Phew, so much to iron out here. Maybe first that Greene was talking about Ned Alleyn, not Shaxper, when he warned Marlowe about the Upstart Crow, the same description he gave to Alleyn in Francesco's Fortunes. So, No Shaxper to write for Lady Pembroke. He does not appear until the Grey's Inn revels in early 1594, and then as stage manager.It was Marlowe who wrote the majority of the plays for Pembroke's Men, including The Contention (Henry VI 2), The True Tragedy (Henry VI 3), and The Taming of The Shrew, among others. The links between Hero and Leander, the "Procreation Sonnets" and Venus and Adonis are well documented, so no need for Lady Pembroke to add to them. Not to say she would not have supported them in her campaign to promote her brother, but her hand would not be up to composing an original of that caliber. Really not sure why she would publish anything under a nom-de-plume, seeing as she published plenty under her own name. More than anything, that seems to me to be the big tell. Otherwise, a lot of good stuff here and Lady Pembroke was plenty influential without having to work under an assumed name.
I do not understand your next point. Fraunce provides a contemporaneous source that Mary had requested Ovidian stories in honor of her brother, and you do not dispute that Marlowe was writing for Mary at this time, so the connection appears self evident. Your dismissal of Mary's ability to "compose anything of that caliber" suggests to me you cannot have actually read any of here published works. Grossart's finding that her Psalms are infinitely superior to those of her brother I think established by an undeniable authority that she could have composed anything she wanted. Her Antonie shows a command of blank verse I would happily compare to anything in Marlowe.
Mary published only one volume of her own works, the 1591 edition which contained her translations of Antonie and Mornay's Discourse on Life and Death. As translations which deal with issues of death and mourning after the loss of her brother both are within the bounds of acceptable work by gentle women, though they are viewed as pushing up against the boundary. She never published the Sidney Psalter, although there are documented attempts to persuade her to do so, and she could have included it with Philip's complete works which she evidently compiled and edited. Writing plays or semi pornographic poems would have definitely earned her censure even if her husband and the privy council had permitted it. You should review the response to Mary Sidney Wroth's Urania if you have any doubts on this question. Harvey's comment (I will respond to this in your other comment) does suggest she expected to at least be identified with V&A, but the arrest of Kyd and murder of Marlowe certainly provides plenty of reason why she might have been dissuaded (or proscribed) from publishing under her own name.
“Harvey's comment (I will respond to this in your other comment) does suggest she expected to at least be identified with V&A, but the arrest of Kyd and murder of Marlowe certainly provides plenty of reason why she might have been dissuaded (or proscribed) from publishing under her own name.”
Or, what’s the hurry to publish it at all? What you describe as reasons for Mary not to publish semi-pornographic poetry under her own name could be the very same reasons to simply sit on it. Marlowe’s H&L, similar source, similar style, similar randy subject, sat unpublished for five years.
I really think you rely too much on Harvey’s credibility, a thing not held in very high esteem when he was alive. For instance, let us say, as a thought experiment, that Harvey came across a copy of V&A because he was keeping a room at John Wolfe’s house. Wolfe was then effectively chief of the Stationers’ Company and V&A was anonymously registered with them on April 18, 1593. So, Wolfe has got a copy of V&A and is under orders not to disclose its source. Harvey takes a look at it and is impressed. He is aware of Lady Pembroke’s Ovidian challenge and associates the poem with it. He is also more or less aware of what other poets are working on for Lady Pembroke and none of that resembles V&A. He is not aware, however, of Marlowe’s H&L because Marlowe thinks he’s an idiot and refuses to show him anything. So, Harvey leaps to a conclusion, typical of him, that Lady Pembroke is the author of V&A. In an attempt to magnify his self-importance, he publishes the Supererogation wherein he claims, in language sufficiently tortured to be simultaneously deniable if proven wrong, that Lady Pembroke is the author of V&A.
Next thing you know, Marlowe disappears, V&A is published, and H&L lands on John Wolfe’s desk courtesy of Thomas Walsingham. Harvey can clearly see the resemblance between H&L and V&A (see note 51, pages 386-8 of my book, Marlowe’s Complaint) and realizes something is going on. He sees something very wrong with the so-called author and concludes, perhaps correctly, that Thomas Nashe has a hand in the dedication added to V&A (he knows it was added because the page count and numbering confirms it). Thinking that if Nashe composed the dedication, then Lady Pembroke was probably not involved (because she was still angry at him for Astrophel), he must have been off base claiming she wrote V&A in Supererogation. So, he decides to expose Nashe as a fraud and get him into further trouble with Lady Pembroke, a gambit which would have the added virtue, Harvey assumes, of repairing his error in disclosing what he believed was her connection to V&A. So, he publishes New Letter with L’Envoy to turn the tables on Nashe and spit at Marlowe. Harvey even adds the detail about Marlowe being stabbed (the “peremptory stroke”), which he must have got from Wolfe who got it from Walsingham who orchestrated Marlowe’s escape.
Harvey thinks Marlowe really is dead and wishes the same for Nashe. He also thinks “Shakespeare” is a fake name, but he can’t figure out who is behind it. That doesn’t stop him from rushing into print. Nashe denies the whole thing and Harvey never earns a nod from Lady Pembroke who knows well enough not to keep him around.
Some of this is conjecture, in particular whatever was going on inside Harvey’s skull. Other parts of this are fact. I’m not saying anything about Lady Pembroke’s poetic skills, but I do know that H&L and V&A are similar in ways that mere admiration does not account for. Not very many poets seeking to make a name for themselves so freely quote lines from an unpublished (possibly incomplete) manuscript of a rival author. Nor do poets working in secrecy link their work to the work of other poets who might give away the game. Marlowe, on the other hand, quoted himself a lot. It’s kind of a signature with him.
On the other hand, if Lady Pembroke knew what was up with Marlowe, then she’d most likely want to protect him. He was the star of Pembroke’s Men, after all. So, if confusion served that purpose, all's well.
I do not believe that the Stationer's Guild would have a copy of Venus and Adonis until it was printed - that is Field's registration of his copyright in April did not require him to provide a copy of the work. If you have info to the contrary I would welcome the clarification. Further, Harvey does not simply make much of his Gentlewoman (I think you agreed she was Mary) taking up the pen against Nashe, he claims that several appended poems are hers. I cannot make any sense of the claim that this is wishful thinking on Harvey's behalf and he has invented the whole think because he thinks that she is connected to V&A though I acknowledge that is partially McKerrow's view so you have some support. While I recognize that Harvey and other's are exorcising literary license particularly in the pamphlet wars, I believe that printed works with their known provenance dating back to the period are much more dependable than for instance the Pipe Office records and will - manuscripts that were unknown until discovered centuries later after being handled by known forgers.
I have read and reread your argument that Venus and Adonis and Hero and Leander are so closely related that one must be an adaptation of the other, and as best I can see your argument hangs on the share textual links to the procreation sonnets. While I believe we agree that Marlowe was working for Mary at the time and therefore both would likely have access to the sonnets which were evidently circulating among "Shakespeare's friends" you appear to be unaware that all three works are heavily derivative of Erasmus Praise of Marriage which is translated in Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique which is a standard grammar school text (see Vickers introduction to his English Renaissance Literary Criticism.
“I do not believe that the Stationer's Guild would have a copy of Venus and Adonis until it was printed - that is Field's registration of his copyright in April did not require him to provide a copy of the work.”
I expect Field had a copy of V&A, he’d need it to set the type. Harvey gets access to it either through Wolfe or more directly from its author, or from Lady Pembroke, who does not actually have to be its author in order to share it with him, she just has to have a closer relationship with him than I believe she had. She could, for instance, have it as one of the submissions to her challenge and turn to Harvey for comment. Or, sure, she wrote it and asked Harvey what his professional judgement makes of it. Or maybe Harvey helped her write it. Or maybe Harvey is Shakespeare. My view of Harvey at this point is that Lady Pembroke did not hold him in high esteem, so for me, the first option, access via Wolfe, seems most likely.
“I believe that printed works with their known provenance dating back to the period are much more dependable than for instance the Pipe Office records”
So, the Treasurers Accounts (can we agree to call them that?) does not seem to me a likely forgery, despite being handled by various persons. I’m no expert in such matters, but the weight of evidence in its favor strikes me as dispositive. Shaksper of Stratford fits into that space and he certainly was with the Kings Men thereafter. I don’t see what is gained by asserting otherwise.
“I have read and reread your argument that Venus and Adonis and Hero and Leander are so closely related that one must be an adaptation of the other, and as best I can see your argument hangs on the share textual links to the procreation sonnets.”
I never said V&A was an “adaptation” of H&L or vice versa. They share inspiration from Ovid, they share sexual themes, specific imagery, and echo specific poetic phrases, I gave you a list, and they also share links with the first seventeen sonnets via Ovid. Erasmus’ influence is less direct, in my view; it’s not like he was the first person to recommend marriage to anyone. Ovid gives all three a flavor that I don’t find in Erasmus. I think it’s very likely that H&L preceded V&A and that the latter borrowed from the former. I also think Marlowe wrote them both.
As you can see it is listed as exchequer -Pipe Office so Treasury Accounts is a curious way to identify it. I listed the provenance earlier.
"I’m no expert in such matters, but the weight of evidence in its favor strikes me as dispositive." I am not sure what evidence you see in its favor, you offer no specifics.
I listed the provenance earlier. From an evidentiary perspective it is defective in a number of ways. It is the back of a document that is properly attested by Burleigh (Lord Treasurer) and others, but has no seals or signatures itself. It was not generated as other records - purportedly it was filed by the widow of Thomas Heneage after his death in October. It was among the records at Bridgewater where Collier"discovered" a number of Documents that purport to show Shakespeare in the Burbage company These were published by Collier as "New Discoveries" and collectively dismissed as forgeries They are all documented in Chapter 10 of Ingleby which provides facsimile images of all six and identifies handwriting features that led experts to conclude they were all by the same hand that provided the forged marginal annotations of Collier's Folio. Comparing the handwriting (which varies from official formal to quite informal correspondence) I see strong resemblances in the 1595 document. Particularly compare the capital Bs and lowercase h's. This document was not considered by Ingleby because it was not published by Collier but remained to be discovered by Halliwell after the Collier forgery business had blown over. While I cannot locate the specific article which debunks it, by the time of the 1989 Frontline article it was specifically cited as an example of forged records placing Shakespeare in London.
"Shakspere of Stratford fits into that space and he certainly was with the Kings Men thereafter." He fits in because you give him a role which as far as I can tell is supported only by this document, so that is entirely circular. What evidence do you have that places Shakspere of Stratford "certainly" with the King's Men at any time? I have spent a lot of time trying to find the earliest document that unambiguously establishes the Stratford man as the Shakespeare associated with the King's Men. The Blackfriar's Gatehouse lease of 1613 is definitely Stratford, but not associated with the players except that Heminges witnesses the document. The interlined bequest in the will come closest, but raises obvious issues of provenance. References to the monument and the Herald's Player by Garter are after 1630 and could simply follow apparent clues in the Folio.
"I don’t see what is gained by asserting otherwise."
Basically I see four possibilities for Shakspere's connection to all this,
1. He was actor, writer and sharer and the conventional story is essentially correct.
2. He was an actor and share with Pembroke's, and his name provided an attractive pen name for the real author.
3. He was not connected with the theater when the writer chose the name but perhaps drawn by seeing his name used established a relationship later.
4. He had no relation with the theater, was a businessman whose London interests brought him into contact with John Heminges and someone framed him as the author after his death (possibly after the Folio was published in 1623). All references to Shakespeare associated with the theater are actually the writer.
If reliable documentary evidence placed Shakspere with the Burbage company in the 1590s I could rule out option 4. I have reluctantly concluded that no such evidence exists. I don't like this, it would be much easier to go along with everyone else and accept Shakspere as actor, sharer, perhaps play broker and let Mary use him as a beard. I cannot prove that he was not any of those things but I find it sufficiently unlikely that he could have left no clear testament of such public functions, and that none of the company records actually distinguish him that I believe it is nearly impossible.
I've never heard mention of the possibility of forgery in the record of payment for the Gray's Inn revels before now, so I'm still doubtful of the claim, but it would seem to help Marlowe's case as much as anyone's. I note you did not comment on Jonson's credits for Shakespeare as an actor in his plays. Were those forged as well?
You follow with a logical fallacy which seems to be a regular feature of your writing; having demonstrated that one piece of evidence does not support a conclusion, you assert with certainty a different conclusion, based as far as I can see on nothing at all. The likelihood that the Crow was not Shakespeare (or Shakspere of Stratford) does not tell us that Shakespeare was not with Pembroke's at the time. Indeed the best argument for Alleyne (Peter Bull's Tyred with a Peacock's Tail assumes the traditional Stratfordian story for Shakespeare and shows that is is not compatible with the details for the Crow. The 1595 evidence that places Shakespeare with Lord Chamberlain's simply names him as one of three recipients of payments for court performances as part of the 1594 New Year's celebrations (at the end of 1594 under the old dating model). I have doubts about the provenance of the Pipe Office record but that is beyond the present topic). In any event there is absolutely no evidence that he was a "stage manager" as you assert. Similarly, while there is some evidence which suggests Marlowe wrote Contention and True Tragedy, these are precursors of, not the Henry VI plays themselves. The current academic views on these plays dispute whether substantial portions were written by Marlowe, Kyd, Nashe or were simply adapted by Shakespeare himself. I understand that you believe that Shakespeare is just Marlowe after his faked death; while I am open to that argument, you cannot simply assume it is true as the basis for another argument.
“You follow with a logical fallacy which seems to be a regular feature of your writing; having demonstrated that one piece of evidence does not support a conclusion, you assert with certainty a different conclusion, based as far as I can see on nothing at all. The likelihood that the Crow was not Shakespeare (or Shakspere of Stratford) does not tell us that Shakespeare was not with Pembroke's at the time.”
Nothing establishes Shaksper’s work with Pembroke’s in 1593. That is the whole point of the academic fixation on the Groatsworth. Knock that over, and Shaksper’s theatrical career is not recognized until March 15, 1595. So, that’s not me leaping to an unsupported conclusion, that’s what the evidence says. I’m just reporting it.
“In any event there is absolutely no evidence that he was a "stage manager" as you assert.”
Is this supposed to be your take on my chapter on the Gesta Grayorum? Thanks to the payment recorded by the Master of Revels, we know that he participated in the Night of Errors. I think my chapter makes the case for his role in that as the “Conjuror” responsible for, among other things, the narrow platform that Essex and Southampton found so inadequate that they left before the show could begin. I say this, because he appears to have been tried by the members of Gray’s Inn for the offense. We have Burbage and Kempe also being paid, but neither of them were ever accused of producing plays (although the elder Burbage certainly was), just of acting in them. That leaves Shaksper to answer the charges. Now, I suppose we should recognize that there were not directors as such in those days, so “stage manager” is a term which sums up that and other duties. There won’t be a lot of evidence for this work, not like there is for poetry. But when he first made the papers, he was accused of messing it up.
“Similarly, while there is some evidence which suggests Marlowe wrote Contention and True Tragedy, these are precursors of, not the Henry VI plays themselves.”
The final versions of the H VI plays did not make print until the First Folio, 30 years after the Contention and True Tragedy were first performed. It is quite possible that these “precursors” were the only versions of those plays that were ever performed before 1623. They were both reprinted twice, first in 1600 and then again in 1619. Modern academics delight in confusing the H VI plays with them. I wonder why?
“The current academic views on these plays dispute”
Of course they do.
“whether substantial portions were written by Marlowe, Kyd, Nashe or were simply adapted by Shakespeare himself.”
Well, since Shaksper wasn’t around to write Henry VI (remember, the Upstart Crow is Alleyn), it must have been written by Marlowe because Greene quoted it when he warned Marlowe about Alleyn. I don’t see Kyd or Nashe sneaking in there and Greene certainly knew them both. Now, who goes and writes the two sequels? Mario Puzo?
“I understand that you believe that Shakespeare is just Marlowe after his faked death; while I am open to that argument, you cannot simply assume it is true as the basis for another argument.”
I don’t assume it. I give the evidence for it and I base further conclusions on similar evidence.
As for your take on the Gesta Grayoram and Comedy of Errors, I think it is silly for the same reason that I think Godman's notion that it is Shakespeare dramatizing his rejection by the University Wits is silly. I don't think Gray's gives a damn about Shakespeare in 1594. They are hosting a multiday pageant to celebrate their alliance with the Inner Temple and commissioned a play the plot of which echoes the scripted pageant of the festivities. The refusal to admit Antipholus to his own house matches the turning away of the ambassadors from the Temple. The next night a mock trial assigns blame for the Errors thus the Comedy of Errors performed by the actors is reprised by the officials of the Inns, reconciliation is achieved and everyone celebrates. I believe the account actually places Southampton among the attendees at the performance and know of no document that suggests he was part of the Inner Temple contingent turned away, The notion that the festivities were intended to bring attention to Southampton's rejection of Burleigh's granddaughter is simply inconceivable to me within the social mores and politics of the court.
The logical fallacy is A->B implies NotB -> NotA (this is proof by contrapositive) but not NotA ->NotB. Here Strats claim that Shakescene = Shakespeare implies that Shakespeare was an actor writing plays in 1592. We agree that this is a reference to Alleyne, and thus does not establish Shakespeare (or Shakspere) in the theater let alone as a plagiarizing writer. You draw the (logically unsupported) conclusion that Shakespeare/Shakspere was not part of Pembrokes in 1592 but joined them later (to account for the 1595 payment) which simply does not follow. By my usage (I use Shakespeare to mean the author, who you believe was Marlowe) we both accept that Shakespeare (the author) was part of Pembrokes in 1592 as evidenced by the works later attributed to "him."
In another comment you wrote, "On the other hand, the notion that Mary took the unprecedented step of assuming the pen name of Shakespeare (who later turns up as a real person who apparently decided to assume that name as well) in order to write a riposte to all those back stage Tommy's in the figure of Venus and Adonis, well, that seems a bit of a stretch to me." I took your point to be that it was unlikely that the author (already part of Pembroke's) adopted the pseudonym independently and that the Stratford man joined later using that name, and I agreed, I think either Shakspere was an actor with Pembrokes who provided a convenient allonym or he had nothing to do with the theater until after the folio when he was framed to divert attention from the real author. It appears however that is exactly what you are claiming, that Marlowe chose the name independently within days of his "death" and the Stratford guy became attached to the company as a business manager sometime later. I think that extraordinarily unlikely.
I think the likeliest explanation for the Pipe Office Record is that it is a Collier forgery which he had not yet "discovered" when he was exposed, leaving it for Halliwell-Philips to "find" with or without his help. Halliwell's paper describing the find provides suspiciously few details of how it was accomplished.
The connection of the three payees is unusual (though it echoes the will found much earlier, it was not typical to pay multiple members for a single performance), the script in a different hand on the backside of a period scroll offers an ideal canvas for a forger, and the conflict with the Gesta Greyoram date could just be carelessness.
If the record is genuine, the question remains whether Shakespeare is simply recorded as a senior member in the company charter, is being paid as author, or is functioning as "business manager" Contrary to your assertion, we do have records for Chamberlains that establish that management was primarily the responsibility of the Burbages, and later logistics were handled by Heminges. This is the only record that suggests Shakespeare by any name had any such role. The very nature of acting as business manager would be expected to generate many such records; I have no idea why Diana Price and others (including yourself) are not bothered by this absence, as well as any contemporary reference to Shakespeare as an actor after making such a fuss about the missing evidence for authorship. I understand that there is a faction of AntiStrat folks committed to the theory that Shakspere was a play broker and am prepared to argue that there is absolutely no evidence to support that belief.
“You draw the (logically unsupported) conclusion that Shakespeare/Shakspere was not part of Pembrokes in 1592 but joined them later (to account for the 1595 payment) which simply does not follow.”
As I said before, I report that there is no record of Shakespeare/Shaksper/Stratford Man working with Pembroke’s Men in 1592. Certain scholars backdate later attributions of plays contemporaneously published without attribution to assert that Shakespeare was there then, but it would not have looked that way to the actors in the company in 1592. There was no such person for them to acknowledge. They would have seen Marlowe as the principal author/director.
“By my usage”
The actual name Shakespeare does not appear until June, 1593. So, there was no such person or fake person for anyone to recognize in 1592. I think you could save us, or at least me, a lot of confusion if you would stop letting the academic habit of slapping Shakespeare on everything complicate your work. If you think Lady Pembroke wrote the plays later attributed to Shakespeare, then I think you ought to speak in those terms. Now, how she managed to get them rehearsed without tipping her hand is another story.
“It appears however that is exactly what you are claiming, that Marlowe chose the name independently within days of his "death" and the Stratford guy became attached to the company as a business manager sometime later. I think that extraordinarily unlikely.”
What I am claiming is that Shaxper of Stratford was acquainted with Richard Field who had connections with the Burghley network, which somehow led to Shaxper’s employment as a beard for the publication of Venus and Adonis, a project that I think was initiated by Burghely as a further extension of his multi-year campaign to marry his granddaughter to Southampton. I don’t think anyone expected this employment to extend beyond its first assignment, but life goes on and complications arise. I don’t think Marlowe chose the name, it was chosen in his absence and over time it stuck as Shaxper demonstrated his continuing usefulness as a man of business.
“The very nature of acting as business manager would be expected to generate many such records; I have no idea why Diana Price and others (including yourself) are not bothered by this absence, as well as any contemporary reference to Shakespeare as an actor after making such a fuss about the missing evidence for authorship.”
The Globe and its records burned in one hour 1613. O were it not so! Jonson listed Shakespeare as an actor in his productions of every Man in His Humor and Sejanus in his 1616 Folio. There’s a good chance Shakespeare was still alive when Jonson was having that Folio typeset.
Thank you David, for your interesting and informative essay. But I take issue with Mary being Harvey's gentlewoman. Here are three points.
1/ "No other suitable candidate has ever been proposed." In my book, 'Aemilia Lanyer as Shakespeare's Co-Author' (Routledge, 2022), I presented evidence for Lanyer being this gentlewoman.
2/ Harvey "describes her in terms that can only refer to the Countess of Pembroke". But Harvey said that "she was neither the noblest, nor the fairest, nor the finest, nor the richest lady, but the gentlest, the wittiest and bravest and invinciblest gentlewoman that I know". Mary Sidney was very fair, noble and rich, compared to commoner, Aemilia Lanyer.
3/ Nashe's "Have With You To Safftron Walden" levels misogynistic abuse at Harvey's gentlewoman. If she were Mary Sidney, Nashe would have been pilloried, if not hung, drawn and quartered.
ANOTHER MATTER You mentioned Marprelate's threatened 'Reckoning". This was commonly associated with reference to Zechariah 11:17. Consider this perhaps being Marlowe's 'Reckoning" with a knife in the right eye. And in addition to the 3 sonnets by Harvey's gentlewoman, she may have written the sonnet, "An Apostrophe to the Health of his Abused Friends" as Marlowe's eulogy. Kind regards, Mark Bradbeer
Thanks for reading my work and for your comments. A couple thoughts in response.
1. There is no doubt that Aemilia was part of the circle of women attached to Mary Sidney, and her connection to Hunsdon is even better documented. However I do not find that argument that she "was Shakespeare" very persuasive. Her known writing does not look much like Shakespeare's, it is not at all obvious why her identity would have been closely held and the many references to Shakespeare that seem to identify the writer with Sidney do not really offer much to tie them to Lanyer.
2. The one excepted by Nashe is universally accepted to be the Queen. It was a matter of protocol to acknowledge the Queen paramount in all virtues, and this would be utterly conventional in this respect if praise of Mary Sidney. Taken as a whole the references to the Gentlewoman are difficult to interpret elsewise - that is the overwhelming conclusion of the academics who have considered the question, while a few support the notion that this is wishful thinking on behalf of Harvey and that the intended confusion creates an unsupported identification few argue that the reader is not intended to identify the Gentlewoman with Sidney. It seems very unlikely that Harvey would refer to Lanyer as his patroness or that she would have fulfilled that role.
3. The point of using a pseudonym (Shakespeare or Gentlewoman patroness) in this context is that it allows an aristocrat to get into the mud with Nashe. He can hardly be charged with attacking a Countess who uses a false name to engage with him. Nonetheless, the Bishops' ban does seem to specifically target works Harvey. Nashe, the Labeo satires of Hall and Marston that treat the identity of Shakespeare so a certain amount of pilloring did ensue.
About Marlowe and the Reckoning, Peter Bull noted the parallel with Hiram Abiff in the origin myths of Freemasonry. I do not have a settled read (to my satisfaction) of the gentlewoman sonnets, although I have no reservations asserting that they generally serve to castigate Nashe (and by association Florio and Greville) for the presumption in publishing Philip's works and usurping his name for their literary and political ends. An Apostrophe engages with Ovid's Amores 3.14, but I cannot offer a definitive reading.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. Being a new visitor to your website, I am unaware of the “many references to Shakespeare that seem to identify the writer with Sidney”. Can you give me some examples?
You say that “I do not find that argument that she "was Shakespeare" very persuasive.” Judging from the responses to Elizabeth Winkler’s Atlantic essay “Was Shakespeare a Woman ?”, this is a common reaction to any female candidate before seeing the evidence.
I do not contend that Lanyer was the only Shakespeare, but that she was an unacknowledged co-author with “Shakespeare”, just as were Marlowe (e.g. 1Henry VI) and Fletcher (e.g. Henry VIII).
Obviously in Elizabethan times, a commoner woman had to hide her identity, but in 1611, Lanyer was gutsy enough to be the first Englishwoman to publish a book of her own poetry under her own name. Her poetry defended women, and Eve in particular, against misogynists. The prime misogynist was Thomas Nashe, who propagated misogyny in his Anatomy of Absurdity (1589) and Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem (1593).
In his New Praise for the Old Ass (1593), Harvey called his gentlewoman “my patroness, or rather my championess”, as she gave him more than encouragement, advice and sonnets. ‘Her Old Comedy’ sonnet by this gentlewoman, promised to immortalise the ass, Nashe. Also in Harvey’s book, a mystery male sonneteer wrote ‘His Sonet, that will justify his Word, and dedicateth Nashe’s S. Fame to Immortality’, promising to collaborate with her.
Nashe’s immortality was perpetrated on stage as well as page. Locrine (1594), was published, ‘newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W.S.' (Note that W.S. was overseeing another playwright.) The play’s clown is the pseudo-poet, Strumbo, whose poetry ‘goeth arsward’. He calls himself an ‘Ass-Tom’, and he cites Lactantius. Tom Nashe cites Lactantius in his Pierce Penniless (1592).
Other satirical caricatures of Nashe followed, - like Moth (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Launce (Two Gentlemen of Verona), Dromio E. (Comedy of Errors), Jaques (As You Like It), Dogberry (Much Ado) and Bottom (Midsummer Night’s Dream).
In The Unfortunate Traveller (1954), Nashe spoke of a delicate wench named Aemilia who had “devised the means to make me immortal”. I suggest that Shakespeare’s Early Comedies were collaborations between Aemilia Lanyer and “W.S.”
In her poetry, Lanyer paid homage to Mary Sidney, and in chapters 4 & 5 of my book, Aemilia Lanyer as Shakespeare’s Co-Author (2022), I provide evidence that Lanyer cowrote Pericles as a homage to Mary’s brother, Philip.
The feminist poet, Aemilia Lanyer, is worthy of serious consideration.
I think we may have an opportunity to explore collaboration as your book illuminates some connections I have been exploring or intending to explore. The posts on this site consider the evidence linking Mary Sidney to the writing and reception of the Shakespeare Canon. Last November I covered the evidence from Ben Jonson and the First Folio which appears to identify Mary with Shakespeare in "12 days of Shakespeare." More recently I reviewed the political and literary context which informs Venus and Adonis. Succinctly, Mary was the patron of the company formed as Pembroke;s Men around Richard Burbage in May of 1591. According to Lucas Erne's interpretation of Kyd's letter to John Puckering, Thomas Kyd had been in her employ for some six years, and Marlowe for 18 months when authorities arrested and tortured Kyd in association with the Dutch Libel. As Shakespeare's first works were performed by the company during this period it is reasonable to infer that "he" too was in her employ. Within a few months of the arrest of Kyd and the extrajudicial execution of Marlowe, the Pembrokes severed all direct ties with the Theater and dramatic writers.
During this period Mary was engaged in a legal and literary battle over control of her brother Philip's works with members of Philip's circle who had aligned with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. John Florio and Fulke Greville edited and published an edition of Philip's New Arcadia in 1590. In 1592 (according to recent work by Mark Bland) Florio was responsible for publication of Astrophel and Stella with a dedication by Nashe to the Mary. This edition including poems from Samuel Daniel's Delia which he had contracted to another printer. Daniel was in Europe when the volume came out, when he returned he entered the employ of Mary Sidney and asserted his authorship rights through the stationer's guild which resulted in "calling in" unsold copies and an agreement to release them only after Daniel's poems and Nashe's dedication were removed. In 1593 Mary released her own edition of Arcadia, removing Greville's commentary and abusing his editor Florio for defacing the work (Mary used the same publisher, Ponsonby, and thereby gained control over the publication rights). Venus and Adonis constitutes an a memorial to Philip and a literary claim to his mantel by exemplifying the principles declared in his Defense and in his fictional writing. The dedication to Wriothesley is not an actual appeal for patronage - he serves as "Pasquino" for posting the works in the squabble/
Nashe's participation in the expropriation of her brother's work draws Mary into the Nashe/Harvey conflict and initiates a decade long conflict with Nashe, hence his Unfortunate Traveler is Jack Wilton.
Susan Bertie was a member of Mary Sidney's Wilton circle. Her brother Peregrin fought with Philip at Zutphen (Philip reportedly saved his life before suffering his mortal gunshot). Aemilia would have been connected with Mary from childhood.
Pericles has represented a problem for me, as not only is Pericles clearly recalling Philip, but Mariana (another changed name) is pretty clearly meant to represent Mary. It is not characteristic for her to self aggrandize herself as the alchemical child, so I have hypothesized that the play was written to honor Philip and Mary in Shakespeare's style by someone else in her circle, my thoughts ran to Jonson and Mary Wroth, but Lanyer makes a lot of sense. The play was almost certainly written for the Garter celebration of 1608 when Philip Herbert was inducted into the order and the recently deceased Edward Dyer was replaced as Chancellor by a Herbert cousin, hence the elaborate alchemical allegory and evolution of language and style celebrating the Sidney's contributions to English letters. The incest riddle is connected to the Queen Elizabeth's translation of Mirror of the Sinful Soul from Margarite de Navarre and so further celebrates woman writers.
I have mostly assumed that Emilia references were motivated by her presence in the Sidney circle and connection to Hunsdon, but based on your book I am reconsidering whether she had a more substantial role as a writer.
It is just possible to rationalize the Stratford Shakspere as author by connecting him to Mary Sidney, who certainly provided the missing access to works including unpublished manuscripts and could have provided education and language skills that seem to defy the traditional biography. Since many of the Sidney records were lost in a series of fires there is additional room for undocumented biography. It is possible to account for Covell, Jonson, Nashe and others apparent efforts to identify Mary with Shakespeare because of her role as patron. I believe it is much more likely that she was the author, and he happened to share a similar name. I suppose that Aemilia could have contributed to or even been the primary author of the canon under the same guise (there is considerably more evidence for her than Stratford). I really like the idea that Aemila provides the link to Wilkins and that she used that psuedonym just as Mary used Shakespeare.
I’ve started reading through your other interesting online essays, but I have yet to read the majority of them. We have points of commonality, and I would be delighted to collaborate and swap ideas.
Although we have different interpretations of Pericles, Alan Young’s “A Note on the Tournament Impresas in Pericles” (Shakespeare Quarterly 36, (1985), 453-6) is compelling evidence for Philip Sidney being a model for the character of Pericles. It is difficult to conceive of our man from Stratford knowing that the “withered branch that’s only green on top”, was Sidney’s impresa. As Young says:
“How Shakespeare may have known of Sidney's impresa is impossible to say, since its most likely date of composition is November 1577, following Sidney's recent service with his father in Ireland and an important European mission for Elizabeth. The identification of Sidney's tournament impresa as Shakespeare's source for that of Pericles must thus remain tentative.”
And of course, Sidney’s Pyrocles is the inspiration for Pericles.
Your reading of the character of Henry Carey will make your understanding of Lanyer very poignant. Unlike most writers, I believe he was not an altogether virtuous master of his mistress, Lanyer. I think he was abusive as well as indulgent of her.
Phew, so much to iron out here. Maybe first that Greene was talking about Ned Alleyn, not Shaxper, when he warned Marlowe about the Upstart Crow, the same description he gave to Alleyn in Francesco's Fortunes. So, No Shaxper to write for Lady Pembroke. He does not appear until the Grey's Inn revels in early 1594, and then as stage manager.It was Marlowe who wrote the majority of the plays for Pembroke's Men, including The Contention (Henry VI 2), The True Tragedy (Henry VI 3), and The Taming of The Shrew, among others. The links between Hero and Leander, the "Procreation Sonnets" and Venus and Adonis are well documented, so no need for Lady Pembroke to add to them. Not to say she would not have supported them in her campaign to promote her brother, but her hand would not be up to composing an original of that caliber. Really not sure why she would publish anything under a nom-de-plume, seeing as she published plenty under her own name. More than anything, that seems to me to be the big tell. Otherwise, a lot of good stuff here and Lady Pembroke was plenty influential without having to work under an assumed name.
I do not understand your next point. Fraunce provides a contemporaneous source that Mary had requested Ovidian stories in honor of her brother, and you do not dispute that Marlowe was writing for Mary at this time, so the connection appears self evident. Your dismissal of Mary's ability to "compose anything of that caliber" suggests to me you cannot have actually read any of here published works. Grossart's finding that her Psalms are infinitely superior to those of her brother I think established by an undeniable authority that she could have composed anything she wanted. Her Antonie shows a command of blank verse I would happily compare to anything in Marlowe.
Mary published only one volume of her own works, the 1591 edition which contained her translations of Antonie and Mornay's Discourse on Life and Death. As translations which deal with issues of death and mourning after the loss of her brother both are within the bounds of acceptable work by gentle women, though they are viewed as pushing up against the boundary. She never published the Sidney Psalter, although there are documented attempts to persuade her to do so, and she could have included it with Philip's complete works which she evidently compiled and edited. Writing plays or semi pornographic poems would have definitely earned her censure even if her husband and the privy council had permitted it. You should review the response to Mary Sidney Wroth's Urania if you have any doubts on this question. Harvey's comment (I will respond to this in your other comment) does suggest she expected to at least be identified with V&A, but the arrest of Kyd and murder of Marlowe certainly provides plenty of reason why she might have been dissuaded (or proscribed) from publishing under her own name.
David,
“Harvey's comment (I will respond to this in your other comment) does suggest she expected to at least be identified with V&A, but the arrest of Kyd and murder of Marlowe certainly provides plenty of reason why she might have been dissuaded (or proscribed) from publishing under her own name.”
Or, what’s the hurry to publish it at all? What you describe as reasons for Mary not to publish semi-pornographic poetry under her own name could be the very same reasons to simply sit on it. Marlowe’s H&L, similar source, similar style, similar randy subject, sat unpublished for five years.
I really think you rely too much on Harvey’s credibility, a thing not held in very high esteem when he was alive. For instance, let us say, as a thought experiment, that Harvey came across a copy of V&A because he was keeping a room at John Wolfe’s house. Wolfe was then effectively chief of the Stationers’ Company and V&A was anonymously registered with them on April 18, 1593. So, Wolfe has got a copy of V&A and is under orders not to disclose its source. Harvey takes a look at it and is impressed. He is aware of Lady Pembroke’s Ovidian challenge and associates the poem with it. He is also more or less aware of what other poets are working on for Lady Pembroke and none of that resembles V&A. He is not aware, however, of Marlowe’s H&L because Marlowe thinks he’s an idiot and refuses to show him anything. So, Harvey leaps to a conclusion, typical of him, that Lady Pembroke is the author of V&A. In an attempt to magnify his self-importance, he publishes the Supererogation wherein he claims, in language sufficiently tortured to be simultaneously deniable if proven wrong, that Lady Pembroke is the author of V&A.
Next thing you know, Marlowe disappears, V&A is published, and H&L lands on John Wolfe’s desk courtesy of Thomas Walsingham. Harvey can clearly see the resemblance between H&L and V&A (see note 51, pages 386-8 of my book, Marlowe’s Complaint) and realizes something is going on. He sees something very wrong with the so-called author and concludes, perhaps correctly, that Thomas Nashe has a hand in the dedication added to V&A (he knows it was added because the page count and numbering confirms it). Thinking that if Nashe composed the dedication, then Lady Pembroke was probably not involved (because she was still angry at him for Astrophel), he must have been off base claiming she wrote V&A in Supererogation. So, he decides to expose Nashe as a fraud and get him into further trouble with Lady Pembroke, a gambit which would have the added virtue, Harvey assumes, of repairing his error in disclosing what he believed was her connection to V&A. So, he publishes New Letter with L’Envoy to turn the tables on Nashe and spit at Marlowe. Harvey even adds the detail about Marlowe being stabbed (the “peremptory stroke”), which he must have got from Wolfe who got it from Walsingham who orchestrated Marlowe’s escape.
Harvey thinks Marlowe really is dead and wishes the same for Nashe. He also thinks “Shakespeare” is a fake name, but he can’t figure out who is behind it. That doesn’t stop him from rushing into print. Nashe denies the whole thing and Harvey never earns a nod from Lady Pembroke who knows well enough not to keep him around.
Some of this is conjecture, in particular whatever was going on inside Harvey’s skull. Other parts of this are fact. I’m not saying anything about Lady Pembroke’s poetic skills, but I do know that H&L and V&A are similar in ways that mere admiration does not account for. Not very many poets seeking to make a name for themselves so freely quote lines from an unpublished (possibly incomplete) manuscript of a rival author. Nor do poets working in secrecy link their work to the work of other poets who might give away the game. Marlowe, on the other hand, quoted himself a lot. It’s kind of a signature with him.
On the other hand, if Lady Pembroke knew what was up with Marlowe, then she’d most likely want to protect him. He was the star of Pembroke’s Men, after all. So, if confusion served that purpose, all's well.
Makes sense to me, anyway.
I do not believe that the Stationer's Guild would have a copy of Venus and Adonis until it was printed - that is Field's registration of his copyright in April did not require him to provide a copy of the work. If you have info to the contrary I would welcome the clarification. Further, Harvey does not simply make much of his Gentlewoman (I think you agreed she was Mary) taking up the pen against Nashe, he claims that several appended poems are hers. I cannot make any sense of the claim that this is wishful thinking on Harvey's behalf and he has invented the whole think because he thinks that she is connected to V&A though I acknowledge that is partially McKerrow's view so you have some support. While I recognize that Harvey and other's are exorcising literary license particularly in the pamphlet wars, I believe that printed works with their known provenance dating back to the period are much more dependable than for instance the Pipe Office records and will - manuscripts that were unknown until discovered centuries later after being handled by known forgers.
I have read and reread your argument that Venus and Adonis and Hero and Leander are so closely related that one must be an adaptation of the other, and as best I can see your argument hangs on the share textual links to the procreation sonnets. While I believe we agree that Marlowe was working for Mary at the time and therefore both would likely have access to the sonnets which were evidently circulating among "Shakespeare's friends" you appear to be unaware that all three works are heavily derivative of Erasmus Praise of Marriage which is translated in Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique which is a standard grammar school text (see Vickers introduction to his English Renaissance Literary Criticism.
“I do not believe that the Stationer's Guild would have a copy of Venus and Adonis until it was printed - that is Field's registration of his copyright in April did not require him to provide a copy of the work.”
I expect Field had a copy of V&A, he’d need it to set the type. Harvey gets access to it either through Wolfe or more directly from its author, or from Lady Pembroke, who does not actually have to be its author in order to share it with him, she just has to have a closer relationship with him than I believe she had. She could, for instance, have it as one of the submissions to her challenge and turn to Harvey for comment. Or, sure, she wrote it and asked Harvey what his professional judgement makes of it. Or maybe Harvey helped her write it. Or maybe Harvey is Shakespeare. My view of Harvey at this point is that Lady Pembroke did not hold him in high esteem, so for me, the first option, access via Wolfe, seems most likely.
“I believe that printed works with their known provenance dating back to the period are much more dependable than for instance the Pipe Office records”
So, the Treasurers Accounts (can we agree to call them that?) does not seem to me a likely forgery, despite being handled by various persons. I’m no expert in such matters, but the weight of evidence in its favor strikes me as dispositive. Shaksper of Stratford fits into that space and he certainly was with the Kings Men thereafter. I don’t see what is gained by asserting otherwise.
“I have read and reread your argument that Venus and Adonis and Hero and Leander are so closely related that one must be an adaptation of the other, and as best I can see your argument hangs on the share textual links to the procreation sonnets.”
I never said V&A was an “adaptation” of H&L or vice versa. They share inspiration from Ovid, they share sexual themes, specific imagery, and echo specific poetic phrases, I gave you a list, and they also share links with the first seventeen sonnets via Ovid. Erasmus’ influence is less direct, in my view; it’s not like he was the first person to recommend marriage to anyone. Ovid gives all three a flavor that I don’t find in Erasmus. I think it’s very likely that H&L preceded V&A and that the latter borrowed from the former. I also think Marlowe wrote them both.
I want to just focus on this one paragraph because I think it gets at why we see things so differently.
"So, the Treasurers Accounts (can we agree to call them that?) does not seem to me a likely forgery, despite being handled by various persons."
The Document in question is on the Folger site here;
https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/exchequer-pipe-office-declared-accounts-listing-shakespeare-leading-player-lord
As you can see it is listed as exchequer -Pipe Office so Treasury Accounts is a curious way to identify it. I listed the provenance earlier.
"I’m no expert in such matters, but the weight of evidence in its favor strikes me as dispositive." I am not sure what evidence you see in its favor, you offer no specifics.
I listed the provenance earlier. From an evidentiary perspective it is defective in a number of ways. It is the back of a document that is properly attested by Burleigh (Lord Treasurer) and others, but has no seals or signatures itself. It was not generated as other records - purportedly it was filed by the widow of Thomas Heneage after his death in October. It was among the records at Bridgewater where Collier"discovered" a number of Documents that purport to show Shakespeare in the Burbage company These were published by Collier as "New Discoveries" and collectively dismissed as forgeries They are all documented in Chapter 10 of Ingleby which provides facsimile images of all six and identifies handwriting features that led experts to conclude they were all by the same hand that provided the forged marginal annotations of Collier's Folio. Comparing the handwriting (which varies from official formal to quite informal correspondence) I see strong resemblances in the 1595 document. Particularly compare the capital Bs and lowercase h's. This document was not considered by Ingleby because it was not published by Collier but remained to be discovered by Halliwell after the Collier forgery business had blown over. While I cannot locate the specific article which debunks it, by the time of the 1989 Frontline article it was specifically cited as an example of forged records placing Shakespeare in London.
"Shakspere of Stratford fits into that space and he certainly was with the Kings Men thereafter." He fits in because you give him a role which as far as I can tell is supported only by this document, so that is entirely circular. What evidence do you have that places Shakspere of Stratford "certainly" with the King's Men at any time? I have spent a lot of time trying to find the earliest document that unambiguously establishes the Stratford man as the Shakespeare associated with the King's Men. The Blackfriar's Gatehouse lease of 1613 is definitely Stratford, but not associated with the players except that Heminges witnesses the document. The interlined bequest in the will come closest, but raises obvious issues of provenance. References to the monument and the Herald's Player by Garter are after 1630 and could simply follow apparent clues in the Folio.
"I don’t see what is gained by asserting otherwise."
Basically I see four possibilities for Shakspere's connection to all this,
1. He was actor, writer and sharer and the conventional story is essentially correct.
2. He was an actor and share with Pembroke's, and his name provided an attractive pen name for the real author.
3. He was not connected with the theater when the writer chose the name but perhaps drawn by seeing his name used established a relationship later.
4. He had no relation with the theater, was a businessman whose London interests brought him into contact with John Heminges and someone framed him as the author after his death (possibly after the Folio was published in 1623). All references to Shakespeare associated with the theater are actually the writer.
If reliable documentary evidence placed Shakspere with the Burbage company in the 1590s I could rule out option 4. I have reluctantly concluded that no such evidence exists. I don't like this, it would be much easier to go along with everyone else and accept Shakspere as actor, sharer, perhaps play broker and let Mary use him as a beard. I cannot prove that he was not any of those things but I find it sufficiently unlikely that he could have left no clear testament of such public functions, and that none of the company records actually distinguish him that I believe it is nearly impossible.
I've never heard mention of the possibility of forgery in the record of payment for the Gray's Inn revels before now, so I'm still doubtful of the claim, but it would seem to help Marlowe's case as much as anyone's. I note you did not comment on Jonson's credits for Shakespeare as an actor in his plays. Were those forged as well?
Hi Peter, thanks for taking the time to provide a detailed response. WRT Upstart Crow, I completely agree - I have a post on the subject here: https://open.substack.com/pub/davidwrichardson/p/the-upstart-crow? Perhaps I should choose a different word than recognized (or just qualify). When I refer to Shakespeare, throughout the website I mean the writer who produced the canonical works (see my essay https://www.marywasshakespeare.com/p/four-five-shakespeares-the-documentary?r=2phr51&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false ).
You follow with a logical fallacy which seems to be a regular feature of your writing; having demonstrated that one piece of evidence does not support a conclusion, you assert with certainty a different conclusion, based as far as I can see on nothing at all. The likelihood that the Crow was not Shakespeare (or Shakspere of Stratford) does not tell us that Shakespeare was not with Pembroke's at the time. Indeed the best argument for Alleyne (Peter Bull's Tyred with a Peacock's Tail assumes the traditional Stratfordian story for Shakespeare and shows that is is not compatible with the details for the Crow. The 1595 evidence that places Shakespeare with Lord Chamberlain's simply names him as one of three recipients of payments for court performances as part of the 1594 New Year's celebrations (at the end of 1594 under the old dating model). I have doubts about the provenance of the Pipe Office record but that is beyond the present topic). In any event there is absolutely no evidence that he was a "stage manager" as you assert. Similarly, while there is some evidence which suggests Marlowe wrote Contention and True Tragedy, these are precursors of, not the Henry VI plays themselves. The current academic views on these plays dispute whether substantial portions were written by Marlowe, Kyd, Nashe or were simply adapted by Shakespeare himself. I understand that you believe that Shakespeare is just Marlowe after his faked death; while I am open to that argument, you cannot simply assume it is true as the basis for another argument.
David,
“You follow with a logical fallacy which seems to be a regular feature of your writing; having demonstrated that one piece of evidence does not support a conclusion, you assert with certainty a different conclusion, based as far as I can see on nothing at all. The likelihood that the Crow was not Shakespeare (or Shakspere of Stratford) does not tell us that Shakespeare was not with Pembroke's at the time.”
Nothing establishes Shaksper’s work with Pembroke’s in 1593. That is the whole point of the academic fixation on the Groatsworth. Knock that over, and Shaksper’s theatrical career is not recognized until March 15, 1595. So, that’s not me leaping to an unsupported conclusion, that’s what the evidence says. I’m just reporting it.
“In any event there is absolutely no evidence that he was a "stage manager" as you assert.”
Is this supposed to be your take on my chapter on the Gesta Grayorum? Thanks to the payment recorded by the Master of Revels, we know that he participated in the Night of Errors. I think my chapter makes the case for his role in that as the “Conjuror” responsible for, among other things, the narrow platform that Essex and Southampton found so inadequate that they left before the show could begin. I say this, because he appears to have been tried by the members of Gray’s Inn for the offense. We have Burbage and Kempe also being paid, but neither of them were ever accused of producing plays (although the elder Burbage certainly was), just of acting in them. That leaves Shaksper to answer the charges. Now, I suppose we should recognize that there were not directors as such in those days, so “stage manager” is a term which sums up that and other duties. There won’t be a lot of evidence for this work, not like there is for poetry. But when he first made the papers, he was accused of messing it up.
“Similarly, while there is some evidence which suggests Marlowe wrote Contention and True Tragedy, these are precursors of, not the Henry VI plays themselves.”
The final versions of the H VI plays did not make print until the First Folio, 30 years after the Contention and True Tragedy were first performed. It is quite possible that these “precursors” were the only versions of those plays that were ever performed before 1623. They were both reprinted twice, first in 1600 and then again in 1619. Modern academics delight in confusing the H VI plays with them. I wonder why?
“The current academic views on these plays dispute”
Of course they do.
“whether substantial portions were written by Marlowe, Kyd, Nashe or were simply adapted by Shakespeare himself.”
Well, since Shaksper wasn’t around to write Henry VI (remember, the Upstart Crow is Alleyn), it must have been written by Marlowe because Greene quoted it when he warned Marlowe about Alleyn. I don’t see Kyd or Nashe sneaking in there and Greene certainly knew them both. Now, who goes and writes the two sequels? Mario Puzo?
“I understand that you believe that Shakespeare is just Marlowe after his faked death; while I am open to that argument, you cannot simply assume it is true as the basis for another argument.”
I don’t assume it. I give the evidence for it and I base further conclusions on similar evidence.
As for your take on the Gesta Grayoram and Comedy of Errors, I think it is silly for the same reason that I think Godman's notion that it is Shakespeare dramatizing his rejection by the University Wits is silly. I don't think Gray's gives a damn about Shakespeare in 1594. They are hosting a multiday pageant to celebrate their alliance with the Inner Temple and commissioned a play the plot of which echoes the scripted pageant of the festivities. The refusal to admit Antipholus to his own house matches the turning away of the ambassadors from the Temple. The next night a mock trial assigns blame for the Errors thus the Comedy of Errors performed by the actors is reprised by the officials of the Inns, reconciliation is achieved and everyone celebrates. I believe the account actually places Southampton among the attendees at the performance and know of no document that suggests he was part of the Inner Temple contingent turned away, The notion that the festivities were intended to bring attention to Southampton's rejection of Burleigh's granddaughter is simply inconceivable to me within the social mores and politics of the court.
The logical fallacy is A->B implies NotB -> NotA (this is proof by contrapositive) but not NotA ->NotB. Here Strats claim that Shakescene = Shakespeare implies that Shakespeare was an actor writing plays in 1592. We agree that this is a reference to Alleyne, and thus does not establish Shakespeare (or Shakspere) in the theater let alone as a plagiarizing writer. You draw the (logically unsupported) conclusion that Shakespeare/Shakspere was not part of Pembrokes in 1592 but joined them later (to account for the 1595 payment) which simply does not follow. By my usage (I use Shakespeare to mean the author, who you believe was Marlowe) we both accept that Shakespeare (the author) was part of Pembrokes in 1592 as evidenced by the works later attributed to "him."
In another comment you wrote, "On the other hand, the notion that Mary took the unprecedented step of assuming the pen name of Shakespeare (who later turns up as a real person who apparently decided to assume that name as well) in order to write a riposte to all those back stage Tommy's in the figure of Venus and Adonis, well, that seems a bit of a stretch to me." I took your point to be that it was unlikely that the author (already part of Pembroke's) adopted the pseudonym independently and that the Stratford man joined later using that name, and I agreed, I think either Shakspere was an actor with Pembrokes who provided a convenient allonym or he had nothing to do with the theater until after the folio when he was framed to divert attention from the real author. It appears however that is exactly what you are claiming, that Marlowe chose the name independently within days of his "death" and the Stratford guy became attached to the company as a business manager sometime later. I think that extraordinarily unlikely.
I think the likeliest explanation for the Pipe Office Record is that it is a Collier forgery which he had not yet "discovered" when he was exposed, leaving it for Halliwell-Philips to "find" with or without his help. Halliwell's paper describing the find provides suspiciously few details of how it was accomplished.
The connection of the three payees is unusual (though it echoes the will found much earlier, it was not typical to pay multiple members for a single performance), the script in a different hand on the backside of a period scroll offers an ideal canvas for a forger, and the conflict with the Gesta Greyoram date could just be carelessness.
If the record is genuine, the question remains whether Shakespeare is simply recorded as a senior member in the company charter, is being paid as author, or is functioning as "business manager" Contrary to your assertion, we do have records for Chamberlains that establish that management was primarily the responsibility of the Burbages, and later logistics were handled by Heminges. This is the only record that suggests Shakespeare by any name had any such role. The very nature of acting as business manager would be expected to generate many such records; I have no idea why Diana Price and others (including yourself) are not bothered by this absence, as well as any contemporary reference to Shakespeare as an actor after making such a fuss about the missing evidence for authorship. I understand that there is a faction of AntiStrat folks committed to the theory that Shakspere was a play broker and am prepared to argue that there is absolutely no evidence to support that belief.
“You draw the (logically unsupported) conclusion that Shakespeare/Shakspere was not part of Pembrokes in 1592 but joined them later (to account for the 1595 payment) which simply does not follow.”
As I said before, I report that there is no record of Shakespeare/Shaksper/Stratford Man working with Pembroke’s Men in 1592. Certain scholars backdate later attributions of plays contemporaneously published without attribution to assert that Shakespeare was there then, but it would not have looked that way to the actors in the company in 1592. There was no such person for them to acknowledge. They would have seen Marlowe as the principal author/director.
“By my usage”
The actual name Shakespeare does not appear until June, 1593. So, there was no such person or fake person for anyone to recognize in 1592. I think you could save us, or at least me, a lot of confusion if you would stop letting the academic habit of slapping Shakespeare on everything complicate your work. If you think Lady Pembroke wrote the plays later attributed to Shakespeare, then I think you ought to speak in those terms. Now, how she managed to get them rehearsed without tipping her hand is another story.
“It appears however that is exactly what you are claiming, that Marlowe chose the name independently within days of his "death" and the Stratford guy became attached to the company as a business manager sometime later. I think that extraordinarily unlikely.”
What I am claiming is that Shaxper of Stratford was acquainted with Richard Field who had connections with the Burghley network, which somehow led to Shaxper’s employment as a beard for the publication of Venus and Adonis, a project that I think was initiated by Burghely as a further extension of his multi-year campaign to marry his granddaughter to Southampton. I don’t think anyone expected this employment to extend beyond its first assignment, but life goes on and complications arise. I don’t think Marlowe chose the name, it was chosen in his absence and over time it stuck as Shaxper demonstrated his continuing usefulness as a man of business.
“The very nature of acting as business manager would be expected to generate many such records; I have no idea why Diana Price and others (including yourself) are not bothered by this absence, as well as any contemporary reference to Shakespeare as an actor after making such a fuss about the missing evidence for authorship.”
The Globe and its records burned in one hour 1613. O were it not so! Jonson listed Shakespeare as an actor in his productions of every Man in His Humor and Sejanus in his 1616 Folio. There’s a good chance Shakespeare was still alive when Jonson was having that Folio typeset.
Thank you David, for your interesting and informative essay. But I take issue with Mary being Harvey's gentlewoman. Here are three points.
1/ "No other suitable candidate has ever been proposed." In my book, 'Aemilia Lanyer as Shakespeare's Co-Author' (Routledge, 2022), I presented evidence for Lanyer being this gentlewoman.
2/ Harvey "describes her in terms that can only refer to the Countess of Pembroke". But Harvey said that "she was neither the noblest, nor the fairest, nor the finest, nor the richest lady, but the gentlest, the wittiest and bravest and invinciblest gentlewoman that I know". Mary Sidney was very fair, noble and rich, compared to commoner, Aemilia Lanyer.
3/ Nashe's "Have With You To Safftron Walden" levels misogynistic abuse at Harvey's gentlewoman. If she were Mary Sidney, Nashe would have been pilloried, if not hung, drawn and quartered.
ANOTHER MATTER You mentioned Marprelate's threatened 'Reckoning". This was commonly associated with reference to Zechariah 11:17. Consider this perhaps being Marlowe's 'Reckoning" with a knife in the right eye. And in addition to the 3 sonnets by Harvey's gentlewoman, she may have written the sonnet, "An Apostrophe to the Health of his Abused Friends" as Marlowe's eulogy. Kind regards, Mark Bradbeer
Thanks for reading my work and for your comments. A couple thoughts in response.
1. There is no doubt that Aemilia was part of the circle of women attached to Mary Sidney, and her connection to Hunsdon is even better documented. However I do not find that argument that she "was Shakespeare" very persuasive. Her known writing does not look much like Shakespeare's, it is not at all obvious why her identity would have been closely held and the many references to Shakespeare that seem to identify the writer with Sidney do not really offer much to tie them to Lanyer.
2. The one excepted by Nashe is universally accepted to be the Queen. It was a matter of protocol to acknowledge the Queen paramount in all virtues, and this would be utterly conventional in this respect if praise of Mary Sidney. Taken as a whole the references to the Gentlewoman are difficult to interpret elsewise - that is the overwhelming conclusion of the academics who have considered the question, while a few support the notion that this is wishful thinking on behalf of Harvey and that the intended confusion creates an unsupported identification few argue that the reader is not intended to identify the Gentlewoman with Sidney. It seems very unlikely that Harvey would refer to Lanyer as his patroness or that she would have fulfilled that role.
3. The point of using a pseudonym (Shakespeare or Gentlewoman patroness) in this context is that it allows an aristocrat to get into the mud with Nashe. He can hardly be charged with attacking a Countess who uses a false name to engage with him. Nonetheless, the Bishops' ban does seem to specifically target works Harvey. Nashe, the Labeo satires of Hall and Marston that treat the identity of Shakespeare so a certain amount of pilloring did ensue.
About Marlowe and the Reckoning, Peter Bull noted the parallel with Hiram Abiff in the origin myths of Freemasonry. I do not have a settled read (to my satisfaction) of the gentlewoman sonnets, although I have no reservations asserting that they generally serve to castigate Nashe (and by association Florio and Greville) for the presumption in publishing Philip's works and usurping his name for their literary and political ends. An Apostrophe engages with Ovid's Amores 3.14, but I cannot offer a definitive reading.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. Being a new visitor to your website, I am unaware of the “many references to Shakespeare that seem to identify the writer with Sidney”. Can you give me some examples?
You say that “I do not find that argument that she "was Shakespeare" very persuasive.” Judging from the responses to Elizabeth Winkler’s Atlantic essay “Was Shakespeare a Woman ?”, this is a common reaction to any female candidate before seeing the evidence.
I do not contend that Lanyer was the only Shakespeare, but that she was an unacknowledged co-author with “Shakespeare”, just as were Marlowe (e.g. 1Henry VI) and Fletcher (e.g. Henry VIII).
Obviously in Elizabethan times, a commoner woman had to hide her identity, but in 1611, Lanyer was gutsy enough to be the first Englishwoman to publish a book of her own poetry under her own name. Her poetry defended women, and Eve in particular, against misogynists. The prime misogynist was Thomas Nashe, who propagated misogyny in his Anatomy of Absurdity (1589) and Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem (1593).
In his New Praise for the Old Ass (1593), Harvey called his gentlewoman “my patroness, or rather my championess”, as she gave him more than encouragement, advice and sonnets. ‘Her Old Comedy’ sonnet by this gentlewoman, promised to immortalise the ass, Nashe. Also in Harvey’s book, a mystery male sonneteer wrote ‘His Sonet, that will justify his Word, and dedicateth Nashe’s S. Fame to Immortality’, promising to collaborate with her.
Nashe’s immortality was perpetrated on stage as well as page. Locrine (1594), was published, ‘newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W.S.' (Note that W.S. was overseeing another playwright.) The play’s clown is the pseudo-poet, Strumbo, whose poetry ‘goeth arsward’. He calls himself an ‘Ass-Tom’, and he cites Lactantius. Tom Nashe cites Lactantius in his Pierce Penniless (1592).
Other satirical caricatures of Nashe followed, - like Moth (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Launce (Two Gentlemen of Verona), Dromio E. (Comedy of Errors), Jaques (As You Like It), Dogberry (Much Ado) and Bottom (Midsummer Night’s Dream).
In The Unfortunate Traveller (1954), Nashe spoke of a delicate wench named Aemilia who had “devised the means to make me immortal”. I suggest that Shakespeare’s Early Comedies were collaborations between Aemilia Lanyer and “W.S.”
In her poetry, Lanyer paid homage to Mary Sidney, and in chapters 4 & 5 of my book, Aemilia Lanyer as Shakespeare’s Co-Author (2022), I provide evidence that Lanyer cowrote Pericles as a homage to Mary’s brother, Philip.
The feminist poet, Aemilia Lanyer, is worthy of serious consideration.
I think we may have an opportunity to explore collaboration as your book illuminates some connections I have been exploring or intending to explore. The posts on this site consider the evidence linking Mary Sidney to the writing and reception of the Shakespeare Canon. Last November I covered the evidence from Ben Jonson and the First Folio which appears to identify Mary with Shakespeare in "12 days of Shakespeare." More recently I reviewed the political and literary context which informs Venus and Adonis. Succinctly, Mary was the patron of the company formed as Pembroke;s Men around Richard Burbage in May of 1591. According to Lucas Erne's interpretation of Kyd's letter to John Puckering, Thomas Kyd had been in her employ for some six years, and Marlowe for 18 months when authorities arrested and tortured Kyd in association with the Dutch Libel. As Shakespeare's first works were performed by the company during this period it is reasonable to infer that "he" too was in her employ. Within a few months of the arrest of Kyd and the extrajudicial execution of Marlowe, the Pembrokes severed all direct ties with the Theater and dramatic writers.
During this period Mary was engaged in a legal and literary battle over control of her brother Philip's works with members of Philip's circle who had aligned with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. John Florio and Fulke Greville edited and published an edition of Philip's New Arcadia in 1590. In 1592 (according to recent work by Mark Bland) Florio was responsible for publication of Astrophel and Stella with a dedication by Nashe to the Mary. This edition including poems from Samuel Daniel's Delia which he had contracted to another printer. Daniel was in Europe when the volume came out, when he returned he entered the employ of Mary Sidney and asserted his authorship rights through the stationer's guild which resulted in "calling in" unsold copies and an agreement to release them only after Daniel's poems and Nashe's dedication were removed. In 1593 Mary released her own edition of Arcadia, removing Greville's commentary and abusing his editor Florio for defacing the work (Mary used the same publisher, Ponsonby, and thereby gained control over the publication rights). Venus and Adonis constitutes an a memorial to Philip and a literary claim to his mantel by exemplifying the principles declared in his Defense and in his fictional writing. The dedication to Wriothesley is not an actual appeal for patronage - he serves as "Pasquino" for posting the works in the squabble/
Nashe's participation in the expropriation of her brother's work draws Mary into the Nashe/Harvey conflict and initiates a decade long conflict with Nashe, hence his Unfortunate Traveler is Jack Wilton.
Susan Bertie was a member of Mary Sidney's Wilton circle. Her brother Peregrin fought with Philip at Zutphen (Philip reportedly saved his life before suffering his mortal gunshot). Aemilia would have been connected with Mary from childhood.
Pericles has represented a problem for me, as not only is Pericles clearly recalling Philip, but Mariana (another changed name) is pretty clearly meant to represent Mary. It is not characteristic for her to self aggrandize herself as the alchemical child, so I have hypothesized that the play was written to honor Philip and Mary in Shakespeare's style by someone else in her circle, my thoughts ran to Jonson and Mary Wroth, but Lanyer makes a lot of sense. The play was almost certainly written for the Garter celebration of 1608 when Philip Herbert was inducted into the order and the recently deceased Edward Dyer was replaced as Chancellor by a Herbert cousin, hence the elaborate alchemical allegory and evolution of language and style celebrating the Sidney's contributions to English letters. The incest riddle is connected to the Queen Elizabeth's translation of Mirror of the Sinful Soul from Margarite de Navarre and so further celebrates woman writers.
I have mostly assumed that Emilia references were motivated by her presence in the Sidney circle and connection to Hunsdon, but based on your book I am reconsidering whether she had a more substantial role as a writer.
It is just possible to rationalize the Stratford Shakspere as author by connecting him to Mary Sidney, who certainly provided the missing access to works including unpublished manuscripts and could have provided education and language skills that seem to defy the traditional biography. Since many of the Sidney records were lost in a series of fires there is additional room for undocumented biography. It is possible to account for Covell, Jonson, Nashe and others apparent efforts to identify Mary with Shakespeare because of her role as patron. I believe it is much more likely that she was the author, and he happened to share a similar name. I suppose that Aemilia could have contributed to or even been the primary author of the canon under the same guise (there is considerably more evidence for her than Stratford). I really like the idea that Aemila provides the link to Wilkins and that she used that psuedonym just as Mary used Shakespeare.
Dear David,
I’ve started reading through your other interesting online essays, but I have yet to read the majority of them. We have points of commonality, and I would be delighted to collaborate and swap ideas.
Although we have different interpretations of Pericles, Alan Young’s “A Note on the Tournament Impresas in Pericles” (Shakespeare Quarterly 36, (1985), 453-6) is compelling evidence for Philip Sidney being a model for the character of Pericles. It is difficult to conceive of our man from Stratford knowing that the “withered branch that’s only green on top”, was Sidney’s impresa. As Young says:
“How Shakespeare may have known of Sidney's impresa is impossible to say, since its most likely date of composition is November 1577, following Sidney's recent service with his father in Ireland and an important European mission for Elizabeth. The identification of Sidney's tournament impresa as Shakespeare's source for that of Pericles must thus remain tentative.”
And of course, Sidney’s Pyrocles is the inspiration for Pericles.
Your reading of the character of Henry Carey will make your understanding of Lanyer very poignant. Unlike most writers, I believe he was not an altogether virtuous master of his mistress, Lanyer. I think he was abusive as well as indulgent of her.