Shakespeare, page 56
This is in keeping with a play which is freighted with historical allusions, to a period only just out of reach, and which is bounded by the notion of historical majesty. Sir Henry Wotton, in his report on the fire, had noted that the play “was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty.” Wotton disliked this aspect of the drama, since then the theatre seemed to become a second court. In the play there are spectacles and masques, processions and trumpeters, with elaborate stage-directions in one scene for the appearance of “short siluer wands … the great Seale … a Siluer Crosse … a Siluer Mace … two great Siluer Pillers.” There were scenes in which at least twenty-three players had to be accommodated upon the stage. The whole thing must have been performed very rapidly indeed to be encompassed within the “two short hours” promised by the Prologue.
How much of this is Shakespeare’s devising, and how much Fletcher’s, is open to guess. Before we ascribe the excessive theatricality to the younger man, however, it should be remembered that in his earliest plays Shakespeare had a pronounced and definite taste for spectacle. This is a period when English history plays were once more becoming fashionable, and Shakespeare always had an eye for fashion. All Is True also gave him the opportunity of exploring the nature and character of Wolsey, and it should come as no surprise that Shakespeare should illuminate him from within and thus avoid overt partisanship or prejudice; he wonders at his magnificence, but pities him in his fall. At a time when King James was seeking peace with Spain it was natural that the Spanish queen in the play, the aggrieved Katherine, is conceived in the form of suffering virtue.
It is generally agreed that Shakespeare wrote the first two scenes of the first act, involving court intrigue as well as the appearance of the king and the cardinal. He then went on to write the first two scenes of the next two acts, sketching out the main lines for his collaborator or collaborators to follow. He also wrote the great set scene of the Consistory Court, as well as the more intimate and lubricious dialogue between Anne Boleyn and an “old lady”; these are, in a sense, his specialities. The court scene is in fact largely transcribed from his main source, Holinshed’s Chronicles, and perhaps lacks the quick alchemy of his earlier borrowings; but the verse is forceful and supple enough to suggest no lessening of dramatic power. He wrote the scene in which Wolsey contemplates his fall, another great transition that Shakespeare had mastered in the early history plays; whenever any man fails, Shakespeare’s sympathy envelops him. He also wrote the first scene of the last act which sets up the denouement. He gave a structure, and a tone, to the whole production. He may also have gone over the finished playscript, adding phrases or images here and there. There may even have been a third collaborator, the elusive Beaumount, but at this point speculation becomes useless.
There seems to be no doubt, however, that The Two Noble Kinsmen was the next collaboration between William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. On the title page of the first edition, published in quarto form in 1634, it is described as being “presented at the Blackfriers by the Kings Maiestie servants, with great applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time: Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare. Gent.” It is worth noting that Fletcher’s name is mentioned first.
Shakespeare once more established the essential structure of the play, by writing the whole of the first act and parts of the final three acts; he may also have gone over the completed work, rephrasing and augmenting as he saw fit. It is a reworking of “The Knight’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales; characteristically Shakespeare takes a more ritualistic, and Fletcher a more naturalistic, attitude towards the original source. The fact that it was not included in the Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays may suggest that it was considered to be a company, rather than an individual, play. All Is True had escaped that fate by being the culmination of a long sequence of history plays already accredited to Shakespeare.
Two of Shakespeare’s most alert and astute interpreters, however, found the signs that he had inhabited Two Noble Kinsmen all but overwhelming. Charles Lamb noted of its Shakespearian passages that he “mingles everything, he runs line into line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors: before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched and clamorous for discourse.”4 Schlegel, writing on the same play, considered its “brevity and fullness of thought bordering on obscurity.”5 There are occasions when meaning seems to run away from him, losing itself among a plethora of rich phrases, and there are occasions when the language is pushed to extremity (I.i.129-31):
But touch the ground for us no longer time
Then a Doves motion, when the head’s pluckt off:
Tell him if he i’th blood cizd field, lay swolne
Showing the Sun his Teeth; grinning at the Moone
What you would doe.
There are lines that seem purely Shakespearian, as when one queen speaks of her humble suit as (I.i. 184-5):
Wrinching our holy begging in our eyes
To make petition cleere.
There are times when the syntax is very complicated indeed, seeming to express the concept of difficulty itself. And there are occasions when Shakespeare seems to rebuke his own contorted prolixity. He had forged so supple and subtle a medium that, effectively, he could do as he liked with it. So it is perhaps worth quoting the last lines of the play, delivered as customary by the most well-born of the remaining characters on the stage. They are the words of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and they have some claim to being the last that Shakespeare ever wrote for the stage (2780-6):
O you heavenly Charmers,
What things you make of us? For what we lacke
We laugh, for what we have, are sorry, still
Are children in some kind. Let us be thankefull
For that which is, and with you leave dispute
That are above our question: Let’s goe off,
And beare us like the time.
In retrospect this may seem a fitting epitaph for Shakespeare’s career, with its resolution and its stoicism, its subdued gaiety and its sense of transcendence.
CHAPTER 89
My Selfe Am Strook in Yeares I Must Confesse
In the spring of 1614 a preacher was staying overnight at New Place. He was supposed to preach at the Guild Chapel, next door to Shakespeare’s dwelling, and the corporation paid the Shakespeare family 20 pence for the expense of “one quart of sack and one quart of clarett wine”1 purchased to entertain the unnamed minister. It is not known if the master of the house was present on this occasion, but the likelihood must be that he spent more time in Stratford than in the gatehouse of Blackfriars. His seems to have been a kind of retirement, or semi-retirement, if only because of the evident fact that he neither wrote nor collaborated in more drama. But he still travelled to and from London.
His earliest biographer, Nicholas Rowe, states that the
latter part of his life was spent, as all Men of good Sense will wish theirs may be, in Ease, Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends. He had the good Fortune to gather an Estate equal to his Occasion and, in that, to his Wish; and is said to have spent some Years before his Death at his native Stratford.2
There is no reason to doubt the essential narrative here, although it does tend to discount the purchase of his gatehouse in Blackfriars. The reasons given for his retreat have been various. He came back because he was tired and in ill-health. He came back because he knew that he was dying. He came back in order to revise his plays for future publication. All, or none, may apply.
Nicholas Rowe reports further that “his pleasurable Wit and good Nature engag’d him in the Acquaintance, and entitled him to the Friendship, of the Gentlemen of the neighbourhood.”3 These “gentlemen” would of course include the town worthies, many of whom he had known all his life and some of whom he would remember in his will. There were the Combes, for example, who lived in the largest house in Stratford and who were among the wealthiest families in Warwickshire. There was the Nash family, large landowners, who lived next door to New Place. And there was Julius Shaw, a very prosperous dealer in wool and high bailiff of the town; he lived two doors down from New Place. There were of course many other neighbours—as well as his immediate family—living in close proximity. These were the people whom he saw every day, and with whom he exchanged greetings and small talk. Shakespeare was now much more identified with his family, and with his native background, than he had been at any time since his childhood. He had, in a sense, completed the circle. The themes of restoration and regeneration, so familiar in his late drama, could now be applied to life itself.
There were also the local dignitaries with whom he would have had an acquaintance if not necessarily a friendship. Among these were Sir Henry and Lady Rainsford, who lived at Clifford Chambers very close to Stratford. John Hall, Shakespeare’s son-in-law, was their doctor; but they were also closely associated with another Warwickshire poet of note, Michael Drayton. John Hall had also once treated him with a concoction described as “syrup of violets.” Drayton, like Shakespeare, had risen from obscure Warwickshire origins to distinction in English letters and, perhaps more importantly, to gentlemanly status. They had followed different paths, with Drayton achieving the most obvious literary and poetical eminence after first fashioning a career as a dramatist; he became the English “laureate” and was granted a monument in Westminster Abbey, whereas Shakespeare had to be content with one in the local church. Shakespeare alluded to Drayton’s work in his drama, and Drayton himself praised Shakespeare in a set of public verses. Drayton was also a close friend of Shakespeare’s “cousin,” Thomas Greene, who had lived for a while in New Place. The vicar of Stratford blamed Shakespeare’s death upon a “merry meeting” in Stratford between Drayton, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. We may safely conclude that they were well acquainted, and that they saw each other in their local neighbourhood.
There was Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the son and heir of Fulke Greville of Beauchamps Court who had played so large a part in Stratford affairs. As a poet and dramatist Greville knew Shakespeare very well indeed, and has left a cryptic report that he was in some sense Shakespeare’s “master.”
There was a larger Warwickshire “circle,” including men of the Middle Temple such as Greville and Greene, who felt themselves to be closely associated. The ties of territory and inheritance were very strong in early seventeenth-century England, and it was natural and inevitable that Shakespeare should return to Stratford at the close of his London career.
In the early summer of 1614, however, a “suddaine and terrible Fire” engulfed part of the town. The strength of the conflagration “was so great (the wind sitting full uppon the Towne) that it dispersed into so many places therof whereby the whole Towne was in very great daunger to have been utterly consumed.”4 Some fifty-four houses were destroyed, together with barns and outhouses and stables to the total value of £8,000. It was a calamity for the town, which had in Shakespeare’s lifetime been visited twice before by a devastating fire, and a charitable subscription was set up for the victims. Shakespeare’s own house, and his various properties, were not affected.
He was implicated, however, in a controversy of this year concerning the progress of enclosures upon the common land in the vicinity. He seems for the most part to have stayed away from local issues. Three years previously, the more affluent householders of Stratford raised money in order to assist the passage of a bill through Parliament “for the better Repayre of the highe waies”;5 there were seventy-one names on the list of those who had contributed, but that of Shakespeare was added later in the right-hand margin by Thomas Greene. It seems very likely that Shakespeare paid his own share at the last minute.
In the autumn of 1614, however, there was some trouble in the neighbouring hamlet of Welcombe where Shakespeare owned land. William Combe, a younger member of the family that Shakespeare knew so well, had inherited his uncle’s estate in that neighbourhood. So he aligned himself with Arthur Mainwaring, the steward to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, in a scheme to enclose lands in Old Stratford and Welcombe. This would improve farming efficiency, but the land would be given over to pasture for sheep rather than to crops. The price of grain would consequently rise, and the rights of common grazing would be restricted. It was an old argument in which the more enterprising landowners were generally pitted against those who upheld the rights of the community. On this occasion William Combe and Mainwaring were challenged by the town council of Stratford, their most vociferous opponent being Thomas Greene. So Shakespeare’s cousin was pitted against Shakespeare’s friends.
Shakespeare had in the interim entered a separate agreement with Mainwaring which promised him compensation “for all such losse detriment & hinderance”6 to his tithes as the result of the planned enclosures. Shakespeare was not ready to align himself with either party in the dispute, but was merely protecting his own financial interests. Thomas Greene had travelled to London to plead the town’s case at Westminster, and in the middle of November paid a visit to his cousin “to see him howe he did.”7 So Shakespeare had returned to London, and it is likely that he was staying in Blackfriars in order to superintend the court productions of his plays in that year. Greene asked him about the plans for the enclosures and
he [Shakespeare] told me that they assurd him they merit to inclose noe further then to gospel bushe & so upp straight (leavyng out part of the dyngles to the ffield) to the gate in Clopton hedge & take in Salisburyes peece: and that they meane in Aprill to servey the Land & then to gyve satisfaccion & not before.
So Shakespeare was very well acquainted with the plans of Combe and Mainwaring, to the extent that he knew in detail what they proposed to enclose. He was clearly also completely familiar with the topography of the area, as might be expected from one who had known it since his earliest childhood. Yet on this occasion, too, he refused to take sides in the dispute which implicated those closest to him. He assured Greene that he did not believe anything would be done, and in this belief he was joined by John Hall. His son-in-law had come with him to Blackfriars, and was present at the interview. Whether Hall had come in the role of relative, or doctor, is not known.
But, contrary to their reassurances, something was done. By the end of the year Combe and Mainwaring were planting hedges and digging ditches as a preliminary to enclosure, and Thomas Greene attended a meeting with a variety of local dignitaries. He noted that he had sent “to my Cosen Shakspear the Coppyes of all our oaths made then, alsoe a not of the Inconvenyences wold grow by the Inclosure.” It is clear enough that Shakespeare’s support and advice were considered to be important aspects of their campaign. When the digging and planting went ahead the Stratford corporation caused the ditches to be filled in, at which point scuffles ensued between the interested parties. Combe called the members of the Stratford council: “Puritan knaves!” But then women and children from Stratford were also conscripted to fill in the ditches.
So matters rested until the spring, when the Warwick Assizes prohibited Combe and Mainwaring from proceeding with their plans without showing good cause. Combe persisted, and went so far as to depopulate the village of Welcombe itself. Shakespeare again enters the record with a note by Thomas Greene to the effect of “W Shakespeares telling J Greene that I was not able to beare the encloseinge of Welcombe.” “J” was Greene’s brother. The meaning of “beare” here seems to be “bar,” and the import of Shakespeare’s remark then becomes clear. The process of enclosure was bound to go ahead. In this respect, he was wrong. The Chief Justice of the King’s Bench eventually forbade Combe to continue his plans.
Certain historians have criticised Shakespeare’s responses to the crisis of enclosures, and blamed him for not taking the side of the “commons” in the dispute over land. But he may simply have believed that the process of enclosure would be ultimately beneficial. More likely than not, however, he “believed” nothing whatever. He seems to have been incapable of taking sides in any controversy, and remained studiedly impartial in even those matters closest to him. It is hard to imagine him angry, or contemptuous, or bitter. His principal concern seems to have been with the preservation of his own finances. In any case his sentiments on the matter of enclosure suggest a resigned or fatalistic attitude towards the affairs of the world in harmony with the last lines of his last play —
… Let’s goe off,
And beare us like the time.
CHAPTER 90
The Wheele Is Come full Circle I Am Heere
Shakespeare stayed in London from November until after Christmas. This lengthy residence in Blackfriars suggests that he was busy over theatrical matters and, despite the society of John Hall, not in particularly bad health. His presence may well have been requested by the King’s Men, since his withdrawal from play-writing had considerably affected their receipts and even their reputation. They performed on eight occasions at Court during this winter season, but the Lord Chamberlain had complained that “our poets brains and inventions are grown very dry, in so much that of five new plays there is not one that pleases; and therefore they are driven to publish over their old, which stand them in best stead and bring them most profit.”1 He is describing here, at least in part, the “old” repertory of Shakespeare’s plays that stood considerably higher in esteem than the “new” plays. Shakespeare was in as much demand as ever.
