Hamlet and the Scottish succession; being an examination of the relations of the play of Hamlet to the Scottish succession and the Essex conspiracy

Front matter

Qass.

Book

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Preface

I WISH to thank my historical colleagues at Aberystwyth for the sympathy and help they have given me during the writing of the following essay : Mr Sidney Herbert for recommending books, Dr E. A. Lewis for his invaluable assistance in directing me to State Papers and many other contemporary documents, and especially to Professor Stanley Roberts for reading my proofs, for giving me much information on Elizabethan history, and for his unfailing kindness in discussion and criticism.

Lilian Winstanley

The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, November 1920

Contents

FAG£

Introduction ....... i

CHAP.

Introduction

It is the purpose of the following essay to study the play of Hamlet from a somewhat fresh point of view by endeavouring to show its relation or possible relation to contemporary history.

My attempt throughout has been to regard the play as it naturally would be regarded by an Elizabethan audience, for it seems to me that this particular angle of vision has hitherto been too little considered in our current criticism. We have not sufficiently reahsed, I think, that to consider the Elizabethan audience is our least indirect method of approach to Shakespeare himself. A dramatic poet cannot possibly ignore the mentality of his audience ; an epic poet may, if he pleases, write, as we know Milton actually did write, for posterity and for an audience " fit though few " ; but a dramatic poet who does genuinely produce his plays before a popular audience cannot possibly do anything of the kind. The mentality of his audience provides him with at least half of his material. It is through that mentality that his plays must be

A I reviewed and considered ; it is to that mentality they must all appeal. If the dramatic poet wishes to discuss problems his task is immensely facilitated by selecting problems in which his audience are already interested ; if he wishes to awaken feelings of terror and pathos, as every true dramatist must, his task is immensely facilitated if he appeals to associations already existing in their minds.

The mentality of his audience everywhere shapes and conditions his work as certainly as the work of a sculptor is shaped by the architecture and purpose of the building in which it stands. The sculpture of the Parthenon is not more certainly adapted to the purpose of the Parthenon than are the plays of a true dramatist to the mentality of his audience.

Now, in the case of Shakespeare, the mentality of the audience is doubly important, because there is no direct method of approach. Shakespeare himself has left no letters or prefaces which explain his work ; his contemporaries have left no criticisms ; the notices we possess of his plays are extremely meagre and most of them limited, like those of Forman, to a mere reference to the subject of the play.

Neither can we judge Shakespeare completely by the effect produced on our own minds; we, after all, are a remote posterity, and nothing is more certain than that he did not write for us. We ourselves may be quite adequate judges of the purely aesthetic effect of the plays ; but, in order to understand them fully, it is surely necessary to ask what their effect upon a contemporary audience would be Hkely to be and what such an audience would probably think they meant.

The moment we attempt to place ourselves at the same angle of vision as an EHzabethan audience we see many things in a different light ; many problems solve themselves quite simply ; but, on the other hand, many are suggested which do not occur to the modern reader, and which nevertheless surely demand solution if we are to comprehend Shakespeare fully and completely.

I propose to give illustrations of both types of problems, of those which solve themselves and of those which suggest themselves.

Let us enquire, for instance, why Shakespeare selected the subject of Macbeth ? One reason is obvious. A Scottish king had recently succeeded to the throne and the choice of a Scottish theme was, in itself, a compUment to him. Then, again, Banquo was the ancestor of the Stuarts, and the subject of the play enables Shakespeare to depict Banquo in a favourable light.

But is there any reason for the selection of Macbeth himself as a hero ?

There is, I think, an exceedingly good one ; but it only becomes evident after a careful study of the ideas of the epoch.

Macbeth was the person who fulfilled the Merlin prophecies and, by so doing, brought about the foundation of the British Empire. The Merlin prophecies, as interpreted by the so-called Tudor bards, were to the effect that the ancient British line should once again succeed to the throne of England and that, when it did so succeed, the different British kingdoms should be united under one crown and the ancient Arthurian empire restored. Professor Gwynn Jones assures me that these Merlin prophecies had an important poHtical bearing in sixteenth-century Wales ; they certainly had in England, and they were celebrated by many poets, notably Spenser, Drayton, and Ben Jonson.

Drayton's lines happen to be the most apposite for my purpose, so I quote them :

" the ancient British race Shall come again to sit upon the sovereign place. . . . By Tudor, with fair winds from httle Britaine driven, To whom the goodly bay of Milford shall be given ; As thy wise prophets, Wales, foretold his wish'd arrive And how Lewellin's line in him should doubly thrive. For from his issue sent to Albany before. Where his neglected blood his virtue did restore He first unto himself in fair succession gained The Stewards nobler name ; and afterwards attained The royal Scottish wreath, upholding it in state. This stem, to Tudors joined . . .

Suppressing every Plant, shall spread itself so wide As in his arms shall clip the Isle on every side. By whom three severed realms in one shall firmly stand As Britain-founding Brute first monarchised the Land." ^

Selden's note on the above passage is : " About our Confessor's time, Macbeth, King of Scotland (moved by prediction, affirming that his line extinct, the posterity of Banquho, a noble thane of Loqhuabre, should attain and continue the Scottish reign) and, jealous of others, hoped — for greatness, murdered Banquho, but missed his design ; for one of the same posterity, Fleanch son to Banquho, privily fled to Gryfhth ap Llewelin (Drayton Polyolbion, Song V.), then Prince of Wales, and was there kindly received. To him and Nesta, the Prince's daughter,

^ Drayton, Polyolbion, Song V.

was issue one Walter. . . . The rest alludes to that : Cambria shall be glad, Cornwall shall flourish, and the Isle shall be styled with Brute's name and the name of strangers shall perish : as it is in Merhn's prophecies."

We are now in a position to see what Macbeth really meant to the Elizabethans : he was the man who fulfilled the Merhn prophecies, and he fulfilled them by the very fact that he tried to evade them ; when Fleance, the son of the murdered Banquho, fled to Wales he intermarried with the ancient British line and thus brought its blood to the throne of Scotland.

Now the Elizabethans always laid immense stress on this genealogy for their monarchs ; anyone who will refer to Camden's genealogy of the Tudors will see that he derives their line from Brutus the Trojan, and the Stuarts, as we have just seen from Drayton and Selden, were similarly derived through Fleance the son of Banquho.

Now an Elizabethan audience would surely see in Macbeth the same theme as in the lines quoted from Drayton. We have the enormous stress laid on prophecy throughout the play, we have the question of the succession prominent in Macbeth's mind, we have the murder of Banquho and the flight of Fleance, we have the future shown to Macbeth with the progeny of this Fleance succeeding, and we have the vision of the unity of the British Isles in the procession of the kings who " twofold balls and treble-sceptres carry " and whose lines " stretch out to the crack of doom."

Macbeth has, then, the same theme as the passage already quoted from Drayton ; what they both deal with is the founding or, as they would have put it, the restoration of the British Empire.

The main conception is exactly similar to those which occur in Greek tragedy, where the very attempt to evade prophecy brings about its fulfilment, and the theme is as intimately interwoven with British history in the widest and truest sense of the term as any theme selected by a Greek dramatist was interwoven with Greek history. It is difficult to imagine any subject more appropriate to render before James I. ; he was the destined restorer of the ancient Arthurian empire, the man destined to unite England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland all under the same crown, as long ago prophesied by Merlin, and the play shows how the effort to avert the succession from the line of Banquho led precisely to its fulfilment.^

Or let me choose another illustration. Suppose we ask whether Shakespeare's Denmark, as depicted in Hamlet, is a real country or not and, if real, what country ! Everyone will admit that Denmark makes a singularly real and vivid impression upon the mind ; it is as real, in the dramatic sense, as any country we have ever known or heard of. But did Shakespeare invent it as a background for his melancholy prince, or was he describing any country he knew ? It certainly is not the Denmark of his source ; the Denmark of Saxo Grammaticus is an almost entirely barbaric country, savage and primitive to a degree ; even the Hamlet, the hero of the primitive story, cuts an enemy's body to pieces and boils it and outrages a woman, and yet he is the best person in ^ See note A , Appendix.

the whole piece. Is Shakespeare's Denmark, then, an imaginary region created by himself ?

Let us ask what an Ehzabethan audience would have made of it. I do not think there need be five minutes' delay about the answer to this question. An Elizabethan audience would almost certainly have thought Denmark a real country, and they would have believed it to be contemporary Scotland.

The peculiar combination of circumstances and the peculiar type of manners depicted in Shakespeare's Denmark are, in the highest degree, distinctive and strange ; but they can every one be paralleled in the case of sixteenth-century Scotland.

Shakespeare's Denmark, to begin with, is a country where feudal anarchy reigns ; there is no settled law and order : the crown is seized by a usurper and almost every principal personage — the elder Hamlet, the younger Hamlet, Polonius, Claudius, the Queen — ends either by a violent death or by assassination.

So also was Scotland a feudal anarchy. So also were the powers of the crown in Scotland in continual danger of being seized by usurpers and insurgents as in the case of the elder Bothwell and the younger Bothwell : in Scotland also almost every monarch or prominent statesman did meet either with a tragic and premature death, or with a death by assassination. James V., Mary Queen of Scots, Darnley, Rizzio, Murray — these were only the most prominent among a number of tragedies : assassination was, indeed, the recognised method by which a great noble removed a rival.

Shakespeare has been blamed for the " holocaust of dead " in Hamlet ; but it is not one whit more remark able than the mass of assassinations in sixteenth-century Scottish history. The Enghsh of Shakespeare's day had a bitter prejudice against Scotland, and very largely on account of this anarchy.

Yet Shakespeare's Denmark is no mere barbaric country ; it is distinguished by its love of education, its philosophical depth, and its power of thought and meditation. Of all Shakespeare's tragedies Hamlet is admittedly the most philosophic and the most profound ; this has no parallel whatever in the original saga, but it has a parallel in contemporary Scotland.

Knox and his body of reformers had already commenced that educational revival which was to make Scotland one of the most admirably educated countries in Europe ; their intellectual interests were largely of a philosophical character.

Now, it is the combination of these circumstances which is so peculiar, which is indeed unique, and it is precisely this pecuhar combination which appears in Shakespeare's Hamlet

Moreover, it should be noted that Shakespeare's Denmark is quite manifestly a country where the Catholic faith and the Protestant exist side by side ; the ghost is certainly a Catholic, for he laments nothing more than the fact that he was not allowed absolution at his death, that he was

" Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled, No reckoning made but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head."

On the other hand, Hamlet is just as plainly a Protestant : he has been a fellow-student with Horatio at Wittenberg, and it is to Wittenberg he wishes to return. Now Wittenberg, on account of its connection with Luther, was one of the most famous of Protestant Universities.

This pecuHar combination is, once again, exactly paralleled in contemporary Scotland ; the queen's party were CathoHcs ; her opponents were the Protestant lords, and there was a specially close connection between Scotland and German Protestant Universities. Knox himself once had a congregation at Frankfort-on-the- Main,i and there were manjr other Scotch Protestants in different parts of Germany. " There was a whole Scoto- German school, among whom the Wedderburns were predominant."

Again, Shakespeare's Denmark is a place where the king has been murdered and his wife has married the murderer. This also happened in sixteenth- century Scotland ; Darnley is almost invariably alluded to in contemporary documents (Buchanan's Oration and Detection, for instance), as the '* king " ; the " king " had been murdered, and his wife had married the murderer.

Shakespeare's Denmark also is a place where a councillor is murdered in the presence of a queen, and his body disposed of '' hugger-mugger " fashion by a staircase. This, also, had happened in contemporary Scotland in the case of Rizzio's murder.

I shall show later that in both these cases the resemblances between the history and Shakespeare are much more close than any possible resemblances with the saga source.

Moreover, Shakespeare's Denmark is a place where there is, apparently, no army at the king's disposal, and 1 Froude, Chap. X.

where, when discontented nobles desire the redress of grievances, they enter the palace at the head of an armed band, and threaten the king's person, as happens with Laertes and Claudius. This was positively the recognised method of conducting an opposition in sixteenth-century Scotland. When a powerful subject had a grievance, he did at once put himself at the head of an armed band, and either threaten the person of the king or attempt to seize upon the person of the king.

Then, again, there is the love of strong drink v/hich is so marked a feature in Shakespeare's Denmark, and the drunken carousals. This also was characteristic of a certain conspicuous group in sixteenth-century Scotland ; Buchanan continually calls the elder Bothwell a drunken beast.i

Moreover, the resemblance extends even to the smallest details. Shakespeare's Denmark shows both Italian and Danish names at court ; so did contemporary Scotland, there was a Guildenstern (like Shakespeare's), and a Francesco (like Shakespeare's), the latter being a friend of Rizzio's.

Now it seems to me that, with all these resemblances quite obvious and on the surface, an EHzabethan audience would almost certainly assume either that Shakespeare was deliberately depicting contemporary Scotland, or, at the very least, that he was deliberately borrowing many of its distinctive traits. The resemblances range from the most inclusive circumstances to the smallest details — they embrace the peculiar combinations of feudal anarchy and philosophy, of strong drink and of students at German 1 Oration and Detection.

Introduction ii

universities, and they even include a Danish Guildenstern and an Italian Francesco.

And, further, is there anything strange in such a resemblance ? Why should not Shakespeare wish to depict sixteenth-century Scotland ? It was a country in which Shakespeare's audience were intensely interested : it was the country which was just about to provide them with a king ; it was a country whose crown was to be intimately associated with theirs ; a study of its leading traits would be likely to interest Shakespeare's audience more than any other subject which, at that particular date, it would be possible for him to choose.

Another example may be chosen from The Merchant oj Venice. It is very generally admitted that Shakespeare's portrait of a Jew villain is probably in part due to the great excitement caused by the trial of a Jew, Roderigo Lopez, for the attempted murder of the queen and Don Antonio : Lopez was executed in 1594.

Shakespeare, in drawing the portrait of the Jew villain, was availing himself of what was just then a strong popular excitement against the Jews. So much is admitted ! 1

But surely the play suggests a good deal more. Antonio was a claimant to the throne of Portugal and, as the rival claimant was Philip II., Antonio became, on this account, a very popular person with the majority of the Elizabethans, who hated Philip and instinctively took the side of anyone opposed to him. Antonio had come to London, bringing with him exceedingly valuable jewels ; his purpose was to pledge these with the merchants 1 See Boas, Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

of London, and so to procure the money for ships to fight PhiHp of Spain. The Essex and Southampton party — Shakespeare's patrons — were keenly in favour of a forward pohcy against Spain and consequently in favour of Antonio. On the other hand, Ehzabeth and Burleigh desired peace ; Antonio was allowed to pledge his jewels but, on one pretext or another, he was prevented from getting his ships. He was thus in the position of a ruined bankrupt, and popular feeling ran high in his favour.

Essex started, on his own account, a system of espionage which was deUberately intended to rival that of Burleigh. His spies discovered evidence that there was a Spanish plot to poison the queen and Don Antonio by using the physician — Lopez, as an intermediary. Elizabeth, at first, refused wholly to credit the existence of such a plot and blamed Essex as a " rash and temerarious youth," for bringing accusations against the innocent. Essex, however, persisted ; fresh evidence was procured, a public trial was ordered, and Lopez was condemned to death. Still the queen delayed, and it was three months before she could be induced to sign the death-warrant. Even then she exercised her prerogative so far as to allow the family of Lopez to retain a considerable portion of his wealth.

Lopez had professed himself a Christian.

As Naunton points out Elizabeth was regarded as a most merciful princess. We may remember that one of Spenser's names for her was "Mercilla."i Now this tendency to mercy seemed to the public to have been exercised too far in the Lopez affair.

^ Faerie Queene, Bk. V

We might also observe that Don Antonio himself was partly Jewish; he was the son of a Jewess who had become converted to Christianity.

Now, surely, we have here very remarkable parallels to Shakespeare's play ?

We have Don Antonio who has been a very wealthy man but who has practically become a bankrupt through losses incurred over his own ships ; a Jew forms a plot against his Hfe and nearly succeeds, but it is discovered, and the Jew punished.

So Shakespeare's hero is an Antonio ; he also has been wealthy, but is reduced, apparently, to bankruptcy by losses over his ships. So does a Jew attempt his hfe ; so is the plot frustrated.

We have Elizabeth, who will not beheve in the guilt of the Jew, who makes every attempt to show him mercy, who delays almost intolerably over his trial, but who is compelled to give sentence in the end ; we have the fact that she was famous for mercy, and that one of her poetic names was " Mercilla."

So Shakespeare gives us Portia, who will not believe in the guilt of the Jew, who gives him every possible opportunity, who identifies herself with mercy in the noblest of all poetic praises ; but who is compelled, finally, to give sentence.

We have in the play, just as in the history, the fact that the fine upon the Jew's goods is remitted, and that they are allowed to pass to his children. Moreover, in the Hfe of Don Antonio, in the fact that his mother was a Jewess who married a Christian, we have a parallel to another most interesting episode in Shakespeare's play ; that of Lorenzo and Jessica.

Is it not probable that Shakespeare selected his material and chose his plot largely that his play might appeal to interests then paramount in the minds of his audience ?

Surely nothing can be more plausible ?

We have even, in Bassanio, a parallel to the situation of Essex himself ; he is the friend of Antonio ; he is the soldier, the man of noble birth but without fortune, who quite frankly approaches Portia to " repair his fortunes." So was Essex the friend of Don Antonio ; so had Essex hoped to profit by his ships, so was Essex a soldier, young and of noble birth, but poor ; so did he approach Elizabeth in the frank hope of mending his fortunes.

We also observe that, if Shakespeare be really drawing parallels with history, many of the adverse criticisms on his play find at least their explanation.

Thus there is simply no point in sentimentalising over his cruelty in compelling Shylock to become a Christian ; the actual historic Jew had professed Christianity and did profess it to the end. Neither need we blame him for allowing Portia to drag out the trial scene so intolerably and '* get on the nerves " of the spectators ; it was just precisely this delay which had " got on the nerves " of the Elizabethan public. Neither need we wonder that Shakespeare allows Portia to give judgment in the Duke's own court : it was with Elizabeth that the matter finally rested.

Is it not easy to see that Shakespeare has taken his literary source and has dovetailed into it a great deal of history as well ? ^

Another incident I will select is from Henry IV., Part II — the famous incident of the repudiation of Falstaff. ^ See note B, Appendix.

In scene after scene throughout the plays we have seen Henry rejoicing himself with the inimitable wit of Falstaff, treating him as his boon companion, and as one of his most intimate friends ; then, on his accession, he repudiates him pubUcly and orders him to be haled off to prison, for we hear the Chief Justice giving the order : " Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet." Is not this needlessly harsh and stern ? How often has this partiticular point been debated ! Some of Shakespeare's critics do accuse Henry of unnecessary harshness ; a number of others find a way out by protesting that it was essential for Henry to effect a complete severance from Falstaff. Do they think Shakespeare's hero-king such a moral weakling that he could not guard himself against the temptations of " sack and sugar " except by putting the tempter in prison ?

The truth is that the passage, as it stands, is a perpetual puzzle to the modern reader who finds Falstaff a very fascinating personage, sympathises with him, and is convinced that Henry, whatever grounds he may have had for repudiating Falstaff, cannot have had any for imprisoning him.

The explanation, I take it, is again historic. The kings of the house of Lancaster had an exceedingly bad title in point of law ; they won the all-powerful support of the Church only by engaging in a perpetual heresyhunt ; hence the many Lollard trials of the reign of Henry V. Now we know that in the original version of the play, Falstaff was called Oldcastle, and Sir John Oldcastle was the greatest of all Lollard leaders.

The fact of his imprisonment was simply a historic fact, and the audience knew well enough the reasons for it ; the historic Henry had strained himself to the utmost in the effort to save his old friend from the ire of enraged ecclesiastics, and, even when he was imprisoned, had tried to persuade him to recant. How could the audience think Henry severe when they knew that the true offence was a political one, and that a continuance of the friendship on Henry's part would have brought down the dynasty ? Surely this sheds a different light on Henry ?

It also throws light on other portions of the play. Falstaff repeatedly claims a great reputation for military skill, a European reputation in fact, for he says that he is '* Sir John to all Europe." Now a good many critics treat this as simple absurdity on his part, but it is perfectly accurate ; Oldcastle was acknowledged as one of the greatest soldiers of his day. Whether Shakespeare meant him to deserve his reputation or not is an entirely different point, but he certainly possessed it. Canon Ainger has shown that a great deal in the character of Falstaff can be explained by the fact that the Elizabethan conception of him was that of a renegade Puritan, and it is surely equally appropriate to remember that he had the reputation of being a great soldier. That is the joke of the battle of Shrewsbury.^ That is precisely why he is able to claim, with any hope of credence, that he killed Hotspur, and that is preceisely why Sir John Colevile of the Dale surrenders to his reputation only. 2

In all these cases the historic method helps us, I think, very markedly to understand the plays in question ; 1 Henry I V., Part I. « Henry IV., Part II.

Introduction i^

on the other hand, we are bound to admit that, if we study the pecuhar point of view of the EUzabethan mind, problems are often suggested where all might otherwise to the modern reader appear plain. It seems to me, however, that it is at least equally necessary to study the problems which thus arise. How can we be sure that we understand him fully if we ignore the manner in which his plays and his subjects were likely to affect contemporary minds ? I will give two instances where important problems suggest themselves which have not, I think, as yet been resolved.

Let us consider, for instance, the identity of Lear. Lear appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth as the king who founded the city of Leicester, and it is ultimately, though not directly, from Geoffrey of Monmouth that Shakespeare's version of the story is derived. Shakespeare has, however, altered the conclusion and linked the whole with an entirely different tale — the history of Gloucester and his sons — whose source is Sidney's Arcadia. Now Lear is not only a character in Geoffrey of Monmouth ; he is also an important figure in Welsh mythology where his daughter — Cordelia — has as rival wooers Modred and Gwynn ap Nudd, the prince of fairyland ; these two are doomed to fight for her every first of May until the Day of Judgment.

In Irish mythology also Lear or Lir plays an important part, and his children are turned into wild swans.

Now what is Lear's real identity ?

Sir John Rhys states that Lir is a Celtic sea-god ; Mr Timothy Lewis tells me that he thinks this a mistake, that Lir is a noun used as an adjective and means the

B

Ligurian Sea only, but not any other : Lear or Lir really means the Ligures tribes ; there were a number of such personages in ancient Welsh ; they are called the fathers of the British race, and they really mean the invading tribes from the Continent.

Now it may not be of importance to our Shakespearian study to know what Lear really and essentially is ; but it is surely of considerable importance to know what the Elizabethans thought he was.

Was Lear a man or a god or a tribe ? This question is not even asked. The majority of critics are like Mr Bradley, they start with the assumption that Lear was an ancient British king, and they do not even discuss the possibility that the Elizabethans understood Lear as a mythologic figure and that Shakespeare himself may have meant him as something mythologic.

Mr Bradley's omission to ask the question is the more curious because he himself admits that Lear produces on his mind the impression of being strangely remote from ordinary life ; the tale, as such, is extravagantly improbable and yet the drama is enormously great.

" This world," says Mr Bradley, " is called Britain ; but we should no more look for it than for the place called Caucasus, where Prometheus was chained by Strength and Force and comforted by the daughters of Ocean."

And elsewhere he says that he finds that he is often grouping the play in his own mind " with works like the Prometheus Vtnctus, and the Divine Comedy and even with the greatest symphonies of Beethoven and the statues in the Medici Chapel."