel and Shakespeare agree independently of chroniclers. Cf. Grosart ed. of Daniel; F. W. Moorman, int. to Arden ed. of Henry IV, pt. I, p. xi ff.; Shakespeare's Works, ed. Grant White, VI, 139-142; and Richard II, ed. James Moffat (Macmillan), p. xi ff. My present opinion is that Daniel revised with reference to Hayward and Shakespeare, but I cannot prove this.

42 See letters of this time in W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, II, 133; Spedding, Life of Bacon, II, 338; and S. P. Dom. 1598-1601.