Shame on Him Who Thinks Ill of It

Shakespeare, St. George and Thomas Sackville

The Parish Register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon records the baptism of Gulielmus filius Iohannes Shakspere on April 26, 1564. The exact date of his birth is not known, however, his funeral monument, on the wall of the church, reveals that he died in his 53rd year, on April 23, 1616, so he must have already celebrated his 52 birthday by that date. Children were baptized at the first opportunity, so we can infer that the boy was born between the 21st and the 23rd, traditionally Shakespeare’s birthday is assigned to the 23rd of April, so he was born and died the same day, not coincidentally the feast day of St. George, patron saint of England.

In the subsequent centuries, the fame of the writer widely thought to have defined British identity has eclipsed the saint originally honored on his birthday, and the second to last week in April has become a time for announcing new discoveries and hawking biographies about the man and his works. In the last few days we learned that a scholar from the University of London, Lucy Munro, has “discovered” Shakespeare’s “long lost” apartment in London, Nevermind that the documents describing the property and recording the purchase in 1613 have been known for centuries, and the property (the old Gatehouse of the Blackfriars monastery in central London) already identified on older maps. Munro found a 1668 map made after the 1666 Great Fire which shows the footprint of the parcel with the name Shakespeare. News outlets across the globe have reported the shocking new evidence that the structure was exactly where the plaque memorializing it has been affixed to a wall for decades.

There is also a new book (published last month) getting attention. What’s in a name? How historians know Shakespeare was Shakespeare by cultural and social historian Susan Dwyer Amussen. Amussen does offer something of value; she provides a rich exploration of Stratford where little Gulielmus grew up, married, had children, and somehow amassed enough money to buy one of the largest houses. She also usefully summarizes information about the playing companies of London, the theaters where they acted, and the common people who attended their public performances, currently scattered among many specialty volumes. What she does not do is establish “how historians know Shakespeare was Shakespeare.” Curiously, despite the title, she doesn’t really consider the evidence beyond the name which links the author to the man from Stratford. Amussen reduces the arguments about authorship to two questions, would someone else have used the name William Shakespeare as a pseudonym or allonym? (the latter if Shakespeare was an actor for the company that performed the plays) and could the man from Stratford have written the works given the limitations of his birth and education. She contends that there is no reason why another author would choose to publish under another name but makes no effort to examine the question, simply asserting that the name indicates the man from Stratford throughout the book. Most of the book is her attempt to answer the latter question, but in a very specific and limited way, not “is the documentary evidence that survives about the Stratford man consistent with his being a famous actor and writer,” but could he have become that man, if a host of things for which we have no evidence had happened, but simply failed to leave any lasting evidence. Nearly all the evidence she cites on behalf of her claim that Shakespeare could have been Shakespeare is about other authors born in similar circumstances who did leave incontrovertible evidence of their education, connections to patrons and literary endeavors. Marlowe was the son of a cobbler, Kyd of a scribe, Jonson’s actual father was a clergyman, but died before his birth, his stepfather was a bricklayer, a profession Jonson fell back upon when financial hardship forced him to abandon Cambridge after just a few months. While there is little doubt that Shakspere of Stratford could have matched Jonson’s legendary learning had his life followed a similar course, the abundant evidence for other writers is precisely the point for doubters, why does so much survive for others, but nothing for Shakespeare? Why is Shakespeare biography assembled from the things he could, would, or must have done, rather than anything we can document. In the 178 pages of Amussen’s book (omitting appendices), the word would appears 155 times, could 90 times.

Unfortunately the useful part of Amussen’s book is bookended with diatribes about how doubts about authorship are utterly without merit, and “distorts our image of early modern England at large.” In these she makes unfounded assertions, many contradicting current academic consensus, some contradicted by the more careful scholarship in the body of this book itself. This substack is dedicated to exploring that world using the actual evidence that Amussen ignores, or of which she is simply ignorant. While to date I have posted infrequently, preferring to provide exhaustive and thoroughly researched accounts of specific works (specifically the 1623 publication of the First Folio and the 1593 first appearance of the name Shakespeare in Venus and Adonis), I have determined that it is necessary to provide additional context for my specific topical work. So I will be responding to the appearance of Shakespeare in the news, and particularly to arguments for various candidates, in more frequent short essays under the heading: Shakespeare: facts, fiction, fabrication and falsehood.

Pericles, St. George and Sackville

I have however continued to work on specific topics with an eye toward producing publishable articles, and will also over the next few weeks share several posts concerning my most recent project, the origins of Shakespeare’s? Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Pericles is a bit of an anomaly; it is one of only two plays currently accepted as Shakespeare’s work that were not included in the First Folio. It was published in 1609 as “by William Shakespeare” although it has long been believed to be at least partially written by George Wilkins, a brothel owner who published a novelization of the play in the previous year. I have concluded that Pericles was written for a specific occasion, the Garter feast held at Salisbury House on May 6, 1608.

That story begins on today’s date April 19, with the death of Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and Lord Treasurer of England. As Sackville was a Garter knight, his death created a vacancy in the Order, strictly limited to 24 members in addition to the King (James) and his heir apparent (Prince Henry). The feast was traditionally held on April 23, St. George’s Day to honor the patron of the order (Note that we are back where I started this post), however James was outside London so the announcement of new knights and feast were delayed until his return. Sackville’s death allowed James to name a second new knight in 1608; he chose 23 year old Philip Herbert, the second son of the Earl of Pembroke who been among the king’s first favorites and that James created Earl of Montgomery in 1605.

Sackville’s office, Lord Treasurer, was bestowed upon Robert Cecil, who was already running the country as Secretary of State. Rather than assigning that office to someone else, James simply voiced his confidence that Cecil was up to both jobs, consolidating the hold on power that Robert had inherited from his father William who ran the country as Lord Burghley for most of Elizabeth’s reign. Robert was Burghley’s second son. His brother Thomas inherited the title, Robert took the power, and was rewarded when James assumed the throne with his own titles, Baron Cecil in 1603, Viscount Cranborne the following year, and Earl of Salisbury in 1605. He was made a knight of the Garter in 1606, and thus was perfectly suited to host the 1608 celebration, which would also mark his advancement to Lord Treasurer. The feast, technically the “ordinary” celebration of the Order of the Garter was hosted in Cecil’s newly completed library at his London mansion, Salisbury House. For the occasion, Cecil planned an “Entertainment” which would have to fulfill a complex creative brief. It would have to reflect the history and principles of the Order, with its motto, Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense, shame on him who thinks ill of it, nominally a reference to founding King Edward III retrieving a garter fallen from a Lady of the court, but more generally an assertion of royal privilege and denunciation of envious gossip. It would honor the Garter knights who passed during the previous year, Sackville and Duke Frederick of Wurttemberg, as well as Edward Dyer who had served as Chancellor of the Order for a decade before his death the previous May. It would also honor the new knights, Scotsman George Home, Earl of Dunbar, and Philip Herbert both favorites of the King. Finally it would reflect Cecil’s desire to portray himself as ideal counselor and servant to the king grounded in classical and modern learning, devoid of personal ambition, utterly loyal to his sovereign.

And because the ceremony had already been delayed, the dinner and entertainment would have to be planned, scripted and prepared in just 17 days.