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Home , John Ward (actor), Thomas Lucy, Thomas Nash, Wentworth Smith, William Davenant, William Jaggard

The Shakespeare Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Fall 2002/2005

S h a k e s p e a re i n Stratford and Another of Camden’s books was R e - : Ten Eyewitnesses maines Concerning Britain, a series of essays on English history, English names and the Who Saw Nothing English language that he published in 1605. Camden wrote poetry himself, and in the sec- by Ramon Jiménez tion on poetry, he referred to poets as “God’s own creatures.” He listed eleven English poets and playwrights who he thought would be T is well-known that the first references in admired by future generations––in other print that seemed to connect Wi l l i a m words, the best writers of his time (287, 294). IShakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon to the Among the eleven were six playwrights, in- playwright appeared in cluding Jonson, Chapman, Drayton, Daniel, the first collection of his plays—the First Fo- Marston, and William Shakespeare. lio, seven years after his death. On the other Two years later, in 1607, Camden pub- hand, we can identify at least ten people who lished the sixth edition of his Britannia, which personally knew the William Shakespeare of by then had doubled in size because of his this town, or met his daughter, extensive revisions and additions. He arranged Susanna. At least six of them, and possibly all the book by shire or county, with his descrip- of them, were aware of plays and poems pub- tion of each beginning in the pre-Roman peri- lished under the name of one of the country’s od and extending to contemporary people and leading playwrights, William Shakespeare. All events. With Camden’s interests and previous ten left us published books, poems, letters, work in mind, it is surprising to find that in this notebooks, or diaries, some of which referred 1607 edition, and in his subsequent editions, in directly to events or people in Stratford. Yet the section on Stratford-upon-Avon, he des- none of these nine men and one woman––it is cribed this “small market-town” as owing “all fair to call them eyewitnesses––left any hint its consequence to two natives of it. They are that they connected the playwright with the John de Stratford, later Archbishop of Canter- person of the same name from the town of bury, who built the church, and Hugh Clopton, Stratford-upon-Avon. later mayor of London, who built the Clopton William Camden bridge across the Avon” (2.445). In the same paragraph, Camden called attention to George William Camden was the most eminent Carew, Baron Clopton, who lived nearby and historian and antiquary of the Elizabethan age, was active in the town’s affairs. and was deeply involved in the literary and There is no mention of the well-known intellectual world of his time. He knew Philip poet and playwright, William Shakespeare, Sidney, was a valued friend of Michael Dray- who was born and raised in Stratford-upon- ton, and is said to have been a teacher of Ben Avon, whose family still lived there, and who Jonson. His most famous work was Britannia, by this date had returned there to live in one of a history of first published in Latin in the grandest houses in town. Elsewhere in 1586. It was translated, and frequently reprint- Britannia, Camden noted that the poet Philip ed, and he revised it several times before his Sidney had a home in Kent. We know he was death in 1623. familiar with literary and theatrical aff a i r s

74 Ramon Jiménez “Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”

because he was a friend of the poet and play- William Camden had another occasion to wright (Newdigate 95), and come in contact with the Shakespeares. In the he noted in his diary the deaths of the summer of 1600, when the famous Sir Thomas Richard Burbage and the poet and playwright Lucy died, Camden bore Lucy’s coat of arms Samuel Daniel in 1619.1 He made no such in the procession and conducted the funeral at note on the death in April 1616 of William Charlecote, only a few miles from Stratford- Shake-speare of Stratford-upon-Avon. upon-Avon (Malone 2:556). It might be suggested that Camden was knew the Shakespeares also. When he was unfamiliar with the Warwickshire area, and Justice of the Peace in Stratford-upon-Avon, wasn’t aware that one of the leading play- John Shakespeare was brought up before him wrights of the day lived in Stratford-upon- more than once. John may even have attended Avon. But could this be true? In 1597 Queen Lucy’s funeral, but it seems likely that William Elizabeth had appointed Camden to the post of was too busy to go. During 1600, seven or Clarenceaux King of Arms, one of the two offi- eight of William Shakespeare’s plays were cials in the College of Arms who approved printed for the first time and, according to most applications for coats of arms. Two years later, orthodox scholars, in the summer of 1600 he John Shakespeare, William’s father, applied to was hurrying to finish up . the College to have his existing coat of arms So, even though William Camden revered impaled, or joined, with the arms of his wife’s poets, had several poet friends, and wrote poet- family, the Ardens of Wilmcote (Chambers ry himself, even though he knew the Shake- 2:18-32). Some writers have asserted that speares, father and son, and even though he William Shakespeare himself made this appli- mentioned playwrights and poets in his books cation for his father, but there is no evidence of and in his diary, he never connected the Shake- that. What is likely is that William paid the fee speare he knew in Stratford-upon-Avon with that accompanied the application. the one on his list of the best English poets. The record shows that Camden and his colleague William Dethick approved the mod- Michael Drayton ification that John Shakespeare sought. How- ever, in 1602 another official in the College Another eyewitness is the poet and drama- brought a complaint against Camden and De- tist Michael Drayton, who was born and raised thick that they had granted coats of arms im- in Warwickshire, only about twenty-five miles properly to twenty-three men, one of whom from Stratford-upon-Avon. It is hard to imag- was John Shakespeare. Camden and Dethick ine that Michael Drayton was unaware of defended their actions, but there is no record of Shakespeare. The two were almost exact con- the outcome of the matter. The coat of arms, temporaries. They both wrote sonnets, and minus the Arden impalement, later appeared on many critics have even found the influence of the monument in Holy Trinity Church. Be- Shakespeare in Drayton’s poetry (Campbell cause of this unusual complaint, Camden had 190-1). Also, they both wrote plays that ap- good reason to remember John Shakespeare’s peared about the same time on the London application, and it is very probable that he had stage in the late 1590s. In fact, in 1599 Dray- met both father and son. At the least, he knew ton, along with , Robert who they were and where they lived. Wilson, and Richard Hathaway, wrote a play,

75 The Shakespeare Oxford Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Fall 2002/2005

Sir John Oldcastle, that was supposed to be a the early until his death in 1631 he made response to Shakespeare’s plays about Falstaff frequent visits to their home at Cliff o r d (Chambers 1:134). Chambers, sometimes staying all summer. In 1612 Drayton published the first part of The Shakespearean scholar Charlotte Poly-Olbion, a poetical description of Eng- Stopes was certain that Shakespeare would land, and a county-by-county history that in- have been “an honored guest” at the Rainsford cluded well-known men of every kind. In it home because of the family’s literary interests were many references to Chaucer, to Spenser, (1907, 206), although there is no record of such and to other English poets. But in his section a visit. But even if Shakespeare may never on Warwickshire, Drayton never mentioned have visited the Rainsfords, Dr. , the S t r a t f o r d - u p o n - Avon or Shakespeare, even man who married Shakespeare’s daughter cer- though by 1612 Shakespeare was a well- tainly did. Hall was the Rainsford’s family known playwright. It seems that Drayton doctor and once treated Drayton for a fever, never connected the writer to the William probably at the Rainsford home. The doctor Shakespeare he must have known in Stratford. made a record of it in his case book, and even How do we know he knew him? Many noted that Drayton was an excellent poet (Lane supporters of the Stratford theory think so. Sa- 40-1). Hall’s treatment for the fever was a muel Schoenbaum wrote that it is “not implau- spoonful of “syrup of violets,” but Drayton sible” that Drayton and Shakespeare, and Ben recovered anyway. Jonson as well, had that “merry meeting” re- Another reason that Drayton must have ported in the 1660s by John Ward, the vicar of been aware of a playwright named Shake- Stratford-on-Avon (Schoenbaum 296). In fact, speare was that in 1619, , more than one scholar has found evidence that the play Drayton had written with three others, Michael Drayton was the “Rival Poet” of the was printed by and Thomas sonnets. But we have better evidence than that. Pavier with Shakespeare’s name on the title Drayton’s life is well-documented. He had page (Chambers 1:533-4). This is certainly a connection to the wealthy Rainsford family, something an author would notice. who lived at Clifford Chambers, a couple of It is very probable that if Drayton thought miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. Drayton had that Dr. Hall’s father-in-law was the famous been in love with Lady Rainsford from the playwright and poet, he would have written or time she was Ann Goodere, a girl in the house- told someone about him. But there is no men- hold in which he was in service in the 1580s. tion of Shakespeare anywhere in his substan- She was the subject of his series of love son- tial correspondence. In all his writings––the nets, Ideas Mirrour, published in 1594. Al- collected edition is in five volumes––despite though she married Henry Rainsford instead, his mention of more than a dozen contempo- in 1595, Drayton hung around their household rary poets and playwrights, Drayton never re- and made himself a friend of the family. He ferred to William Shakespeare at all until more apparently never stopped loving her, and from than ten years after Shakespeare’s death. When he finally did, he wrote four lines about This article is a combination of two articles origi- what a good comedian he was. It is unclear nally published in the Shakespeare Oxford News- whether he was referring to him as a play- letter, first in Fall 2002, second, Winter 2005. wright, an actor, or in some other capacity.

76 Ramon Jiménez “Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”

Thomas Greene shame that Greene made no comment in his diary about a book called Shake-speare’s Son- Our third eyewitness connects Michael nets, with its strange dedication to “our ever- Drayton and William Shakespeare of Stratford- living poet,” that was published in London in upon-Avon even more closely. In the 1603 edi- 1609, about the time he was living in the tion of one of Drayton’s major poems, The Shakespeare household. Nor does he mention Barons’ Wars, there appeared a commendato- in his diary the death of the supposedly famous ry sonnet––a Shakespearean sonnet––by one playwright in the spring of 1616. Mrs. Stopes 2 Thomas Greene. Also in 1603, the bookseller wrote that “It has always been a matter of sur- and printer published a poem prise to me that Thomas Greene, who men- by this same Thomas Greene titled A Poet’s tioned the death of Mr. Barber, did not mention Vision and a Princes Glorie. In seventeen the death of Shakespeare.” For this she offered pages of forgettable verse, Greene predicted a the astounding explanation: “Perhaps there was renaissance of poetry under the new King, no need for him to make a memorandum of an James I. (For more than twenty years, begin- event so important to the town and himself” ning in 1596, William Leake was the holder of (1907, 89). Thomas Greene’s failure to make the publishing rights to Venus and Adonis any note of his friend’s dramatic genius is es- (Chambers 1:544].) pecially unusual because he knew him so well, Orthodox scholars agree that this Thomas and he was a published poet himself. Greene was none other than the London solic- itor for the Stratford Corporation, and the John Hall Town Clerk of Stratford-upon-Avon for more than ten years (Dobson 173). He had such a Our fourth eyewitness is that same Dr. close relationship with the Shakespeares that John Hall who came to Stratford-upon-Avon he named two of his children William and from Bedfordshire in the early 1600s, and mar- Anne. He and his wife and children lived in ried Susanna Shakespeare in 1607. During his the Shakespeare household at for more than thirty years of practice in Warwick- many months during 1609 and 1610 (Schoen- shire, Dr. Hall was considered one of the best baum 282). He was also the only Stratfordian physicians in the county, and was called often contemporary of Shakespeare to mention him to the homes of noblemen throughout the area. in his diary. This was in connection with the As a leading citizen of the town, he was elect- Welcombe land enclosure matter, where he ed a Burgess to the City Council three times referred to him as “my cosen Shakspeare” before he finally accepted the office. On the (Campbell 272). death of his father-in-law in 1616, Dr. Hall, his Thomas Greene was also a friend of the wife Susanna, and their eight-year-old daugh- dramatist John Marston, and they were both ter Elizabeth moved into New Place with Wil- resident students at the Middle Temple during liam Shakespeare’s widow Anne. the mid-1590s. Yet nowhere in his diary or in A few years after Dr. Hall’s death in 1635, his letters that have survived, does Thomas it transpired that he had kept hundreds of anec- Greene––apparently the author of a Shake- dotal records about his patients and their ail- spearean sonnet himself––even hint that the ments––records that have excited the curiosity Shakespeare he knew was a poet. What a of both literary and medical scholars. Two

77 The Shakespeare Oxford Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Fall 2002/2005

notebooks were recovered, and one containing self. Because Dr. Hall nearly always noted the about 170 cases was translated from the Latin age and residence of his patients, most of them and published by one of his fellow physicians. have been identified and their birth dates found The other, possibly once in the possession of in other sources. The earliest case in the exist- the Shakespearean scholar , ing manuscript can be dated in 1611, others in has, unfortunately, disappeared. In the single 1613, 1614, and 1615, and another four in surviving manuscript are descriptions of do- 1616, the very year of Shakespeare’s death zens of Dr. Hall’s patients and their illnesses, (Lane 351). including his wife Susanna, and their daughter It appears that Dr. Hall made his notes Elizabeth. Also mentioned are the Vicar of shortly after treating his patients, but didn’t S t r a t f o r d - u p o n - Avon and various noblemen prepare them for publication until near the end and their families, including Michael Dray- of his life. Hall was obviously aware and ad- ton’s friends the Rainsfords, and of course miring of his patients’ status and achievements, Drayton himself. especially their scholarly and literary achieve- In his notes about one patient, Thomas ments, as his comments about Drayton, Hol- Holyoak, Dr. Hall mentioned that his father, yoake, and others reveal. By 1630 William Francis Holyoak, had compiled a Latin- Shakespeare was well-known as an outstand- English dictionary. John Trapp, a minister and ing, if mysterious, playwright. The Second the schoolmaster of the Stratford Grammar had been published in 1632, and there School, he described as being noted “for his had been, of course, many of his plays issued remarkable piety and learning, second to none” in , as well as several printed tributes. (Joseph 47, 94). But nowhere in the notebook Thus, there is good reason to expect that Dr. that has survived is there any mention of Hall’s John Hall would have noted his treatment of father-in-law William Shakespeare. This, of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon course, has vexed and puzzled scholars. Dr. during the ten years he knew him––if he Hall surely treated his wife’s father during the thought he were someone worthy of mention. ten years they lived within minutes of each It is indeed strange that in the early 1630s, as other. Why wouldn’t he record any treatment he was collecting the cases he wished to pub- of William Shakespeare and mention his liter- lish, he should neglect to include any record of ary achievements as he had Michael Drayton’s his treating his supposedly famous father-in- and Francis Holyoake’s? law. Mrs. Stopes called it “the one great fail- The accepted explanation has always been ure of his life” (1901, 82). that of the few cases in Dr. Hall’s notebook that he dated, none bears a date earlier than 1617, James Cooke the year after Shakespeare’s death. For de- cades scholars have assumed that any mention Our fifth eyewitness is Dr. James Cooke, a of Shakespeare was probably in the lost note- surgeon from Warwick who was responsible book. But recently this assumption was proved for the publication of John Hall’s casebook. false when a scholar found that at least four, Although he was about twenty years younger and as many as eight, of the cases Hall record- than Hall, Cooke was acquainted with him ed can be dated before Shakespeare died, even from the time they had both attended the Earl though the doctor didn’t supply the dates him- of Warwick and his family. In the 1640s a

78 Ramon Jiménez “Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”

Parliamentary army was contending with the Stratford-upon-Avon mentioned no books, pa- army of Charles I in a civil war that would end pers, or manuscripts in his will. After certain with Charles’s defeat, and eventual beheading specific bequests, he left the rest of his goods in 1649. Both royalists and rebels occupied and “household stuffe” to his daughter and her Stratford-upon-Avon on different occasions. husband, John Hall. In contrast, Dr. Hall refer- In 1644 Dr. Cooke was attached to a Parlia- red in his will to “my study of books” and “my mentary army unit assigned to guard the fa- manuscripts,” and left them to his own son-in- mous Clopton Bridge over the Avon at Strat- law, Thomas Nash (Lane 350). ford-upon-Avon. At this date Dr. John Hall had been dead nine years and, according to Sir Fulke Greville Cooke, he and a friend decided to visit Hall’s widow Susanna “to see the books left by Mr. A sixth eyewitness is Sir Fulke Greville, Hall” (Joseph 105). later Lord Brooke, whose family had lived near When they arrived at New Place and met Stratford for more than two hundred years, and Susanna, Cooke asked if her husband had left who must have known the Shakespeare family. any books or papers that he might see. When He was born in 1554 at Beauchamp Court, less she brought them out, Cooke noticed two man- than ten miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, in uscript notebooks handwritten in a Latin script the vicinity of Snitterfield, home of Richard that he recognized as Dr. Hall’s. Susanna was Shakespeare, grandfather of William. Related confident that it wasn’t her husband’s hand- to the Ardens, the family of Shakespeare’s writing, but when Dr. Cooke insisted, she mother, he displayed the arms of the Arden fa- agreed to sell him the manuscripts, and he car- mily on his own coat-of-arms (Adams 451). ried them away with great satisfaction. Fulke Greville was a man of importance in He eventually translated one of the note- Warwickshire. In 1592 he, Sir Thomas Lucy, books, added some cases of his own, and pub- and five others were appointed to a commis- lished it in 1657 under a very long title that is sion to report on those who refused to attend commonly shortened to Select Observations church. In September of that year, the com- on English Bodies. On the title page John mission reported to the Privy Council that nine Hall is described as a “Physician, living at men in the parish of Stratford-upon-Avon had Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, where not attended church at least once a month. he was very famous” (Joseph 104). In his Among the nine was John Shakespeare, father introduction to the book, Cooke described his of William (M. Eccles 33). Throughout his life visit with Susanna, during which neither of Fulke Greville sought preferment at Court, and them referred to her supposedly famous father, eventually became Chancellor of the Exche- nor to any books or manuscripts that might quer and Treasurer of the Navy. On the death have belonged to him. In fact, from Cooke’s of his father in 1606, Fulke Greville was ap- report of the meeting, neither Shakespeare’s pointed to the office his father had held–– daughter Susanna nor the doctor himself was Recorder of Warwick and Stratford-upon- aware of any literary activity by the William Avon, and remained in it until his death in Shakespeare who had lived in the very house 1628. In this position he could hardly have they were standing in. been unaware of the Shakespeare family. As is well known, William Shakespeare of Fulke Greville was also a serious poet and

79 The Shakespeare Oxford Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Fall 2002/2005

dramatist. During the late 1570s he composed playwright, William Shakespeare, who suppos- a cycle of 109 poems, forty-one of which were edly lived a few miles away.3 Charlotte Stopes sonnets, and two decades later wrote three his- wrote: “It is always considered strange that tory plays. But he was one of those noblemen such a man should not have mentioned Shake- who disdained appearance in print, and in fact speare” (1907, 171). Fulke Greville has been refused to allow any publication of his work described as “one of the leaders of the move- while he was alive. The only work of his that ment for the introduction of Renaissance Cul- appeared during his lifetime was an unautho- ture into England” (Whitfield 366). Yet so far rized printing of his play Mustapha in 1609. as we know, Greville never made any connec- This was the same year that Shake-speare’s tion between the resident of the nearby town Sonnets was published––probably without the and the dramatist who bore the identical name permission of its author, supposedly his neigh- and who, more than any other, used Renais- bor down the road. sance literary sources for his plays. Greville preferred the company of poets and philosophers, and his closest friends were Edward Pudsey the poets Edward Dyer and Philip Sidney. Greville was also acquainted with John Florio, Another eyewitness who must have known Edmund Spenser, and . Another William Shakespeare of Stratford was an ob- poet and playwright William Davenant, who scure theatergoer named Edward Pudsey who claimed to be a godson, or maybe a son, of was perhaps only the second individual we William Shakespeare, was brought to live in know of to write out passages from a Shake- Greville’s household as a page when he was speare play. Very little is known about Edward eighteen (ODNB). Greville corresponded with Pudsey, except that he was born in Derbyshire the poet and playwright in 1573 and died in 1613 at Tewkesbury, about (Crundell 137), who was mentioned by Francis twenty-five miles from Stratford (ODNB). Meres in 1598, as was William Shakespeare, as There is a 1591 record of a Pudsey family liv- one of the best English playwrights. Greville ing at Langley, about five miles from Stratford, was a patron of Samuel Daniel, the poet and and only three miles from Park Hall, the home playwright from nearby Somerset who dedicat- of the Ardens, parents of Shakespeare’s moth- ed Musophilus, probably his finest poem, to er Mary (Savage vi) . Greville in 1599. Both Chapman and Daniel In 1888 scholars were fortunate to discov- were about the same age and from the same er a ninety-page manuscript that was inscribed class as William Shakespeare of Stratford. “Edward Pudsey’s Book.” In it Pudsey had Greville’s plays have never been perfor- copied passages from several literary works in med, and he is best known today for his biog- the fields of history, philosophy and current raphy of Philip Sidney, in which he wrote events––as well as from contemporary plays. about both himself and Sidney, and their twen- The dates entered in the manuscript range from ty-year friendship. A number of letters both to 1600 to 1612, the year before Pudsey died. Be- and from Fulke Greville have survived. Yet sides passages from Machiavelli, T h o m a s nowhere in any of Fulke Greville’s reminis- More, , and others, Pudsey care- cences, or in the letters he wrote or received, is fully transcribed selections from twenty-two there any mention of the well-known poet and contemporary plays––four by Ben Jonson,

80 Ramon Jiménez “Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”

three by Marston, seven by Dekker, Lyly, the by his bedside. In this copy Nashe, Chapman, and Heywood. And eight by are found the alternative titles he assigned to William Shakespeare. several of the plays, such as “Pyramus and The extracts from Hamlet and are Thisbe” for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and especially interesting because of their varia- “Malvolio” for (Birrell 45). To tions from the printed versions. The quotation the Puritans, who executed Charles in 1649, his from Hamlet is slightly different from the dissolute character was exemplified by his love 1604 Quarto and the 1623 Folio. The quota- of plays. One Puritan pamphlet asserted that tion from Othello contains lines that do not he would have succeeded as king “had he stud- appear in the Quarto, which was not published ied scripture half so much as he did Ben Jonson until 1622. After the Othello quotation, Pud- or Shakespeare” (Campbell 107). sey wrote the letters sh, a reasonably clear in- Queen Henrietta was also an amateur play- dication that he knew that the play was by Wil- wright, and even more enamored of the stage liam Shakespeare. The English scholar who than her husband. She was the first English examined the manuscript asserted that the quo- monarch to attend a performance in a public tations from Othello and Hamlet were written playhouse, and enjoyed performing the leading in a section that she dated no later than 1600 roles in her own at Court––behavior (Rees 331). Thus, it is probable that Edward that shocked the English public (Campbell Pudsey had access to now-lost of 312). According to Michael Dobson and Stan- Othello and Hamlet, or had seen the plays and ley Wells, the word actress was first used in written down the dialogue in 1600 or earlier. reference to Henrietta (187). In her 1632 But nowhere in the hundreds of entries in Tempe Restored, professional women “Edward Pudsey’s Book” is there any indica- singers took the stage for the first time in Eng- tion that he was aware that the playwright land. Joining her on the stage on many occa- whose words he copied so carefully lived in sions were several of her ladies-in-waiting, nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. including Beatrice, the Countess of Oxford, wife of the nineteenth Earl, Sir Robert de Vere. Queen In 1642, Charles and his Parliament reached an impasse over taxes, and when he Our eighth eyewitness is Henrietta Maria, attempted to arrest five members, Parliament the fifteen-year-old daughter of King Henry IV was moved to authorize an army, and a civil of France and Marie de Medici, who, by ar- war broke out. The Queen was in Holland at rangement, became the wife and Queen of the time, but she quickly began rounding up Charles I soon after his coronation as King of support for the Royalist army. Early the next England in 1625. The new American colony of year she landed in Yorkshire with a large sup- Maryland, founded in 1632, was given its ply of ammunition she had solicited on the name in honor of Henrietta Maria. continent. From there she journeyed south to Both Charles and Queen Henrietta were relieve her husband who was in the field with theater buffs and enthusiastic patrons of the his army near Oxford. Traveling on horseback, drama. King Charles even collaborated on a the “Generalissima,” as she called herself, play with in the 1630s, and was reached Warwickshire in early July 1643, and so fond of Shakespeare that he kept a copy of on the 11th arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon at

81 The Shakespeare Oxford Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Fall 2002/2005

the head of an army of 3,000 foot soldiers, thir- her that she would find nothing about the play- ty companies of horse and dragoons, six pieces wright Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. of artillery, and 150 wagons (Plowden 186). Further evidence suggests that plays and The records of the Stratford Corporation playwrights were not welcome in Stratford-on- document the visit of Queen Henrietta Maria Avon. It is well known that during the thirty and the substantial expense it incurred to pro- years between 1568 and 1597 numerous play- vide a banquet for her (Fox 24). Although spe- ing companies visited and performed there. cific records of it are lacking, scholars accept a But by the end of this period office- tradition that the Queen stayed two nights at holders in the town finally attained their objec- New Place, then the home of William Shake- tive of banning all performances of plays and speare’s daughter Susanna, her daughter Eliza- interludes. In 1602 the Corporation of Strat- beth and son-in-law Thomas Nash (Lee 509; ford ordered that a fine of ten shillings be im- Schoenbaum 305). posed on any official who gave permission for Queen Henrietta was an exceptional letter- any type of play to be performed in any city writer. Hundreds of her letters to her husband, building, or any inn or house in the borough. her nephew Prince Rupert, and others have This in a year that five or six plays by Shake- been collected and printed. But none of the let- speare, their alleged townsman, were being ters she wrote before or after her visit to Strat- performed in London.4 ford-upon-Avon contains any mention of her In 1612, just four years before their neigh- stay at New Place, or any indication that she bor’s death, this fine was increased to ten had met the daughter and granddaughter of the pounds. In 1622, when work on the great First famous playwright whom she emulated and Folio was in progress, the Stratford Corpor- whom her husband venerated. ation paid the King’s Players the sum of six What could be the explanation for this? shillings not to play in the Town Hall (Fox By 1643 there had been several visitors to the 143-4). Surely by 1622, some thirty years after Holy Trinity Church, where the statue of Wil- his name had first appeared in print, the people liam Shakespeare had been installed more than of Stratford would have been aware that one of twenty years earlier (Chambers 2:239, 242-3). England’s greatest poets and playwrights had But if Queen Henrietta walked over to the been born, raised, and then retired in their own church to see the memorial to the famous play- town. That is, if such a thing were true. wright, she never wrote about it. One explana- tion might be that she knew that the Stratford Shakespeare was a myth. A decade earlier she had been closely associated with Beatrice, the Our ninth eyewitness was a London busi- Countess of Oxford, and her husband, Robert nessman who decided to build a playhouse and de Vere, the nineteenth Earl. She also knew then became a successful theatrical entrepre- Ben Jonson, the artificer of the , who neur. Philip Henslowe and his partner had was still writing masques for the Court in the operated the Rose Theater for about four years 1630s. Any one of the three might have told before he began, in 1592, making entries in an her about the aristocrat who concealed his writ- old notebook about his theater and the compa- ings by adopting a commoner’s name as his nies that played in it, primarily the Admiral’s pseudonym. Any one of them might have told Men (Foakes xv). The surviving manuscript,

82 Ramon Jiménez “Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”

now called Henslowe’s Diary, is a gold mine of the Chamberlain’s Men company, whose the- references to plays, playhouses, and playing ater was the Globe, the principal competitor of companies in London. It mentions the name of Henslowe’s Rose Theater. But the Globe and just about everybody who was anybody in the the Rose theaters were situated very near each London theater in the 1590s. other, and Henslowe had to walk past the Although Henslowe kept his Diary on and Globe every day on his way to work (C. off for less than ten years, we can find in it, or Eccles 69). His Diary contains many transac- in other Henslowe manuscripts, the names of tions with and playwrights associated 280 different plays, about 240 of which have with the Chamberlain’s Men, and his entries entirely disappeared. The names of fully 170 for June 1594 record that the Chamberlain’s of these plays would be totally unknown today, Men and the Admiral’s Men performed more if not for their mention in the Diary (Bentley than a dozen plays together at his Newington 15), which also contains reports of perfor- Butts theater about a mile away (Campbell mances at the Rose Theater by all the major 583). This is the period during which most playing companies of the time. Dozens of scholars claim that William Shakespeare was actors and no less than twenty-seven play- acting with the Chamberlain’s Men. wrights are named. Henslowe also kept records If Shakespeare really were the busy actor of the loans he made to playwrights and of the and playwright we are told he was, then amounts he paid them for manuscripts. Among Henslowe would surely have known him, and the playwrights mentioned are the familiar mentioned him somewhere in his Diary. But names of Chapman, Dekker, Drayton, Jonson, although Henslowe mentioned several Shake- Marston, and Webster. There are also some un- speare plays that were performed in his theater, familiar names, such as William Bird, Robert he never mentioned the name of the man who Daborne, and Wentworth Smith, the other wrote them, and had an attachment to a theater “W.S.” But there is one familiar name that is exactly one hundred yards away. missing. Nowhere in the list of dozens of ac- tors and twenty-seven playwrights in Hen- Edward Alleyn slowe’s Diary do we find the name of William Shakespeare. Our last eyewitness is Edward Alleyn, the It might be objected that Henslowe also most distinguished actor on the Elizabethan failed to mention several other familiar play- stage. He was also a musician, a book and wrights, such as Beaumont, Fletcher, Ford, playbook collector, a philanthropist, and a Lyly, Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. But playwright (Wraight 211-19). He was born there are good reasons for these omissions. about two years after William Shakespeare and Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ford didn’t begin wri- came from the same class. His father was an ting plays until after the period of Henslowe’s innkeeper, and Alleyn was still in his teens Diary. Marlowe and Greene died within a year when he began acting on the stage. He was of the first entry in the Diary; Kyd died a year most famous for his roles in Marlowe’s plays, later, and Lyly and Peele wrote their last plays but he also must have acted in several of the in 1593 and 1594. Shakespeare plays performed at the Rose, such Admittedly, Shakespeare is supposed to as and Henry VI (Carson have been an actor, playwright, and sharer in 68). In 1592 he married Philip Henslowe’s

83 The Shakespeare Oxford Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Fall 2002/2005

step-daughter and entered the theater business have if he were the actor and playwright we are with his father-in-law. told he was—and two who met his daughter Edward Alleyn also kept a diary that sur- Susanna. If two or three of these eyewitnesses vives, along with many of his letters and pa- had failed to associate the well-known play- pers. They reveal that he had a large circle of wright with the man bearing the same name in acquaintances throughout and beyond the the- Stratford-upon-Avon, it would not be worth ater world that included aristocrats, clergymen, mentioning. But none of these ten, all of and businessmen, as well as men in his own whom left extensive written records, connected profession, such as , one of the the man they knew, or the daughter of that alleged editors of the First Folio. In his two- man, with the well-known playwright. volume edition of Edward Allen’s Memoirs We can be sure that if any one of these ten (1841), John Payne Collier printed several ref- people had, just once, referred to William erences that Alleyn made to Shakespeare and Shakespeare of Stratford as a playwright, or if to his plays, but they have all been judged forg- his name had appeared in Henslowe’s Diary, eries (Chambers 2:386-90). The alleged refer- just once, as being paid for a play, then those ence by Alleyn to Shakespeare that has puzzled who reject the Stratford theory would have a scholars the most is one that Collier claimed he lot of explaining to do. In fact, there is no re- found on the back of a letter written to Alleyn cord of anyone associating Shakespeare of in June 1609. There, Alleyn supposedly S t r a t f o r d - u p o n - Avon with playwrighting or recorded a list of purchases under the heading any other kind of writing until the questionable “Howshowld stuff,”––at the end of which are front matter of the First Folio seven years after the words “a book. Shaksper sonetts 5d.” his death. Instead, the facts support the argu- Although this letter has been lost, the entry has ment that the name Shakespeare was the pseu- been accepted as genuine by some scholars donym of a concealed author who did not write (Rollins 2:54, Freeman 2:1142), but rejected as for money, did not sell his plays to playing a forgery by others (Race 113, Duncan-Jones companies or publishers, and was indifferent to 7). But forgery or genuine, it fails to suggest their appearance in print. a connection with William Shakespeare of Given the mystery of William Shakespeare Stratford-upon-Avon. of Stratford-upon-Avon, it is instructive to re- Thus, except for this one questionable ref- call a similar instance of negative evidence in erence, nowhere in Alleyn’s diary or letters the well-known mystery story “Silver Blaze,” does the name William Shakespeare appear. It by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this case Sher- is impossible to believe that Edward Alleyn, lock Holmes was called to a small town in who was at the center of the Elizabethan stage Dartmoor where a racehorse had been stolen, community for more than thirty-five years, and its trainer murdered. One of the clues that would not have met the alleged actor and lead- enabled Holmes to solve the case was his ing playwright William Shakespeare, and made observation that at the time of the theft the dog some allusion to him in his letters or diary. guarding the stable failed to bark. In the usual To sum up: we have the literary remains run-up to the solution, the horse’s owner be- of ten different eyewitnesses, eight of whom came impatient with Holmes, and asked him: must have come into contact with William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon––or should

84 Ramon Jiménez “Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”

“Is there any point to which you From Henry II to Charles II. London: would wish to draw my attention?” British Library, 1986. “To the curious incident of the dog Camden, William. Britannia. 6th ed. (1607 ) in the night-time,” Holmes replied. Trans. Richard Gough. Vol 2. London: “The dog did nothing in the night- Stockdale, 1806. time.” ______. Remains Concerning Britain (1605). Ed. R.D. Dunn. Toronto: UTP, 1984. “That is the curious incident,” re- marked Sherlock Holmes. Campbell, Oscar and E.G. Quinn, eds. Reader’s Encyclopedia of Shakespeare. New York: Holmes deduced that the silence of the dog MJF Books, 1966. meant that the horsethief was familiar to him, Carson, Neil. A Companion to Henslowe’s Diary. that there was nothing unusual about him— Cambridge: CUP, 1988. nothing to bark about. The silence of these ten Chambers, E.K. William Shakespeare, A Study of eyewitnesses tells us the same thing. To them Facts and Problems. Vol 2. Oxford: there was nothing about William Shakespeare Clarendon, 1930. of Stratford-upon-Avon that was worthy of Crundell, H.W. “George Chapman and the note—nothing to bark about. Grevilles.” Notes & Queries 185 (1943): 137. Dobson, Michael and Stanley Wells. Oxford Com- • ◆ • panion to Shakespeare. Oxford: OUP, 2001. Notes Drayton, Michael. Complete Works. J.W. Hebel, K. Tillotson, and B.H. Newdigate, eds. 1 Camden’s Diary appeared in Camdeni Vitae, a Oxford: Blackwell, 1961. life of Camden published in 1691 by Thomas Smith: h t t p : / / w w w. p h i l o l o g i c a l . b h a m . a c . u k / s m i t h > Ta b l e Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. Shake-speare’s of Contents>Introduction. Sonnets. Arden Shakespeare. London: Thomson, 1998. 2 The text of the sonnet appears in Michael Drayton: Complete Works (Hebel 2.6). Eccles, Christine. The Rose Theatre. New York: Routledge/Theater Arts, 1990. 3 In Statesmen and Favourites of England Eccles, Mark. Shakespeare in Warwickshire. since the Reformation (1665), David Lloyd assert- Madison: U Wisconsin P, 1963. ed that Greville wished to be “known to posterity” as “Shakespeare’s and Ben Johnson’s master.” But Foakes, R.A. ed. Henslowe’s Diary. Cambridge: he cited no evidence and so it is generally consid- CUP, 2nd ed. 2002. ered to be a fabrication. (Chambers 2.250). Fox, Levi. The Borough Town of Stratford-upon- 4 Hamlet, Twelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Avon. Stratford-upon-Avon, 1953. Windsor, All’s Well that Ends Well, Richard III, Freeman, Arthur & Janet Ing Freeman. John Richard II. Payne Collier: scholarship and forgery in the nineteenth century. New Haven: Yale UP, • ◆ • 2004. Works cited Joseph, Harriet: Shakespeare’s Son-in-Law: John Adams, Joseph Q. A Life of William Shake- Hall, Man and Physician. Hamden, CT: speare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923. Archon, 1964. Bentley, Gerald E. The Profession of Dramatist Lane, Joan: John Hall and his Patients. Stratford: in Shakespeare’s Time 1590-1642. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1996. Princeton: PUP, 1986. Lee, Sidney. A Life of William Shakespeare. 14th Birrell, T.A. English Monarchs and their Books: ed. New York: Dover, 1968.

85 The Shakespeare Oxford Society’s 50th Anniversary Anthology Newsletter Summer 2003/2005

Malone, Edmond. The Plays and Poems of Ten Restless Ghosts of William Shakespeare. Third Variorum Edition. James Boswell, ed. London: R.C. & Mantua: Shakespeare’s J. Rivington, 1821. Specter Lingers over Newdigate, B.H. Michael Drayton and his the Italian City Circle. London: Blackwell, 1961. Plowden, Alison. Henrietta Marie: Charles I’s Indomitable Queen. Stroud, Gloucs: Sutton, by John Hamill 2001. Race, Sydney. “J.P. Collier and the Dulwich Papers.” Notes and Queries 195 (1950): 11 2 - 1 4 . NE-THIRD of Shakespeare’s plays are Rees, J. “Shakespeare and Edward Pudsey’s set in Italian cities and many scholars Booke, 1600.” Notes & Queries 237 (1992) Ohave written about the author’s remar- 330-1. kable knowledge of Italy. There is no record, Rollins, Hyder H., ed. New Variorum Edition of however, that Shakspere of Stratford went Shakespeare: The Sonnets. 2 vols. Philadel- there or even left England. It is an enigma that phia: Lippincott, 1944. haunts academia and feeds the polemical Savage, Richard ed. Shakespearean extracts from Shakespeare authorship debate. To explain it, "Edward Pudsey's booke.” London: Simpkin many orthodox scholars maintain that Shake- and Marshall, 1888. speare’s knowledge of Italy is general and in Schoenbaum, Samuel. William Shakespeare, A some cases erroneous. It is usually ignored or Compact Documentary Life. New York: OUP, 1977. downplayed because the Stratford Man’s known biography does not support it, and it Stopes, Charlotte C. Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries. Stratford-upon-Avon: detracts from his claim to the authorship. Shakespeare Head, 1907. Even more damaging to the Stratfordian ______. Shakespeare’s Family. Lon- theory is the fact that some of Shakespeare’s don: Elliot Stock, 1901. Italian references require knowledge of Italian Whitfield, Christopher: “Some of Shakespeare’s and Latin languages, and access to places open Contemporaries in the Middle Temple III.” only to the nobility. Mantua and the Forest of Notes & Queries 211 (1966): 363-69. Mantua are specified settings in two Shake- Wraight, A.D. and Edward speare plays: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Alleyn.. London: Adam Hart, 1993. (Act IV Scene 1, Act V Scene 3), and (Act V Scene 1),while in two oth- ers, Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Taming of the Shrew, Mantua is mentioned. Although these are the only plays in the canon that have direct references to Mantua, we can note ten indirect allusions to, or particular details about, Mantua that suggest that Shakespeare must have traveled there. How William of Stratford might have obtained this information remains a mystery,

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