Lift Your Mug of Wassail and Raise Your Voice in Song: a Brief Look at Twelfth Night

by Linda Fetterly Root

Here's to a slice of Cake and a cup of mulled wine or Wassail in honor of Twelfth Night.

The origin of Twelfth Night is sometimes traced to the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia because of the appearance in many of its versions of a mock king. Adaptations of Roman festivals in medieval European courts often featured the appearance of a false sovereign sometimes called the Lord of Misrule, but the title of the bogus monarch common to the Twelfth Night holiday on the eve of the Feast of Epiphany was most often known as the King of the Bean. The tradition was also adopted in Spain, the Low Countries and the German principalities, although in Germany and the Netherlands, the item in the winning slice was a coin. It has been speculated as inevitable that the French would combine their love of the culinary arts with their passion for spectacle, in a celebration conferring temporary kingship on a courtier who found a bean hidden in his marzipan or honey cake. The French phrase meaning, ‘he had good luck’ –il a trove lafeve au gateau—literally translated to ‘he found a bean in his cake.'

Twelfth Night entertainments at British Courts did not begin with Shakespeare
The comedic flavor attributed to the festival of Twelfth Night did not begin with the mishaps of William Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, nor was it exclusively a British holiday. Shakespeare wrote his play at the turn of the 17th century, and it was first performed in 1602. The plot centers around fraternal twins who were separated in their youth by a shipwreck. One of them, Viola, resurfaces in adulthood as a trickster who often disguises herself as a man. She falls in love with Count Orsini, who is in love with Countess Olivia, who meets Viola while she is wearing her disguise and falls in love with her. The predictable series of misadventures follow.

The Masque of Blackness, script by Ben Johnson, Costumes and Set design by Inigo Jones, Starring Queen Anne of Denmark and sixteen ladies of the Court

Blackness costume design
by Inigo Jones

At least one Twelfth Night celebration, this one at the Stuart Court in 1605, was controversial in its time and certainly would not pass political correctness tests of current times. The production was sponsored by Queen Anne of Denmark, the first English Stuart consort, and entitled The Masque of Blackness. The play was written by Ben Jonson, and the set designs and costumes and props were the work of Inigo Jones. Queen Anne was a great fan of masques and often performed in them. In Blackness, she played the part of Euphorus and appeared in black face. Even then, a theme centering on skin color was considered improprietous by some of the Queen’s critics. The plot involves a group of African women who had regarded themselves as the most beautiful women in the world until learning black skin was considered ugly outside of Africa. The story advances as the women explore the known world seeking a way to make themselves white. It ends with a promise that the next year’s masque will involve Beauty, in which the black-faced women are likely to discover themselves in Britannia, where pale skin was the norm. However, performance of the second installment of the story, entitled Beauty, was postponed to 1608, to permit the 1607 Twelfth Night reveries to focus on a Wedding Masque of Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex and Lady Francis Howard, who proved to be a couple more mismatched than any pair either Shakespeare or Ben Jonson could have conjured.

Queen for a Day: Twelfth Night at the Court of the Queen of Scots
My favorite Twelfth Night story comes in two installments of a love story I uncovered when I researched my debut novel, The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, and it involves Twelfth Night reveries which occurred in Scotland during Marie Stuart’s brief personal rule. The story begins in France during Queen Marie Stuart's youth. At the mid-sixteenth century French court at which King Henry Valois’s elegant mistress Diane de Poitiers set the tone, it is not surprising to find the selection of a Queen of the Bean incorporated into the festivities. Traditionally, a white bean was placed into a honey cake in the royal kitchens and served to female members of the royal household, the first piece given to the oldest. Like most things associated with Diane, the tradition caught the fancy of Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots, when she was Dauphine, and later, Queen Consort, and she brought the tradition home with her to Scotland in 1561.

The version she introduced commemorated her own sovereignty by making the featured attraction the selection of a Queen of the Bean. No King of the Bean appears in the histories of her reign, which the consort Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, should have heeded. There is no record as to precisely when the Queen introduced the lottery of the honey cake, but there is some indication that Lady Marie Beaton may have been the winner in 1563. However, the Twelfth Night celebrations of 1564 have survived in some details and were vividly commemorated by descriptions reported to the Crowned Heads of Europe. It was the year when the bean was found in the honey cake of Marie Fleming, the Queen’s first cousin and leader of the Queen's ladies called The Four Maries. The petite blond woman who had been lauded by French poets as one of the most beautiful women in the world appeared dressed in a gown of silver and covered from head to toe in jewels. Even Beaton’s paramour, the English ambassador Thomas Randolph sent reports to Queen Elizabeth and to the Queen Mother Catherine d' Medici at the French Court comparing Fleming to three goddesses from classical mythology and describing her presence as eclipsing the Queen. Even stiff-necked George Buchanan praised her demeanor and her beauty. It is fitting to note that the last Twelfth Night celebration of Marie Stuart's six-year personal rule was held at Court in 1567, when the former Queen of the Bean, Marie Fleming, married the celebrated Scottish diplomat and foreign minister Sir William Maitland of Lethington who had fallen in love with her presumably at her appearance on Twelfth Night, 1564. Through their daughter, Margaret Maitland (Kerr), Lady Roxburghe, the bride and groom are remote ancestors of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and hence, her sons, William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry of Wales. The Twelfth Night Celebration of 1564 is commemorated annually in Biggar, Scotland, the Fleming ancestral home.

Twelfth Night in the New Millennium
The popularity of Twelfth Night festivities caught on in 18th century America and were very popular with George and Martha Washington, who chose it as the date of their wedding. Nevertheless, the nature of the holiday changed with time. By the 19th century, the tradition involving the election of a King or Queen for a Day had all but disappeared. Such, perhaps, is the fate of monarchy. However, its vestiges are seen in Provence and to some degree, in Germany. By the early 19th century, the festival had taken on a carnival mood and was a favorite holiday of the great Jane Austen. However, late in the 19th century, Queen Victoria outlawed its celebration as having become too raucous. Its popularity survived longer in the Americas, but by the 20th century, it had become an occasion for the taking down of decorations and the extinguishing of the Yule Log. In current times, especially in traditional households where Epiphany is celebrated, Twelfth Night is commemorated with cake and a punch bowl of wassail, which is happily consumed and put away until the next Christmas season. Thank you for celebrating it with me.

~~~~~~~~~~
Linda Root is a retired career prosecutor, armchair historian and historical novelist who lives in the Morongo Basin area of the California high desert within a quarter mile of the Joshua Tree National Park. Her books take place in Marie Stuart’s Scotland and Stuart England, and can be found at Amazon.com, Amazon.uk.com and Amazon Kindle. Her eight book and current work in progress, The Deliverance of the Lamb, will be published in the late Spring, 2018.

Gamelyn vs. Robin Hood

By A. E. Chandler

The most famous English outlaw is Robin Hood, but he was by no means alone in the forest. Other outlaws, both fictional and real, can be traced throughout medieval England. Some of these outlaws influenced Robin Hood’s legend, whilst others have faded from history. Gamelyn’s story shares many similarities with Robin’s; it’s also its own kind of animal.

Image I - Sons robbing travellers in the forest

Gamelyn is the youngest son of a knight who bucks tradition and on his deathbed divides his land amongst his three sons, rather than giving all to the firstborn. Growing up as his eldest brother’s ward, Gamelyn develops incredible physical strength, though he must stand by and watch as his lands go to waste. At last he gains control over his inheritance following an argument with his brother. Soon after, Gamelyn competes in and wins a wrestling match, inviting everyone at the fair to follow him home to celebrate at his brother’s hall. When his brother bars the gate, Gamelyn is able to kick it in and break the defiant porter’s neck with one blow, throwing the body down the courtyard well. The other servants, knowing Gamelyn to be a friend to themselves and his tenants, don’t try to resist his wishes. The guests feast for seven days and nights, at the end of which Gamelyn’s brother manages to chain him up in the hall. The brother holds a feast for some wealthy churchmen, all of whom refuse to help Gamelyn. Instead he is freed by a servant named Adam the Spencer, and the two beat everyone with staffs, breaking the brother’s back and placing him in Gamelyn’s chains.

The sheriff gets involved and, after initially driving him off, Gamelyn and Adam flee to the woods where they meet the King of the Outlaws and his seven-score men. The brother heals, becoming the new sheriff. Gamelyn’s lands are confiscated, and he becomes King of the Outlaws when the former man is pardoned. At the shire court, Gamelyn is imprisoned, but his middle brother Ote comes and bails him out. Gamelyn returns to the forest, stealing from passing churchmen. On the day of the assize, the eldest brother declares that Ote will hang, as Gamelyn has not fulfilled his court date. Gamelyn then makes a dramatic entrance, freeing Ote and placing the corrupt sheriff, justice, and jury on trial, hanging them all. The King pardons Ote, Gamelyn, and all the outlaws, making Gamelyn Chief Justice of the Forest.

The historical note at the end of my novel, The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood, borrows from my academic research when it discusses why we can date the existence of Robin Hood’s legend to the early to mid thirteenth century, whilst the first written stories we have of him come from the fifteenth century. Gamelyn’s story was composed in the mid fourteenth century, in between Robin’s origin and his first known extant written tales. From the dialect used, Knight and Ohlgren have speculated that Gamelyn’s story was likely written in Leicestershire, or perhaps Lincolnshire, both of which are near Robin Hood’s territory of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, and both of which have connections to Robin’s legend.

The Tale of Gamelyn is found in twenty-five early manuscripts, whereas four of the five medieval tales we have of Robin Hood survive in only one. (The fifth, A Gest of Robyn Hode, survives in five fragmented copies, and these are all printed, rather than handwritten. No handwritten copy of Gest is known to exist.) Gamelyn owes this larger number to a vague association with Geoffrey Chaucer, suspected by some of intending to include a version of Gamelyn in The Canterbury Tales. As a side note, William Shakespeare later wrote the play As You Like It based on Thomas Lodge’s 1590 Rosalynde, which was in turn based on Gamelyn.

Image II - Decorated border& initial,
beginning of the Reeve's Tale

Some of the similarities between Gamelyn’s story and Robin’s are due to their shared genre of medieval outlaw literature, whilst some are due to one story influencing the other. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to tell which way the influence flowed, due to the scarcity of source material. One instance where we do know that it was Gamelyn’s story affecting Robin’s comes from the modern period. J. C. Holt, the leading expert on Robin Hood, has argued that Gamelyn is the inspiration for the character of Gamwell, who was added to early modern rhymes of Robin Hood. Gamwell merged with Will Scarlet, creating a relative of Robin’s who is on the run from the law after killing his father’s disrespectful steward with an overzealous blow to the head. The medieval Gamelyn’s vaunted strength, and the emphasis placed on his high-born familial ties seem to have been incorporated into Robin Hood’s legend in the person of Will Gamwell.

The early modern Robin Hood is closer to Gamelyn than the medieval Robin Hood, though whether this is due to direct influence by Gamelyn is up for debate. As Maurice Keen notes, Gamelyn is loved by the lower classes in his Tale - his tenants, servants, the spectators at the fair, the outlaws - and he in turn consistently earns this love. The medieval Robin Hood is more nuanced; when it comes to the lower classes he has allies, such as the uncle of Much the Miller’s son, as well as opponents (such as the potter, and fellow-outlaw Guy of Gisborne). In Gest when the people of Nottingham see Robin leading his band toward the city they try to flee, even old women on crutches, convinced they will all be massacred. The more universal love from the peasantry that Robin experiences in post-medieval tales comes after the idea of robbing the rich to feed the poor was introduced to his legend in the sixteenth century. The sixteenth century also saw Robin elevated to become the Earl of Huntingdon, which inevitably made him a landlord, like Gamelyn, with an automatic obligation of good lordship toward his peasants. The medieval Robin Hood is not a nobleman but himself a peasant, though anyone calling him that likely would receive a punch in the face, as he is a type of high-ranking peasant called a yeoman, and takes every opportunity to remind his audience of his status. The medieval Robin is fiercely proud to be a yeoman, and is just as disinclined toward raising his social status as he is toward lowering it. Gamelyn is constantly struggling to affirm his status, whereas Robin’s is always secure. As the son of a knight and as a landlord, Gamelyn’s station is much above the medieval Robin’s, and so the social issues dealt with in his tale are different.

Image III - scribe dipping his quill

Gamelyn and the medieval Robin Hood legend do, however, share much in common. One example lies in both Robin and Gamelyn rebelling against corruption, to fight for the preservation of the established social order. Gamelyn hits its audience (and not infrequently its characters) over the head with this theme, whilst in Robin’s tales it is used with greater skill. Gamelyn and his eldest brother are stuffed into the roles of outlaw king and sheriff respectively halfway through their story. At its climax, Gamelyn turns the officials of justice into the defendants at their own biased trial, convicting and hanging them as they had already intended to do to him. Robin Hood behaves like a corrupt forester, overzealously enforcing forest law where it should not exist. At the same time, he shows himself to be “the criminal who upholds justice better than the Sheriff . . . the robber who can be more generous than the gentry . . . the excommunicant who shows more devotion than the clergy . . . preserv[ing] what they claim to love by being [his] own hypocrite” as his wife tells him in The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood. In a similar vein, when Gamelyn is faced with cold-hearted clergymen, he simply attacks them at the first opportunity; the medieval Robin Hood is known to rob monks, but he is also extremely devout, especially with regard to the Virgin Mary, and is often shown praying and attending mass. He even (with disastrous results as it turns out) entrusts his life to a nun.

Whilst Gamelyn’s character is simplistic, the medieval Robin Hood’s is more complex. Perhaps this is why The Tale of Gamelyn is concluded to be fictional, whilst the truth about Robin’s tales is still up for debate.

Images (British Library) attributions: 

I , II, III

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A. E. Chandler holds a Master of Arts with Merit from the University of Nottingham, where she wrote her dissertation on the social history behind Robin Hood. When not teaching or volunteering with the Glenbow Museum’s military collection, she writes historical fiction as well as contemporary fiction concerning history. Chandler has had stories, poetry, and articles published, in addition to a book of collected non-fiction entitled Into the World, and her new novel The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood.

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Chapters Indigo

The True Will Shakespeare

by Linda Fetterly Root

A comparison of the three earliest portraits, compiled by Stratford Brice
from Public Domain Art- Wikimedia

The faces of William Shakespeare

The three earliest portraits of Will Shakespeare are compared above. The first two were likely painted while he lived and the third was used when his first Folio was published. All three portraits are ante-dated by the sculpted image at Shakespeare's burial site in Trinity Church, shown below.

A Man of Natural Talent or a Ghostwriter?

I realize there are otherwise credible people who deny the Holocaust, the moon landing, the existence of the historical Jesus, and the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald. Most of them are motivated by a political point-of-view compatible with their belief structure. I find no such justification for questioning the contribution to world literature by a guy named William Shakespeare. This does not mean other writers might not have contributed to his works. But does anyone claim Jim Henson did not create the Muppets simply because a second inventive genius named Frank Oz was involved? In treating the question, it would be disingenuous of me to claim the insight of the many distinguished thinkers who have raised the point: Freud, Samuel Clemons, and Helen Keller, to name a few, but their acknowledge genius does not make them right. Some of the disclaimers are based on mathematical analysis of word use and structure, others on principles of linguistics or the viewpoints expressed in the plays. Mine is simplistic and based on what we do know about Shakespeare, and what I know about the nature of writers. 

Shakespeare was real

Those disclaiming Shakespeare’s authorship of his many plays do not go so far as to claim there was no such person as William Shakespeare, the young man from Stratford-on-Avon. There is no question a merchant named John Shakespeare and his wealthy wife Mary Arden gave birth to a son named William, who was baptized by that name on April 26, 1564, at Trinity Church in Stratford-on-Avon. The custom of the times would suggest the ceremony occurred approximately three days after birth, which is why April 23rd is accepted as Shakespeare's birthday. Below is the record of John Shakespeare's son William's baptism.

While some doubters stress the paucity of information about Shakespeare’s early years to question the authenticity of his achievements, that is not the case when one factors in the profile of his father. John Shakespeare was politically active at the rural level, with ties to Midland England's aristocratic families including the Catesbys and probably the Treshams and Vauxes. At one time he was the Bailiff of Stratford—in modern terms, its mayor, a position unlikely to have been awarded to a highly visible recusant.

The restored family home on Henley Street, Stratford-on-Avon

At the time of Shakespeare’s birth, his father was probably what was called a closet Catholic—those who gave the outward appearance of embracing Anglicanism, but embraced the auld religion in the privacy of the home. His wife Mary Arden was Protestant and came from a wealthy family. She gave birth to eight children, five of whom survived into adulthood.

William Shakespeare probably attended the parish school in Stratford, which kept no surviving records. Some writers presume he was home schooled, but that is unlikely. While there was no compulsory education in early modern England, there were penalties imposed for homeschooling to avoid the curricula of parish churches, and until 1762, it was against the law for Catholics to teach. In addition, the prevailing evidence indicates both of his parents were illiterate. That single fact has been used to attack Shakespeare’s authorship of the large body of literature published in his name, but it confuses literacy with intellect.

Literate or not, Shakespeare's father was a civic leader. Snitterfield, the village where John Shakespeare grew to adulthood, had no parish school, but Stratford did. In all accounts, John Shakespeare was a successful designer/fabricator of leather gloves and headgear, with more than an average dose of entrepreneurship. He did, however, suffer an economic set-back possibly associated with his association with his Catholic leanings, or because his real estate investments were lucrative, but his other money lending was not, and at one point he had been charged and fined for usury. He became reclusive and ceased attending counsel meetings. Some writers state he was rehabilitated before his death, but by that time, his son William had acquired considerable wealth and influence, and may have been responsible for his father being granted a Coat of Arms which Shakespeare himself later used.

Sketch of the Schoolhouse at Stratford (PD Art)

Shakespeare was influenced by historical and religious events, consistent with themes expressed in his poetry and plays

John Shakespeare and William Catesby, father of the leader of the Gunpowder conspirators, were both dignitaries in their separate Midland communities and were friends. On one occasion, both appeared on the same list of those who had been fined by the Protestant church hierarchy for missing mandatory services. Both families had ties to the nascent Jesuit mission to England launched by the priests Edmund Campion and his Jesuit superior, Fr. Robert Persons.

Shortly after their arrival, the priests traveled to the Midlands, a hotbed of recusancy and Counter-Reformation sentiment. Father Campion likely stayed in the Catesby home, a mere 18 miles from Stratford-on-Avon. Persons is believed to have stayed with the Shakespeares.[1] There is evidence the two Jesuits distributed copies of a document to the recusants who harbored them. It was designed to be used as a model Spiritual Will and constituted a declaration of its testator’s abiding Catholic Faith. A handwritten copy signed by John Shakespeare and believed to be, for the most part, genuine was found in the rafters of one of William Shakespeare’s houses in 1757, although the first two provisions were likely forged by the man named Jordan who discovered them. Unfortunately, the entire document was later lost. Only it’s translation survives.[2]

Some historians use the materials concerning John Shakespeare as proof his famous son William knew the later martyred and Canonized Edmund Campion personally, but while it is possible, it is speculative. Shakespeare would have been a child at the time. What is apparent is Shakespeare’s youthful exposure to the English Catholic cause and thought which surely shaped his works. During his career, Shakespeare demonstrated the ability to treat issues in a provocative manner nevertheless inoffensive to his sovereign.

The lack of record does not mean Shakespeare was uneducated

One argument against Shakespeare as the likely author of his plays is a lack of education, a highly Charlatan point of view fed by its companion argument raising the lack of historical record of his youth. Each argument feeds the other, and neither considers what I consider to be a highly salient fact: in Shakespeare’s day, a Catholic education was illegal. It is likely that a child born of a recusant family might be overlooked in a rural schoolhouse, but those who advanced to England's few universities were vetted and culled. This does not mean there were no highly educated Elizabethan Catholics, but those who were had been educated abroad. The prime mover of the Gunpowder plot, Robert Catesby, attended nearby Oxford but dropped out rather than sign the Oath of Supremacy demanded of university graduates. Had Shakespeare been sent to Oxford, he would have faced the same obstacle.

As stated above, homeschooling was a criminal offense. Also, Shakespeare’s parents did not have the expertise to teach, but once the Jesuits appeared in the Midlands during Shakespeare’s early adolescence, it would not have been that difficult to place an educated priest or layman tutor in the home under the guise of a footman or a stablemaster. Before his father’s financial problems arose, the Shakespeare household could have afforded one. Other Midlanders such as the female recusant Eliza Roper, the Dowager Lady Vaux, held her own when interrogated by men like Lord Robert Cecil and his henchman Coke when suspected of harboring the much-sought-after Hunted Priest [3]John Gerard, and survived to establish a clandestine Jesuit boys’ school at the family estate at Great Harrowden .There is evidence the Wizard Earl of Northumberland intended to establish a similar school in the courtyard at Warkworth Castle. We cannot eliminate Will Shakespeare and the author of plays like Lear simply because he did not make his way to Oxford.

Nor would he have been ignorant of the dramatic form. Not only were plays written in Latin, a part of the grammar school curriculum at parish schools like the one in Stratford, but during Shakespeare's youth, aldermen issued licenses to more than twenty traveling theatrical companies [4] . And while It is tempting to confuse the terms educated and smart, even in modern times, such assumptions invite mistake. Think of John Steinbeck packing his duffel and leaving Stanford. Ben Franklin was homeschooled, and Ben Affleck dropped out of both the University of Vermont and Occidental College. Ever hear of a guy named Bill Gates? Frank Lloyd Wright? No one accuses self-taught Abraham Lincoln of having hired a ghostwriter to draft the Gettysburg address[5]. Look at your own life and think about gifted people you have encountered and ask yourself how many of them did not acquire their genius in a classroom.

What about William Shakespeare's early history? 

From the china cabinet of Linda Root, photo by the author

To illustrate the weakness of the argument of those who find insufficient evidence of Shakespeare’s potential because of the lack of documents from his youth, I entered the name of the most famous of my grammar school classmates into several search engines, and did not find enough information to distinguish him from others of the same name, although he has served as head of a federal financial entity. Next, I tried the same with the most successful graduate of my high school class and was overwhelmed by posting and videos, but none which dated back to his youth and early successes and failures. Why should we demand more of William Shakespeare than we do of Ron Rosenfeld or Dan Spinazzola? With Shakespeare, images of his birthplace, the site of his christening, and the houses of his mother, Mary Arden and his wife, Anne Hathaway can be found in the dinnerware in my credenza. We know William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway and they raised three children in Stratford-on-Avon, where his family remained when he moved to London. Details as to how he amassed his moderate fortune are sketchy, but hardly to the point to justify labeling his life as a husband and father living in rural England as ‘Lost Years.’

While there are several plausible stories as to what might have lured Shakespeare into the theater, and thus, to London, all of them are speculative. The fact, however, is he went, and by the time he arrived, he already had a reputation as an actor and fledgling playwright sufficiently widespread for a presumably jealous colleague, successful and prolific author Robert Greene, to call him an ‘upstart crow'.[6] ,[7] What Greene did not call him was a plagiarizer.

Robert Greene was not a fan of his youthful rival. He wrote his contemporary dramatists and begged them to put the upstart in his place. He may have thought Shakespeare's early works borrowed heavily on extant histories, but he never accused Shakespeare of putting his name to works penned by colleagues. The informative book, The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol 13, ed. Alfred Bates, London, Historical Publishing Company, 1906, pp. 104-107 makes a compelling case for Shakespeare’s authorship of his plays by referring to Robert Greene’s acerbic criticism, written shortly before Greene’s death in 1592 in critiques approaching the polemic. In The Drama, Bates make the following point concerning Shakespeare's productivity during the years prior to the bard's arrival in London only a year before his detractor's death:

‘Even in his wrath, however, Greene bears eloquent witness to Shakespeare’s diligence, ability and success, both as actor and playwright. Of Shakespeare’s amazing industry, and also of his success, there is ample evidence. Within six or seven years he not only produced the brilliant, reflective and descriptive poems of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece but at least fifteen of his dramas, including tragedies, comedies and historical plays’.

In conclusion, an argument I find compelling is based on my experience as a writer and a former prosecutor: Shakespeare's contemporaries most often propounded as the true authors of his plays never raised their claim. Those of us who write or perform are a prideful lot. We also have acquired the gift of access to a public audience: in essence, we have Voice. Would Ben Johnson, Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe, all of whom have been nominated as the true Will Shakespeare have remained silent when their colleague from Stratford-on -Avon claimed their masterworks? Never.

Christopher Marloew

Sir Francis Bacon

Ben Johnson

The Stratford Bust, possibly taken from a death mask.

References:

[1] Pearce, Joseph, The Quest for Shakespeare, Ignatius Press, 2008.
[2] Roth, Steve, Hamlet: The Undiscovered Country, Open House, 2 edition (December 23, 2013)3. [3]Gerard, John. S.J., The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest (Translated from the Latin by Philip Caraman, S.J., Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1952
[4] Wikipedia, ‘Shakespeare’s Life: The Lost Years’
[5] See https://despicablewonderfulyou.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/brilliant-minds-and-great-people-not-necessarily-with-a-college-degree/
[6] Robert Greene, Wikimedia, Shakespeare’s Life: The Lord years, and ` http://www.theatrehistory.com
The Drama; Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization: British drama – Alfred Bates, James Penny Boyd, John Porter Lamberton
[7] Bates, et al, Ibid.

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Linda Fetterly Root is a writer of historical fiction set in Marie Stuart's Scotland and Early Modern Britain. She is a retired major crimes prosecutor living in the Morongo Basin area of the Southern California hi-desert, on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park. She is a member of the Marie Stuart Society, the Historical Novel Society, and the Bars of California and the United States Supreme Court. William Shakespeare appears briefly in her current work-in-progress, The Deliverance of the Lamb, based upon the escape from England of flamboyant Jesuit John Gerard.

Tudor Christmas Gifts

by Deborah Swift

In Shakespeare's Day it was more usual to give gifts at New Year, but if you were lucky you might receive one at Christmas. Christmas gifts were known as Christmas Boxes and were usually given by a master to his servants, or an employer to his apprentices or workmen. They were a mark of appreciation for work done over the previous year.

New Year's gifts were a more equal exchange between friends or relations.

So what might you expect in a Tudor christmas stocking?

Maria Hubert in her book "Christmas in Shakespeare's England" suggests that Shakespeare might have enjoyed receiving paper as it was very expensive, a new quill pen, or a knife with which to sharpen it.

Well in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" a pedlar is selling:

Lawn as white as driven snow,

Cyprus black as e'er was crow,

Gloves as sweet as damask roses;

Masks for faces and for noses,

Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,

Perfume for a lady's chamber;

Golden quoifs and stomachers

For my lads to give their dears."

Elizabeth herself had a liking for candies and sugar fruits. The Sergeant of the Pastry (what a great title!) gave her a christmas 'pye of quynses and wardyns guilt'. In other words a gilded pie of quince and plums.

Everyone in her household was expected to give her a gift for the New Year, the more lavish the better, as your gift indicated your status. The gifts are well documented and include a gift even from her dustman, who gave her 'two bolts of camerick' (cambric) in 1577 . In the same year Sir Philip Sidney gave her 'a smock of camerick, wrought with black silk in the collor and sleves, the square and ruffs wrought with venice golde'. It seems the dustman's gift was somewhat outclassed!

Other gifts she received were 'eighteen larkes in a cage' in 1578, and a fan of white and red feathers which included her portrait, from Sir Francis Drake in 1589.

You can see that she is wearing an amber necklace like the one described in Shakespeare's verse, and carrying embroidered gloves and a feather fan in this portrait. Were any of them Christmas gifts I wonder?

For the artisan and lower classes it was the custom to send foodstuffs to your lord or master who owned the land you tenanted. Typical gifts included pigs, fowl, eggs, dried apples, cheeses or nuts and spices such as nutmegs and almonds.

But what about the man in your life? Well, socks of course. Or hose to be more precise. On the left you can see a pair of embroidered hose made for a small boy. Thanks to www.genevieve-de-valois.com for this picture.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deborah Swift's book "The Lady's Slipper" is available in the UK and in the US.

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Sherry: An Ancient Beverage Shared with Angels

by Lauren Gilbert

Stilleben mit Trauben auf einer Porzellanschale, zwei Pfirsichen und gefülltem Sherryglas

I have always been very interested in the late Georgian/Regency periods of English history. My reading showed that sherry was a popular beverage of the time, and one of the few stronger beverages that it was socially acceptable for a lady to enjoy. A recent tasting event that I had the privilege to attend led me to read up on the history of sherry, and what a history it has!  A rich and complex subject, I would like to give a general overview.

The roots of sherry go back three thousand years in Spain, where it appears that the Phoenicians brought vines and the knowledge of wine making. The city of Jerez, a key area for the production of sherry, was established by the Phoenicians as Xera. Other cultures contributed to the development of this wine and it was imported to Rome. When the Moors occupied Spain in the 8th century, despite the Muslim prohibition against the consumption of alcohol, they continued the cultivation of grapes for the production of wine for medicinal purposes and for raisins. The area was reclaimed in 1264 by King Alfonso X of Castile, and the wine industry continued under a reward system that affected who could grow what and where. Guild regulations controlled how long wine could be held (aged). From Spain, the wine traveled widely. Sherry was on ship with Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan on their voyages of discovery. Thanks to pirate raids, which led to the sale of sherry elsewhere, it became popular in other areas, especially England. It was already being traded in England during the 12th century.

Then known as sack or Sherish (another reference to Jerez), this wine was known in the Tudor court. Catherine of Aragon mentioned her husband the King keeping the best wines of the Canaries and Sherish for himself. It was a favourite of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, who drank multiple bottles per day. When Sir Francis Drake seized thousands of barrels of sherry in 1587, this wine became extremely fashionable at court, which led to increased demand. Guild restrictions at this time prohibited aging of wines, which meant that the sherry of this time was essentially a very young white wine that required the addition of alcohol for preservation, resulting in what is called a fortified wine. This wine traveled well, and was commonly taken on long voyages. Of course, wars during this period also caused complications.

Delays caused some wine to sit, which resulted in oxidation, intensifying flavours and adding other nuances. In turn, newer sherries were mixed with older, more oxidized wines which also changed the character. Taste for the sweeter, stronger wines led to the addition of brandy to the mix. An attack on the area of Cadiz (near Jerez) having failed, numerous business men from England, Ireland and other places, set up businesses in Spain in the 17th – 19th centuries, to be sure of obtaining the desired quantities of wines. Names such as Sandeman, Harvey, Osborne and others were established at that time. The Peninsular Wars (part of the Napoleonic Wars) in the early 19th century, caused havoc as France attacked and even occupied the area around Jerez. Vines were destroyed and wines were stolen. However, the area rebounded again. Because of the conflict and difficulties, sales slowed and wine sat in casks, which led to an unintended oxidation and a concentration of flavour.

It is time to stop for a moment to consider the process of making sherry and the final product. True sherry was, and is, made only in Andalusia, in southwestern Spain. The process has literally evolved over centuries, and has adapted as rules and tastes change. A white wine is produced from two main varieties of grapes: the Palomino and Pedro Ximenez (a sweet grape). After fermentation, alcohol (originally a distilled grape liquor, subsequently a neutral brandy) is added, which increases the alcoholic content. Traditionally, sherry was quite dry, but it could be sweetened (and frequently was) with other additives ranging from sweet grape juice to sugar. (Adding sugar to sweeten wine goes back to the Romans). As time and changes in the guild rules and procedures occurred, more variations in flavour came forth. New wines were, and are still, blended with older ones in a process called Solera.  The different types of sherry produced are Manzanilla and Fino (both dry), Amontillado and Oloroso (dry to medium-dry), and cream (sweet).

A key issue that gives sherry its character is the fact that air is deliberately let into the barrels to cause oxidation. According to WINDOWS ON THE WORLD COMPLETE WINE COURSE by Kevin Zraly, letting air in not only causes the required oxidation, it results in a loss of about 3% per day to evaporation, which he called “The Angel’s share”. (p. 158). (Although tastes were leaning toward the sweeter wines, like port and madeira, I suspect the sherry of the late Georgian/Regency era may have been a somewhat drier style, but there is no way to be sure.)  In the 19th century, the guild was abolished which allowed for storage and aging of wines, which led to other modifications that changed the wine over time to the wide range of types we can now enjoy. Sherry was very popular during the Victorian era, and continued to be a favoured beverage into the 20th century. However, many people think of sherry in terms of the very sweet cream sherry, not knowing that there is a wide range of choice. Because of the sweetness of cream sherry, many consider sherry as specifically a dessert wine.  However, certain varieties (especially the dry) are delicious with savory food.


Sherry glasses-photo by the author

Serving sherry is interesting as well. I did not find a reference to a specific “sherry glass” prior to the Victorian era. It is worth noting that wine glasses were smaller in earlier times. I have some antique wine glasses that hold only three to four ounces, which is considerably smaller than modern wine glasses. Sherry glasses seem to have become popular during the mid-Victorian era. I have three different types of glasses (see photo). Despite their different shapes, each only holds about two ounces. It seems possible that the slightly smaller shape became popular for sherry due to its being a fortified, and somewhat stronger, wine. However, there is no requirement for using a special sherry glass-sherry can be enjoyed in a regular wine glass. (Although I do believe that the special glass adds to the experience!)  Although the sherry we enjoy today may not be exactly the same as that consumed in earlier times, it can provide a sort of shared experience, a touch of elegance and an idea of something in which someone of a previous era indulged.


Sources include:

Zraly, Kevin. WINDOWS ON THE WORLD COMPLETE WINE COURSE. New York: Sterling Publishing Co. 2002.

Spanish Fiestas on line. “Sherry Wine.” HERE

Wall Street Journal on-line. “Sherry’s Long, Rich and Uncertain Past by Lettie Teague. 2/19/2011. HERE

Sherry.wine. “History of Sherry.” HERE

The Passionate Foodie. “History of Sherry: 18th to 19th Century (Part IV).”  HERE 
Image: Wikimedia Commons- by Otto Scholderer HERE 

Photo of sherry glasses taken by the author.

Lauren Gilbert lives in Florida with her husband. Her first book, HEYERWOOD A Novel, was released in 2011, while her second novel, A RATIONAL ATTACHMENT, is in process. Lauren is a long-time member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. She does enjoy the occasional glass of sherry (medium dry). Visit her website here for more information.

Dark Aemilia and other Dark Ladies

by Sally O’Reilly

Writing historical fiction started as a pleasure and has turned into an addiction. I grew up reading Rosemary Sutcliff, Henry Treece and Baroness Orczy. I also admire the audacious writing of Angela Carter, Sarah Waters and Jeanette Winterson, who in various ways have mined the past and the conventions of storytelling to create their own individual worlds of darkness, fakery and magic. (Sarah Waters, who ‘gulls’ the reader in the brilliant ‘Affinity’ was a particular inspiration.)

I think that what attracts me most about historical fiction is the idea that it can take you through a portal into another world – the past – and in that sense it’s like the fantasy books that I also loved as a child, particularly the Narnia series. C.S. Lewis has an exceptional talent for bringing a scene alive, and for making fantastical places seem solid and believable.

I have always loved Shakespeare, and since studying it at school my favourite play has been ‘Macbeth’. Its dark, mysterious atmosphere lingers in the memory, and the three witches wield a preternatural power that is never challenged. But I needed to find a way to tell a story about this play that had a strong female character at its heart. Lady Macbeth herself was my first choice, but I couldn’t make this work.

Then, during my research, I stumbled on a character who has been almost entirely forgotten: Aemilia Bassano Lanyer, the first woman to be published professionally as a poet in England.

Lanyer’s poetry collection ‘Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum’ includes a justification of Eve and a retelling of the Crucifixion from the point of view of the women in the New Testament. Published in 1611, it is dedicated to a roll call of aristocratic women, starting with Queen Anne, the wife of James I. This is the way in which a professional male poet would introduce his work, and Lanyer’s volume is the only surviving example of a woman writing in this way at such an early date.

The facts of Aemilia Lanyer’s life are dramatic: she was the illegimate child of Jewish immigrant musicians who played at the Tudor court; her father died when she was seven and she was apparently educated at court or in a great house. At seventeen she became the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon; six years later she was pregnant and married off to a cousin, Alfonso Lanyer, a recorder player who spent her dowry in a year. She later became a client of the astrologer and physician Simon Forman, who talked to her about summoning demons. (Most of these facts have been gleaned from his journal.) And she is one of the women who may have been Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ the inspiration for the later sonnets.

But who is Shakespeare’s Dark Lady? Was she a real person, or a poetic convention? Opinion has been divided over the years, but the current view is that the sonnets are addressed to real people. However, we don’t know the identity of the Fair Youth (the subject of the earlier sonnets in the sequence) or the Dark Lady, and it’s unlikely that we ever will. In my novel, the Fair Youth is Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated his poems ‘Venus & Adonis’ and ‘The Rape of Lucrece’. Wriothesley was handsome, impulsive and immensely wealthy which fitted in with my themes.

Henry Wriothesley - image Public Domain

Shakespeare never used the term ‘Dark Lady’ and both this title and her identity are part of the carefully assembled edifice of pseudo facts that are part of the Shakespeare legend. All we actually have to go on are the plays and poems that survive. The sonnets dedicated to this mysterious woman are anguished and passionate, and suggest that the poet is in the grip of a painful sexual obsession. The myth of the Dark Lady is inspired by the fact that he describes his lover as having black hair and ‘dun’ skin. This was an unfashionable look in Early Modern times: the ideal was fair hair and a pale complexion.

Aemilia Lanyer is one of several candidates for the Dark Lady title, and researchers are continually discovering new possibilities. For example, in 2013 Dr Aubrey Burl, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, suggested that the Dark Lady was Aline Florio, the wife of an Italian translator. [Link below] Burl put forward eight possible candidates, but chose Aline Florio because she had dark hair and was married, musical, a mother and unfaithful to her husband. (Aemilia Lanyer fits the bill equally well, I have to say.)

Other candidates who were married to men in Shakespeare’s world include Marie Mountjoy, the wife of Christopher Mountjoy, a costume maker and Shakespeare’s landlord in Silver Street, Jane Davenant, wife to Oxford tavern keeper John Davenant, whose son William, was a prominent figure in the seventeenth century theatre and claimed to be Shakespeare’s son and Jacqueline Field, the wife of Stratford-born Richard Field who printed Shakespeare’s poetry in London. Very little is known about the lives or the characters of these women, and they are possible mistresses primarily because of their proximity to Shakespeare. (For example, it has been suggested that the fact that Field printed Shakespeare’s poetry with such accuracy and attention to detail suggests that Shakespeare had a direct hand in their production, and would therefore have been a frequent visitor to the Field’s print shop.)

Title page printed by Field - image Public Domain

Lucy Morgan is an interesting candidate, and has inspired both Anthony Burgess and (more recently) Victoria Lamb. Again, there are few surviving facts about her life, but she is thought to have been one of Queen Elizabeth I’s lesser known ladies in waiting, and may also have been the notorious ‘Lucy Negra’, a prostitute in London. If so, her fall was as dramatic as that of Aemilia Lanyer, and the name ‘Negra’ suggests that she was of African descent.

In his 1977 novel ‘Nothing Like the Sun’ Burgess suggests that the relationship between Shakespeare and Lucy is mutually destructive and has tragic consequences for them both. The story is steeped in squalor and disease, and though I went some distance in this direction myself, I couldn’t bear to create a relationship devoid of hope or happiness. However, his novel is truly dazzling in terms of its language and imaginative power.

Mary Fitton and Penelope Devereux were from aristocratic families, and more is known about their lives. Mary Fitton (1578 – 1647) was another of the Queen’s ladies. She had affairs with William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke (among others) and had children by various men. Herbert was younger than she was, and may be the mysterious ‘Mr WH’ to whom the sonnets are dedicated. Fitton’s relationship with Pembroke was certainly scandalous, and he was sent to the Fleet Prison after Fitton became pregnant with his child. He admitted he was the father, but refused to marry her. More affairs and two marriages followed. Both Frank Harris and George Bernard Shaw make Fitton the Dark Lady in their books, but while Harris suggests that Shakespeare was broken by the relationship, Shaw’s view is that heartbreak was one of his many inspirations.

Mary Fitton - image Public domain

The most privileged of all possible Dark Ladies is Penelope Devereux (1563- 1607), who became Countess of Devonshire. She was the sister of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the Queen’s reckless and spoiled favourite, and is also thought to be the inspiration for Stella in Philip Sidney's ‘Astrophel and Stella’ sonnets. Another scandal-prone woman, she married Robert Rich, but had a notorious affair with Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, and eventually divorced Rich and married Blount in an unlicensed ceremony. This was a shocking break with canon law, and James I banished them from court. (They were both dead within two years, a sad little footnote to these dramatic events.)

Beautiful and talented, Devereux would have been a glittering figure in the Early Modern cultural scene. She had blonde hair, a point against her perhaps, but dark eyes, and was certainly an inspiration for other poets. If Shakespeare had an affair with her, it would have been a heady and dangerous experience, given her high status in terms of both social class and sexual allure.

So why did I choose Aemilia Lanyer, in the face of such stiff competition? To be honest, I didn’t even know there were so many other candidates until I was well into my first draft. When I discovered that she had existed, a light went on in my head, and I knew that I wanted to write a story about this astonishing person. I was particularly attracted by her status as a poet, and her fall from grace in every other aspect of her life.

One of the themes of my story is ambition and over-reaching – ‘Macbeth’ dramatizes these ideas with great intensity. Aemilia’s own experience is an illustration of this. Early Modern London was a bit like 21st century Hollywood, a place to go and make your fortune and compete for attention. Those who succeeded could gain huge wealth, but there was no safety net for those who failed.

At one point, she was centre stage, a confidante of the Lord Chamberlain, living in close proximity to the Queen herself. What must she have felt, when she was ejected from her suite of rooms in Whitehall Palace? And her home was now a small house in Long Ditch, a narrow street overlooked by some of the great houses of London? I could sense the claustrophobia and panic. And yet, rather than disappearing into the drudgery of domesticity, she wrote her poetry and found a publisher and addressed her work to the greatest women in the land. Five hundred years later, we can still read her words, and hear her voice.

This is fact. From fact comes supposition – suppose she was the Dark Lady? How would she, an aspiring poet, feel about being the subject of these poems? The emotion is undeniable, but they are wracked with pain and spiced with venom. From supposition comes imagination – I decided to try and recreate Aemilia Lanyer in a fusion between fact and fiction, and to tell her the story of her flawed love affair with Shakespeare from her partial and intense point of view.

By doing this, I was able to explore the way in which experience feeds into artistic creation, and rivalry can motivate it. I also wanted to show the obsessive, ruthless aspect of creativity, in which even the worst experiences feed artistic invention. (As Graham Greene said, there is a splinter of ice in the heart of every writer.) The relationship between Shakespeare and Lanyer is more than just an anguished love affair, it is a battle of wills and a clash of egos. In that sense, I felt that her story could be an inspiration for every writer who has struggled to be heard, and for every woman who resists the constraints of convention and domesticity.

Salve Deus - author: Author usage licensed: Creative Commons
Burl's Article

[This article is an Ediotrs' Choice post, which originally appeared on 28th March, 2014]
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‘Dark Aemilia’ is published by Myriad Editions on March 27th and by Picador US in June.

Sally O’Reilly is the author of How to be a Writer and two contemporary novels The Best Possible Taste and You Spin Me Round both published by Penguin. Her short stories have appeared in the UK, Australia and South Africa. She worked as a journalist and editor for Christian Aid and Barnardo’s, and has freelanced for the Guardian, Sunday Times, Evening Standard and New Scientist. Sally has a PhD in Creative Writing from Brunel University and teaches Creative Writing at the Open University. Dark Aemilia is her first historical novel.

Like Father Like Son: We Know Little About Shakespeare’s Life, But What We Do Know Is Important

by Andrea Chapin

Most of William Shakespeare’s life is undocumented. Indeed, it was his “lost years” between 1585 and 1592 that compelled me to write The Tutor, my novel about a year in the life of Shakespeare. What was he up to between twenty-one, when he was living in Stratford with three children, and twenty-eight, when he emerged as an actor, playwright and poet in London? Was he a deer poacher in Stratford, horse handler for theaters in London, soldier, sailor, actor, musician? Was he a schoolmaster in the country? What perfect terrain, I thought, for a fiction writer.

There is as much speculation as to what Shakespeare was doing during those lost years as there is about what sort of person he was: kind or selfish, faithful or promiscuous, teetotaler or boozer? We know Shakespeare’s poems, sonnets, and plays. We know dates in his life: christenings, weddings, and deaths chronicled in church and town records. But we know little about his personality.

Scholars often warn against interpreting any of his writing as autobiographical. He left no letters—though there’s a story that many years after his death, in the late 1700s, several baskets of letters and papers with Shakespeare’s name on them were destroyed by a farmer who did not know their importance. The scant quotes from fellow poets and playwrights possibly give some clues as to Shakespeare’s knowledge and his character. Robert Greene, in a penny pamphlet, wrote a snarky gibe in a passage assumed to be about Shakespeare:

..for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey

And in the preface to the First Folio, in Ben Johnson’s laudatory “Eulogy to Shakespeare” where he praises the Bard’s spectacular genius, Johnson remarks that Shakespeare knew “small Latine, and lesse Greeke…”

With all the worry about what we don’t know about Shakespeare, what I found perhaps most interesting when researching him is what we do know about him—especially the facts about his father.

John Shakespeare married up: Mary Arden was from gentry, a prominent land-owning family, whereas John Shakespeare was from the yeoman class, his family tenant farmers on Arden land. John left the life of farming, moved to Stratford and became a glove maker, probably starting as an apprentice. He did well enough to purchase a house on Henley Street in 1551 and another house
nearby in 1552. Records show that in the years after John’s marriage to Mary in 1557, he traded goods, including wool, malt and corn, and dealt in moneylending.

As John expanded into several businesses, he also embarked on a career within the Stratford town government:

1557: Ale-taster—Stratford was known for its brewing.

1561: Chamberlain of the Borough of Stratford, where he presided over the town council.

1565: Alderman—a position that brought with it a free education for his boys at Stratford’s grammar school.

1568: Bailiff of Stratford—equivalent to a mayor.

1570: Chief Alderman—top position in the town. During 1570, John sought the title of “gentleman” by applying for coat of arms—a symbol of his rise in the world. From Yeoman to Gentleman was a big leap. But John was denied the coat-of-arms—perhaps because during this same year John was accused of Usury for lending money at 20% and 25% interest. Perhaps there were other reasons.

From 1578 on: Documents show that when William is around 14 something went terribly wrong with John Shakespeare’s business and civic life. He incurred debts and fines, failed to show up for court dates and for church (for which he was fined). He started to lose property and even lost his wife’s large farm. Finally, he was removed from the town’s Board of Alderman. Was it illegal business dealings? Was he a Catholic? Was he sick? Again, there’s only been conjecture—no one knows why.

Intelligent young men from humble backgrounds did receive scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge at that time. Christopher Marlowe, who went to Cambridge, was the son of a cobbler. But if that son had to go to work because his father for some reason was out of work, then no such university was in sight.

John Shakespeare was clearly a very ambitious man. Perhaps a Johannes factotum—a Jack-of-all trades. Like father like son. Shakespeare was not content only to act, but he published poetry, had his plays produced and became part owner of a theater company and a theater, so he made money from every ticket sold (the way his father made money on the wool he sold and the money he lended—a percentage). As Shakespeare became successful in London, he purchased property. He bought Sir Clopton’s house in Stratford, a large house with ten fireplaces, far grander than the house on Henley Street where he grew up. And he applied for and was granted a coat of arms.

Robert Greene does not say the heart of a “bunny” or “mouse” in his snide remark about Shakespeare, but gives him the heart of a tiger—an animal that is aggressive, powerful, and controlling—who by his own conceit is the only “Shake-scene” in the country. In play after play, Shakespeare’s plots deal with the rise and fall of great men. Who, in a child’s life, is the greatest and most powerful person? His father. And who would know better about that “vaulting ambition” Shakespeare attributes to Macbeth, than Shakespeare himself.

Sources: Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare by James Shapiro; 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro; Shakespeare Unbound: Decoding a Hidden Life by Rene Weis; Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt; Shakespeare of London by Marchette Chute; The Age of Shakespeare by Frank Kermode; and Shakespeare: The World As Stage by Bill Bryson.

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Andrea Chapin has acted professionally, touring Germany in Edward Albee’s Seascape. She has been an editor at art, movie, theater, and literary magazines, including The Paris Review, Conjunctions, and The Lincoln Center Theater Review, and has written for More, Redbook, Town & Country, Self, Martha Stewart Living, Marie Claire, and other publications. Chapin is also a writing teacher and private book editor. The Tutor,her first novel, was published by Riverhead Books in the US in February and last month by Penguin Books in the UK.

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"Tragedy personified": Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth

By Catherine Curzon

The term "showbiz legend" is much bandied about these days when it comes to the world of entertainment, sometimes with less reason than others. Sarah Siddons, the first lady of the Georgian stage, was truly deserving of that lofty title. From humble beginnings she rose to the pinnacle of her craft, leaving her adoring fans gripped with Siddons fever as they flocked to her performances in droves. Famed as a tragedian, she will forever be associated with one particular role, that of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth.

Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth by Henry George Harlow, 1814

When the celebrated Mrs Siddons played the lady of Dunsinane for the first time on 2nd February 1785, she was just 29 years old. With her tall, commanding figure and strikingly handsome looks Siddons made an instant and lasting impact; she would return to the role multiple times over the four decades that followed, making the part entirely her own. 

The majestic actress was known for the passion and fervour of her performances, bringing a deep understanding to each role as she practised the method of her day. Theatrical legend has it that, so intense was her portrayal and so blazing the look in her eyes, swooning ladies in the audience had to be carried from the theatre in order to recover their composure. The essayist, William Hazlitt, famously wrote that Siddons was "tragedy personified"[1], a sentiment with which her fans certainly agreed. 

In fact, away from the stage her life contained tragedy enough to inspire a thousand such performances. Her marriage to William Siddons ended in separation and five of their seven children predeceased their mother. She channelled her unhappiness into performances of startling intensity, focusing particularly on the famous hand washing scene. Siddons broke with tradition by setting down Lady Macbeth's candle to instead concentrate on repeated, hypnotising motions as she washed the blood from her hands again and again.

Sarah Siddons by Thomas Gainsborough, 1785

In her essay, Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth [2], Siddons shares her thoughts on the role and the reasoning behind her own stylistic choices. She displays a rich understanding of Lady Macbeth, whom she considers to be "made by ambition, but not by nature, a perfectly savage creature". The essay makes for fascinating reading, offering deep insight into this most remarkable actress and the way in which she approached her roles. 

Georgian theatre is occasionally depicted as an almost ridiculous place, with overblown performances and overheated thespians but in Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth we are privy to share what would appear to be a modern approach to the text, with Siddons examining dialogue, movement and psychology in her efforts to inhabit the role.

After a long and celebrated career, Sarah Siddons gave her farewell performance in the role that she had made her own at the Covent Garden Theatre on 29th June 1812. The reaction of the audience to the sleepwalking scene was so rapturous that they gave an ovation that seemed as though it might never end, forcing the curtain down. After a short delay in which the adoring applause continued, the curtains opened again to show Sarah sitting on stage in her own clothes, no longer in character. Once the crowds finally fell silent she gave a farewell speech of almost ten minutes in length, the actress as overcome with emotion as the audience who adored her.

References and Sources

[1]   Hazlitt, William, Selected Writings. (Oxford, 2009), p. 339

[2]   Siddons, Sarah, "Remarks on the character of Lady Macbeth" as quoted in  Campbell, Thomas, Life of Mrs. Siddons. (New York, 1834). 

Perry, Gill, Spectacular Flirtations: Viewing the Actress in British Art and Theatre 1768-1820, (Yale University Press, 2007)
Perry, Gill and Roach, Joseph, The First Actresses: Nell Gwynn to Sarah Siddons, (National Portait Gallery, 2011)

Glorious Georgian ginbag, gossip and gadabout Catherine Curzon, aka Madame Gilflurt, is the author of A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life. When not setting quill to paper, she can usually be found gadding about the tea shops and gaming rooms of the capital or hosting intimate gatherings at her tottering abode. In addition to her blog and Facebook, Madame G is also quite the charmer on Twitter. Her first book, Life in the Georgian Court, is available now, and she is also working on An Evening with Jane Austen, starring Adrian Lukis and Caroline Langrishe.

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