A.C. SWINBURNE'S MARY STUART TRILOGY: CONTEXT AND CRITIQUE

MARILOU MCKENNA

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Abstract

A.C. Swinburne's dramatic trilogy on Mary Queen of Scots (Chastelard

1865; Bothwell 1874; Mary Stuart 1881) has been called the central work of his life, yet no scholarship has focused on locating it in the context of his dramatic theory or his use of literary traditions, sources, and models. T hus, its real significance in his own career and in the prolific field of historical drama as it played out in the Victorian period has not yet been identified. Swinburne's trilogy can reasonably be located at the crux of intersecting issues that characterize

Victorian historical drama. In his work the conventional assumptions of historiographic and dramatic representation clash with an emerging psychological introspection as well as Victorian scepticism about the ability to access external truths and realities. Hence, the premises of such representation are undermined in his trilogy by the multiple perspectives and interrogations in the text itself. In this sense, the trilogy constitutes a remarkable development in a genre (historical drama) considered largely moribund by commentators on nineteenth-century drama.

My argument addresses the question of how Swinburne's dramatic trilogy articulates the problem of representing Mary Stuart through the marriage of history and art in the form of the historical drama. The dissertation reviews traditions and transitions in Victorian historiography; the nineteenth-century cults of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, Victoria, and the domesticized "angel in the house"; the trilogy's composition and reception history; the genre of historical drama and V

Swinburne's own dramatic theory; and the sources and models ranging from

Elizabethan to Romantic and Victorian dramatists and writers. I then apply various critical approaches—historical, generic, narratological, and semiotic—to an analysis of both the dramatic structure and the discourse of the trilogy, concluding that the theory of the readerly / writerly text (in Barthes and others) is particularly useful, in that treating the trilogy as a writerly rather than a readerly text opens up otherwise unavailable sites of conflict, leading to more complex readings. VI

for my parents, Mary and Michael vii

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the members of my committee, and especially my supervisor, William Whitla, for their careful reading of my manuscript and valuable suggestions over a number of years. I am also grateful to York University and CUPE 3903 for providing me with a research leave in 2006-07 to complete this dissertation, and for providing travel grants in 1993 and 1996 to present parts of the dissertation in earlier forms at the Third International Conference for Emblem Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 16-19 August 1993, and The William Morris Centenary Conference, Exeter College, Oxford, 27-30 June 1996. Early forms of the dissertation were also presented at the Symposium of The William Morris Society of Canada, University College, University of Toronto, 25 March 1995, and at the conference on Images of Women in the Arts, University of Western Ontario, 28-30 September 1989. In each case I am grateful to the adjudicators of my proposals and the conference participants for valuable comments. I would also like to thank the editors of Emblematica for their kind permission to reproduce material from my article, "'Masks of words and painted plots': Swinburne and Nineteenth-Century Emblematics," in Emblematica 9:1 (Summer 1995): 177-97. A number of scholars gave me advice or offered suggestions for these papers and other aspects of the dissertation, including Tim Burnett, Robert Casto, Peter Daly, Ekbert Faas, Len Findlay, Neil Freeman, Karl Josef Holtgen, Terry Meyers, and Rikky Rooksby. I am also grateful to Donald Jackson for his translation of Swinburne's dedication to Victor Hugo in Bothwell. Scott Library at York University, the Robarts library and Fisher Rare Books Library at the University of Toronto, the British Library, and the Bodleian Library provided essential resources for the research and completion of my work. Finally, I am thankful to family members, friends, and colleagues for their encouragement and support, including Georgina Jordan, Margot La Rocque, Frank Loritz, Robert Muller, Jean Nielsen, Ebenezer Okyere, Eduardo Olivera, Denise Raike, Pamela Robbins, Kathryn Steeves, Tamara Taylor, and Brett Zimmerman. Special mention to Gracey and Sparkle. Table of Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Chapter 1—Swinburne and Victorian Historiography

1.1—Victorian Historians:

From belle-lettrists to professionals 13

1.2—Swinburne and William Stubbs 20

1.3—Victorian Historiography and Swinburne's Mary Stuart Articles 38 Chapter 2—History and Culture:

The Cult of Mary Stuart in the Nineteenth Century

2.1 The Cult of Mary: Historical and Cultural Nexus 45

2.2 Intersecting Cults:

Mary, Elizabeth, Victoria, and the Angel in the House 51

2.3 Composition and Performance History of the Trilogy 56

2.4 Critical Reception of the Trilogy 59

Chapter 3—Historical Drama: Locating the Genre

3.1 Closet Drama 78

3.2 Trilogies 81

3.3 Tragedy and Historical Drama 86

3.3.1 Formal Structure 92

3.3.2 Modes of Apprehending the Past 95

3.3.3 Subject Position of the Dramatist / Historian in Relation to his Material 97 IX

Chapter 4—Swinburne and Historical Drama in the Nineteenth Century 108

4.1 Swinburne and the Elizabethan Dramatists 113

4.2 Romantic Drama: Shelley 137

4.3 Aspects of Victorian Drama 151

Chapter 5—Victor Hugo and Swinburne's Drama 164

5.1 —Hugo's preface to Cromwell (1827) 166

5.2—Swinburne and Hugo's "concentrating mirror" 174

5.3—Swinburne's Articles on Mary Stuart 181

5.4—Character of Mary in Swinburne's Drama 192

Chapter 6—Dramatic Structure in the Trilogy 200

Chapter 7—Mapping Mary: Dramatic Discourse in the Trilogy 221

Conclusion 259

Appendix A—Text of Adieux A Marie Stuart by A.C. Swinburne 269

Appendix B—Swinburne's Mary Stuart Trilogy: A Summary Based on the Chatto and Windus edition of Swinburne's Dramas (1905) 273

Appendix C—Paratextual Sources, Translations, and Commentary 302

Notes 314

Works Cited 348 1

Introduction

The strife that lightened round their spears Long since fell still: so long Hardly may hope to last in years My song. — A.C. Swinburne, "Adieux A Marie Stuart"

Working on the central play of his dramatic trilogy on Mary Stuart

(Chastelard 1865; Bothwell 1874; Mary Stuart 1881), Swinburne wrote to a correspondent in 1873, identifying the play as the most ambitious risk of his poetic career:

I am making gradual way with Bothwell, but am yet far from sight of harbour. My comfort is that if ever accomplished according to my design the book must either be an utter failure, and still-born, or else not merely by far the greatest work I have done (being for proportion and conception out of all comparison with 'Atalanta' in weight and importance as well as width and variety of work), but a really great poem and fit to live as a typical and representative piece of work. (Letters 2: 228)

Close to a century later, Curtis Dahl claimed of the trilogy that "no serious study of the poet or his work can safely afford to ignore" what is "the central work" of his life ("Composition of Swinburne's Trilogy" 103). Dahl's claim marks the beginning of a period of renewed attention to Swinburne's twenty-year compositional odyssey.1 In the mid-twentieth century, Dahl, Mario Praz, and others sought to shed light on Swinburne's personal interest in dramatizing Mary

Stuart and to situate the obvious femme fatale resonances of her character 2

(especially in Chastelard) within the familiar preoccupations of his infamous first volume of lyrics, Poems and Ballads (1866).2 In the 1970s and 1980s, efforts were made to locate one or more of the plays within other traditions, such as

David G. Riede's study of romantic mythmaking, Antony H. Harrison's discussion of the courtly love tradition and its representative "hero," Chastelard, and Margot K. Louis's exploration of the "radically revised typology" of Bothwell

(14-20). Still more recently, the trilogy has been treated in the first chapter of

Kristin Mahoney's dissertation as part of a reappraisal of the responses of the

Aesthetic Movement to a market economy.

Never completely bereft of critical attention within the circle of Victorian scholars, Swinburne's magnum opus has also garnered interest in recent explorations of the cult of Mary Stuart and the more general topic of the representation of royal (female) power. Here the work of Jayne Elizabeth Lewis and Merle Tonnies in the late 1990s has further enlarged the dialogue, clearly linking the vagaries of the Queen's representation to the needs and desires of various periods in history, and notably to the cult of Victoria in Swinburne's time.3

Still, no scholarship has yet focused on locating the trilogy as a whole in the context of Swinburne's dramatic theory or his use of literary traditions, sources, and models. Nor have critical approaches such as semiotics and narratology been applied to readings of the text. Thus, the trilogy's real 3 significance in Swinburne's career and in the prolific field of historical drama as it played out in the Victorian period has not yet been identified. The Romantic theatre has benefited from a period of reappraisal in the 1990s that theorized and re-evaluated the verse and so-called "closet" dramas of Swinburne's predecessors—Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley—in the context of a tradition of poetic and historical drama beginning with Aeschylus and reaching a highwater mark in the history plays of Shakespeare.4 The continuation of this tradition amongst Victorian writers has received no such reappraisal; still less has the reflection of changing historiographical conditions in the approach to drama by writers like Swinburne been assessed.

Yet Swinburne's Mary Stuart trilogy can reasonably be located at the crux of intersecting issues that characterize Victorian historical drama. In his work the conventional assumptions of historiographic and dramatic representation clash with an emerging psychological introspection as well as Victorian scepticism about the ability to access external truths and realities. Hence, the premises of such representation are undermined in his trilogy by the multiple perspectives and interrogations in the text itself. In this sense, the trilogy constitutes a rather remarkable development in a genre (historical drama) considered largely moribund by commentators on nineteenth-century drama. Swinburne was an erudite scholar and critical essayist of early Elizabethan drama and a student of history who was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement and its often 4 controversial, and sometimes scandalous, innovations in art, poetry, and

Victorian decorum. All these circumstances, plus the fact that he bore a continental perspective and devotion to Victor Hugo, mean that Swinburne highlights an important dimension of Victorian dramatic activity, as does this activity highlight an important dimension of his work.

My argument addresses the question of how Swinburne's dramatic trilogy articulates the problem of representing Mary Stuart through the marriage of history and art in the form of the historical drama. No prefaces accompany his plays, but such paratextual material as his correspondence, the dedicatory epistle to his collected poems, and the two articles he wrote on Mary Stuart, along with dedications and epigraphs, provide information about how he expressed his conception of the project.5 Just as the narrative properties of history are foregrounded by current historiographical and narratological practices, thus drawing our attention to the narrative strategies at play in

Swinburne's historical articles on Mary, so do we take note of selections, gaps, omissions, and arrangements in his dramatic treatment of the Queen in assessing approaches to reading the trilogy. Indeed, the apparent linear and chronological status of the historical action is belied by a dramatic structure supporting a complex narrative movement that heightens the problematic of the

Queen's representation. 5

Walter Scott kept a portrait of Mary Stuart's severed head in his drawing room at Abbotsford (it is still there!), "where he was fond of discussing with his female acquaintances the interesting fact 'that there are no absolutely undoubted originals of Queen Mary,' only 'innumerable copies,' which leave their spectral subject 'as unfortunate in this as in other particulars of her life'" (qtd. in

Lewis, Romance and Nation 154). This anecdote is emblematic of my argument about the trilogy, which contends that Roland Barthes's conception of an apparently closed, "readerly" text subject to disruption by an open, "writerly" text is applicable to Swinburne's work. The source of this disruption can be located in the figure of the Queen herself, whose discourse, as we shall demonstrate, highlights, interrogates, and deconstructs her own textuality, making visible the

"already written" codes by which her character is constructed by others—

"already written" in Barthes's sense, in that they are prior to her formulations both in the stage time and in the play-text.

I begin my discussion with two background and contextual chapters. Here

I locate Swinburne within traditions and transitions in Victorian historiography, and relate these to his own reading at Oxford and to his prose articles on Mary

Stuart which were appended to later editions of the trilogy. The first of these articles, "A Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots," addresses the question of character in light of other historical treatments, and was published in

The Fortnightly Review (1882). The second article was written by invitation for 6 the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed., 1883) in recognition of Swinburne's authority on this phase of Scottish history.

In chapter 2 I situate Swinburne's interest in Mary Stuart within the broader historical and cultural nexus of the cult of Mary Stuart in the nineteenth century, and its intersection with the related cults of Elizabeth I, Victoria, and the domesticized "angel in the house." I follow with a brief account of the composition and performance history of the trilogy (despite plans and overtures, it was never performed), and end the chapter with a survey of its critical reception. Here I trace the varied reception of each play in the trilogy, beginning with the troubling impact of Swinburne's representation of Mary in Chastelard, which both awed and repelled Victorian sensibilities. I then examine the reception of the trilogy through the twentieth century, where early scholars like

John Drinkwater, T. Earle Welby, Samuel Chew, and Georges Lafourcade made significant if limited attempts to evaluate Swinburne's dramatic achievement.

Mid-century scholars from Mario Praz to Curtis Dahl, Swinburne's biographer

Jean Overton Fuller, Catherine Barnes Stevenson, and Robert M. McGinnis turned their focus to Chastelard as the least historical of the three plays, and were caught up in reading Mary's character as a typical femme fatale. While later scholars like Gerald Kinneavy and Antony Harrison introduced flexibility and a wider perspective into their estimates of Mary's character, in recent 7 decades the critical impetus toward examining the whole trilogy in light of

Swinburne's dramatic achievement has been moribund.

Chapter 3 locates and identifies features of the genre of historical drama in which Swinburne conceived of his work. First I assess the relevance of the term "closet drama," and then place Swinburne's drama against the general background of trilogies and in the particular context of the Oresteia by

Aeschylus. I then move from a brief consideration of the trilogy as tragedy to a more extensive analysis of the generic features of historical drama, including formal structure, modes of apprehending the past, and the subject position of the dramatist / historian in relation to his material.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus on Swinburne's theory of historical drama as evidenced in his correspondence and critical writings, and in various sources and models. His 1872 review of John Nichol's Hannibal: a Historical Drama is an important document in this regard. Other sources and models for Swinburne's theory and practice of historical drama include the Elizabethan dramatists, whom Swinburne read, studied, and critiqued fastidiously; Romantic drama (in particular Shelley's The Cenci); and Victorian dramatists, including Henry Taylor,

Robert Browning, and Victor Hugo. Particular attention is paid to Swinburne's emphasis on character psychology and especially female character in the context of the Victorian enthusiasm for discussing Shakespeare's heroines, in which the ideas of Anna Jameson are significant. 8

The continental influence of Hugo, to whom Swinburne dedicated each part of the trilogy, is treated separately in chapter 5, where Hugo's famous preface to Cromwell (1827) is examined for its treatment of aspects of historical drama, such as the drama's relation to reality, and especially for its development of ideas on character central to our discussion of Jameson and Swinburne. Here

I explore Hugo's conception of drama as a "concentrating mirror" that focuses the range of the sublime and the grotesque in dualities that exist in a "harmony of opposites," and through their intersection enable art to access reality.

In the last two chapters I apply critical approaches discussed in previous chapters, enhanced by narratological and semiotic analysis, to an examination of both the dramatic structure and the discourse of the trilogy. Chapter 6 demonstrates the complex arrangement of Swinburne's deceptively linear and chronological narrative. Chapter 7 focuses on the various ways in which language functions in the text to generate meaning. Here I link the dramatic discourse to the theory of the readerly / writerly text (in Barthes and others) in the course of arguing that treating the trilogy as a writerly text opens up otherwise unavailable sites of conflict, leading to more complex readings.

Following my conclusion, there are three appendices, including a detailed summary of the dramatic action and a selection of paratextual sources and translations from the trilogy. 9

Before proceeding, it will be useful to set out the details of Mary Stuart's life that Swinburne highlights and re-arranges for dramatic purpose (see also the summary of events in Evans 58-65). The chronological account largely followed by Swinburne is readily available in his Miscellanies, and electronically in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Born at Linlithgow Palace in 1542, just six days before the death of her father, James V, Mary was crowned Queen of Scots at Stirling Castle in 1543 at the age of nine months. At the age of six, she was sent by her mother,

Scotland's regent, to the French court to be raised in preparation for marriage to the dauphin, later Frances II (1544-1560). The marriage took place in 1558, when Mary was sixteen. Upon the death of Frances II, Mary returned to

Scotland to claim the Scottish throne. All of this is background to Swinburne's plays and only appears by means of recalled memories and allusions.

The main action of Chastelard, which Swinburne viewed as a prologue, is based on two incidents with the courtier of the title, who Swinburne says accompanied Mary Stuart from France, and who is twice found in Mary's bedchamber, the second time on the night of her wedding to Lord Darnley.

Within the complex relationship of Mary Stuart and Chastelard are several love and betrayal triangles, whereby Chastelard and Mary's virtue seems to be compromised, questioned, and either ignored or acted upon. In the wider context of the Scottish court are the demands of the nobles, such as Lord 10

Darnley and Lord Murray (Mary's half brother), as well as the denunciations of

Mary by the Calvinist preacher, John Knox. To answer to these political and moral pressures, Mary marries Darnley and, after signing Chastelard's warrant for execution—and attempting a reprieve—fails to save him: whether by design or oversight is unclear. The play, which opens with conversations among Mary's four waiting ladies (known as the Four Maries), closes with Chastelard's execution (1562) as narrated by Mary Seyton to Mary Beaton, who is herself enamoured of Chastelard.

To Swinburne, Bothwell was the central drama in the trilogy, covering the tribulations of Mary's reign from 1566 to 1568. Here, the main confrontation is the moral and political conflict between the Queen and John Knox, which is set within the context of two murders and a forced abdication. First, the close relationship between Mary and David Rizzio, her Italian secretary, musician, and counselor, is a source of political envy, resulting in his murder by Darnley and other lords, who then force Mary's abdication. After falling out with his fellow- conspirators, Darnley is murdered and suspicion falls on Mary and Lord

Bothwell. When Mary is either forced or agrees to marry Bothwell, the Scottish lords, urged on by Knox, mount a military campaign against her, defeating her forces at Carberry Hill (1567). After her surrender, Mary is imprisoned in

Lochleven Castle, from which she escapes to England as the play ends. 11

The third play, Mary Stuart, which Swinburne called an epilogue, highlights Mary's conflict with England's Elizabeth I in the final year (1586-87) of her twenty-year imprisonment in England, as the subject of various conspiracies to free her and to kill Elizabeth. The play opens with one such conspiracy, led by

Babington, which is quickly uncovered, and its members executed. As Mary once vascillated about Chastelard's fate, so Elizabeth vascillates over advice to have Mary executed. Swinburne introduces an ahistorical motif here concerning

Mary Beaton as an agent for Mary's betrayal as a traitor. When Mary is unable to recall Chastelard as the singer of a specific tune, Beaton turns over to

Elizabeth an incriminating letter by Mary, providing a motive for her death warrant. The court background in the final play is largely English, peopled with

Elizabeth's advisors, especially her principal secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham

(c. 1532-1590), and Cecil, Lord Burghley (1521-1598), her chief advisor. The main scene is the trial of Mary, parallel to her moral trial by John Knox in

Bothwell. The play ends with Mary's execution at Fotheringhay Castle (1587); as in Chastelard, the execution is narrated for Mary Beaton, whose closing comments construe Mary's death as vindication for Chastelard's. 12

Chapter 1

Swinburne and Victorian Historiography

Swinburne's correspondence over a period of twenty years constitutes a detailed record of the trials and tribulations as well as the delights of researching, composing, and seeing through the publication of the trilogy on

Mary Stuart as he sought to explain and defend his approach to and his perspective on dramatizing the life and character of the Queen. This material becomes more meaningful in the context of historiographical traditions and trends and cultural movements within which the poet was writing. In this chapter

I situate Swinburne within key aspects of Victorian historiography. I begin with a brief account of the significance of history to the Victorians, and of the emergence of the figure of the professional historian from the earlier approach of belle-lettres. I follow with an overview of Swinburne's training in history, through which his reading prospered under the tutelage of no less significant a representative of the new generation of professional historians than William

Stubbs himself. After this, I briefly review his prose articles on Mary Stuart. I argue, and will later demonstrate, that Swinburne's historiographical position clearly informs his approach to dramatizing Mary's life and character in the trilogy. 13

1.1 Victorian Historians: From belle-lettrists to professionals

In 1882 Swinburne was commissioned by T.S. Baynes, professor of logic, metaphysics, and English literature (a Shakespearean scholar) at the University of St. Andrews, to write an article on Mary Queen of Scots for the Encyclopaedia

Britannica (9th ed., 1883), of which Baynes was the general editor. The resulting article, together with a "Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots" published in the Fortnightly Review (1882), was appended to later editions of the trilogy. Swinburne proudly assumed his commission from Baynes to be a testament to the professionalism of his research on the Queen for his dramatic trilogy. He sent a detailed account to his mother:

I have this week received, as I consider, by far the highest compliment ever paid me in my life. The Editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has asked me to undertake the article on Mary Queen of Scots, which is to appear in the next volume. Out of all the great historical 'authorities' and 'distinctions,' all the specialists and scholars in the country, who might have been—and might have expected to be—asked to undertake it—for of course there is no man to whom it would not be a great compliment—it is I, a mere poet, and therefore (as most worthy folk would infer) a naturally feather-headed and untrustworthy sort of person, who am selected to undertake such a responsibility and assume such an authority as a biographer and historian, simply on the ground of my previous publications on the subject which are taken as warrants of my industry and research, fairness and accuracy. I do not pretend to disguise the fact that I am really gratified and indeed rather elated at such a tribute to my conscientiousness and carefulness, if nothing else. (Letters 4: 263)

Within a short time he repeats all these sentiments, with slight variations, to other correspondents. To E.C. Stedman he suggests that the editor "might I 14 suppose, as in Macaulay's time, almost command the services of the most eminent scholars and historians of the country," while to William Bell Scott he

refers to "the world of contemporary authorities in history" available for the task

(Letters 4: 265; 268). To Scott he also emphasizes the tribute to his

"conscientious industry and fidelity as a student of history," which he thinks "is not undeserved." And then to William Morris he writes for authoritative clarification "on an important point of historic accuracy" for his forthcoming poem, Tristram of Lyonesse, suggesting that he has "a character to keep up on that score, having just been promoted" to write the life of Mary on the grounds of his "historic research and fidelity" (Letters 4: 269-70). Swinburne's evident pride and delight—and his repeated distinction to each of these correspondents of the apparent gulf between literature, the "idle trade," and the "industry and research" of history, situates him tellingly in the crosshairs of the period's shifting conceptions of the historian from "man of letters" to professional historian.

The Whig historian Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England

(4 vols. 1848-55; 5th vol. posthumously 1878) inaugurated a new kind of rational history in the nineteenth century, differing from both the liberal followers of

Thomas Arnold and the romanticism of Thomas Carlyle. Macaulay introduces his project by a series of claims:

I purpose to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I 15

shall trace the course.... I shall relate how . . . ; how [ten times repeated]. (1)

Such empirical claims, added to his later repeated "it will be seen" phrases and his claim to "treat," "relate," "trace," "describe," "portray," and "not to pass by," will enable Macaulay in "placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors" (1-3). Such large claims in 1848 suggest that the influence of the historical in the nineteenth century can hardly be overestimated. Rosemary Jann calls it "the common coin"—the "currency of its most characteristic art" and the "security for its most significant intellectual transactions" (xi). The historical consciousness that arose in this period has been linked to a curiosity about the past engendered by the sense of loss and rupture accompanying both "cataclysmic" events like the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and "more gradual changes" such as an emerging consumer society and the beginnings of industrialization (Mitchell, Picturing the

Past 2). In its appeal to sympathy, its preoccupation with "visible relics of the past—whether architectural and archaeological, or literary, or pictorial," and in the embracing democracy of its interests in "the common people" and the marginalized, this new historical awareness reflected its roots in Romanticism; moreover, its "democratizing force" extended to its broad audience, as the middle class gained access to an expanding variety of print and reading materials, creating a "mass phenomenon" around historical awareness by century's end (2). A significant feature of its popularity was the primacy of the 16 visual alongside the textual, reflecting revolutionary developments in lithography and photography, and "widespread enthusiasm for visual phenomena such as panoramas, dioramas, and magic lanterns."6 The concerns this new historical awareness embraced were all-encompassing:

Defenders of absolutes, rational or religious, learned to use history as an asset and not a liability; uneasy relativists found some compensation in its didactic value. Rival ideologies competed for its sanctions. Poets and scientists found in it their inspiration. The Victorians plundered the past for the raw stuff of imagination and shaped what they found to their own political, social, and aesthetic ends. The explanatory power of the biological, the developmental, and the narrative made the historical method the preeminent paradigm of their age. It asserted its authority over science and social science; it became the "philosophical" way of understanding national as well as personal identity. (Jann xi-xii)

No wonder, then, at the tensions that accompanied the gradual transfer of ownership of historical activity in the nineteenth century from the hands of

"amateurs" to those of "professionals."

The nineteenth century saw the emergence of history as a specialized academic discipline, accompanied by a developing split between the literary historian and the academic or scientific historian. The latter was in full swing by the 1880s (Jann 185), but in the 1830s and 1840s, history was in many ways more closely associated with the literary as a part of belles-lettres; its emphasis on historical reconstruction as an "empathetic and subjective experience .. . invited the historian to use his imagination to the fullest and to function as a creator in a similar way to the novelist" (Mitchell, Picturing the Past 17). A 17

number of mainly Whig-Liberal historians following Macaulay published works that can be broadly grouped as "picturesque" history, including George Brodie,

Henry Hallam, Thomas Carlyle, Francois Guizot, J.A. Froude, and J.R. Green.7

This "picturesque" historiography featured the accumulation of historical detail, an empathetic approach to the past, a concern with authenticity that focused on the inclusion of primary sources but relied more heavily on dramatic reconstruction, and the conjoining of text and image to vivify that reconstruction.

With the rise of scientific historiography, these features would change in emphasis. The concern for authenticity became "more profound and accentuated"; primary sources were subjected to a more critical perspective that favoured analysis over empathy, and conservation over reconstruction or restoration; and visual representations other than straight reproductions of historical artefacts were dropped from historical texts (Mitchell, Picturing the

Past 18). As the reading of "history" evolved into the science of "modern history," the model of the literary historian (alias historical essayist, Victorian sage, or dilettante, depending on the level of emphasis given) transitioned to that of the physical scientist.8

The beginnings of scientific history are associated with S.R. Gardiner

(1829-1901) in Britain and with the influence of the German historical school and its figurehead, Leopold von Ranke. German intellectual influences on early

English historiography can be seen as "specific and powerful" (Burrow 120) or "a 18 highly contentious question" (Slee 131-32). Perhaps the middle ground lies in

Stuchtey and Wende's notion of "an intricate network of complex cross- fertilizations" (20). Gardiner, a reclusive academic, apparently lived to research

(Kenyon 215). Having decided to write a narrative history of seventeenth-century

England, "he worked steadily through all the original material he could find, in manuscript or in print, extending his scope gradually to cover the archives at

Paris, Madrid, Venice, Brussels, and Stockholm. From all this he laboriously constructed a detailed month-by-month, week-by-week, sometimes day-to-day account of his chosen period," producing a work simply unequalled for its "sheer bulk of exposition":

He took literally the strictures of Ranke, his acknowledged master, and not only did he reconstruct each episode from as wide a range of material as possible, allowing the evidence to tell the story, eschewing the work of previous scholars and avoiding so far as he could subjective characterization, he also worked in strict chronological order. . . . For nearly twenty years after his death Gardiner's History was accepted at his own valuation, as a dispassionate, almost Rankean account of events 'as they really happened.'9

Seeing himself as "almost entirely impartial," Gardiner was a "determined foe" of the analytical approach, citing the confusion created by the habit of clarifying events "'rather according to their nature than according to their chronological order, so that the sequence of the history is lost'" (qtd. in Kenyon 218). We will see a similar concern for impartiality in Swinburne's articles and a concern for 19

chronological sequence in his oft-repeated metaphor of the history of Mary

Stuart as a chain of contingent circumstances.

In England, by the time of Gardiner and Ranke, "manuscript collections

had finally been catalogued, state papers were being calendared, the Historical

Manuscript Commission was established, and historical societies sprang up."10

Concurrent with these advances was a growing debate between what was seen as the old and the new history. Slee describes a "growing self-consciousness" among historians in the late 1860s that "they had begun to form a profession, set apart from the general body of 'men of letters' by a strict code of practice":

It was a code which demanded a thorough, systematic and critical appraisal of original authorities, and which postulated a sober and unspectacular appreciation of its own function. As a rule, no longer were historians to be concerned primarily with entertaining the reading public, with predicting the future course of politics, or with vindicating party prejudice. Their task was to increase man's knowledge of the past. They were to contribute to a stockpile of historical data. (130)

With the emergence of such "professional" historians as William Stubbs and

E.A. Freeman at Oxford and J.R. Seeley at Cambridge, the stature of Macaulay,

Froude, and Green as historians was diminished (albeit not with the public) to

"amateur," "story-teller," and "popularizer." The bitterness of the debate emerges in Freeman's well-known attack on Froude for sins of historical inaccuracy; its complexities are suggested by the irony of Froude's controversial appointment as successor to Freeman as Regius Professor of Modern History after the tatter's death in 1892. 20

Indeed, several words of caution are due in this discussion of historical movements and those associated with them, particularly concerning a too arbitrary categorization of each historian or groups of historians. Mitchell warns that "each historiographical mode originated in the preceding one and shared characteristics with it" (Picturing the Past 14). It is also important to note the distinction, pointed out by Jann, between what historians professed and what they did. In Freeman's work can be found characteristics of the literary historians he vehemently denounced, while Froude, whose reputation was rehabilitated in the years after Freeman's attack, is credited for the original research / manuscript work he indeed performed.11 At any rate, my purpose is less the impossible task of situating everyone definitively and more the task of understanding what Swinburne was reading, writing, and saying within this context.

1.2 Swinburne and William Stubbs

In his last year at Oxford, late in 1859, Swinburne was sent to study under William Stubbs, then vicar of Navestock (later Regius Professor of

Modern History at Oxford from 1866-84, Bishop of Chester from 1884-89, and

Bishop of Oxford from 1889-1901 ).12 The editor of Stubbs's correspondence gives this account of the circumstances and nature of their relationship:

Occasionally he [Stubbs] took pupils. The most distinguished of these was Mr. Algernon Swinburne. He came at the end of 1859, to read Modern History especially, during the last part of his time 21

as an undergraduate at Balliol. . . . The young student was most warmly and appreciatively welcomed at Navestock, and the memory of the association was on both sides a most happy one. Stubbs always spoke of his pupil with kind and affectionate regard; and the distinguished pupil has written to me (August 3, 1903) as follows—

"I do not think I ever received a letter from Bishop Stubbs—indeed I am sure I never did. But it would be impossible for me to say with what cordial and grateful regard I shall always remember him. His kindness was as exceptional as his other great qualities. I am sure no young man who ever had the honour to be his pupil—however little credit the pupil may have done him—can remember his name without affection as well as admiration."13

Stubbs was a medievalist who acquired "by private study an astonishing grasp

of the sources for English history up to 1216," and whose career meshed with

the Victorian revival of medieval studies. He was "the first 'professional historian'

in England as that term is now understood," and the first Regius Professor of

History at either Oxford or Cambridge, Thomas Arnold excepted, who "could

plausibly be called a great historian."14 In the same year he was appointed at

Oxford, the novelist Charles Kingsley was appointed to the historical chair at

Cambridge, prompting John Richard Green's observation on the merit of

Stubbs's appointment as "'at any rate a confession that such a study as that of history exists'" (qtd. in Burrow 98). At the time of his appointment Stubbs's renown was as an editor and commentator on "obscure and difficult documents" of the early medieval period, but in 1873-78 he published what Burrow calls "one of the great books ... of the nineteenth century"—the Constitutional History of

England (98). Comparable to The Origin of Species in terms of its impact (but 22

not influence) on the reader, Stubbs created a new tradition of historical writing,

"virtually single-handed, apart from help from the Germans," at the same time as he incorporated the virtues of that which had preceded it (Burrow 129, 130). In terms of "scope and subtlety and coherence," Stubbs's work improved on the scholarship of earlier constitutional histories by Sir Francis Palgrave and

J.M. Kemble; it was "a work of history in the fullest sense" and "remains, in fact, the most perfectly achieved expression of a cast of mind which ... we may call

Burkean."15

Stubbs was clearly a mentor to the young Swinburne. In early 1860 the poet wrote to his mother about his entry for a prize for the best English poem on

"The Life, the Character and the Death ... of Sir John Franklin," the explorer who had set off in search of the Northwest Passage in May 1845 and whose remains were found in early 1859. He had shown his entry to Stubbs, who

"advises it to be sent in and declares it ought to have the prize."16 In the same letter he recommends an article "by a good friend of Mr. Stubbs" that would give his mother "a better account of the whole question of history at Oxford" and would inform her about his "reading and chances" (Letters 1: 30-31). The article, entitled "Historical Study at Oxford," and published anonymously in No. 1 of

Bentley's Quarterly Review (March 1859), has been attributed to E.A. Freeman, with whom Stubbs retained a lifelong friendship.17 It does indeed shed light on 23 the rumblings of change at Oxford, and is worth a brief exploration of the ideas

Swinburne would have been acquainted with as a result of his reading.

The article is a critique of the examination system at Oxford established

in 1849-50 and implemented in 1853; the system increased compulsory examinations from two to four, with an option of an additional three, under seven different "schools." The reforms had been generated without sufficient forethought, according to the article, by "a popular cry for extending the studies of the place, and bringing it more intp harmony with, 'the march of intellect' around it" (287). The argument moves from a general view of the system at

Oxford to more specific concerns with the workings of the new school of "Law and Modern History." In regard to the former, the depreciation of the traditional classical education by advocates of "modern" studies is challenged. As the article explains, honours were formerly given in two schools—Literae

Humaniores and Mathematics:

The former consisted of Greek and Latin scholarship, of logic, and of philosophy and history studied in original Greek and Latin writers, modern authors . . . being admitted only by way of supplement and illustration. The amount of history commonly taken up for a class comprised Herodotus, Thucydides, the first decade of Livy, and Tacitus. Xenophon, Polybius, and other authors were occasionally taken up, but more rarely. (284)

With the reforms of 1849-50, both the number of examinations and the number of schools increased. Two examinations were required: one in Greek and Latin literature and one in Mathematics. A third was required in Literaa Humaniores, 24 and a fourth could be chosen from three schools: Mathematics, Natural Science, and Law and Modern History (285). It is to this last school that the focus of the discussion then shifts.

This part of the scheme Freeman damns with faint praise, allowing it no higher merit "than that of being a praiseworthy effort in a praiseworthy direction," and calling it a "crude and imperfect" scheme manifesting "very little acquaintance on the part of its framers with the laws of historical science or with modern historical research" (288). Broadly speaking, Freeman identifies two areas of concern with the new Historical School. One is the need to realign the relations between law and modern history to separate certain elements in each discipline. Freeman wants to "confine the history school to history and historical

[constitutional and criminal] law, and to transfer professional [civil, or property] law" to the already existing Law School at Oxford (292-93).

The second can be boiled down to the advocacy of a "distinct chair of mediaeval history" to facilitate a shift from the "utterly impossible" twofold division of history into ancient and modern periods brought about by the new school in

"modern" history, to a more "natural and convenient" tripartite division of ancient, medieval, and modern history—though his ideal was in fact a School of History that would obviate the need for "period" divisions, the tripartite division is

Freeman's practical solution to the unhappy "divorce" of ancient and modern history and its inadequately separated boundaries (300; 294; 296). The tripartite 25 division would at least enable "tolerable precision" in defining the duties of the respective offices:

The Ancient Professor would terminate his labours with the first appearance of the Teutonic element, the modern would commence his with the final extinction of the Roman element. The intermediate centuries would naturally fall to their mediasval brother. Till this is done, it is clear that the boundary must be unsettled. (300)

In the course of his discussion, Freeman addresses several other points that bear notice. First, under the old system, selected figures such as Aristotle and Thucydides were studied as "ground-works" for the future philosopher or historian; moreover, the history of Greece "supplied a typical history, in which all the laws of historical and political science could be studied within a short compass. To attempt universal history as an academical study could only lead to superficial knowledge" (287). Secondly, while the "masterpieces of poetry, history, and philosophy, form the best ground-work of all knowledge," it is useless to study them as a "superstructure" cut off from modern England:

He who worthily studies the past by the present, and the present by the past, knows that the sciences of morals and politics are of universal application. Human nature is the same always and everywhere: he who best understands the history of England will best understand the history of Athens, and he who best understands the history of Athens will best understand the history of England. (288)

Thirdly, the pattern already followed with Greek historians—reading "only one or two selected original writers of transcendent merit"—should be extended to the historians of England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire (295). Here 26

Freeman is greatly concerned with what he perceives as a subtle discouragement of original reading and research by the "higher dignitaries" (not the Examiners themselves) at Oxford:

Without some acquaintance with original writers, no historical knowledge can be gained worthy of the name. But when knowledge is to be gained only through documents in mediasvel Latin, in Byzantine Greek, in Anglo-Saxon, or in Old French, it becomes a very serious matter indeed. It is not, indeed, a whit more serious than the old classical school, but it is quite another business from the proposed process of agreeably lounging over Gibbon, Hallam, and Guizot. The repugnance to original research on these matters would be ludicrous were it not deplorable. (295-96)

Fourthly, the acceptance of David Hume's History of England as the "recognized text-book" in the new school, and the attendant idolatry of young academics for

Hume's "book of fables," both amazes and disturbs Freeman, who characterizes

Hume's whole composition, not just his treatment of mediaeval history, as "one vast blunder":

Whatever may have been Hume's merits in other respects, he was simply incapable of understanding the middle ages. Indeed, he seems incapable of understanding any type of humanity except a well-bred Scotchman or Frenchman of the eighteenth century. It shows how far the study of mediaeval history lags behind that of Greece and Rome, that Hume's history still retains its popularity, while the corresponding works on ancient times have sunk into oblivion. (298-99)

Finally, a particularly interesting aspect of Freeman's style is the thrice repeated metaphor of history as a drama, which he uses to emphasize an underlying concept of "unity" embodied in the "scholarship, history, and 27 philosophy" of the "old classical school" and cemented by the common ground­ work of "accurate knowledge of the text of Greek and Latin authors"; this unity is under threat in the new school of Modern History, which "leaves all the old subjects in one school," and "throw[s] all the new ones into another," such that there is no link "to bind together 'modern' history, modern philological research, and moral science studied in modern writers" (288-89). The three metaphors are set out below:

People cannot be brought to see that history is one subject, one great drama, that no part is fully intelligible without reference to other parts; that, though no one man can be master of every period alike, yet all periods require the exercise of precisely the same faculties for their study. (295)

In any true view of history, the whole tale, from the first days of Greece onward, forms one great drama; there is no break; every early event influences later events; later events cannot be understood without a knowledge of earlier ones. (296)

History is one great drama, but it easily divides itself into three acts. All parts of it require the same faculties, but no man can be equally master of all; and different periods are more calculated to interest and attract different minds. ... It will be hardly possible to find a man equally versed in ancient, in mediaeval, and in modern history. (300)

Such metaphors indicate a general tendency in the period to see history as dramatic, providing, as we shall see, a basis for Swinburne's concept of Mary's story as a metaphor that links his dramas to history. Further, Swinburne sees everything as interdependent: early events influence later ones, and no part is intelligible without the other parts—he says almost exactly this about his 28 composition of the trilogy and also his difficulty in abridging Bothwell for a proposed production. Also, the structure of the action manifests the notion of events influencing each other (for example, the Mary Stuart / Mary Beaton /

Chastelard triangle and Beaton as nemesis throughout). In general, Freeman's article advocates original research (which Swinburne undertakes), using original texts of Greek (which Swinburne uses) and medieval studies (which we also see in Swinburne's medieval essays at Oxford).

In April of 1860, Swinburne wrote his mother from Navestock that he contemplated reading in contemporary books "if I can keep up my present leaning towards history" (Letters 1: 35). A comment on his own proposal to tackle Charlemagne or St. Louis (or both) at Oxford clarifies the nature of that leaning: "That is the sort of history I like—live biographical chronicle not dead constitutional records like the respected Hallam's, over whom Mr. Stubbs and I have been breaking our teeth."18 While the metaphor has shifted slightly from history as drama to history as chronicle, Swinburne's comment retains the emphasis on a living or life-like representation as opposed to "dead" constitutional records. Lang suggests that Stubbs objected to Hallam's "secular bias" in his 1827 Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry

VI to the Death of George II (Letters 1: 35, n.3). But Swinburne's distinction also reflects the continuing appeal of biography in the nineteenth century's assessment of the function of history.19 29

History was also seen to have political utility in the nineteenth century, as it "was held by most educated men to be a vital component in the creation of a critical political awareness" (Slee 60). Stubbs built on this conception of history's intrinsic value to civilized society with his emphasis that history, nevertheless, must be written "'scientifically', that is, objectively, without reference to commercial concerns or to maintaining a particular political view"; history was to be studied "'for its own sake.'"20

The educational benefit of history was derived from "the Arnoldian view of modern history as continuous contiguous national development"—this idea of

"history as process" elevated and gave focus to what "might otherwise be regarded as a random series of facts and dates"; Stubbs himself highlighted the

"'continuity of life and development'" in this "'new and modern living world,'" such that "'hardly one point in its earliest life can be touched without the awakening some chord in the present'" (Slee 90). Moreover, the division of English history into political and constitutional aspects of study was meant to enhance the rigor of the discipline:

While constitutional history involved studying the machinery of government, parliamentary institutions and national law, political history was defined almost by default as those aspects of national history not included under the former heading—the reigns of monarchs, the development of the Church and the growth of foreign policy. (Slee 90-91) 30

The English constitution provided the "framework" for studying national history; it was "the thread upon which national development was hung; it was the vehicle of continuity"; and it was approached as a "highly technical subject" in comparison to the "larger historical issues" covered by general history.21

A "continuous reading of our national History," as Stubbs called it, was one of three conceptions of history embraced by the revised Oxford syllabus that emerged as part of a scheme devised in the late 1860s and early 1870s to combine the existing teaching resources of the colleges and to promote specialisation; the other two were "an epochal treatment of a portion of general

European History" and "the special study of some character or period in the original authorities."22 In the former, study focused on "the nation State, and on the actions of great men as agents of political destiny," and incorporated long- term developments as well as short sequences of events that bespoke an understanding of history as also "a series of specific actions taking place in a particular location at a particular time" (Slee 92). In the latter, history was viewed as "the process of discovery" and the special subject provided a mechanism for invoking a defined historical method which "rested upon the study and criticism of original sources." For Stubbs, the inclusion of this third branch in the syllabus

"was a recognition that if history had not yet attained 'the dignity of a science,' then there was at least 'an art of writing History and an art of reading it; and the educational use of it is an exemplification of the art'" (Slee 93). 31

During his time at Oxford, then, Swinburne was clearly exposed to the shifting conceptions of history reflected in the curriculum changes described by

Freeman. His work with Stubbs meant that he was acquainted with, and surely influenced by, a major figure in the professionaiization of history. Indeed, we can see that influence in the essays written by Swinburne during his Oxford period.

His work on Charlemagne and St. Louis is extant, and we have easy access to it in an appendix to Antony Harrison's study of the poet's medievalism. Along with the essays on Charlemagne and Saint Louis are "Notes on Feudal and Roman

Law," "Crusades," and "Joinville," as well as several pages of notes by

Swinburne from Hallam's Middle Ages. These essays are worth exploring to better understand Swinburne's historical leanings at the beginning of his career, and for the insight they provide on his approach to Mary Stuart's biography in his poetry, prose, and drama. Harrison comments that these essays on medieval subjects demonstrate a self-confidence lacking in Swinburne's undergraduate essays on standard subjects such as Greek literature, logic, and philosophy:

"They tell us much about Swinburne's background in historical studies of the medieval period; they display his impressive ability to master facts and details, which lasted till his death; and they give us some sense of Swinburne's developing prose style" (164-65). They also tell us about Swinburne's early reading; in addition to Hallam's Middle Ages, his sources include Gibbon,

Michelet's Saint Louis, and a biography on Joinville (Harrison 163-64). 32

In a brief annotative note, Harrison characterizes as "random and general" Swinburne's remarks on Charlemagne: "He approaches Charlemagne through the vast medieval literature on him and then tries in an admittedly short space to move beyond it."23 Both aspects of Harrison's observation are significant. The "great man" approach is evident in Swinburne's discussion of

Charlemagne's personal character as exemplified in both legend and history; he acknowledges Charlemagne's position as "altogether anomalous and unlike that of other statesmen or conquerers." But Swinburne's caveat about history's tendency to avoid detailing "the component parts" of the greatness it ascribes to such names reflects his concern with an anachronistic approach to biography, such as "to this day confused and impaired the appreciation of his

[Charlemagne's] real position and influence on his time" (qtd. in Harrison 166).

In assessing Charlemagne's greatness, Swinburne turns to a more relative assessment of his behaviour against the norms of his time. He highlights the role of "the religion of the time in which he lived and acted" as a source of guidance and misguidance in Charlemagne's actions, and finds him "as liberal" as but "not more so" than "other conquerers and practical prophets of a new faith"; thus he concludes that the omission of "the peculiar religious position and belief of Charlemagne" in Hallam's summary of him renders his account "unfair"

(qtd. in Harrison 167). 33

In his essay on the crusades, Swinburne extends his consideration of what is "fair," locating it in the historian's practice as well as his person. In terms of practice, it is apparent that linking a figure to his time, as Swinburne does with

Charlemagne, does not assume a purely relativistic assessment. In the effort to understand the constellation of impulses behind the crusades, Swinburne writes,

"we now think, we should be able to go back to their time: and when that was done, the loss of all later experience and of all analogy would perhaps have the fact actually occurring before our eyes as hard as ever to explain fully" (qtd. in

Harrison 169). Here Swinburne upholds the importance of both a modern and a comparative perspective in assessing the past, but finds neither a rational nor a religious account of the crusades is fully satisfactory:

Somewhere the balance must be struck between the skepticism of the last century and the neo-Catholicism of this—between Gibbon and the school of believers in the "Ages of Faith": and we know of no historian who has done . . . this with thorough fairness. In fact, to give a fair weight and value to both sides, a man would have to combine such utterly opposite qualities that we may almost as soon expect a historian of inspired candour and insight beyond the insight of all common men. (qtd. in Harrison 169-70)

What is particularly significant here is the self-conscious relationship evident between the writer and his material. Swinburne is conscious of how the person of the historian informs his practice and his relation to the material. He acknowledges the role of perspective and bias in the question of impartiality, which also became a byword of the period. 34

The influence of Stubbs's approach to historical study can surely be seen

in Swinburne's careful attention to the dangers of bias. Stubbs apparently found

the facile abhorrent, and conceived of judgement as "the heart of historical

study, as its central difficulty and its essential value as education"; his

conception of judgement can be understood as a

judicious appraisal, a fine sense of the complexity of things, and even a proper respect for the mysteriousness of the workings of the superintending Divine Providence in which he so firmly believed. Philosophers of history seemed to him to wish to circumscribe by supposed laws the historical discretion of the Almighty. . . .

History . . . was the antidote to a newspaper-bred opinionatedness. . . . (Burrow 131-32)

As Burrow points out, the first chapter of Stubbs's Constitutional History

demonstrates that though he shared his generation's interest in inductive

comparison and its possibilities, he maintained "an abhorrence of the over

systematic and the purely theoretical" (133).

The topic of character and greatness is also treated in Swinburne's

essays on Louis IX (later St. Louis) and Joinville. Apparent in the former essay is

Swinburne's concern to draw a distinction between personal nature and education in the formation of character; he observes that "nature had made him

[Louis IX] constitutionally reverent and gentle; education had developed these qualities to a point almost morbidly sensitive" (173). The distinction between 35 nature and nurture, as we shall see later, is also an important aspect of

Swinburne's historical assessment of Mary Stuart.

The whole question of the biographical approach to history is raised in the essay on Joinville, where Swinburne assesses Joinville himself as a historian, and draws a contrast between Caboclu as a lesser historian than either Joinville or Froissart.24 He begins with a discourse on the ground between history and biography, and proceeds to associate Caboclu with a modern plague of bad historical memoirs:

The debateable ground between history and biography is a ground attractive to all men for all reasons. It seems likely to give us a true and clear notion of all that lies choked in an overgrowth of statistics or wanders before modern eyes in the mist of speculation. It is also dangerous ground. A thoroughly bad historical memoir is about the most thoroughly bad book that can well be written. It has claims beyond the classics of romance, and duties less strict than the duties of history. If it abuse this prestige and this privilege, the dullest.. . chronicle, the loosest historical novel, is far preferable. We in England have been of late years much plagued with an infectious and illegitimate growth of this kind. The best mode of bringing to the test such a swarm of counterfeits is to confront them for an instant with a really great work of the same class, (qtd. in Harrison 182)

Swinburne's comments may appear to anticipate the contrast between Carlyle's view of history as "'the essence of innumerable biographies'" and the scientific historian John Robert Seeley's contention that history is not biography: "'States and governments, not persons, are . . . the real subject of history'" (qtd. in Rein

31). But as his enthusiasm for his work on Charlemagne and Saint Louis makes clear, it is less biographical writing perse than poor results that irked him. 36

Writing to Baynes to accept the commission on Mary Stuart, Swinburne lauds

Macaulay's biographical article on Dr. Johnson as "the finest critical memoir that appeared in the Encyclopaedia" (Letters 6: 287), and indeed, it does serve as a source of quoted wisdom in his writing.

Swinburne's real target was possibly Carlyle and what Anthony Brundage characterizes as the "bombast and hero-worship" of the romantic / biographical school in contrast to its potential for "vividness and story-telling powers" as exemplified by earlier historians like Froissart and Joinville (2). For while access to a representation of truth is located by Swinburne in the space between statistics and speculation, Caboclu's work on the historical memoirs of France fails to find this ground, doing "bare justice" to Joinville, who, along with

Froissart, clearly exemplifies the standard against which "counterfeits" like

Caboclu are to be measured:

There is a taint, a twang of modernism about his references and citations, which . . . does not seem to promise well for his handling of the matter. He has a cold candour, a placid sense of judgement, which is apt to turn irritating after a few sentences. Clearly the due de Saint-Simon is more in his line than Froissart or than Joinville. (qtd. in Harrison 182)

The metaphorical implications of "taint" and "twang" associate modernism with something impure and diseased (as he says, "infectious" [182]) as well as jarring, while "cold" and "placid" connote a lack of vitality. What Swinburne is objecting to here may be clarified by the contrasting features he assigns to

Froissart and Joinville: "Now Joinville was undoubtedly not a great man. To say 37

that he has not the grace, the brilliant strength, the facile beauty, the perfect

dramatic power and the superb enjoyment of Froissart, is simply to say that

Froissart, not Joinville, was the greatest of all historians" (182). Swinburne

elaborates on Joinville's positive features as the latter moves into "the main

interest" of his book, the Crusades themselves:

Hitherto we have had only detached remarks and miscellaneous anecdotes, each severally of interest and value; from this point we attain a coherent narrative. The style seems to kindle and quicken: the narrator seizes on those points only which have had a personal relation if not to himself yet to his immediate neighbours: there was little taken on trust before, but now there is nothing. ... The action marches rapidly, encumbered only by a few rare and quaint reflections. . . . What happened is told with a clear simplicity and a direct choice of matter which bring out every. .. point. . . worth knowing at once and vividly, (qtd. in Harrison 185)

This concern with a coherent narrative and a lively and vivid style is touched on

again when Swinburne notes how a series of events "are recounted one after

another with the same straightforward and business-like ease," how the landing

at Damietta "is given in full and spirited detail," how a passage on Louis "is no

bad instance of Joinville's simple picturesque power," and how the "recital" of the errors of the march on Diametta is given life by Joinville's "little dramatic touches" (186-87).

There are two more key indicators of the "quality and worth" Swinburne ascribes to this book (184). The first is "the merit of a noble and reasonable loyalty" which is found throughout the book, and can be contrasted with "the affected union—confusion rather—of rapture and recurence [sic] which is in the 38

nature of a sentimental theorist." Here again we see Swinburne's concern with

fairness. The second is Joinville's success in isolating the true greatness of St.

Louis:

Secondly, allowing for the changes of belief and expression since the 13th century, we may say that what Joinville admires in St. Louis is what makes him really admirable. It is not his blind tenacity of devotion to a cause which most men even then saw to be a delusion; it was not, we believe, the submission of.. . his intellect to religious tenets and religious teachers; but his lofty theories of general right and universal duty, his noble care for his people, his loving and sincere nature, (qtd. in Harrison 184)

In other words, what Joinville captures is the moral centre of the great man.

The concern with morals was a touchstone of the period; from Thomas

Arnold to J.R. Green, the study of history was the study of man in his highest

character, involving a judgement on the character of acts (Jann 174-75). But

Swinburne's approach also reflects aspects of the historical shift which involved

"reconciling moral absolutes and 'abstract rights' with the notion of circumstances relative to the time" (Jann 175). We saw this in his comments on

Charlemagne and in his essay on the crusades, and we shall see it in his articles on Mary Stuart.

1.3 Victorian Historiography and Swinburne's Mary Stuart Articles

Swinburne's correspondence with the editor of the Encyclopaedia

Britannica about the Mary Stuart memoir is indicative of the great care and seriousness with which he approached this commission. As his delighted receipt 39 of Baynes's invitation suggests, he already had a foundation for the memoir in his research for the trilogy; nevertheless, he immediately set out to amplify his sources, writing Andrew Chatto from his home in Putney Hill to request procurement of the fourth and fifth volumes of Dr. John Hill Burton's seven- volume History of Scotland (1867-70) from the London Library or elsewhere, citing his desire "to consult the part of that work relating to Mary Queen of Scots at once; so that a few days' delay would be too late" (Letters 4: 264). On 3 June

1882, he delivered the article, noting the "considerable time and labour" spent on its preparation, and his belief that "no point or date of any importance to the history of her [Mary Stuart's] career has been overlooked" (Letters 6: 287-88).

"Any apparent triviality of detail" is justified as a necessary touch in supplying an adequate "'estimate of her character'" such as he was invited to do. His source, he adds, for all details of the Queen's life in Scotland, "down to the circulation of contradictory rumours," is Hill Burton's History of Scotland, whose authority he has "simply and carefully followed."

Hill Burton (1809-81) was a Scottish historian, jurist, and economist who held the position of Historiographer Royal of Scotland from 1867-71; among his writings are the Life and Correspondence of David Hume (1846) and The

History of Scotland from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution of 1688 (7 vols.

Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1867-70), a new edition of which appeared in 1873.

J.H. Burns notes that "both the critics and the author [Burton] himself.. . seem 40 to have seen his work as exemplifying 'the painstaking research of the nineteenth century' rather than the philosophical history of the eighteenth." At an early point in the work he contrasts "an inductive history, sufficient to fill up a blank in written history" with what he sarcastically dismisses as "fables" which

"profess to be born of the philosophy" and "are not less unreal than the old fables, and only much less amusing."

One attraction of Hill Burton for Swinburne was certainly historical accuracy; while he is indebted to Froude's "brilliant narrative" for "matters of incident and development of story," nevertheless the material is "carefully corrected" by Hill Burton's, in which he placed more confidence (Letters 2: 302).

A more striking distinction between the two was drawn by contemporary critics who contrasted Hill Burton's "'reticent... calm ... dispassionate'" approach with

Froude's "'glowing eulogiums ... and ... bitter one-sided pictures.'"25 Swinburne, too, acknowledges Froude's "one-eyed prepossession and palpable special pleading," but it is to his interpretation of character that he ascribes the historian's major limitation, as he "conscientiously disclaim[s] the charge of having blindly followed his guidance or adopted at secondhand his views of character, and estimates of motive" (Letters 2: 302).

The treatment of character remains Swinburne's central concern. Writing to Baynes on 13 March 1882, he emphasizes the interest and importance of the 41 subject of the Queen's life and character, and enumerates his differences with

Froude:

You may observe that I do not share Mr. Froude's view as to the existence of any insincerity or infidelity in Mary's character or conduct with reference to her religious opinions. Where he sees vacillation or shallowness of belief, I see simply a not unnatural attempt or desire to hoodwink her opponents. (Letters 6: 288)

In another letter, his observation that his portrait of Mary's antagonist, John

Knox, was drawn "from a careful study" of the preacher's own writings, is followed by another (respectful) critique of Froude:

Still less did I draw from Froude my studies of the Queen and Murray. With all his rhetorical power, he seems to me . . . but a shallow reader of character, In Nature's infinite book of secrecy.26

[Antony and Cleopatra l.ii.9]

There could hardly be a clearer statement about Swinburne's preoccupation with history as character, and Froude's failure on that score.27

Froude's apparent bias against Mary Stuart is commonly remarked upon.

Despite his conviction that Froude's History "is better informed on Scottish affairs than is usual with English historians," A.L. Rowse nevertheless acknowledges Froude's "personal animus" against the Queen and his favouritism toward "her politic half-brother, the Regent Moray" (55; 24). This raises an interesting question about Swinburne's reception of Froude's work.

Clearly he found as much to admire in Froude as to criticize. But he fails to acknowledge what recent scholarship now highlights, that is, Froude's 42 awareness of the problem of historical representation. In a late work on the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, Froude draws attention to the story-making features of history and to the role of the historian as a story-teller:

The mythic element cannot be eliminated out of history. Men's outward acts, being public, cannot be absolutely misstated; their motives being known only to themselves are an open field for imagination. As the disposition is to believe evil rather than good, the portraits drawn may vary indefinitely, according to the sympathies of the describer, but are seldom too favourable, (qtd. in Rowse 110)

Rowse comments on a "sceptical bent" in Froude "such that he doubted whether we could arrive at objective fact—only at the facts as handed down to us by other minds at other times" (10). Given Swinburne's judgements on Froude's superficiality and bias in reading and representing the character of Mary Stuart

(expressed in both his correspondence and his prose articles), it is worth considering how Swinburne fares in his own articles on Mary. For example, in his "Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots" he is conscious of the agendas of others but disclaims his own by situating himself as "an outsider. . . a student of history unconscious alike of prejudice and of prepossession" (422), a somewhat contradictory position given his assertion of ancestry claims in letters such as this one to the German translator of Bothwell:

As the lineal descendant of one of her earliest champions—you will have seen in Froude's History that among the first to welcome her into this else inhospitable country was the head of my family, a house always devoted to the Stuart line—I am naturally inclined to take what I hold to be the most favourable as well as the most just and reasonable view of that life and character. (Letters 4:64) 43

The conflation of "favourable" with "just and reasonable" clearly expresses

Swinburne's "prepossession" toward the Queen. Indeed, in the trilogy itself he has the family of Swinburne inserted in a list of names who turned out for the cause of Mary. In the "Note" he declares both his agenda and his own prepossession a few sentences later: "To vindicate her from the imputations of her vindicators would be the truest service that could now be done by the most loyal devotion to her name and fame" (422).

Moreover, his correspondence illustrates how closely his view of the

Queen's character is linked to specific representational aims in the trilogy:

If—and this I think is as nearly proved as any debateable point of history can be—she, feeling for Bothwell a sincerely devoted and passionate affection, and for Darnley the welldeserved hatred and contempt which he had incurred on all hands, became the accomplice and assistant of her lover in the removal of her husband, she had every excuse that could be given by passion and provocation. If not, the whole of her immediately subsequent conduct was that of an inexcusably childish and dastardly idiot. Now, many things were said truly or falsely against her in her own time, but her most rancorous and unscrupulous enemies never ventured to say or to suggest of Mary Stuart that she was a coward or a fool. And I hope to complete the evidence that such is by no means my own opinion, in the third part of my trilogy,—on which I am at present engaged, but have hardly as yet proceeded beyond the first Act. (Letters 4: 64)

Despite positioning himself as the unbiased outsider in his articles on Mary, the chain of facts and logic Swinburne marshals behind his conclusions about her life and character is complicated by the literariness of his presentation. His selection, arrangement, and rhetorical emphasis (as we shall see in more detail 44 in chapter 5), work to persuade us of the Queen's essential moral character.

Given the current understanding of history as story, Swinburne's articles can themselves be seen as entries in the myth-making process surrounding Mary

Stuart rather than primary documents. Nevertheless, he does problematize historical discourse by highlighting historical representations as constructions

("the Mary Stuart of Mr. Froude," "the Mary Stuart of George Buchanan," "Mr.

Hosack's heroine"), even if he appears to see his own as less constructed, or at least more accurately constructed, than others. 45

Chapter 2

History and Culture: The Cult of Mary Stuart in the Nineteenth Century

Having situated Swinburne within key aspects of Victorian historiography, in this chapter I proceed to review the more specific historical and cultural nexus of the "cult" of Mary Stuart as it evolved in the nineteenth century and as it intersected with the contemporary cults of Elizabeth I, Victoria, and the domestic ideal of the "angel in the house." Then I set out the composition and performance history of the trilogy, followed by a review of its reception history, with the aim of both locating Swinburne's work in the artistic and critical milieu of the nineteenth century, and understanding how and to what extent contemporary and later assessments of Swinburne's work treated those issues that Swinburne himself identified as central to his project.

2.1 The Cult of Mary Stuart: Historical and Cultural Nexus

The motto of Mary Queen of Scots—en ma fin est mon commencement- has been taken as an apt description of the cult that arose from the moment of her execution, the circumstances of which gave new life to the manufacture of images that had characterized the living woman. The manufacture of specific images of Mary was a full-fledged industry throughout her life and after her death. She was the subject, according to James Emerson Phillips, of a 46

"literature of propaganda" (6) that attempted to influence its readers on larger political and religious issues by first swaying their judgement of Mary. A central example is the series of events of 1567 that led to the Catholic Queen's removal from the Scottish throne, which then came under the control of Protestant supporters. Those who sought to justify Mary's removal charged her with committing adultery with Bothwell and conspiring with him to murder her husband, Darnley. Those who sought to denounce her removal advocated her innocence of all charges, claiming that Mary had been tricked into marriage with

Bothwell by the same Protestant rebels who had murdered Darnley. The debate centred, not on the real issue of religion, but on the "private character and conduct" of Mary (Phillips 41).

Sixteenth-century literature produced two contradictory images of Mary— one of a Circe, the other of a saint: her advocates attempted to defend her as a

"supremely beautiful woman, a devoted wife and mother, and an innocent martyr for the faith in which she died," while her opponents portrayed her as a "sinister and adulterous murderess constantly plotting with every Machiavellian trick to destroy England and Protestantism" (Phillips 7). She was repeatedly and explicitly linked with classical and biblical examples of evil and seductive women such as Circe, Clytemnestra, Delilah, and Jezebel, in order to emphasize the depravity of her character (44). 47

Other issues in the propaganda war surrounding Mary focused on her alleged complicity in plots to escape her imprisonment in England and overthrow and/or assassinate Elizabeth, as well as on Elizabeth's right to execute a sovereign Queen. The polarized debate between Mary's accusers and defenders retained its currency into the nineteenth century with the publication of new source material, including a translation of Prince Labanoff s seven- volume edition of Mary's Letters (1844), new translations of George Buchanan's infamous attack on Mary in his History of Scotland (trans, and ed. James

Aikman, 1827-29), reprints of John Knox's History of the Reformation in

Scotland (John Knox, Works, ed. David Laing, 1846-64) and John Ross, Bishop

Leslie's Defence of Mary (in L. Stanhope F. Buckingham, Memoirs of Mary,

Queen of Scotland, 1844), and, in the 1870s, two major works: Anthony

Froude's twelve-volume History of England, and John Hosack's two-volume apology for Mary, Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers. Ian Cowan's introduction to The Enigma of Mary Stuart (1971) provides a useful review of the literature of the Marian debate.

Mary's tremendous popularity amongst nineteenth-century writers has been documented in an unpublished dissertation by Peter Wilfred Stine, which traces her changing image from the Romantic emphasis on her as an individual, a "solitary jewel" devoid of historical or cultural context (ix; 18), to the mid- century emphasis on her as a symbol or type—a belle dame sans mere/—to 48 late-century documentary interest in her as a historical queen.28 More recently,

Jayne Elizabeth Lewis has noted the "flood of biographies, poems, travelogues and novels" that came from British women with the French Revolution's renewal of the Queen of Scots's visibility; these expressed feelings about her "ranging from sympathy to shame on Mary's behalf (Romance and Nation 160). Lewis also conveys the variety of activity at the turn of the century:

The historian echoed romantic artists eager to temper the ghost of queenly criminality with the wrenching spectacle of Mary's excessive punishment—poets as eminent as William Wordsworth, who addressed a poignant sonnet to her, and James Hogg, who produced considerably more than that (all sad), while no less a novelist than Sir Walter Scott built a bestseller around the queen's travails at Lochleven [The Abbot, 1820]. On the London stage, adaptations of Scott and English-language versions of Friedrich Schiller's torrid tragedy Maria Stuart (1800) kept company with gothic extravaganzas like John St. John's Mary Queen of Scots (1798), Jane Deverell's Mary Queen of Scots (1798) and John Grahame's Mary Stewart Queen of Scots (1801). (153)

Hence, Thomas Carlyle's dismissive review of Schiller's Maria Stuart on the grounds that it is "upon a subject the incidents of which are now getting trite" and that "we have already wept enough for Mary Stuart, both over prose and verse"

(119-20). The "enormous cultural power" of Scott's novel is demonstrated by the

160 different productions staged between 1820 and 1886.29 Poet John Heneage

Jesse dedicated Mary Queen of Scots and Other Poems (1829) to Scott. Other dramatic works prior to Swinburne's trilogy include William Sotheby, The Death ofDarnley: A Tragedy in Five Acts (1814); Henry Roxby Beverly, The Abbot; or,

Mary, Queen of Scots, A Serious Melo-Dramatic Historical Burlette, in Three 49

Acts (1820); William Murray, Mary Queen of Scots: or, The Escape from Loch

Leven: An Historical Drama, in Two Acts (1825); Albany Wallace, The Death of

Mary Queen of Scots: An Historic Drama, in Five Acts (1827); Thomas

Francklin, Mary, Queen of Scots: An Historical Play (1837); and James Haynes,

Mary Stuart: An Historical Tragedy (1840).30 Lewis observes that by 1820, "the ardent youth immolated by his desire for the Queen of Scots had become a stock literary figure" (156).

Indeed, the nineteenth-century fascination with Mary Stuart apparently far exceeded that of Elizabeth:

Between 1820 and 1892 the Royal Academy alone displayed fifty- six new scenes from Mary's life. Special exhibitions were mounted from London to Glasgow, and in 1887 the tercentenary of her death was lavishly commemorated at Peterborough. Schiller and Scott were recycled ad infinitum, but that did not keep eight new Mary Stuart tragedies from the stage between 1839 and 1880, with more to come before Victoria's reign drew to a close.31

The "enduring cult of Sir Walter Scott" and its associated Scottish romanticism which enhanced Mary Stuart's popularity was part of a larger Victorian "cult of

Scottishness" that romanticized and renewed interest in the Stuart past and the

Stuart line (Lewis, Romance and Nation 174; 248, n. 11). In his discussion of this cult, Murray Pittock demonstrates how in the popular imagination, "Scotland was only allowed to express its identity through its past"; current and contemporary Scottish institutions were eschewed as symbols of Scottish life in favour of the safer, more comfortable, albeit "distorted pageantry of a Highland 50 way of life" (Invention of Scotland 100). Jacobite ideology was "depoliticized" through the adaptation and sentimentalization of such vehicles as the popular song which Robert Burns and Walter Scott made "more respectable"; Victoria herself "helped to enable its transformation into a cult" by publicly approving it in

1842 and thereby opening "the floodgates of sentimentality."32 Victoria both

"inherited and reinforced the colourful, picturesque, and partial accounts of

Scottish history fabricated by the previous generation's biased borrowing from

Jacobite propaganda." Pittock observes:

Nostalgia was an artistic keynote of Victoria's reign in England as well as in Scotland. Not only was there a recrudescence in medievalism and such medieval activities as jousting; there was also the cult of Arthur and the connected idea of a unified British past. England was not immune from the fancy-dress school of history largely pioneered in Scotland. (101-03)

Nevertheless, "the tinsel and boom of an imperial British version of the Scottish past" coexisted with a surviving commitment to Jacobitism and radicalism, which saw the mid-century re-emergence of Scottish nationalism (101). In England, leaders of the Oxford Movement as well as John Ruskin, Swinburne himself,

"and many lesser artists towards the close of the century," expressed sympathy for the Stuarts (120).

Victoria herself sympathized and identified with Mary Stuart.33 Reviewing the first part of Strickland's biography of Mary Stuart (vol. 3 of Lives),

Blackwood's Magazine (November 1852) noted that "among the many and glorious ancestral honours which have descended to our present gracious 51 sovereign, there is none on which she more prides herself than that she is lineally descended from Queen Mary" (616). An entertainment program from

Osborne House (Victoria's country home on the Isle of Wight) for 20 January

1890 lists, amongst Esther and other tableaux vivants to be performed,

"Fotheringay," featuring Mary Queen of Scots as one of the subjects.34

Mitchell has alluded to the current research activity into "Victorian representations of female historical figures—especially royal or high-ranking ones—and the cultural work of defining and exploring anything from gender roles to national identity through such interpretations" (Clio's Daughters 98).

Such work offers insight into the intersection of various cults of "queenliness" in the nineteenth century, including Mary Stuart, Elizabeth, Victoria, and the domestic queens in Ruskin's "Of Queens' Gardens" (from Sesame and Lilies

1865) who have been generally, if not accurately, conflated with the titular figure of Coventry Patmore's narrative poem The Angel in the House (1854-56).351 explore this intersection next.

2.2 Intersecting Cults: Mary, Elizabeth, Victoria, and the Angel in the

House

Expressions of the cult of Mary Stuart ranged from aristocratic women who had themselves painted as the Queen of Scots to the working-class poet

Ellen Johnston who "conjured a rapturous vision" in which the poet, Victoria, and

Mary Stuart "all communed."36 In Victorian England, however, any 52

representation of female royal power was automatically linked to Queen Victoria.

Nicola J. Watson has discussed connections between Victoria and the cultural

memory of Elizabeth I, while Lewis notes that Mary played opposite Victoria in a

Jekyll and Hyde drama between Ruskin's "self-sacrificing goddess of the hearth"

and "her own voracious double on the streets and in the boudoir" (Romance and

Nation 177). The cult of Mary Stuart stood for "certain recurrent threats to

Britain's evolving political and psychological coherence—for absolute female

authority, Roman Catholicism, and France" (Lewis, Romance and Nation 154).

The anxiety about female rule, so notoriously announced in Mary's time by John

Knox's "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of

Women" (1558), had not disappeared; even amongst female historians, those who promoted and defended women's rule were countered by others, like Anna

Jameson, who resisted the notion.37

As Rohan Maitzen contends, "although ostensibly the heated Victorian debates about the rival queens focused on actual events during their reigns, the real issue . . . was the difficulty of representing powerful public women," for as public women "and often women with real power," queens regnant were not as easily contained as, for example, queen consorts, within the Victorian ideology of the separate spheres, as expressed by the conventional analogy of wife and mother as the metaphorical queen of the Victorian home.38 Merle Tonnies also notes the "close relationship" between the story of Mary Stuart and nineteenth- 53

century British gender ideology in her comparative analysis of the Queen's

representation in nineteenth-century British drama. Offering a "prehistory" of the

prolific royal biographies of the Victorian period, Mary Spongberg examines the

interest in the relationship between queenliness, femininity, and patriarchy in female biographers of royal lives prior to Victoria's ascension to the throne in

1837, including Mary Wollstonecraft and such successors as Mary Robinson,

Mary Hays, and Elizabeth Benger. In the writers after Wollstonecraft, Spongberg contends, the feminist critique is more overt:

Robinson, Hays, and Benger drew on the lives of royal women in distinctly feminist ways, critiquing the patriarchal strictures that shaped their lives and the absence of feminine influence in the recounting of history. In developing this form of women's history, such writers challenged masculinist generic conventions to carve out a uniquely feminine historical space in which to understand the condition of all women. (73-74)

While Wollstonecraft wrote unsympathetically of Marie Antoinette, for example, both Robinson and Hays represented Marie Antoinette as a role model for women in her strength and bravery and as a victim of patriarchal politics

(Spongberg 81; 84; 90-91). Hays's six-volume Female Biography (1803), whose

288 entries were heavily weighted in favour of queens—Elizabeth Tudor, Mary

Queen of Scots, Christina of Sweden, Catherine of Russia, for example— apparently demonstrated her belief in the study of royal women as an exercise in feminist pedagogy and anticipated the work of later historians such as the

Strickland sisters and Mary Anne Everett Green by using "the life of a queen or 54 royal consort to read the history of her times" (Spongberg 89-90). In 1821,

Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV and the target of politically motivated adultery charges, became "a potent symbol of the wrongs of all women," drawing Hays out of retirement to write her defense in Memoirs of Queens,

Illustrious and Celebrated; on the frontispiece, an "embattled Caroline" was surrounded by the image of Marie Antoinette and three other queens—Anne

Boleyn, Elizabeth, and Mary Stuart.39

The representation of Lady Jane Grey in nineteenth-century texts and images also offers "an insight into the debates on and the construction of gender identities and roles for women" that continued in the twentieth century (Mitchell,

"Nine Days Queen" 120). Elizabeth Strickland's account of her life in Lives of the

Tudor Princesses, including Lady Jane Grey (1868) reflected "an implicit critique of the public sphere and male-dominated power politics operative in it" (117).

Strickland relates Grey to those women before and after her who were "victims" of sixteenth-century politics:

The mere inclusion of Grey's sisters in the Lives allows Strickland to pursue the theme of political persecution of women—both Lady Catherine and Lady Mary Grey were to suffer imprisonment in Elizabeth's reign for imprudent marriages. Strickland also makes an allusion to that foremost Victorian historical victim—Mary Queen of Scots. . . . Strickland's sister, Agnes, produced a trenchant defense of Mary of Scotland which focused on her femininity and vulnerability at the hands of ruthless men; Elizabeth seems to be moving here toward a similar critique. Other victimized queens besides Mary are called to mind at Jane's burial: her body is placed, Strickland informs us, between those of 'the 55

murdered consorts of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard' (182). (Mitchell, "Nine Days Queen" 117)

That the parallels drawn between Mary Stuart and Victoria were far from

innocuous is demonstrated by the case, recounted by Sally Vernon, of James

Haynes's five-act verse tragedy Mary Stuart (1840), which dealt with the murder, instigated by Darnley, of Mary's Italian counselor, David Rizzio. Approximately seventy-five lines of the play were directed to be omitted by the Examiner of

Plays, J. M. Kemble. Reviews made clear that material in the play, intended or not, could be taken as topical allusions, for example, to Queen Victoria's engagement to Prince Albert who was, like Rizzio, musical and foreign, and like

Darnley, of uncertain status within the Royal Family. Consequently, complaints about Rizzio's foreignness were cut. Vernon observes that "the assumption seems to be that a hit by any character at any queen is meant for Victoria, and particularly when her own amusements of music and dancing are brought into question" (37). Emphasized by the play and rejected by the censor were various features "common to both Mary's dilemma and Queen Victoria's difficulties," such as "the religious issue, popular discontent, favoured foreigners, and even opposition to the Lords" (38).

What the foregoing discussion demonstrates is Mary Stuart's positioning at the nexus of Victorian history, literature and culture, and politics. Swinburne, as we shall see later, picks up on what Lewis describes as the Victorian fascination with Mary as enigma or riddle (Romance and Nation 180-81) and 56

incorporates it into his dramatic trilogy. Next, we shall look more closely at the

composition history of the trilogy, after which we will conclude this chapter with a

discussion of the trilogy's critical reception.

2.3 Composition and Performance History of the Trilogy

That Swinburne was fascinated with Mary Stuart throughout his life is well documented in articles by Curtis Dahl.40 If this preoccupation with the Queen of

Scots can be traced to an early essay written at Eton entitled "De Morte Mariae

Scotorum Reginae,"41 it can be said to have been officially resigned only in his farewell poem, "Adieux A Marie Stuart," written in 1882 after the completion of the final play in his trilogy.42 As we saw in chapter 1, Swinburne (like Queen

Victoria) prided himself on his ancestry with the Stuart queen. But it was the

"long vexed question of Mary Stuart's life and character" that most interested him, as he told Theodor Opitz, the German translator of Bothwell.43

In the earliest evidence of his interest in Mary Stuart as a dramatic subject (a query to William Bell Scott on 16 December 1859), Swinburne's enthusiasm for the dramatic potential of the subject leads directly to the search for facts: "Don't you think a good dramatic subject would be Mary Stuart's amour with Chatelet? One might end with cutting off his head on the stage. I want to find facts about it: do you know of any?" (Letters 1: 28). Within another four months, he had obtained from Scott's library at Wallington "all sorts of things about Mary Stuart of the most exciting kind, down to an inventory of her gowns, 57

which gave me great satisfaction, as they were very nice colours, and showed

she had an eye for painting."44

By late January 1861, Swinburne was three-quarters through a rough

draft of Chastelard (Letters 1:41), though it was not completed and published

until the successful appearance of his Atalanta in Calydon (1865) spurred him

on to revise the manuscript and complete a number of literary tasks, including

the collection and completion of his lyrical poems (Lafourcade 126). Advance

volumes of the five-act Chastelard were available by August 1865, and review

copies were circulated in November (Lafourcade 130). Bothwell, a 15 000-line

blank-verse drama covering Mary's life from the murder of her Italian secretary,

Rizzio, to her flight into England, was "begun about 1868, but chiefly composed

from 1871 (when the first act was privately printed) to March 1874 when the last

line was written" (Lafourcade 223); it was followed in 1881 by Mary Stuart, which

opens with Mary imprisoned by Elizabeth I and closes with Mary's execution.45

Despite the publication date of Mary Stuart, Lafourcade notes that, like the poem

Tristram ofLyonesse (1882), Mary Stuart was conceived and begun years

before by a young Swinburne: it "had been planned, started and lost in

manuscript several times" (291). More precise dating of the various stages and events relating to the trilogy has been compiled by Curtis Dahl ("Composition").

The high regard with which Swinburne held this dramatic enterprise is evidenced by his comments throughout the composition of the trilogy as well as 58

by his response to the critical reception of each stage in his work. We opened

the introduction to this dissertation with his expression of hope that Bothwell

would be a great poem and representative piece of work. To E.C. Stedman he

wrote in 1874, "I have just finished and am about at once to publish the longest

and most important poem I have yet attempted—a historic drama of almost epic

proportion" (Letters 2: 282), and on finally completing Bothwell, he wrote to

George Powell, "Gloria Diabolo in profundis!" (Letters 2: 290).

Swinburne had struggled with the challenge of turning historical fact into

drama, turning to Shakespeare as his model and peerless peer (Letters 2: 153).

Indeed, as he proceeded, "the enormity of the subject together with its

incomparable capability ... for dramatic poetry" assured him "more and more

forcibly" of the truth he had suspected from the first—"that Shakespeare alone

could have grappled with it satisfactorily, and wrung the final prize of the tragedy

from the clutch of historic fact" (Letters 2: 211-12).

A failed attempt to produce Bothwell for the stage is typical of the trilogy's

performance history. Lafourcade considered Chastelard to be the one play of

Swinburne's that stood a chance of succeeding on the stage. He notes that it was "very nearly produced by Lugne-Poe [Aurelien Lugne-Poe] in 1904, in a

French version by Maeterlinck, at the Theatre de I'CEuvre." Since then, he adds,

"no producer has been brave enough to attempt the task" (225). Swinburne's

own fears over the transfer of his text to the stage were born out during what 59

Lafourcade describes as a "wisely abandoned" scheme involving "protracted negotiations between Swinburne and [the dramatist] John Oxenford and others with a view to producing Bothwell"; these negotiations took place between July

1874 and the beginning of 1876.46

2.4 Critical Reception of the Trilogy

Swinburne's own assessment of the reception history of his dramatic work is a fitting beginning to a discussion of the reception of his trilogy on Mary

Stuart:

If the fortunes of my lyrical work were amusingly eccentric and accidental, the varieties of opinion which have saluted the appearance of my plays have been, or have seemed to my humility, even more diverting and curious. I have been told by reviewers of note and position that a single one of them is worth all my lyric and otherwise undramatic achievements or attempts: and I have been told on equal or similar authority that, whatever I may be in any other field, as a dramatist I am demonstrably nothing, (dedicatory epistle x)

The divided reception of Swinburne's early work, Chastelard and the lyric poems, is forshadowed by the divided feelings of what Lafourcade describes as

"old" and "new" friends of Swinburne; the former "were averse to his publishing" both Chastelard and the poems, apprehensive as they were about their potential reception and the kind of reputation they would garner for the young poet, while encouragement by the latter led him to end further delay in publishing

Chastelard (112-13; 129-30). Lafourcade writes that the "notoriety" of Chastelard

"added a little spice to the triumph" of his recently published dramatic poem 60

Atalanta in Calydon and that "in spite of an occasional censure, there was absent from the chorus of criticism that note of contemptuous mistrust and resentment which was to be found in the reception of most of his books after

1866 [that is, after publication of Poems and Ballads, First Series]" (132).

Nevertheless, responses were decidedly mixed in two areas central to

Swinburne's aims: the dramatic nature of the work and the characterization of

Mary Stuart.

Contemporary reviews of Chastelard indicate, despite caveats, a general recognition of and not uncommon appreciation for Swinburne's efforts as a dramatist and his depiction of character. The Pall Mall Gazette (27 April 1866) compared the "exaggerated" portraits of Mary and Chastelard to "Michael

Angelo's heroic statues" and declared that Swinburne had brought Mary "to light again." The review applauded the "dramatic force" of scenes in the play's latter half, and concluded that Swinburne was entitled to "great consideration" as a dramatist. Both the Gazette and the London Review (9 December 1865) referred to Swinburne as a "man of genius." Public Opinion (16 December 1865) also noted how Mary was "made to stand before the reader a reality," while the Court

Journal (19 December 1865) applauded the "co-existence in him [Swinburne] of the dramatic and lyric power." So too, the Reader (2 December 1865) paid tribute to the "combination of dramatic and poetic power" in the play, declaring the work "a dramatic poem of great power." 61

The Sunday Times (3 December 1865) praised the "originality of

conception and boldness of treatment" of Swinburne's "tragedy," while the

Fortnightly Review (15 April 1866) ranked the scene in the Queen's chamber

"with the masterpieces of our older drama" and noted how in Swinburne's hands what might have appeared "a psychological puzzle" became "a dramatic

evolution." The Albion (23 December 1865) declared that he "imparts life and form and colour to the whole picture" and "unveils the pathetic tragedy that has so long slept hidden in the dry and trite historic page." The Saturday Review

(26 May 1866) found the Queen to be a "highly complex character" and praised, with some insight, the fourth act, "in which the turns and windings of Mary's will. . . her perplexity, ruthlessness, contempt for a weak man and for a cruel unknightly man, fear of public scorn, remorse for her love, vindictive bitterness against Darnley all chasing one another over her mind, with the subtlest changes—make one of the most superb scenes for which a drama of character gives room."

Nevertheless, the character of Mary did trouble Victorian sensibilities.

Even those who found great subtlety and skill in her depiction were clearly uneasy at the "display of amativeness" in the play (Court Circular, 23 December

1865), and feared that Swinburne was "wanting in the higher beauty of moral dignity and sweetness" (London Review, 30 December 1865). As Clyde K.

Hyder notes in Swinburne's Literary Career and Fame, "nothing could be more 62

repugnant to the English conception of calm household love than the passionate abandon of the courtly poet-lover to his capricious, imperious mistress, Mary

Queen of Scots" (25-26). The Atheneaum (23 December 1865) acknowledged that Swinburne "shows at times a keen insight into the subtleties of human motive," but also declared that "his chief characters are out of the pale of our sympathy," and that Swinburne's Mary was a conception of "extreme depravity," a "Monster" possessed by a nature "shallow, empty, and futile." The Atlas (30

December 1865) acknowledged "dramatic power" and "insight into hidden human motives," yet found the poem "morally repulsive," while in John Bull (23

December 1865) the book was deemed "unpleasant" and "a lamentable prostitution of the English muse." To a young Henry James, however, Mary

Stuart was little more than a "heroic coquette" who, though clearly meant to be the central figure of the play, just didn't measure up.47

In comments on the later plays, Swinburne's work is absolved of the

"impurities" of Chastelard, and there is greater recognition of the complexity of

Mary's character (especially in Bothwell), but at the same time the drama itself is held to suffer—Bothwell is admirable in parts, but generally considered too long, and Mary Stuart is not dramatic enough.48 The Athenaeum (23 May 1874) acknowledged the "many fine and some unsurpassable things" in Bothwell, but observed that in "this huge volume" Swinburne has "overleaped the barriers of poetic self-control" and produced the "longest" rather than the "greatest drama of 63 modern times." Echoing The Athenaeum for 10 December 1882, The Dial

(February 1882) considered Mary Stuart "a great dramatic poem" that, in its incapacity for stage representation, fell short of the requirements "of a great drama." The Westminster Review (July 1874), wrote approvingly of Bothwell, but nevertheless condemned Mary Stuart as "a chapter of history put into verse"

(July 1882). Commenting on Mary Stuart, The Nation (27 April 1882) lamented the "un-Swinburne-like" lack of charm found in this work of his "later manner" in comparison to the "exquisite beauty" that marked Chastelard, the product of his

"earlier manner," while expressing the hope, "for the sake of good morals," that

Swinburne's readers "will never be tempted to wish him back in his unregenerate days." Swinburne himself remarked upon the "generally ungracious reception" of Mary Stuart in the dedicatory epistle to Collected

Poems (1904) (xii).

Decidedly mixed is a fair appreciation of the critical consensus of

Swinburne's contemporaries. Once the trilogy was complete, however, the tendency was to situate it in the context of nineteenth-century verse drama, with more often negative than positive connotations.49 R.H. Stoddard's introduction in

1884 to an American edition of Swinburne's selected poetical works (which included the entire trilogy yet omitted Swinburne's narrative poem Tristram of

Lyonesse so as not to "burden" the reader's "poetic patience" [xx]), is typically dismissive of nineteenth-century efforts in poetic drama: 64

When the history of English verse in the nineteenth century comes to be written, Swinburne will certainly figure in one chapter, and as prominently as any of his contemporaries or predecessors. This chapter will be devoted to the poetic drama ... a sorry survival of the poetic drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will contain the great names of Byron, and Coleridge, and Shelley, and Browning, and Tennyson .. . but it will contain no great works.

Nevertheless, Swinburne is given his due within this apparently second-rate

genre:

Swinburne occupies a prominent place among the crowd of contributors to the poetic drama of the nineteenth century, and occupies it justly, as it seems to me. There is nothing in the whole range of the English drama with which his trilogy of plays of which Mary, Queen of Scots, is the heroine, can be compared; and whether one likes it or not, it is certainly a remarkable work. It is remarkable for the skills with which he has delineated the character and passions of that strange woman—siren of hearts, who clung to the hearts she broke, loving the love if not the lover; angel of light and darkness, and beautiful in both—and it is remarkable for its length, which exceeds that of any dramatic work in the language, as the length of "The Ring and the Book" exceeds that of any narrative poem. It is an epical tragedy, (xiii-xv)

Stoddard highlights both Swinburne's skill at characterization and the epic scale of his creation. But in the twentieth century, critics were both dismissive of the drama of the nineteenth century, and Swinburne's participation in it. In his study of early Victorian drama, Ernest Reynolds includes Bothwell in a class of

"unactables," describing "that monstrous drama which drags its slow length along for six hundred closely printed pages" as "a monument to the author's

Elizabethan learning" that "fails to observe the first principles of dramatic writing,—economy and concentration." Reynolds sees Swinburne's failure, and 65 that of other Victorian poets who exhibited "a passion for writing gigantic works" of drama, as the result of a generic fault in nineteenth-century literature; that is,

"it did not know where to stop" (114-15).

John A. Cassidy complains that Chastelard is a "worthless work" and that the "huge monstrosity" of Bothwell is "about five times as long as the uncut

Hamlet' (94; 151). He observes that Swinburne "was obviously overawed by history," and wishes that the poet had not "wasted his time in attempting to write dramas" as he had neither "knowledge of dramatic technique or of the requirements of the drama" nor "any idea of the practical demands and limitations of the stage"; he concludes that Swinburne needed to "get a job with an acting troupe" to gain practical experience in order to "master the lore of the stage" (150-51). T.S. Eliot observes that "a small number of students will want to read one of the Stuart plays" (122), while Mario Praz is sure that "few people can boast of having read the whole of this trilogy" (230).

Nevertheless, saving graces were identified by these and other critics.

Reynolds claims that many of these dramatic poems "have in them the stuff of which real drama is made" and contain "surprising beauties and individual scenes which show strong dramatic insight" (115). John Drinkwater's thoughtful discussion of Swinburne's dramas concludes that "when all the faults of his trilogy have been considered, there remain the secondary but rare beauties that 66

we have examined" (138). And Georges Lafourcade finds a speech from

Chastelard "the most beautiful and moving lines he ever wrote."

In the early decades of the twentieth century, a few critics, including

Drinkwater, did devote significant space to Swinburne's tragedies, including the

Mary Stuart trilogy, and attempted to tackle the question of their dramatic

achievement. Drinkwater's 1913 study of Swinburne devotes substantial space to his dramas and to the trilogy, and is largely concerned with the conflict

between Swinburne's skill as an "historical scholar" and his motivation as a dramatist. Contending that Swinburne's purpose was not "to continue the tradition of the Elizabethan chronicle-plays" but rather "to write the tragedy of

Mary Stuart and her lovers," he locates the failure of the project in Swinburne's preoccupation with history "for its own sake"; the "mass of historical detail" imposed on this tragedy "is constantly tending to choke instead of quickening it"

(122-23).

In a perhaps unintentionally humorous strike at Swinburne's habitual historical method, Drinkwater notes that "when a character speaks he has not only to think of the utterance pertinent to the dramatic moment, which may need two lines, but also of the conduct of history to its next point, which may need twenty" (124). Swinburne, he argues, "makes upon us the apparently unreasonable demand that we should sift the tragic art, which is the work of the poet, from the records of a historical scholar who intruded himself where he had 67

no business" (125). On the other hand, Drinkwater finds the "true greatness of

the trilogy" in its "profound sense of the workings and tragic conflict of

character. . .. The chief figures of the tragedy, Mary Stuart, Chastelard,

Darnley, Bothwell, Rizzio and Mary Beaton, even Babington .. . are drawn with

a firmness of characterization that any but the very greatest dramatists might

envy" (132).

In his 1926 study of Swinburne, T. Earle Welby accepted that the poet's

tragedies were "not acting plays," but stressed that "the description of his tragedies as closet-drama is not finally decisive of his claims" and that "the

poetical drama that cannot be produced on the modern stage is not necessarily

an illegitimate thing" (192). He balances his view that Swinburne is not a "pure" or "complete" dramatist with a clear appreciation of the poet's achievement:

In each of the plays there are effects of contrast and co-operation; the persons influence each other powerfully; the picture unrolled before us is not one in which we may be content to note one figure at a time without heed to the significant grouping. Bothwell, indeed, owes much of its effect to the host of personages who contribute to the tragedy, not knowing what the remote consequences of their words and gestures will be. The conclusion of Mary Stuart throws back, in the finest of Swinburne's dramatic inventions, to the sin against love in Chastelard, and the Queen dies in expiation. There is construction in these plays. (193)

Chastelard, "the product of immense labour" [in historical scholarship], is "swift and song-like" in its final form. Bothwell is simply Swinburne's "chief work as a dramatic poet, stupendous in ambition, unflagging in energy, and it has his greatest scenes": 68

Think of those pages in which apprehension deepens in the doomed Darnley! There is nothing in English drama, except the supreme scene in Marlowe's Edward II, which arouses such terror as that portion of the second act of Bothwell in which Darnley recognizes the song the Queen is singing, the song which Rizzio sang immediately before his murder. Every circumstance heightens the horror, every line tells, and at last... the reader comes out of a terrible, convincing nightmare infinitely relieved that the act is at an end.50

In comparison, Welby notes, Mary Stuart "inspires respect rather than enthusiasm": "It is only at its conclusion, in the fine invention whereby Mary is sent to her doom because she fails to recognize Chastelard's song, that the poet gets free from the merciless pressure of history" (199). At the same time, "in its sobriety Mary Stuart is something of a development from its predecessors."51

A few years later, Samuel Chew devoted a chapter to the tragedies in his book on Swinburne, but with less sympathy than Welby to the genre of poetic drama, which he envisioned as a number of "rusty wrecks" strewn across an

"infrequently visited corner" of modern English literature (183). He is also harsher than Welby in his assessment of Swinburne's use of history, asserting that in his ambition "to be true to historical as well as to poetic fact," the poet allowed his portrayal of Mary "to become obscured by a cloud of irrelevant detail, with the result in the two later plays that "the historian has overlaid and almost smothered the poet, who appears from time to time struggling in the mass of documentary evidence, charge and countercharge, rumor, gossip and hearsay" (195). For Chew, "the intensification and enlargement of his 69

[Swinburne's] interest in sheer history is the prime cause of his esthetic failure"

(198).

Nevertheless, the closing scene of Bothwell, where Mary sets out for

England and threatens to return to Scotland to vanquish her enemies, shows a

"magnificence of diction beyond the power of any English poet since Shelley and

comparable to the most exalted flights of rhetoric in Victor Hugo" (208). Like

Welby, Chew turns to the fatal test given by Mary Beaton to the Queen as

evidence of the point "where Swinburne dares to sacrifice the facts of history to the truths of imagination" and whence "his play comes to life" (209-10). And he

concludes that the trilogy is, "of all imaginative reconstructions of the story, that of most ambitious scope, firmest grasp, and most convincing vitality" (212).

In discussing Mary's character, neither Welby nor Chew really departs from Victorian critics' concerns about morality. Welby deems Chastelard "a peculiar treasure" because of "the nature of its emotional content" and positions

Swinburne as "a specialist in a particular, doubtless both exceptional and perilous, kind of emotion" with which the reader eventually loses "instinctive sympathy" (195-96). Chew, suggesting that the setting of Swinburne's early play

The Queen-Mother "prepares the way" for the Mary Stuart trilogy, notes that in the former "is portrayed (with a sympathy that is repellent to many readers [my emphasis]) the cruel and lustful life of the court in which Mary Stuart was bred, the life vividly characterized in the article on her which Swinburne contributed to 70 the Encyclopaedia Britannica" (193-94). The use of the Victorian critical term of

"sympathy" serves to distance both critics from too close an appreciation of the

Queen's character.

Lafourcade is another critic of the early twentieth century who evaluates the trilogy's dramatic achievement, and his comments on Mary's character shed light on critical dissatisfaction with the later installments of the trilogy.

Lafourcade writes:

Bothwell bears witness to Swinburne's erudition (he had read chiefly Froude, Hill Burton and Knox, apart from contemporary letters and documents), to his tireless energy as an artist, and in a few instances to a fine dramatic instinct; but it lies entirely outside Swinburne's life. With the death of Chastelard, all personal interest disappeared from the tragedy of Mary Stuart; even the Queen's character changed, becoming more subtle, more complex, and far less effective. (223-24)

There are two interesting points here. One is the separation of the first play from the latter two by the notion of Swinburne's "personal interest" in Mary. By relating the character of Mary in Chastelard to Swinburne's own life experience,

Lafourcade implicitly moves it away from the historical. Echoing Lafourcade later in the century, Mario Praz makes such a movement explicit. For Praz, "the Mary

Stuart of Chastelard is the Fatal Woman per excellence, a type drawn from the poet's own intimate sensual nature and without reference to historical truth"

(230). The separation of Chastelard in this way may have been encouraged by

Swinburne's own characterization of Chastelard as a work begun in his undergraduate years at college which "could not and was never meant to be 71

more than a mere love-play" (Letters 2: 305) as well as his characterization of

Darnley as a "sketch" that "was afterwards filled out and finished" in Bothwell

(dedicatory epistle xi).

The second point of interest is Lafourcade's equation of a subtle and complex depiction of character (in the latter two installments) with a less effective one. He goes on to link Swinburne's emphasis in his correspondence on the historical complexity and coherence of the play to an unconscious recognition of this very point, and follows with a similar point about Mary Stuart:

Mary Stuart. . . shows more concentration and outline than Bothwell, but in spite of the pathetic close, does not reproduce the romantic glamour of Chastelard. Despite Mary Beaton's final statement we did not hear "that very cry go up / Far off long since to God, who answers here." It was a very different sort of cry. Swinburne's long and painstaking study of his subject.. . had given him a detachment, more scientific than dramatic, which prevented him from instilling into his work the breath of life. (291)

Lafourcade's last comment focuses on a goal that mattered as much to

Swinburne as to his peers in translating history into other generic forms like drama or prose fiction—that is, to transform the facts and details of history into living characters. Praz arrives at a different conclusion about the dramatic success of the latter two plays. He claims:

The character of Mary Stuart as it appears at the end of the trilogy . .. had lost a good deal of the rigidly fatal quality it has in the first play; there are surprises and contradictions in it, and the heroine, although she remains 'fatal' to all the men who love her, yet appears inconsistent and full of life, a poetical creation, in fact, studied with the interest of a psychologist, and no longer seen 72

merely through the lyrical despair of Chastelard, lovesick and athirst for martyrdom. (229-230)

Both Lafourcade and Praz see the Mary Stuart of Chastelard as a type—in

Praz's words, "the phantom of the mind [Swinburne's] rather than of the real

human being (227)—and both see the Mary Stuart of the later plays as a more complex character, but only Praz sees the product of this "scientific" detachment as lifelike.

Chew had called the trilogy a tragedy "of the victims of une belle dame sans merci, beautiful, generous, wayward, terrible, before whom successively

Chastelard, Rizzio, Darnley, Bothwell and Babington lay down their lives" (197), but Praz's treatment of Mary initiated a critical period which focused on

Chastelard to the exclusion of the later plays in the trilogy. In this period, less attention was paid to the question of dramatic genre or dramatic achievement, and more emphasis was laid on Mary's character as a femme fatale.

Typical of this period is Dahl's gloss on Chastelard and the trilogy. Mary is presented as a sadistic and deadly female who "draws to death" not only the courtier Chastelard, but over the course of the trilogy "Rizzio the musician,

Darnley the weakling husband, Bothwell the bold Border warrior, and finally

Babington the idealistic young conspirator," not to mention "countless other noble men" ("Elements" 96; "Loyalty" 460). Catherine Barnes Stevenson offers this bald summary of Chastelard: "Mary Stuart deserts Chastelard to marry

Darnley, then turns her affection from her husband back to Chastelard, and 73 finally abandons both of them for a new lover, Bothwell" (186). Robert M.

McGinnis, arguing the case for the influence of Swinburne's Chastelard on

Oscar Wilde's Salome, suggests that the Queen watches Chastelard's execution with "that strange, sadistic half-smile which characterizes Swinburne's cruel women" (33). Swinburne's biographer Jean Overton Fuller also suggests that

Mary "derives a lover's excitement from witnessing her lover's decapitation." She argues that Mary responds to Chastelard's authentic last words, "O cruelle

Dame! Marie!" (which we are "deprived of hearing"), with a show of her "true colours" as, in the "horrid description" of Mary Carmichael, "She leans out, lengthening her throat to hear/And her eyes shining." The implication of these lines, for Fuller, is the Queen's blood-lust at the sight of her lover's decapitation; the "nastiest touch" of all is the presence of the big, broad-shouldered Bothwell by her side: "It is as though Chastelard's frail silhouette were already eclipsed by a heavier."52 Specific pathologies are invoked to delineate the Queen's character; thus, Dahl describes her "psychological incapacity for normal, deep heterosexual love" ("Elements" 96), while McGinnis labels her a

"nymphomaniac-prostitute" and Chastelard a "fine" study of "the lengths to which sadism can be stretched in woman" (32-36).

There are exceptions to the tone of this criticism, however, where some flexibility emerges in the treatment of Mary's character. The scene of

Chastelard's execution is read by Gerald Kinneavy, for example, in terms of the 74 eloquence of Mary's "furrowed brows" in "bespeaking her anguish" as she signals the executioner (36). The ambiguity of gesture in this scene, heightened by its recounting from the removed perspective of an upper window, renders this a plausible reading. But more significant for our discussion is the fact that

Kinneavy's reading rests on both a recognition that the drama of this first play centres not on the titular Chastelard, but on Mary Stuart, and on a dismissal of the importance (notwithstanding its presence) of the Fatal Woman motif in the play. Kinneavy returns the critical discourse to the problem of drama, where he argues the case for Mary as tragic hero rather than Fatal Woman. Yet, despite his acknowledgment of the complexity of Mary's character and her motivations,

Kinneavy ultimately does not stray far from the critical pack, finding Mary's tragic flaw in her inability to measure up to the ideality of Chastelard's love.

Another important exception is found in Harrison's monograph on

Swinburne's medieavalism in the chapter analyzing Chastelard and "its earlier, thematic companion piece Rosamond'.63 Harrison acknowledges the origin of

Swinburne's heroines' "sinister reputation" in the work of Lafourcade and Praz, with its focus on the femmes fatale of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, First

Series. He argues, however, that the major medievalist poems of that volume demonstrate, through close analysis, "that nearly all the beloved women appear as mute objects of their lovers' affections. They are seen entirely through anguished eyes, and these frequently belong to medieval knights, courtiers, or 75 clerks." Such lovers, "who are located in a precise historical situation," are used less to "exalt or excoriate beautiful seductive women" than to make

"unconventional statements about the unchanging relations among passion, orthodox religion, and art over the course of human history." Chastelard and

Rosamond are said to demonstrate how Swinburne's "unique and complex modern additions to the tradition of courtly love literature depend in part upon an ability to depict hauntingly beautiful women who fit into the archetypal category of femme fatale but preserve their integrity as convincing, sympathetic characters" (52-53). For Harrison, Chastelard is a "'tragedy'" "only from a perspective unsympathetic to the courtly dynamics of the protagonists' love relationship." Suggesting that Mary Beaton represents such a perspective within the play, he claims that "it prevents her, as it has prevented a century of commentators, from understanding exactly how a belle dame sans merci, and ostensibly helpless victim can both be full and sympathetic figures" (Harrison's emphasis). Harrison's attention to the problem of perspective in Chastelard is a significant movement in the critical reception of the trilogy, but one whose promise has not been realized through further critical discussion of the trilogy.54

Indeed, in the later twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty- first century, Swinburne's tragedies and the Mary Stuart trilogy in particular have received virtually no critical attention in terms of their dramatic achievement.

They are not mentioned in the excellent critical survey by Rikky Rooksby that 76 opens his and Nicholas Shrimpton's 1993 edition of new essays on Swinburne,

The Whole Music of Passion. One essay in the collection makes brief references to Swinburne's Mary, but here she remains Swinburne's "central type of the fatal woman" and "a dangerous symbol of dominant female sexuality," while the trilogy itself is dismissed as "three plays of declining merit" (Pittock, "Swinburne and the 'Nineties" 125; 129). Nor is Swinburne's poetic drama addressed in the

2009 special edition of Victorian Poetry commemorating the centenary year of his death, despite the editors' encouragement at the diversity of the twelve essays included there and the range of textual scholarship and "compelling interpretations .. . of works by Swinburne both less known and well known"

(Rooksby and Meyers 611). The second "renaissance" of interest in Swinburne's work anticipated by them (the first having emerged out of the critical climate of

Cecil Lang's The Swinburne Letters and the 1971 special edition of Victorian

Poetry edited by Lang), does not appear to encompass Swinburne's body of dramatic work beyond Atalanta in Calydon. For example, the just published collection of essays edited by Yisrael Levin, entitled Algernon Charles

Swinburne and the Singing Word: New Perspectives on the Mature Work, contains but a few incidental references to the Mary Stuart trilogy.

This lack of interest may be partly ascribed to complacency towards the prolific output of poetic drama in the nineteenth century, and partly to uncertainty about what critical terms, if any, should be brought to bear on such drama. In the 77 next three chapters, therefore, we shall focus on the trilogy in terms of dramatic genre. Chapter 3 explores and relates the trilogy to the specific genre of historical drama; chapter 4 examines Swinburne's conception of historical drama through his extensive theorizing and discussions of it; and chapter 5 narrows the discussion to a specific and important influence on his approach to historical drama, that is, the work and ideas of Victor Hugo. 78

Chapter 3

Historical Drama: Locating the Genre

Verse or poetic drama, closet drama, dramatic romance, tragedy, historical drama, dramatic epic—all are terms that have been or could be applied to the Mary Stuart trilogy. From what generic perspective, if any, is it useful to discuss this work of Swinburne's? Such a question is more complicated than simply testing each term against Swinburne's plays; it involves not only his own knowledge of them and his use of them in his own writings on the history of drama, but also their own place in the tradition of Victorian theatre, and the place accorded to Swinburne by his contemporaries. In what follows, we can begin to locate Swinburne's trilogy generically both by surveying the various generic terms that have been applied to it and similar plays, and by outlining in brief the range of critical opinion on those terms and the compatibility of

Swinburne's plays with them.

3.1 Closet Drama

As we saw in chapter 2, R.H. Stoddard's introduction to Swinburne's selected poetical works ranked the poet with such greats as Byron, Coleridge,

Shelley, Browning, and Tennyson as a contributor to a poetic drama he deemed

"a sorry survival of the poetic drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" 79

(xiii-xv). Almost a hundred years later, Virendra Sharma's Studies in Victorian

Verse Drama (1979) concludes that Swinburne "resembles the 'closet' dramatists of the nineteenth century" (177).

This kind of "mental theatre" or "armchair drama" can be traced back to

Seneca, and can be defined as "a dramatic text that is meant to be read rather than performed, at least in its original conception" (Pavis 57). But the term and the definition are fraught with difficulty. Whether any particular work fits even this basic definition in terms of product or intent is hard to tell. The Romantic poets who wrote poetic drama were often cagey or at least contrary in their declared intentions; many of their plays were submitted for the stage, often anonymously; once rebuffed, they clarified their "real" intentions with publications, prefaces, and correspondence.55 Indeed, while the nineteenth century was the site of ongoing discussion about the advantages of reading over performance (the argument goes back to Aristotle's Poetics, and Shakespeare himself was declared by the likes of Lamb, Coleridge, and even Swinburne, to show best in the closet), the implications and understanding of this anti-theatricalism have undergone extensive revaluation in recent historicist studies of the period's drama, which now locate Romantic poets' dramatic activities within their social and political interests, and those of their times.56

Despite Gerald B. Kauvar's caution against using the label of closet drama "as if it were normative as well as descriptive" (8), the lingering negative 80 connotations of the term suggest a failed attempt, usually by a poet, to try his hand at drama. Swinburne, for example, clearly indicated that when he wrote plays it was "with a view to their being acted at the Globe, the Red Bull, or the

Black Friars" (CW1: xxvi). After his initial enthusiasm toward revising Bothwell for a projected stage version (see note 46), his increasing frustration with the chaotic results appears to vindicate conclusions that his material, like that of many others, simply was not stageworthy. Reynolds, as we saw in chapter 2, exemplifies the tenor of such conclusions in his complaint that Bothwell failed to observe the main principles of dramatic writing—economy and concentration.

Contemporary critical assumptions about closet drama, however, are more flexible and the term itself has somewhat fallen into abeyance. Studies in the theatre of romanticism, for example, have largely left behind concerns about intention and stageability in order to engage with the works as they are constituted, rather than as they could, or should, have been. Today, as Patrice

Pavis points out, the trend is "to stage all kinds of texts, including those considered unstageable," so that closet drama is now a relative term, "as there is no criterion for deciding once and for all whether the play is literary or suited to the stage" (58). Swinburne's biographer, Edmund Gosse, wrote that "in bulk

Bothwell resembles one of the five-act Jidai-Mono or classic plays of eighteenth- century Japan, and it could only be performed, like an oriental drama, on successive nights" (216). Even he, though, was unsure what to call it: "It 81 undertakes to be less a play than a dramatic romance.. . . The chronicle of events has certain chapters, rather than acts; one closes with the murder of

Rizzio, a second with that of Darnley, a third with Mary's marriage, and the successive battles leave us on the shore of Solway Firth" (218).

3.2 Trilogies

As a trilogy, Swinburne's work does fall into a family of plays that include

Aeschylus's Oresteia (458 B.C.), Shakespeare's Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3

(1590-2), and Schiller's Wallenstein (1796-99).57 Defined as "a chronological sequence of three plays containing characters common to each," trilogies typically comprise tragedies or historical plays (Hodgson 409). This is, perhaps, because, as Arthur E. Du Bois comments about the works of Tennyson and

Landor, "the materials of the historical play .. . [became] so vast in amount and significance . . . that to embody them trilogies, instead of single plays, had to be written"; heroes were presented as victims of both their own wills and "a hundred behaviourizing influences like circumstances, heritage, local conditions, movements of ideas . . . which have to be elaborated descriptively" (628). About his own trilogy, Swinburne asserted that "any one link dropt in the whole chain of public or private circumstances" was problematic precisely because the

"tragedy" of Mary Stuart's personal life gained its interest and dignity "from the great background" of European history which Swinburne "tried throughout to keep steadily before the reader's mind" (Letters 2: 300-02). 82

While the disadvantage of the trilogy (generically speaking) is essentially that of the closet drama, its advantage is the "extensive time-sweep" it permits:

"characters can more easily be seen at different stages of development and may be set against varying backgrounds" (Hodgson 409-10). This advantage is reflected in Swinburne's description of Chastelard as a "prologue" or "prelude" which treated the last episode of Mary Stuart's girlhood—"the last tragic glimpse of reverberation of her early years in France," and Bothwell as the "central tragedy" dealing with "broader political or national interests"; to have "mixed up" the material of the prologue, the central tragedy of Bothwell, or the projected epilogue in Mary Stuart was both "incompatible" with Swinburne's plan and

"incongruous" with his project (Letters 2: 305).

Epigraphs from the Oresteia prefacing the texts of both Bothwell and

Mary Stuart (see appendix C) indicate the relevance of this trilogy to

Swinburne's work, but we can go beyond thematic parallels to consider the relation in terms of composition and structure as well. His comment that "the tragedy of King Lear, like the trilogy of the Oresteia, is a thing incomparable and unique" (CI/V11: 233), suggests not only Swinburne's recognition of

Shakespeare and Aeschylus as models or resources, but also his disposition to allow art to exist on its own terms within a definable generic context, a disposition, as we shall come to see, that illuminates both his own and our 83 approach to the Mary Stuart trilogy. So certain features of the Oresteia are worth noting in relation to Swinburne's own craft.

One such feature is Aeschylus's approach to the story of Agamemnon's murder which, "in turn, motivates selection, addition, or omission of detail"

(Grene and Lattimore 7-8). In comparison to one of his main sources, Homer, who "does not tell the story consecutively" so much as he "draws on it for example and illustration," placing emphasis "wherever he chose" and telling

"only as much of the story, or as little, as suited his purpose," leaving out parts which would "complicate and confuse his simple picture of Aegisthus as a conspiring villain, Orestes as an avenging hero, and Clytaemestra as a woman who yielded to her weakness," Aeschylus, it is noted, "told the whole story":

Agamemnon takes us from the news of Troy's fall to the murder of Agamemnon and the confirmation of his murderers as despots in Argos. The Libation Bearers begins with the return of Orestes and ends with his flight from Argos, pursued by the Furies, after the murder of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus. The Eumenides finds Orestes seeking sanctuary at Delphi, takes him to Athens for his acquittal and absolution, and ends with the establishment of the Furies in their new home at Athens. Further, particularly in the first play of the trilogy, there are constant cutbacks which sweep into the drama much of the foregoing material: the banquet of Thyestes, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the siege and fall of Troy. The simple narrative which we can reconstruct from notices in Homer could not have carried the weight of a tragic trilogy. (Grene and Lattimore 8-9)

Inclusion of detail trumps exclusion in Aeschylus's telling of the story. Swinburne was similarly conscious of telling the "whole story"; he hoped that when his trilogy was complete, "each section of the poem will take its proper place and be 84 read and judged in its proper light as part... of an epic or historic whole"

(Letters 2: 305). This hope motivated his own selection of detail, as is evident in his comment on Bothwell:

But having made a careful analysis of historical events from the day of Rizzio's murder to that of Mary's flight into England, I find that to cast into dramatic mould the events of those eighteen months it is necessary to omit no detail, drop no link in the chain, if the work is to be either dramatically coherent or historically intelligible. (Letters 2: 211-12)

And, like the Oresteia, each section of Swinburne's trilogy sweeps in foregoing material; in Chastelard, for example, we learn about the heroic actions in battle of the Queen's father, James V, and of her own happy childhood spent in the

French court.

Meaningful parallels can be drawn between the Oresteia and Swinburne's trilogy in terms of the actors and the action. Both Mary Stuart's discourse throughout the trilogy, and Clytaemestra's discourse in Agamemnon, bring out the politics associated with female behaviour and representation as the women transgress gender boundaries. Like Swinburne's characters, "the actors, in particular Clytaemestra and the chorus, do not collide with purely external forces but act always against a part of their own will or sympathy which is committed to the other side, and what they kill is what they love" (Grene and Lattimore 15).

The conclusion that rides upon this notion is equally applicable to Swinburne:

"The action of the play [Agamemnon] in itself, of the trilogy as a whole, is thus bound inward upon itself. Its course is not logical, not even strictly dramatic 85 sequence. After the fashion of choral lyric, it is both united to itself and given inward dimension through persistent ideas and a complex of symbols" (15). The

"persistent ideas" include the idea of entanglement—"the taming of wild things, the subjugation of the powerful, the involvement of innocent creatures";

"persuasion (flattery); recurrent sickness; hate-in-love; blood and sex; light in the dark; sound (of terror) in the night; dream and memory," while the "complex of symbols" includes the net, the snare, the snake and its poison, the archer, the house, the ship, and gold (16-17). Many of these ideas and symbols resonate in

Swinburne's trilogy.

Particular resonance arises from the emphasis in The Libation-Bearers on "the mood in which the characters act," more than the "mechanism" in that play of either the assassin's plot or of recognition and identification:

It is the philos-aphilos still, or love-in-hate, the murder committed not against an external enemy but against a part of the self. The hate gains intensity from the strength of the original love when that love has been stopped or rejected. .. . This mood of tangled motivation means that the conspirators must work strongly upon themselves before they can act. (Grene and Lattimore 26-27)

Perhaps the clearest demonstration of this mood is in the character of Darnley, whose jealousy of Rizzio, ambition for power, and male pride drive him onward in a murder conspiracy about which he constantly seeks reassurance and justification. It is equally part of the tangled relationship between Chastelard,

Mary Beaton, and the Queen, and between the Queen, Rizzio, Darnley, and

Bothwell. Mary Stuart, for example, actively deceives Darnley as part of the 86 conspiracy to arrange his death; her motives include hatred for him, vengeance for Rizzio, and love for Bothwell, but she must still talk herself into carrying out the role of deception: "his [Bothwell's] love / Makes me so far dissemble, that myself / Have horror at it... . bid him send me word /What I shall do, and come what may thereof /1 shall obey him; .... But I will never take delight to wrong /

The trust of any that puts trust in me; / Yet may my lord command me in all things" (B. 2.14). It is telling, in terms of its echoes in Swinburne's work, that he regarded the Oresteia "as probably on the whole the greatest spiritual work of man" (Letters 6: 147).

3.3 Tragedy and Historical Drama

Beyond placing Swinburne's trilogy against the general background of trilogies and in the particular context of the Oresteia, we should also consider the applicability of other generic terms like "tragedy" and "historical drama" to

Swinburne's work. Each play in the trilogy is subtitled "A Tragedy," and

Swinburne himself frequently called on "tragedy" and "tragic" to characterize the

Queen of Scots, citing the "tragedy" of Mary's personal life, "the wide and crowded stage of her lifelong tragedy," and events "dramatic as well as tragic"

(Letters 2: 284; 300-05). Yet historical drama is, clearly, the more definitive term for Swinburne. On finishing Bothwell in 1874, he wrote to E.C. Stedman that he was about to publish "the longest and most important poem I have yet attempted—a historic drama of almost epic proportion,"58 and in the dedicatory 87 epistle to his collected poems, the historical clearly takes precedence over the tragic in his conception of Bothwell: "That ambitious, conscientious, and comprehensive piece of work is of course less properly definable as a tragedy than by the old Shakespearean term of a chronicle history" (xi). Finally, his response to the "generally ungracious" reception of Mary Stuart was to prefer, over the "clamour of public praise," the "private and personal" approbation of Sir

Henry Taylor. As author of the popular historical drama Philip Van Artevelde

(1834), Taylor was best placed, in Swinburne's view, to address the subject of historical drama, and he had, indeed, praised Swinburne's dramatic work

(dedicatory epistle xii).

But if Swinburne's trilogy may be more profitably approached from the genre of historical drama, neither is this the simplest of matters. Pavis argues that all drama has a historical dimension: "Any dramatic work, whether or not it is labeled a historical play, takes place within a temporality and represents a historical moment in social evolution. In this sense, theatre's relationship with history is a constant element of any dramaturgy" (171). In his 1975 study,

Historical Drama: The Relation of Literature and Reality, Herbert Lindenberger is wary of attempting generic classification, preferring to note the historical appearance of specific English and continental manifestations of the drama:

By a strict definition one cannot categorize historical drama as a genre at all, though one can speak of specific forms of historical plays which prevailed at certain moments in history—for instance the medieval mystery cycles, the English chronicle plays of the 88

1590s, German historical tragedies during the age of Goethe, or documentary dramas of the 1960s, (ix)

More recently, Benjamin Griffin is less reluctant about generic classification in his quest to identify the unique experience of the history play; his Playing the

Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama 1385-1600 argues the merits of a generic approach, and seeks "continuities" between forms of historical drama, looking to "the audience's experience" as the basis for making a distinction between genres. Griffin's useful "Prolegomena to the Study of the History Play"

(1-21) surveys the problematic history of earlier approaches, from Irving Ribner's

The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare, with its emphasis on

"providentialism and didacticism" as "defining characteristics of the genre," and

E.M.W. Tillyard's Shakespeare's History Plays, with its insistence that "plays revealing doctrinal awareness are exceptional, not typical," to the more recent work of Graham Holderness's Shakespeare Recycled: The Making of Historical

Drama, which eschews the need "for exploring the definition of the genre at all" by confining its focus to the Folio of Shakespeare, and G.K. Hunter's "Truth and

Art in History Plays," which "aims to rehabilitate the claim to 'truth,' or what we would today regard as 'historicity,' as an essential feature of history plays."59

In pursuing the notion of genre, Griffin situates his approach "far from accounts of didactic, moralistic uses of history and the history play . .. providential theories of history . . . analysis of topical references . . . [and] the view that historical drama is one of the organs through which nation is called into 89 being" (x). But while he outlines the critical morass well, the rubric Griffin settles on to facilitate his own discussion of the field—"'drama on specific times in the nation's past'"—does not move the argument forward, since he acknowledges that the features of "'Englishness' and 'pastness'... by themselves, are still insufficient to constitute a genre" (21). On the other hand, his discussion of various aspects of the historical drama will be useful later in this chapter.

If a generic definition of the history play is a challenge, equally uncertain are the border parameters. Tradition locates the beginning of the genre in John

Bale's King Johan (1534), and places Shakespeare at the peak, yet scholars also highlight historical drama's incorporation of such medieval dramatic forms as romance, the saint or miracle play, and the festive tradition. So Griffin, for instance, questions Shakespeare's position as "'inventor'" and "writer of the paradigmatic history play" (125-26) and prefers to focus on "a lineage of English historical drama" existing prior to Shakespeare, emerging out of the "alteration and suppression" of these older forms (57; 22). The saint play tradition, for example, was allied to romance, and features "huge spans of time, far-flung wanderings, marvels, and recognitions"; of extant saint plays originating in the

British isles, "none confines its action to a single place; each revels in multi- partition, bifurcation, and digression" (33).

Dermot Cavanagh identifies the view of the history play "'proper'"—that is, as "a Shakespearean, or, at least, an Elizabethan genre"—as resting on a 90 critical approach comfortable with maintaining distinctions between theatrical forms and contexts: "It is not simply that Shakespeare's plays differ radically in quality and kind from previous historical drama, but rather that any substantive concept of the genre originates with his work" (1). Because this form of theatre is seen to speak to "the audience's own national experience as it is located in an intelligible past," Cavanagh, like Griffin, is compelled to justify the inclusion in his study of Language and Politics in the Sixteenth-Century History Play those earlier plays which "might be seen as, at best, tangentially historical, or, at worst, not historical at all." These plays include Bale's "polemical morality play" King

Johan, Norton and Sackville's Gorboduc (1561), "tragic in mode and set in a remote and pagan 'Britain,'" and Robert Greene's The Scottish History of James the Fourth (1598), subject to the accusation of "not being set anywhere historically intelligible at all" (1). His inclusion of these non-canonical works rests on what Cavanagh identifies as a "shared interest" in the "representation of socially disruptive speech"; it is in terms of the role of language in political conflict that historical drama "adopts some important and shared formal characteristics" (2).

Like some of the scholars discussed above, Cavanagh is wary of the problematics of defining the history play "as a consistent 'kind' of drama," and forgoes claims of "an immutable, defining essence" shared by such works. In supporting the idea of the history play as a sixteenth-century genre, he proposes 91 a new starting point: "Primarily, it needs to be understood as ideologically various, theatrically diverse, and as committed to political enquiry as much as to sermonizing" (3). Included for consideration, initially, is "any play that attempts both to reconstitute a past world and to retrieve its political implications for the present." From here Cavanagh expands the framework:

Such plays can also be distinguished by their interest in 'the life of the state'—that is, the key personal and/or institutional embodiments of authority—and how this undergoes a crisis. As Alexander Leggatt puts it [in Shakespeare's Political Drama: The History Plays and the Roman Plays], this drama is concerned with 'ordering and enforcing, the gaining and losing, of public power in the state'. This process can result in either a fortuitous or a catastrophic outcome ... but both kinds of plot expose authority and the challenges it faces to intense forms of scrutiny.

The centrality of political language as a feature further solidifies this framework:

Moreover, a vital aspect of this concern with 'ordering and enforcing' and with historical conflict involves language. Throughout sixteenth-century historical theatre, threats to social and political stability are presented as partly (sometimes even primarily) linguistic in nature. The specters of seditious, treacherous or otherwise unregenerate speech haunt the divergent worlds of these plays and such forms of expression also become the subjects of some of their most daring political speculations. (3)

By highlighting these two thematic foci—the (direct) challenge to public power and the (insidious) challenge to linguistic decorum—Cavanagh's approach provides us with more specific tools for informing the analysis of plays we bring into the arena of historical drama. We shall return to these important thematic foci in chapter 7. Other features germane to historical drama that will be important both in our consideration of Swinburne's method and in the analysis of 92 his text are set out below; they include the formal structure of historical plays, modes of apprehending the past, and the subject position of the dramatist / historian in relation to his literary / historical material.

3.3.1 Formal Structure

In terms of formal structure, Lindenberger's notion of "specific forms of historical plays which prevailed at certain moments in history" raises the question whether any continuities in form can be established between these successive manifestations of historical drama; the answer appears to lie in the paradoxical concept of "formlessness" as constitutive of form in historical drama.

We may question the usefulness and even the propriety of applying formlessness as a critical concept to dramatic works that may be seen to have a surfeit of form, but it is an approach that holds weight with a number of scholars, as summarized by Cavanagh (3-4). Matthew H. Wikander's study of historical drama from Shakespeare to Brecht, The Play of Truth and State, characterizes the genre as "a form that seemed to imitate the past most perfectly in its formlessness" (2). While for Ribner the disadvantage of formlessness was the basis on which he disqualified some history plays from the genre altogether,

Griffin sees it as a "defining feature" and "a result of the drama's engagement with a span of known historical time."60 Griffin's chapter-length exploration of formlessness also addresses modes of apprehending the past, and so we return to him here for a more extended discussion of his ideas. 93

Griffin builds on an argument by David Scott Kastan that draws attention to the significance of beginnings and endings in drama, focusing on the "open- endedness" of the history play, which recognizes "the impossibility of isolating the action from its place on the temporal continuum," thereby forcing the audience's attention "outside the formal boundaries of the play" (Kastan 8-9; 48,

50). As Griffin represents the argument, "the history play is distinguished by its special relation to a text outside the text—the audience's knowledge of the times stretching before and after the portion of history dramatized" (66). He then contends that the charge of formlessness arises from this same trait, which

"tends to counteract any marked sense of beginning or of ending." In Griffin's view, this formlessness is itself a dramatic form, "opposed, not to form itself, but to the shapely forms of comedy and tragedy." Illustrative of this point is the prologue from a play called Historia Baetica (1492-3) by Carolus Verardus

(1440-1500) wherein the principle of formlessness is made explicit, as Griffin translates: "Let none require that here the laws either of comedy, or of tragedy, be observed; for the piece to be acted is history, not fable" (69). Verardus was dramatizing the reconquest in 1492 of the Islamic state of Granada by Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella; thus it was a playwright, not a commentator,

Griffin observes, "who first openly reflected that, if a history did not fit the tragic or comic outline, the thing to do was not to alter the matter, but to let it dictate its own dramatic form" (69). 94

Rooted in the Poetics of Aristotle, formlessness is an idea "or charge" that later forms of the history play developed into an "aesthetic of history" constitutive of a genre: "This aesthetic is based upon the fact of the plot's immersion in a historical continuum; this means that an aesthetic sense of either beginning or ending is frustrated. There is no other kind of drama the experience of which is so strongly affected by a text outside the text" (Griffin 73). Unlike tragedy, where the material of the play and the play itself both end with the death of the protagonist, the subject of a history "goes on." While "an individual history play has a formal beginning and ending, its subject does not and cannot have a beginning or ending, excepting the beginning of the world and its end." And while in any narrative "the postulate of what has gone before is always present," the "distinctive aesthetic" of the history play is its emphasis on gestures "which certify this immersion in the continuum" by directing attention "outside the formal bounds of the play: back toward the time before, and forward to the time after, the play's conclusion."61

Thus, keeping in mind that one may be discussing variable print versions and/or stage representations of a drama, we can explore a number of paratextual and intratextual gestures, such as the "Argument" in which the plot is set out, the "dumb-show" preceding individual acts seen by an audience or explained in the text with "explicit moralizations," genealogical tropes, and dramatic "scene-setting" dialogue through which characters become established 95 in their historical situation (Griffin 79-80; 91). The figure of a monarch in a history play may be political and/or moral; more importantly, "he is a figure of continuity, attesting to extension in time. It is his line which stretches back to the past not represented in the play; it is his line which he strives to extend into the future"

(86). The monarch figure may also function as the pivot around which the internal drama is shaped (96).

Griffin sees the tendency of historical drama towards multi-partedness, or

"articulation," as a significant generic feature which creates the potential for different ending-points in a multi-part play. As I understand him, the end of an individual part (or perhaps a number of parts combined) might constitute a "'local ending'" that is held in the mind alongside a "'far ending'" constituted by the whole of the parts: "And 'the end' is reached not once and for all, but repeatedly and contingently" (99-100). To take this feature seriously "is to see that its articulated presentation aspires to embody the strange combination of form and formlessness which is the condition of existing in time" (99).

3.3.2 Modes of Apprehending the Past

In terms of how historical drama embodies different modes of apprehending the past, Griffin utilizes Alastair Fowler's distinction (Kinds of

Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genre and Modes 252) between generic systems that, as Griffin characterizes it, are "exclusivist" and those which are not; in the latter, "polar elements may, to some specified degree, 96 coexist" (Griffin 102-03). Two examples cited by Griffin are Marlowe's Edward II

(1592), which suggests "that the tragic gesture is not incompatible with the historical movement of human time," and Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 and

Part 3, where the "biographical concern oscillates between tragic and historical modes" (103). Lindenberger characterizes the interaction between these modes in terms of the containment of the tragic within the broader framework of the historical:

Although the historical world has its tragic situations, indeed even its tragic heroes, these are never absolute but are 'contained' within what we come to recognize as a larger framework. Thus, the tragic resolutions of the lives of kings such as Richard II and Richard III are sharply qualified by the historical continuities which their victorious opponents guarantee. (99-100)

In this way, "tragic, biographical finality" interacts with "historical continuity"

(Griffin 101).

In the same way, we can discuss the interaction of the historical mode with the romance mode, the former's essential "historical specificity" in apparent opposition to that of the latter, but not to the point of exclusivity (Griffin 107-08).

Features of romance such as (a) time based on seasonal cycles merging into timelessness, and (b) the private realm with its archetypal relationships and symbolic rituals, may coincide and "blend" with historical drama's chronological, linear, and contingent time, and the public realm; on the other hand, the gap between these modes may widen (111). Such a shift is evident in

Shakespeare's apocryphal Edward III, where the political threat of impending 97 war is transformed by intervening events into a "romance threat"—"attention is focused on a damsel in distress"—and dramatic conflict between the public and private selves of Edward is developed through "the figures of 'inside and outside'" the walls of Roxborough castle, "a second world"—timeless and enchanted—where Edward finds that "his worldly duties and social bonds are annulled." These scenes with the Countess, who invites him inside the castle,

"form a micro-drama of their own, walled off from the rest of the play" (111-12).

The pastoral world also functions to present an "ahistorical alternative to the historical world," as in Schiller's Wallenstein trilogy, where "an idyllic world of love and peace" inhabited by the characters Max and Thekla in their scenes together "serves as a counter to the real world whose pressures force them apart" (Wikander 152). In dramatizing an historical period characterized by

"intrigue and duplicity," Schiller "also dramatizes an attractive alternative that is abstract, philosophical, and wholly fictitious" (153). All these literary modes

(tragedy, romance, the pastoral) interact with an historical past that is varied itself in its emphasis of divine, secular, or scientific approaches to authority.

3.3.3 The Subject Position of the Dramatist / Historian in Relation to his

Material

Wikander's thesis that English historical drama after Shakespeare had devolved by the nineteenth century into a "full-fledged drama of the pathos of power" (88) is useful to our discussion of the subject position of the dramatist/ 98 historian, since he traces the process of devolution by charting the interaction between providential, humanist, and scientific approaches to the past, and corresponding conceptions of the monarchy as either private or political. As the discipline of history evolved with an increasing reliance on facts, "the ancient tradition of the poet's vatic mission as custodian of the past" was challenged, leading playwrights to assert their authority "over a whole range of higher truths"

(Wikander 2). Shakespeare (and later Brecht) managed to resolve the

"incompatible" roles of dramatist and historian into one by recognizing the tension between providential and humanist ways of seeing the past, and constantly arousing "both kinds of seeing" in his audience:

Emblematic morals are offered and confuted; charged language transforms mundane negotiations into allegorized psychomachias. Shakespeare's dramatic history writing reveals a profound mistrust of traditional homiletic clarifications of past events—a mistrust Shakespeare shared with the humanist historians—linked with an equally profound mistrust of the humanist ideal. ... (3)

As less a "collector of facts" and more "an artist who organized the facts into a coherent and attractive form" (Wilcox 105), the humanist historian participated in an activity "easily as fictive as the old invocations of divine providence"

(Wikander 3). Shakespeare, through "repeated images of chaos" and "the fluidity of the shifting moral patterns his action seems to take," can be seen to both

"tempt and frustrate" his audience with the alternative proposition that "events in the past might make no sense at all" (3). The "self-conscious theatricality" of mirror-scenes, verbal anticipations, and echoes in Shakespeare's plays as well 99 as those by his contemporaries all contribute to an arising sense of the

"essentially Active quality of historical endeavor itself (29). And the audience itself is compelled to participate in the construction of meaning: "Forced actively to make sense out of what they see, the audience become historians" (3). In

Henry V, for example, the Chorus makes demands on the audience:

Suppose that you have seen The well-appointed king at Hampton pier Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning Play with your fancies: and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails, Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea. (3. Prol. 3-12)

In this passage, the audience (or reader) is invited to use its "fancies" to create a detailed representation of this "noble" embarkation scene at Hampton pier. In other words, the Chorus challenges the audience to engage in "speculations on historical understanding" as the "burden of interpretation" is "explicitly thrown into the spectator's lap" (Wikander 33-34).

If in Shakespeare's history plays, "tension is drawn between the events themselves and the ways in which they are interpreted," the decline in historical drama after Shakespeare allowed for potentially different treatments of monarchy and the past to be brought out (Wikander 34; 51). First, Ben Jonson and George Chapman as playwrights "with a firm faith in the moral usefulness of 100 history" attempted to establish historical drama as a vehicle of truth and a source of lessons for the present built on illustrations from the past (51; 4).

Jonson ascribed to history the communication of a higher truth such as Sidney, for example, reserved for poetry (Wikander 56). Humanist historical drama would emphasize the importance of enlightened rule: "The best king is the historian, like Chapman's Henry, or the unmasker, like Jonson's Edward III."62

Philip Massinger and John Ford, however, rejected the humanist discipline of Jonson and Chapman to emphasize instead "the unverifiability of fact" and the mysteriousness of identity; kingship became a "personal matter," and the royal identity "personal and private," seen in a royal demeanour, rather than the political dimensions of the role (Wikander 51; 68; 64). The two playwrights "reveal a mistrust of historical understanding and a denial of ultimate significance to politics that goes far beyond Shakespeare's" (51). Hence, in adjusting the relationships in historical drama between the ability of dramatic characters to carry motivation into action (dramatic agency) and the verifiability of those actions in the historical record (historical fact), these later contemporaries of Shakespeare were, in fact, diversifying the relations between the monarch as a dramatic character and the historical past, a point to which we shall be returning.

Ford's return to Shakespeare's skepticism about truth and historical fact is accompanied by "countertruths that assert the power of theatrical illusion" 101

(Wikander 4). Ford's "contempt for mere fact" is shared by the heroic drama that came out of the Restoration; the post-Restoration "mistrust" of history in heroic drama's glorification of "the mystique of royalty" and its exploration of "a kind of nobility outside politics, wholly personal, wholly ethical, utterly secret" are the results of this shift in perspective (88; 4). In the 1680s, the "durable formula" of the "private sufferings of monarchs in love" emerged in the plays of John Banks

(c. 1650-1706), who separated the figure of the monarch from the villainy of historical fact, portraying monarchs as "victims of villainous conspiracies."63

The Restoration is Wikander's fault-line64; from this point he traces "a widespread rejection of visions of monarchy as triumphant and history as heroic in favor of portrayals of monarchs as victims and history as an occasion for tears," the end result of which is, in the nineteenth century, that pathetic tragedy in which "pity" replaced "contempt" for "the heroic and romantic desires of kings and queens" (87-88). In the dramas of Banks and also Nicholas Rowe (1674-

1718), the "process of questioning begun by Shakespeare" came to an end

(124). Rowe "systematized" a long-enduring formula:

By accommodating providential rhetoric to the pastoral nostalgia of pathetic tragedy, Rowe was able to suggest a wider Christian context to history. At the same time, by concentrating on the powerlessness of his characters in the grip of passion and political intrigue, he created a form in which the sexual politics of triangular love intrigue governed politics at a national level. Later historical plays would offer voyeuristic glimpses of courtiers and monarchs in love; famous crises of the past were shown to have secret sources in the unacknowledged passions of the court. (Wikander 89) 102

Insisting on "the complete gulf between political activity and nature," the pastoral rhetoric of Banks and Rowe both divorced "the virtuous, passive, loving monarchs" from their historical context, and denied (as did Machiavelli and the humanist historians) any religious or ultimate significance to political actions

(Wikander 124).

Wikander cautions that "this contempt for the political world is not incompatible with the expression of partisan political views" on a more local level; nevertheless, in the eighteenth century, "historical drama's disengagement from public life became complete," and the main action was "amorous intrigue"

(124; 131). Reflecting an "antiheroic and antimonarchical tendency" in both literary and historical writers of the period, historical drama's "tendency towards domesticity and pathos" gathered steam, as characters (whether monarchs or commoners) sought to escape from an "inexorable" political process that was

"antipathetic to and exploitative of human passion" into "insular domestic and pastoral retreats" (129-30). The "futility of human agency" was a sense shared by both historians and dramatists in the eighteenth century: "The Crown's efforts to increase its power in the face of liberty's irresistible (if occasionally interrupted) growth cast the individual monarch in the role of tragic victim or dupe" (130).

Wikander contends that English historical drama from the eighteenth century onwards is unified by "the pathos of power," whose workings can be expressed in the following neat summation: "Dramatists like Rowe explore the passions, their particular province; historians engage in dispassionate research. . . . The historian may help to paint the scene in Victorian historical drama; the dramatist, equally a specialist, develops ahistorical intrigues of love"

(135; 239). Hence, nineteenth-century historical drama displays the same features delineated above: "Nostalgia about the past; pity for the passionate ruler; [and] assertions of pastoral and domestic longings" (89). On the one hand, the names of Francis Bacon, William Clarendon, David Hume, Edward Gibbon,

William Robertson, Henry Hallam, and T.B. Macaulay in England, indicate that

"the great age of history writing lay between Shakespeare and Brecht," one in which "the ideal of historical detachment from the squabbles of one's own time" arose to rehabilitate "partisan history writing" (134). On the other hand, the historical drama that developed "side by side" with this age of history writing was one of "appalling bathos" (5). Playwrights like Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Alfred

Tennyson paid "lip-service to authenticity and historicity," and assumed the

"pose" of historical detachment," but "devoted their attentions to love intrigue rather than to the rich historical contexts available to them in the age of

Macaulay"; consequently, lip service to historical detachment "founders in pathos" (89; 132-33). Tennyson's Queen Mary (1875) and the earlier TwixtAxe and Crown by Tom Taylor both sought, as was the vogue, to rehabilitate the character of their subject, Elizabeth Tudor's half-sister Mary (known as Bloody 104

Mary); their approach was "ostensibly as historians—setting the record straight," but their aesthetic remained "affective and pathetic," their historiography

"passivist." The historical Mary was dramatized "as victim, of her evil counselors or of her unhappy childhood"; instead of restoring her reputation, they "simply heightened her pathos" (133).

With no mention of Swinburne, Wikander argues the persistence of the attitude that "history's agents are its victim" in English historical drama as late as

Robert Bolt's Vivat! Vivat, Regina! (1971), in which Elizabeth and her cousin,

Mary Queen of Scots, are the victims of "the unnaturalness of Power," which demands "the impermissible sacrifice of self (as set out in the prologue);

Wikander glosses Bolt's drama thus—"the first, obsessed with statecraft and living to a horrible old age in a state of emotional starvation; the second, wildly impulsive, living out a short, passionate life in utter irresponsibility. The dichotomy is familiar." The tradition is one that finds in the past "an image of stability outside of politics," but for Wikander, it means essentially the English dramatists' "abdication of the national past" (133-35).

Hence, the English dramatists can be read in opposition to such continental dramatists as Schiller, Strindberg, Musset, Buchner, and Brecht who are Shakespeare's legitimate heirs, providing in their experimental drama "a highly complicated theatrical experience" (Wikander 150):

Schiller's trilogy [Wallenstein] and Strindberg's history plays are linked by their extensive questioning of human agency: 105

questioning that leads, in both cases, to rejection of the claims of historical discipline in favour of assessments of action that are ultimately religious in nature, tending towards mysticism. The tension between the truth of history and the truth of poetry is explicit throughout Wallenstein. . . . Idealism and realism—to use Schiller's own highly charged terms—struggle for dominance right up to the end of the vast trilogy. Schiller achieves in Wallenstein a balance between modes of understanding the past that is reminiscent of Shakespeare ... on the level of a shared mistrust of both political and providential readings of history. But Schiller sustains this balance only in Wallenstein: in Maria Stuart his interest narrows to concentrate on the issue of the queen's private repentance and redemption. (140)

The "finest" history plays of Schiller and Strindberg are those that "subject to

rigorous questioning the very act of making assertions about the ways we can hope to understand the past" (196), and Shakespeare is the standardbearer of the genre:

The critical scrutiny to which Shakespeare subjects the kind of history writing prevalent in his day makes clear how much all historical drama, whether playwrights want it to or not, must challenge our preconceptions about the very act of understanding the past. The best history plays immediately engage audiences in the challenge.... The worst submit feebly, redefining the proper sphere of drama as ahistorical, private, outside time. (8-9)

The drama of Schiller, Musset, and Buchner stands "in bold relief to post-

Shakespearean historical drama in England: "Grappling with the past, they actively engaged the main issues of early modern historiography—times and men, necessity and freedom, Dichtung und Warheit ('poetry and truth'), truth and state" (9). 106

Naturally, we may wonder whether or where to situate Swinburne's work within Wikander's schemata. Wikander's comments on the fate of English historical drama after Shakespeare are hardly conducive to the idea of a drama that shares in the features Cavanagh ascribes to sixteenth-century historical drama—that is, ideological variety, theatrical diversity, commitment to political enquiry, and concern with the representation of socially disruptive speech. Yet we would not expect the rebel Swinburne to conform to the conservative tradition that arose after the Restoration. With historical drama from the

Restoration through the nineteenth century dispensed with in a chapter subtitled

"The Restoration and After," it is not surprising, perhaps, to find no mention of specific works of Romantic theatre, or of Victorian poets/dramatists like

Browning and Swinburne. Wikander's focus on Tennyson and Bulwer-Lytton enables him to see nineteenth-century English drama as little more than a variation in degree from the didacticism and spectacle of Rowe. Of Tennyson's

Queen Mary, Swinburne himself was dismissive65; nor does Wikander mention

Swinburne's highly esteemed contemporary, Sir Henry Taylor, who signaled for

Swinburne the advent of a new period in historical drama after what he, too, saw, as a "fallow" post-Shakesperian period (Cl/l/15: 463). As I shall demonstrate in the next chapter, Swinburne's writings show him to be intensely engaged with the genre of historical drama, both in theory and practice, and to 107

be actively commenting on the range of recent and contemporary activity in the field both within Britain and on the continent. 108

Chapter 4

Swinburne and Historical Drama in the Nineteenth Century

In locating his trilogy in the context of terms like "chronicle history" and

"historic drama," Swinburne situates his work in Victorian understandings of a field most famously known through Shakespeare's history plays as well as through the works of early Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. Over the twenty-year period of the composition of the Mary Stuart trilogy, Swinburne can be seen theorizing historical drama in his letters and critical writings while developing his craft through his approach to the different challenges presented by his historical subject. His models and influences ranged from Greek tragedy

(as we have seen with the Oresteia) and Elizabethan drama to Romantic and

Victorian theatre in England and on the continent.

In this chapter and the next, I shall explore Swinburne's conception of historical drama in terms of the sources that influenced it or gave occasion for expression of his ideas. I shall begin with his comments on historical drama from the 1872 review of his Oxford friend John Nichol's Hannibal: a Historical Drama

(1873), a work he welcomed as the "latest accession to the English school of historic drama" (CIV 15: 466). Swinburne's review contains the most complete expression in one place of his understanding of the genre. From here I move to 109

examine some of the more significant sources for Swinburne's theory and

practice of historical drama, beginning with the Elizabethan dramatists

(Shakespeare, Ford, and others), and moving to Romantic theatre, with special

attention to Shelley's The Cenci (1819), and from there to his Victorian peers,

including Henry Taylor (Philip van Artevelde, 1834), Robert Browning, and Victor

Hugo (preface to Cromwell, 1827). Because of the particular importance of

Hugo, whom Swinburne admired on so many levels and to whom he dedicated each part of the trilogy in turn, his role in Swinburne's art will be treated in a

separate chapter.

The timing of Swinburne's review in the Fortnightly Review (Dec. 1872) of

Nichol's Hannibal is significant, given that he was deeply entrenched in the writing of what he himself called the "interminable" Bothwell, which would be published in 1874 (Letters 2: 253). In the review, Swinburne sets out dramatic poetry as being of the highest order: "For the higher school of intellectual poetry must always of its nature be dramatic and heroic. . . . The two chief masters of song are the dramatist and the lyrist; and in the higher lyric as well as in the higher drama the note sounded must have in it something of epic or heroic breadth" (CW15: 463-64). On one level, it is clear that Swinburne is referencing the size and complexity of the task, which makes historical drama "one of the hardest among the highest achievements of poetry":

The mere scope or range of its aim is so vast, so various, so crossed and perplexed by diverse necessities and suggestions 110

starting from different points of view, that the simple intellectual difficulty is enough to appal and repel any but the most laborious servants of the higher Muse; and to this is added the one supreme necessity of all—to vivify the whole mass of mere intellectual work with imaginative fire; to kindle and supple and invigorate with poetic blood and breath the inert limbs, the stark lips and empty veins of the naked subject: a task in which the sculptor who fails of himself to give his statue life will find no favouring god to help him by inspiration or infusion from without of an alien and miraculous vitality. In this case Pygmalion must look to himself for succour, and put his trust in no hand but his own.66

Swinburne makes a clear distinction between the intellectual task and its

creative execution. In the case of the task itself, the "mere" scope and range of

the aim is itself formidable: the diminutive "mere" butts up against an

accumulation of adjectival, verb, and noun phrases descriptive of the task's

complexity—"so vast," "so various," "so crossed and perplexed," "diverse

necessities and suggestions," "different points of view"—heightened by the

repeated intensifier "so" and the compound verbs and nouns. Yet this is the

"mere intellectual work"; it is a lifeless "mass," a "naked subject," whose limbs,

lips, and veins are "inert," "stark," and "empty" unless and until the poet /

sculptor can "vivify," "kindle," "supple," and "invigorate" them with the life

source—"poetic blood and breath." The contrasting imagery raises the metaphor

of animation from typical to striking.

Lest we assume that Swinburne is privileging the creative act over the

intellectual design, we should note that elsewhere in the review he reverses this emphasis: 111

For in this mixed kind of art something more and other than poetic fancy or even than high imagination is requisite for success; the prime necessity is that shaping force of intellect which can grasp and mould its subject without strain and without relaxation. This power of composition is here always notable. Simple as is the structure of a 'chronicle history,' it calls for no less exercise of this rare and noble gift than is needed for the manipulation of an elaborate plot or fiction. (464)

The reference in the earlier passage to the sculptor can be seen to express the melding of form and content, design and execution, the intellectual task of composition and the creative act. The literal allusion, as Swinburne goes on to indicate, is to the Greek and Roman myth of Pygmalion, whose sculpture of his ideal woman was brought to life through the offices of no less than

Venus/Aphrodite (Ovid's Metamorphoses 10: 243—97); the story is a perennial favourite, and was painted by Swinburne's Pre-Raphaelite friends G.F. Watts and Edward Burne-Jones.67

But we can also see echoes of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (1857) and Swinburne's own Poems and Ballads, First Series (1866). Indeed, the tone of the imagery, and such language as "appal and repel" is reminiscent of Victor

Frankenstein's transgressions against nature as he recounts the awesome moment when his creature is brought to life:

I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. ... I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. ... I had worked hard, for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. (Mary Shelley 38-39) 112

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was published in 1818 (revised by the author in

1831). As he wrote his review of Hannibal, Swinburne was in the midst of his own twenty-year struggle to bring to life the historical drama of Mary Stuart with all its limbs and organs intact, "without deforming or defacing the poem"

(Letters 2: 153). Swinburne's language invokes the image of the Romantic over- achiever so well set out by Praz in The Romantic Agony—Shelley's Victor

Frankenstein, Byron's Manfred, P.B. Shelley's Beatrice Cenci, and Hugo's

Cromwell—divinely inspired and aspiring heroes, if not megalomaniacs.

Gosse has argued that the character of Mary Stuart presented "some of the most puzzling and elusive problems which can attend the attempt to resuscitate any historical figure" (125). Was Swinburne a Pygmalion or a

Frankenstein? Gosse seems unsure—he saw Bothwell as "the finest dramatic romance produced in England throughout the nineteenth century," yet in calling it a "leviathan" that "floats supreme" (218), he adopts a metaphor that incorporates nuanced, if not ambiguous implications about size, power, and monstrosity.68 For others, though, as we have seen, the answer is clear;

Swinburne is the perpetrator of "that monstrous drama which drags its slow length along for six hundred closely printed pages" (Reynolds 114-15).

In the Hannibal review, Swinburne increasingly turns toward Victor Hugo to develop his ideas on the generic features of historical drama, in particular the treatment of character (to be discussed in chapter 5). Clearly, though, 113

Swinburne was conscious of working within an esteemed dramatic tradition, one

which challenged both an artist's skills and his faith in his ability to apply them.

Next, we shall enlarge our understanding of the background of drama against

which he worked, beginning with his erudite familiarity with the Elizabethan

dramatists.

4.1 Swinburne and the Elizabethan Dramatists

Swinburne's theory of historical drama grew out of his lifelong reading

and study of drama, which provided him with a wide variety of models to draw

on in formulating approaches to form, character, and technique.69 His reading in the Elizabethan drama was "immense" (Lafourcade 36); he began reading

Shakespeare at age six, and "was still a boy when he discovered the power of

Shakespeare's fellow dramatists, even before fuller realization of it came from

Charles Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with

Shakespeare" (Hyder, Swinburne as Critic 4). While at Eton in 1853, he bought current reprints of the complete works of Marlowe, Massinger, Ford, Marston and others, and read enthusiastically in "modern imitators of Elizabethan drama

. . . [such as] Shelley's Cenci. .. [and] the works of Talfourd and R.H. Home"

(Lafourcade 37). Gosse's introductory comments to his 1919 edition of

Swinburne's Contemporaries of Shakespeare describe the poet's unswerving enthusiasm for and textual familiarity with the full range of Elizabethan writings: 114

During a period of sixty years, from his boyhood at Eton to his last weeks at Putney, Swinburne brooded over the history of the Elizabethan poets, chanted their music, compared them with one another and celebrated their beauties in a voice that shook with adoration. No one ever lived, not Charles Lamb himself, who approached our great poet-critic in worship of the Elizabethans and in textual familiarity with their writings. He had read and re­ read them all, even the obscurest, not one 'divine watchfire of some darkling hour' but he had measured what faint light and heat it had to give?0

Swinburne wrote "nearly three dozen" essays on Tudor and Stuart dramatists (Letters 1: xxix); important publications include Essays and Studies

(1875), A Study of Shakespeare (1880), and The Age of Shakespeare (1908).

These essays, references in his other critical essays, and his correspondence through the years all support Gosse's claim. In them we find references to key works and authors in the development of historical drama such as Bale's King

Johan (1534), Sackville and Norton's Gorboduc (1561), Preston's Cambises

(1569), and Marlowe's Edward II (1593). Swinburne's review of Hannibal, for example, assigned Nichol's drama to the "school" of Marlowe and Shakespeare, founded by Marlowe, "the great father of English tragedy," in his Edward II (CW

15: 463). In 1885 we see Swinburne writing to Jarvis & Son, requesting, amongst other items from their catalogue, Bale's King Johan (Letters 5: 123).

His Study of Shakespeare discusses, but dismisses, the drama that existed before and vanished at the coming of Marlowe: "the Kings Darius and

Cambyses, the Promos and Cassandra of Whetstone, or the Sir Clyomon and 115

Sir Clamydes of George Peele . . ., the jingling canter of Cambyses or the tuneless tramp of Gorboduc" (CH/11: 21).

The publications of his contemporaries were irresistible opportunities for

Swinburne to display his expertise and further the cause of the early drama. A few months prior to publication of J.A. Symonds's Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama (1884),71 Swinburne wrote to thank him for an advance copy, and offered these helpful comments:

While I think of it, let me mention one small point betimes against the advent of the second edition. The Duchess of Suffolk,' mentioned by you (p. 394) as existing only in name, is so decidedly extant that I possess a copy of it (published in 1631). It is not a bad play of its kind—no worse, I should say, than Lord Tennyson's 'Queen Mary,' which rather resembles it in the biographical method of its construction. . .. There are one or two scenes and passages of such simple and homely pathos as to explain its sometime attribution to Heywood—the real author being one Thos. Drue. (Letters 5: 47-48)

His account to Symonds of a recent visit to the Bodleian Library in Oxford occasions a further display of his wide reading in the dramatic field:

[I] read for the first time a most curious play dated 1594, which I do not find mentioned in your book as far as I have yet read—The Wars of Cyrus.' It is by no means a mere worthless curiosity, though its merit is of the simplest and most primitive order: the blank verse rather pedestrian, but better than Gorboduc, and of course incomparably better than that damnable dunghill rubbish Locrine. I incline to believe it the work (need I say?) of the new Shakespere. {Letters 5: 47-48)

Similar editorial assistance had been offered to J.C. Collins in 1882 when

Swinburne wrote to him that he had "just been making some few annotations 116

and corrections in your admirable edition of Tourneur, which are at your service when (or if) the idiot public has the sense to require a reissue of the book"

(Letters 4: 320). About this lesser-known Jacobean playwright, he added: "I do think the neglect of that superb genius, when so adequately presented and

introduced to the notice of readers, is the grossest instance of general stupidity and torpor in literary taste and English scholarship that ever I witnessed." His own attempt to redress this error came in an essay on Tourneur that appeared in his Age of Shakespeare collection.

Swinburne was surely proud of his expertise in the early drama, but more importantly, he was concerned and enthusiastic about the literature. Hyder comments on Swinburne's efforts to make available accurate versions of these texts:

Swinburne repeatedly deplored indifference to the accuracy of texts of Elizabethan dramatists in an age that did insist on accurate texts of the ancient classics; he also used his personal influence to make better texts accessible. He encouraged the labours of older scholars like Alexander Dyce and younger ones like A.H. Bullen, who dedicated his edition of Middleton to Swinburne and who made accessible the texts of several unpublished plays. (Swinburne as Critic 18-19)

It is not surprising, then, to read in Swinburne's correspondence that he felt that every English play to 1640 was worth reprinting on "extrinsic" if not "intrinsic" grounds.

As Lang suggests in his introduction to the poet's letters, Swinburne

"leaves the impression that he had read all of English and French literature and 117 most of Greek, Latin, and Italian" (Letters 1: xviii). In asserting the "depth and range and sureness" of Swinburne's learning, Lang extends T.S. Eliot's claim about Swinburne's essays on the Tudor and Stuart dramatists, that "'in the whole range of literature covered, Swinburne makes hardly more than two judgments which can be reversed or even questioned,'" to the whole body of his criticism:

Swinburne lent all his prestige, all the power of his prose, all his antiquarian learning, to the Elizabethan revival, in which he was a pioneer. And his was the clearest, surest voice in England directing English attention to French literature: Villon, Hugo, Dumas, Gautier, Baudelaire, Musset, Banville, Vacquerie, Mallarme. {Letters 1: xviii)

Similarly, Hyder points out that Swinburne's "appraisal of Shakespeare's great characters and scenes is discerning," and suggests that "Swinburne's familiarity with belles-lettres was probably more extensive than that of any other

English poet-critic":

His reading of English and French literature was unrivalled among English authors of his day, and his knowledge of the ancient classics and the greater Italians was remarkable. His taste knew no chronological boundaries or taint of provincialism, whether of time or place. .. . Who among English critics has done so much to awaken interest in so many different authors? (Swinburne as Critic 15-16)

Swinburne was not only familiar with the general history of the

Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, as well as with classical and Romantic cultures and with English, French, and German traditions; he knew much of it in arcane detail and applied it to his Victorian contemporaries. But above all, his 118 immersion in a European literary and historical heritage made him well-equipped to take on the topic of an Elizabethan culture that the Elizabethans had not represented, the life and death of Mary, Queen of Scots and her role in the context of European history and literature that Swinburne places in symbolic relation with his own age.

In what specific ways, then, did Swinburne apply his wide reading and studies in Shakespeare and the early dramatists to his own dramatic work? The many references to Shakespeare in his correspondence on the trilogy show how important Shakespeare was as a model and guide to Swinburne. In the case of

Bothwell, the evidence is quite explicit, as on completing the play's first act, he wrote to Frederick Locker:

It is the drier political details that bother me. ... I study Shakespeare constantly, Antony and Cleopatra especially, to try if I can learn and catch the trick of condensing all this and cramming a great mass of public events into the compass of a few scenes or speeches without deforming or defacing the poem.72

Gaynell Callaway Spivey's "Swinburne's Use of Elizabethan Drama" sought to discover specifically "just what use Swinburne made of his intimate knowledge of the old plays when he came to write his own drama, what particulars of technique he adopted, [and] what characters and scenes he used as models" (251). Spivey provides a useful catalogue of the characteristics of

Elizabethan drama employed by Swinburne:

As he read and re-read the old drama, Swinburne studied carefully the way of the playwrights with their tools and, when he came to 119

write his own tragedies, sought to use those same tools in the same way on similar material. He turned to history for his plots, chose five acts in blank verse for his form, and disregarded the unities of time and place. Having chosen his subject and decided upon his general plan, he repeatedly adopted expository devices used by the Elizabethans: gossiping servants, dialogue of minor characters, conversation between master or mistress and a servant, crowds in the street, asides, and soliloquies. For revealing character he again used the soliloquy and frequently supplemented it with another Renaissance device—the introduction of an episode for the sole purpose of portraying character. He aroused suspense and foreshadowed catastrophies by ambiguous sayings, portentuous remarks, and ominous dreams. He introduced lyrics and clogged the action with orations in high style, long parleys before battles, and addresses by the dying. (251-52)

Spivey discusses several more general similarities before moving onto "certain

stock scenes, stock characters, technical schemes, and elements of plot"

characteristic of the Elizabethans and retained by Swinburne; these include "a street crowded with common folk, a field of battle, or a banquet spread for lords and ladies" (253). Spivey points to the popularity of the "crowd in the street scenes," where a "typical group of nameless characters—artisans, soldiers, petty officials—discuss the happenings of the times and the doings of the great folk," and highlights two such occurrences in the Mary Stuart trilogy, in the introduction to act 5 of Chastelard and in act 5, scene 2 of Bothwell (253). Such

Renaissance types as the messenger, the fool, and the half-mad character also appear in Swinburne, as does the use of "weird, unnatural weather conditions" for arousing suspense and foreshadowing disaster, such as the "sick, thick mist 120 corrupting the moist air" that heralds Mary's arrival in Scotland (Bothwell 1:2)

(254).

Finally, Spivey discusses "certain scenes and characters modeled upon specific scenes and characters in single Elizabethan tragedies" (255). Of these

"direct borrowings," several are found in the Mary Stuart trilogy, including the trial scene in the third acts of Mary Stuart and Webster's The White Devil; the death scene of Darnley (Bothwell 2:21) and Marlowe's Faustus (Doctor Faustus, sc. 14); the dreams of shipwreck and drowning retold by both Darnley and

Bothwell in the second and third acts of Bothwell, and Clarence's dream in

Shakespeare's Richard III (1:4); and the scenes of both queens, Mary Stuart and Shakespeare's Cleopatra, receiving news of their loves from their messengers (B. 2:16; Ant.& Cleo. 1:5) (258-61). In terms of characters in the

Mary Stuart trilogy, Spivey argues that "though stepping from the pages of history, ruthless Bothwell, fascinating Mary Stuart, pathetic Jane Gordon, and faithful Hemes have their prototypes in Shakespeare's tragedies" (263).

On the one hand, Spivey's catalogue supports the claim of Swinburne's indebtedness to Elizabethan drama and Shakespeare in particular. His findings locate Swinburne within a dramatic tradition he was seriously engaged in and knowledgable about, demonstrate his application of its methods and devices, and direct us toward intertextual links that help expand our reading of characters and episodes in the text. But the implications of these findings have not been 121 pursued, and key questions remain about how well Swinburne adapted these borrowings to his own ends: do the expository devices he uses fulfill their traditional function? When and how is the device of introducing an episode for the sole purpose of character revelation used, and what does this say about

Swinburne's dramatic focus within the historical narrative? To what purpose are the stock "crowd in the street scenes" and "unnatural weather conditions" put, and how are they integrated with the historical, political, and cultural background of the story? How do these borrowings translate into representation of the central royal figure when that figure is Scottish, Catholic, female, and in contention with good Queen Bess for the crown of England? And what is their contemporary relevance for Swinburne as he knits together the cults of Mary,

Elizabeth, and Victoria in his work? Spivey's catalogue is an excellent tool from which to begin such inquiries.

Swinburne's critical essays on the dramatists contribute further to our understanding of how these models may have worked for him in his own dramatic writing. In these essays he carefully maps out the high points of the development of historical drama as he saw it. John Ford's Perkin Warbeck

(1629-34) is given a prominent place:

It is the one high sample of historic drama produced between the age of Shakespeare and our own; the one intervening link—a link of solid and durable metal—which connects the first and the latest labours in that line of English poetry; the one triumphant attempt to sustain and transmit the tradition of that great tragic school 122

founded by Marlowe, perfected by Shakespeare, revived by the author of Philip van Artevelde. (CW12: 388)

Within the context of the tradition as he sees it, Swinburne is able to derive

lessons about character and technique from an ongoing comparison of what we

now refer to as "best practices." His observations about character, for example, are framed within a comparison of Ford and Taylor:

The central figure of Ford's work is not indeed equal in stature of spirit and strength of handling to the central figure of Sir Henry Taylor's; there is a broader power, a larger truth, in the character of Artevelde than in the character of Warbeck. . . . Ford . .. has the more tender and skilful hand at drawing a woman; his heroines make by far the warmer and sharper impression on us; this on the whole is generally his strongest point, as it is perhaps the other's weakest; while though we may not think his female studies up to the mark of his male portraits, there is certainly no English dramatist since Shakespeare who can be matched as a student of men. (CW 12: 388-89)

Two aspects of Swinburne's concern in this passage are significant: the attention to character and the attention to female character.

This emphasis on character can be understood in the context of Victorian preferences, as D.W. Lucas explains:

Aristotle's preference for plot as opposed to character has won little approval from most of the critics from the late nineteenth century onwards. To the generations which were profoundly influenced by [A.C.] Bradley's Shakespearean Studies it was common doctrine that, as Granville Barker once put it, the purpose of drama was to portray character. Interest in the inner life of the individual, which had been developed by the great novelists of late Victorian times in England, France, and Russia, caused exaggerated attention to traits of personality which could be perceived in Shakespeare and contributed to the belief that they 123

must be contained, could one but find them, in all great drama. (109)

Indeed, as Ekbert Faas has argued in discussing Victorian poetry and the rise of

psychiatry, "never before had poets been more intent upon exploring the human

psyche; nor had they ever evolved subtler techniques for doing so" (4). As will

become apparent when we discuss Romantic theatre in the next section, this focus on character and character psychology can be set back earlier in the

nineteenth century than what Lucas posits here.73 We can compare, for example, Wordsworth's comment on his play The Borderers (1842) that "care was almost exclusively given to the passions and the characters" with

Swinburne's similar concern to leave room "for the play of passion" in his treatment of the Mary Stuart story.74 Or we can take, for instance, Browning, a poet whose early works Swinburne greatly admired. Browning writes on "action in character, not character in action" (preface to Strafford, 1837); he stresses

"incidents in the development of a soul" (preface to Sordello, 1840); and he aims to present "dialogues charting the rise and progress of a mood" (preface to

Paracelsus, 1835). Indeed, by 1876 Swinburne was busy railing against the extravagances of the "Shakespeare destructors" whose fascination with scientific methods of testing the authorship and chronology of Shakespeare's plays threatened to overshadow character study altogether.75

What is interesting in Swinburne's discussion of Ford is his very real attention to female characterization; in this, he picks up on the critical 124

momentum of his time which had shifted its focus from Shakespeare's heroes to

his "heroines."76 As Swinburne's engagement with this critical momentum

reveals aspects of his understanding and treatment of female characters

important to his conception of the character of Mary Stuart, I should like to

survey this critical transition in more detail before returning to a more general

discussion of Swinburne's treatment of character.

Swinburne's comments can be located within a lively Victorian debate

over the critical treatment of Shakespeare's women. A major impetus in this discussion was Anna Jameson's popular Characteristics of Women: Moral,

Political, and Historical (1832; later known as Shakespeare's Heroines), a

"hybrid" of the conduct book and literary criticism genres that engaged traditional

Shakespearean scholarship (largely male, and largely focused on

Shakespeare's male characters as complex portraits in relation to his inferior studies of women), shifting perspective in the plays and in critical trends by attending to the "subtleties" of Shakespeare's women.77 Anna Jameson was a very well-known figure in the literary and artistic world of Victorian England—as well as France, Germany, and Italy. She was the author of numerous guide books to European Art, especially Sacred and Legendary Art (1848). The

Brownings debated telling her about their impending marriage, but in the end did not do so; however, they met her in Paris after they fled England, travelled with her to Florence, and remained in close contact with her until her death. 125

Jameson's closest friend was Ottilie von Goethe, the daughter-in-law of the

poet, and she had connections with the Schiller and Schopenhauer families too.

In England she and Swinburne shared such acquaintances as Carlyle and

Dickens, and Jameson was a good friend of the biographer of the Brontes,

about whom Swinburne also wrote.

Cheri L. Larsen Hoeckley's useful introduction to a new edition of

Jameson's Shakespeare's Heroines makes the case (as do the recent studies she cites) for recognizing Jameson's influence on the Victorian middle-class

mind and "the breadth of her cultural authority for many Victorians" (Jameson

lived from 1794 to I860).78 Shakespeare's Heroines was "immensely popular" with the reading public and "attracted favorable attention from a range of

reviewers" (Hoeckley 17); Adrian Poole counts at least eighteen editions up to

1925, forty-five years after Jameson's death.79

In addition to Jameson's work, Mary Cowden Clarke's fifteen tales in The

Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines (5 vols. 1850-52) were "phenomenally popular throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, on both sides of the Atlantic, going through several editions and enjoying in 1879 a skilful abridged version by her sister Sabilla Novello" (Poole 93). And in 1885, essays on past roles played by the actress Helen Faucit were gathered together in the volume On Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters.80 This "tradition of women's rewriting of Shakespeare" can be extended to the novels of George 126

Eliot, which gave "increasingly purposive attention to the figures subordinated by the Shakespearean history plays, and unnoticed in the tales told by official history" (Poole 133-34).

Part of the attraction of these works for Victorians was the focus they brought to the "problem of dependence, independence and interdependence as it affected women both on the page and off it" (Poole 94). Jameson's work, for example, can be seen to move beyond the Victorian doctrine of "separate spheres" for men and women to reflect her own belief that "society was best structured with the sexes as interdependent, not with a system of complete female dependence" (Hoeckley 25). Her treatment of Portia's courtroom speeches demonstrates her understanding "of female potential in nontraditional roles" (25). Recasting a limiting gender essentialism as liberating, in that women's 'essential' benevolence gave them "licence for a variety of activities that would typically be suspect in domestic ideology's accounts of appropriate femininity" (21), Jameson eschews the "single 'Woman of England'" construct which largely limited women's virtues to their "capacity for self-denial and sexual purity" for something far less static:

[She] relies on the catalogue of characteristics available to her through the differences in Shakespeare's heroines in order to suggest a range of appropriate femininities. Men and women in Jameson's scheme still have defined roles in relation to one another, but she jumbles the hierarchy as she lengthens the catalogue of female traits and moves women's bodies, not only their influence, into public positions in schools, workhouses, hospitals, and prisons. (19; 26) 127

Jameson's readings lengthen the "catalogue of acceptable female behavior, or performance"81 to include "political ambition, intellectual activity, displays of passion, sharp-tongued conversation and erotic indulgence," and it is the "larger goals" of the women who own these behaviours that make them acceptable. In this way, Jameson "shows her willingness to complicate categories of good and bad women" (27).

If we pause further to examine a couple of Jameson's readings of

Shakespeare's women from the grouping of "Historical Characters," we can note much in her approach to "bad women" that resonates with Swinburne's own approach to character in his dramatic criticism and, as we shall see later, in his dramatic and historical conception of Mary Queen of Scots. Jameson's presentation of Cleopatra, for example, is especially interesting given

Swinburne's own close attention to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra as a model for dramatic technique in his trilogy, and the explicit adoption and rejection of the Cleopatra persona by Mary at different stages in the dramatic action.82 Thus, I shall provide extensive excerpts from her comments on

Cleopatra as well as Lady Macbeth. I begin with Cleopatra:

Cleopatra is a brilliant antithesis, a compound of contradictions, of all that we most hate, with what we most admire. The whole character is the triumph of the external over the innate; and yet, like one of her country's hieroglyphics, though she present at first view a splendid and perplexing anomaly, there is deep meaning and wondrous skill in the apparent enigma, when we come to analyze and decipher it. But how are we to arrive at the solution of this glorious riddle, whose dazzling complexity continually mocks 128

and eludes us? What is most astonishing in the character of Cleopatra is its antithetical construction—its consistent inconsistency, if I may use such an expression—which renders it quite impossible to reduce it to any elementary principles. It will, perhaps, be found on the whole, that vanity and the love of power predominate; but I dare not say it is so, for these qualities and a hundred others mingle into each other, and shift, and change, and glance away, like the colours in a peacock's train. (262-63; Jameson's emphasis)

This Cleopatra is, on the one hand, a "hieroglyphic," an "anomaly," an "enigma,"

and a "riddle," but she is not an inscrutable cipher. She is an anomaly, but a

"splendid and perplexing" one; she is an "apparent" enigma, but one subject to

analysis, revealing "deep meaning and wondrous skill"; she is a "glorious" riddle

of "dazzling complexity" whose solution is elusive, but possible to articulate. She

is a "brilliant antithesis," definable in the "consistency" of its contradictions, but

not reducible to "elementary principles." In other words, she conforms to

Victorian ideals of Shakespearean character as a complex human being whose

character encompasses the extremes of human traits and emotions; like

Shakespeare's male heroes, she is more than simply "bad." Nor are female

characters like Portia and Juliet simply "good"; they, too, are complex, and here

is the difference for Jameson: with them "we are struck with the delightful sense

of harmony in the midst of contrast, so that the idea of unity and simplicity of

effect is produced in the midst of variety," while, with Cleopatra, "it is the

absence of unity and simplicity which strikes us; the impression is that of perpetual and irreconcilable contrast" (263). 129

Far from a stereotype of evil, Shakespeare's Cleopatra is imagined to

represent not a fictional figure, or a theatrical presentation, or a documentary

reconstruction, but a real person existing independently of the text of

Shakespeare with a complete psychological and independent historical life, "the

real historical Cleopatra .. . individualized and placed before us" (263). This

slippage between the historical person, Shakespeare's character, and

Jameson's re-creation is completely elided in the reach for a contemporary

Romanticized personality. Mingled with her "violence, perverseness, egotism,

and caprice" is "a capability for warm affections and kindly feeling, or rather what we should call in these days a constitutional good-nature," characteristics

"faithfully rendered" by Shakespeare (269; Jameson's emphasis). Astonishingly,

Jameson's interest is in "the truth of history" and, as she phrases it in subsequent comments on Octavia, "the truth of general nature and dramatic

propriety" (290). The three elements alluded to here—historical veracity, the

Romantic ideal of the truth of the human heart, and dramatic representation— are collapsed into one. To Jameson they are found together in Shakespeare's

representation of a "real and fervent" mutual passion between Antony and

Cleopatra: "In Cleopatra, the passion is of a mixt nature, made up of real attachment, combined with the love of pleasure, the love of power, and the love of self. Not only is the character most complicated, but no one sentiment could have existed pure and unvarying in such a mind as hers" (276). Jameson is at 130 pains not to appear as "the apologist of Cleopatra's historical character, nor of such women as resemble her"; her interest is in Shakespeare's Cleopatra as "a dramatic portrait of astonishing beauty, spirit, and originality" whose virtue is its roundedness:

He alone has dared to exhibit the Egyptian queen with all her greatness and her littleness—all her frailties of temper—all her paltry arts and dissolute passions yet preserved the dramatic propriety and poetical colouring of the character, and awakened our pity for fallen grandeur, without once beguiling us into sympathy with guilt and error. (282)

Jameson's emphasis on "astonishing beauty," "spirit," and "originality" adopts what Jerome McGann calls the "Romantic ideology"—"the idea that poetry, or even consciousness, can set one free of the ruins of history and culture" (McGann 91). That is, Jameson's exaltation of the romantic passion of

Antony and Cleopatra displaces historical reality—social, economic, and political factors—onto such transcendental values as universal and ideal love. Jameson is uncritically incorporated in her own critical position, but Swinburne resists such incorporation, particularly in his Encyclopeadia Bntannica article, where he lays out the social, economic, and political conditions of the life of Mary Queen of Scots in sixteenth-century Scotland and England. In the trilogy, however, he allows the literary to subvert the historical, thus decentering the critical position: he wants the historical narrative, but has it over-determined by grand passion.

Like her Cleopatra, Jameson similarly complicates the character of Lady

Macbeth. The "commonplace idea" of Lady Macbeth, though she is "endowed 131 with the rarest powers, the loftiest energies, and the profoundest affections," is of "nothing but a fierce, cruel woman, brandishing a couple of daggers, and inciting her husband to butcher a poor old king" (360). Unlike Macbeth himself,

"considered one of the most complex in the whole range of Shakespeare's dramatic creations," her character "resolves itself into few and simple elements" in the hands of commentators, while, according to Jameson, it is really "an individual conception of amazing power, poetry, and beauty" (361). Regarding and dismissing her as a detestable "ogress" and "a species of female fury," the critics, points out Jameson, render only a partial truth:

In the mind of Lady Macbeth, ambition is represented as the ruling motive, an intense overmastering passion, which is gratified at the expense of every just and generous principle, and every feminine feeling. In the pursuit of her object she is cruel, treacherous, and daring. She is doubly, trebly dyed in guilt and blood; for the murder she instigates is rendered more frightful by disloyalty and ingratitude, and by the violation of all the most sacred claims of kindred and hospitality. When her husband's more kindly nature shrinks from the perpetration of the deed of horror, she, like an evil genius, whispers him on to his damnation. The full measure of her wickedness is never disguised, the magnitude and atrocity of her crime is never extenuated, forgotten, or forgiven, in the whole course of the play. (362-63)

As with Cleopatra, Jameson insists on representing the individual human personality and psychology of this bad woman:

Lady Macbeth's amazing power of intellect, her inexorable determination of purpose, her superhuman strength of nerve, render her as fearful in herself as her deeds are hateful; yet she is not a mere monster of depravity, with whom we have nothing in common, nor a meteor whose destroying path we watch in ignorant affright and amaze. She is a terrible impersonation of evil 132

passions and mighty powers, never so far removed from our own nature as to be cast beyond the pale of our own sympathies; for the woman herself remains a woman to the last—still linked with her sex and with humanity.

We see here a typical turn in Anna Jameson to fellow-feeling, a sympathetic

identification with the good of universal human nature.

It is this humanistic perspective that Jameson insists upon in complicating

the good / bad woman dichotomy. She deconstructs the innocuous-seeming

modifiers—"naturally cruel," "invariably savage," "pure demoniac firmness"—

used by commentators to tip the balance. Lady Macbeth, Jameson argues, may

be cruel, but not "naturally cruel"; savage, but not "invariably savage"; nor is she

"endued with pure demoniac firmness" (374; Jameson's emphasis). From her

reading of the play, then, Jameson reconstructs Lady Macbeth's character

according to the dictates of late Romantic and early Victorian literary ideals of

independent women: they have complex characters, mixing good and bad

traits—yet they preserve what the age defined as acceptable, with a wide range

of emotions.

Jameson's celebration of female characters—good and bad—who are

neither "poetical abstractions" nor "monstrous caricatures" (60; 58) but

embodiments of the extreme range of human behaviour—complements

Swinburne's general approach to character as illustrated in his essays on the

Elizabethan dramatists. That he derived models of character from his studies of their work is suggested by the frequency with which his essays highlight 133

achievements in character as key to a work's lasting merit, such as in this

assessment of Perkin Warbeck: "Of imaginative beauty and poetic passion this

play has nothing; but for noble and equable design of character it stands at the

head of Ford's works" (Cl/l/12: 388). Discussing Ford's The Broken Heart

(ca. 1625-33), he emphasizes the fullness of individual characterization, best appreciated in the way each character sets off another's qualities:

Ithocles, Orgilus, Bassanes, are as thoroughly wrought out as he could leave them; and in effect the triumphant and splendid ambition of the first, the sullen and subtle persistence of the second, the impure insanity and shameful agony of the third, are well relieved against each other, especially in those scenes where the brilliant youth of the hero is set side by side with the somber youth of the man he has injured even to death. (CW12: 379)

Then he demonstrates the dependence of action upon character:

But here again the whole weight of the action hangs upon the two chief characters; Calantha and Penthea stand out alone clear in our memory for years after their story has been read. In no play or poem are two types of characters more skillfully contrasted.

Isobel Armstrong has described a shift in critical terms in the 1860s in that critics looked for "not the primary human experience, portrayed in simple outlines, but particular and complex psychological insight"; "subtlety, variety, multifariousness" became words of approbation (54; 57). It is these features

Swinburne asserts are lacking in Ford's characters when he writes that "the subtleties and varieties of individual character do not usually lie well within the reach of Ford's handling"; on the other hand, he is careful in his assessments, always prepared to credit specific achievements, as in Perkin Warbeck, or in the 134

character of Giovanni in '77s Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?): "Here the poet has

put forth all his strength; the figure of his protagonist stands out complete and

clear" (373). Finding Giovanni's sister, Annabella, "perhaps less finely drawn,"

he is precise about the extent to which this flaw affects the general conception of

her character: "Her ebbs and flows of passion are given with great force, and her

alternate possession by desire and terror, repentance and defiance, if we are

sometimes startled by the rough rapidity of the change, does not in effect impair the unity of character, obscure the clearness of outline" (373-74).

Swinburne's appreciation of a "unity of character" that incorporates change and variety echoes a shift in critical terms for the unity required of a poem; as Armstrong observes, this shift meant that "variousness and contradiction" became accepted as a basis for unity (57). We saw how Jameson emphasized antithesis and contradiction in the characters of Cleopatra and Lady

Macbeth. Like Jameson, on the one hand, Swinburne emphasizes the juxtaposition of contrasting aspects of character. About Giovanni and Annabella he adds: "Nothing can be finer than the touches which bring out the likeness and unlikeness of the two; her fluctuation and his steadfastness, her ultimate repentance and his final impenitence" (373-74). Returning to his comments on

The Broken Heart, we see this pattern in his description of "the brilliant youth of the hero ... set side by side with the somber youth of the man he has injured even to death" and in his observation of the "skillfully contrasted" Calantha and 135

Penthea (379). On the other hand, also like Jameson, he points to the consistent

inconsistency within individual characters, as in these comments on Perkin

Warbecfc

The two kings are faithful and forcible studies; the smooth resolute equanimity and self-reliant craft of the first Tudor sets off the shallow chivalry and passionate unstable energy of the man of Flodden. . . . Nor is the other type of royalty less excellently real and vivid; the mixture of warmth and ceremony in Katherine's reception by Henry throws into fresh and final relief the implacable placidity of infliction with which he marks her husband for utmost ignominy of suffering. (388-89)

Swinburne is setting up character pairings for purposes of contrast—the

passions in each one are mixed, but complementary—in each one they set off the passions in the other by careful juxtaposition, a method Swinburne exploits

in the Mary Stuart trilogy. The "unstable energy" of the king who displays

"warmth" and hospitality alongside "the implacable placidity of infliction" amounts to a character that Swinburne describes as "excellently real and vivid." This consistent inconsistency is what marks the character of Swinburne's Mary

Stuart, and is so clearly adumbrated in Bothwell's assessment of the Queen that she is "the more entire / Herself and no self other" (B. 2.17). We can see this consistent inconsistency in Mary Stuart's vacillations with Mary Beaton (and later Murray and Darnley) over the fate of the imprisoned Chastelard:

.. . troth, he shall not die. See you, I am pitiful, compassionate, I would not have men slain for my love's sake, But if he live to do me three times wrong, Why then my shame would grow up green and red 136

Like any flower. I am not whole at heart; In faith, I wot not what such things should be.

I doubt it is but dangerous; he must die. (Ch. 4.1)

Mary's consistency depends on her arguments that Chastelard should live; her inconsistency is driven by her passion to have him executed.

We have seen, then, in our discussion of the Elizabethan dramatists, that

Swinburne knew and used them as models for his own dramatic writing. We have also seen that he paid attention to character, and to female character in particular. Our discussion of Anna Jameson's work illustrates aspects of the

Victorian debate on female characters and the ways in which the binary opposition of good / bad was complicated by writers. Jameson's notion of

"consistent inconsistency" demonstrates the kind of complication of which

Swinburne was keenly aware, as his comments on the treatment of male and female characters by the Elizabethan dramatists makes clear.

The implications of Swinburne's approach to character as demonstrated in these excerpts (and in terms of the Mary Stuart trilogy) will be expanded in chapter 5 when we examine the role of Hugo in Swinburne's dramatic theory and practice, in particular the preface to Cromwell, which provides a language for articulating what Swinburne is focusing on in his discussions of character both here and in Hugo's works. We shall see that Jameson's approach to character clearly anticipates in significant ways that of Hugo and Swinburne. 137

Next, however, I turn to the Romantic theatre and its place in Swinburne's

conception of historical drama.

4.2 Romantic Drama: Shelley

In the previous chapter we referred to the tension between assumptions

about the "antitheatricalism" of Romantic theatre and recent critical interest in the public and political nature of the drama of the period. Timothy Webb, for

example, straddles the fence, arguing that the "central energies" of the Romantic

poets' dramatic tendency were more inward than outward, concerned more with

"the rich diversities and complexities of self than with the external world, and

"self-dramatizing rather than dramatizing," while insisting on "the centrality of the dramatic impulse" (27;13). Hence, Webb's argument concerning the "short, sad

history" of Romantic drama stresses the centrality of the "dramatic impulse" in terms that correspond generally with the thematic treatment of dramatic issues in Romantic poetry (as in Wordsworth's "Michael" or Coleridge's "The Ancient

Mariner"). Dealing with the same period, Terence Allan Hoagwood also emphasizes "the importance of the drama in the cultural life of Europe and

Britain in the period surrounding the French Revolution" (26). But Hoagwood takes up the popular negative assessment of Romantic drama, pronouncing the drama's "artistic failure" in its very cultural and political relevance—in "the plays' refusal to make themselves be about timeless truths and their simultaneous 138 refusal to reduce themselves to the mindless emotional shock of a spectacle"

(26).

Of the prolific output of verse drama by the Romantic poets, many are historical dramas or were inspired by historical events; a number of these are identified by Webb. Amongst the early work of William Blake, for example, is an uncompleted historical drama entitled Edward the Third, which was published in

Poetical Sketches (1783). Wordsworth's The Borderers drew its inspiration from the author's "first-hand observation of the changes through which the French

Revolution passed." Coleridge, with Southey, wrote the historical drama The Fall of Robespierre (1794), and he translated Schiller's The Piccolini and The Death of Wallenstein in 1800, directing readers by analogy to Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry VI. Byron, in 1821, wrote three historical plays "which were concerned with questions of power and political responsibility": Marino Faliero and The Two Foscari were based on Venetian history, while Sardanapalus drew from Assyrian history. Keats's contribution to the field was the historical drama

Otho the Great (1819) and the unfinished tragedy King Stephen. Webb notes he is not "untypical" of the Romantic poets "in his concern with the historical and particularly with the tragic" (12-18).

The titles and subject matter of some of these plays bear witness to the contention that new plays in the Romantic period as well as those from earlier historical periods "were subjected to three important operations: they are 139

interpreted to represent public and historical crises; those topics are represented figuratively rather than explicitly; and the relationships of fiction and reality

become themes" (Hoagwood 25). As well, they are almost all (Wordsworth and

Coleridge in the French Revolution are the exceptions) about obscure events

and people in remote history, allowing much fictive license that cannot or will not

be corrected by either theatre-goers or readers alike. This "suppression and consequent displacement of revolutionary sociopolitical content" can be seen as

"the central fact" about Romantic drama: the "ideological content and political

importance" of these plays "are customarily displaced symbolically and dispersed across exotic, magical, or historically removed surface content."83 The

literal depiction of historical forces and conflicts, including recent ones, declined after the Treason Trials of 1794,84 such that the portrayal of such issues in a play like Coleridge and Southey's The Fall of Robespierre (1794) gives way to less direct representation:

Instead, such issues are more often represented symbolically and moved into historically and geographically removed settings—in the period of the Crusades (as in Wordsworth's The Borderers); in Tudor England (as in Schiller's Mary Stuart); in central Europe during the Thirty Years' War (in Byron's Werner); in seventeenth- century England (as in Lamb's John Woodvil, Shelley's Charles the First, and Godwin's Faulkener); in sixteenth-century Spain (as in Osorio); in Rome in 1599 (The Cenci); and in a variety of yet more distant locations as well. (Hoagwood 28)

Romantic dramas, argues Hoagwood, "thematize historicity as a condition. What appears in the narrowly factual domain of traditional hierarchies (feudalism and 140

monarchy) replicates itself in epistemologica! terms as a dissolution of the

categories of certitude and, in aesthetics, a problematizing of the adequacy (or

possibility) of representation" (42). Thus "metadramatic reflection on the problem

of representation itself is a feature of Romantic drama:

Tropes of illusion, disguise, the troubled transmission of meanings that can be effected by signs and signifiers, or their failure to transmit meanings, the appearance-reality problem, disguise, deception, trickery, doubt, error, and delusion of all kinds are nearly ubiquitous in the romantic dramas, as they are in earlier drama (and for that matter, later drama), too. (46)

We might also add, in Swinburne's drama, as will become apparent.

Swinburne was assuredly familiar with many of these historical dramas as well as the many other poetic dramas composed by Romantic poets. Indeed, the works of all of these writers, usually in early separate and in collected editions, were in his library, and he had himself written on a number of the Romantic

poets, including Blake and Shelley.85 He had read enough of Byron to

pronounce him "the worst playwright that ever lived" (CW12: 399). On the other

hand, he considered Shelley's The Cenci (1819) "the one great English play of

modern times" and "the greatest tragedy that the world had seen since the death of Webster," belonging "undeniably to the English school of tragedy which

Marlowe . . . founded and established on lines of action and of passion no less nobly realistic than naturally poetic" (CW15: 147; 337-38). 141

As we saw in the case of the Elizabethan dramatists, the problem of

character is often the critical factor in Swinburne's dramatic assessment. Byron

apparently got little right in this or other departments:

In Byron the power given by this passion [in dealing with the higher things in nature] is the more conspicuous through his want of dramatic capacity; he was never able to bring two speakers face to face and supply them with the right words. In structure as in metre his elaborate tragedies are wholly condemnable; filled as they are in spirit with the over-flow of his fiery energy. 'Cain' and 'Manfred' are properly monologues decorated and set off by some slight appendage of ornament or explanation. In the later and loftier poem there is no difference perceptible, except in strength and knowledge, between Lucifer and Cain. (CUM 5: 128-29)

Thus Swinburne concludes that Byron, whatever else his skills, is "incompetent

to handle the mysteries and varieties of character" (129). Coleridge, too, missed

the mark, being "inapt for dramatic poetry" in Swinburne's estimation:

There is little worth praise or worth memory in the 'Remorse'. .. . The characters are flat and shallow; the plot is at once languid, violent, and heavy. To touch the string of the spirit, thread the weft of evil and good, feel out the way of the soul through dark places of thought and rough places of action, was not given to this the sweetest dreamer of dreams. In 'Zapolya' there ... [is] little enough indeed of high dramatic quality. (CI/V15: 147-8)

It is Shelley in The Cenci who hits home with "incomparably faultless and

original" style and versification, and the right touch of character: "The two

leading figures are drawn absolutely right: the criminal and the martyr are

equally natural and equally alive" (CIV 15: 338). Here is Jameson's notion of

"truth of general nature" in representing character, and it appears that both

Swinburne and Shelley subscribed to a similar concept. In his preface to the 142 play, Shelley explains that he "endeavoured as nearly as possible to represent the characters as they probably were," and justifies his presentation of the unpleasant story as an illuminating journey through the murky intersection of passions and attributes comprising human character and behaviour:

Such a story, if told so as to present to the reader all the feelings of those who once acted it, their hopes and fears, their confidences and misgivings, their various interests, passions and opinions acting upon and with each other, yet all conspiring to one tremendous end, would be as a light to make apparent some of the most dark and secret caverns of the human heart. (239)

Shelley's vision is of that same consistent inconsistency laid out by Jameson and Swinburne. Beatrice Cenci's character is complex, but harmonious; to

Shelley she appeared to be "one of those rare persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell together without destroying one another: her nature was simple and profound" (240; 242). Likewise, the Count, her father, is evidence that "the most atrocious villain may be rigidly devout, and without any shock to established faith, confess himself to be so" (241).

Swinburne turns to the external environment for an understanding of the apparent extremes conjoined in each of the characters of Beatrice and the

Count: "It is only the exceptional development of character by circumstance and chance, by social and religious atmosphere or influence, which makes them either actually or apparently abnormal or incredible" (CW15: 338). Here

Swinburne picks up on a perspective common to both Shelley and (to some extent) Jameson that has a clear affinity with his own approach to Mary Stuart. If 143

we look first at Shelley, we see how closely Swinburne's comments follow those

of Shelley in the preface, who writes that Beatrice "was evidently a most gentle

and amiable being, a creature formed to adorn and be admired, and thus

violently thwarted from her nature by the necessity of circumstance and opinion"

(238). The "social and religious atmosphere" Swinburne alludes to is Shelley's

representation of sixteenth-century Catholicism. Shelley explains how this

Catholicism is embodied in his characters:

They are represented as Catholics, and as Catholics deeply tinged with religion. To a Protestant apprehension there will appear something unnatural in the earnest and perpetual sentiment of the relations between God and man which pervade the tragedy of the Cenci. It will especially be startled at the combination of an undoubting persuasion of the truth of the popular religion with a cool and determined perseverance in enormous guilt. But religion in Italy is not, as in Protestant countries, a cloak to be worn on particular days. ... It is interwoven with the whole fabric of life. It is adoration, faith, submission, penitence, blind admiration; not a rule for moral conduct. It has no necessary connexion with any one virtue. . . . Religion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is according to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check. (240-41)

What is natural, or unnatural, then, is dependent on the context. Even Jameson makes this point with Lady Macbeth. Asking us to suppose what might have been performed through "the firmness, the self-command, the enthusiasm, the intellect, the ardent affections" of this woman "if properly directed," she appears to contrast inherent natural qualities of Lady Macbeth's character with the 144 distorted expressions brought about by her environment, again, in particular, her

(irreligious environment:

The power of religion alone could have controlled such a mind; but it is the misery of a very proud, strong, and gifted spirit, without sense of religion, that instead of looking upward to find a superior, it looks round and sees all things as subject to itself. Lady Macbeth is placed in a dark, ignorant, iron age; her powerful intellect is slightly tinged with its credulity and superstition, but she has no religious feeling to restrain the force of will. (375)

Similarly, in his "Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots," Swinburne

represents the historical Mary Stuart as "a creature of the sixteenth century, a

Catholic and a queen" (430), and repeatedly returns to the effects of her childhood training in the Medici court on the natural propensities of her character. We shall examine this perspective concerning nature and nurture in more detail in the following chapter when we discuss his two published articles on Mary.

Other aspects of Shelley's treatment of the Cenci story may have provided a model for Swinburne's approach to the character of Mary Stuart.

Both writers are conscious of their heroes as tragic figures. We saw in chapter 3 how Swinburne often referred to the tragic aspect of Mary's life and character.

Shelley points out that while Beatrice would have been "wiser and better" had she recognized that she could not be dishonoured by the actions of her father, and that "revenge, retaliation, atonement, are pernicious mistakes," she "would never have been a tragic character" had she thought this way (240). Shelley 145

takes "the outlines of this history" which has held "national and universal

interest" for two centuries, and dresses it for the dramatic purpose he conceives

as most fitting, and what it is: "A tragedy which has already received, from its

capacity of awakening and sustaining the sympathy of men, approbation and

success" (239).

Beatrice and Mary's tragedy is bound up with moral equivocation. Both

are strong female figures who face legal and moral courts of judgement that

extend beyond the borders of the literary text. The trial and execution of Beatrice for parricide is fraught with moral ambiguity: she has conspired in the death of

her father, but admits not to parricide, her defence lying in the incestuous crimes of her father against her essential innocence and purity. Alternatively, her judges, right up to the Pope, are corrupted by kickbacks and other political considerations. As Shelley explains, "it is in the restless and anatomizing casuistry with which men seek the justification of Beatrice, yet feel that she has done what needs justification; it is in the superstitious horror with which they contemplate alike her wrongs and their revenge; that the dramatic character of what she did and suffered, consists."86 Critics of Shelley's Cenci such as

Gerald Kauvar have recognized the play's enmeshment of multiple dimensions—character, psychology, action, and judgement—to complicate the play's moral dilemma:

This play examines the ways in which ..., frustrated by ... [their] inability fully to understand, analyze, justify, or rationalize ... 146

conflicting motives and desires . . ., [characters] act in ways which we hope will bring .. . relief from intolerable pressures without bringing the world to judgment or punishment. (127)

Judgement and punishment are nevertheless what confront these women,

although the moral imperatives surrounding it are clearly problematised in the texts. Savella, listening to Beatrice's account of herself, declares simply:

"Strange thoughts beget strange deeds; and here are both; /1 judge thee not"

(4.4.139-40). Swinburne, too, finds this moral complication in Shelley, and he

uses a similar enmeshment to complicate the moral dilemmas of the Mary Stuart trilogy. For example, the imprisoned Mary Stuart represents herself as "a queen

born subject of no laws" brought "in subjection of an alien law / By foreign force of judgment"; invoking the divine right of kings, she refuses to recognize the authority of her accusers, and "had rather end as kings before me . .. Than so make answer once in face of man / As one brought forth to judgment" (M.S. 2.2).

Nineteenth-century literature and art frequently combs through the moral quicksand of female transgression, one of the more popular subjects in

Swinburne's circle being the adultery of King Arthur's queen, Guenevere, with the loyal Launcelot, knight of the round-table. Both Dante Gabriel Rossetti and

William Morris, Swinburne's friends, painted the subject, but Morris's depiction of

Guenevere's trial in "The Defence of Guenevere" (1858) is a particularly interesting thematic link to Shelley's Beatrice and Swinburne's Mary. On trial for adultery, Guenevere refuses to grant her accusers the moral imperative they 147

assume to pass judgement on her: "'By God! I will not tell you more to-day, /

Judge any way you will—what matters it? /. .. All I have said is truth, by Christ's dear tears."' Kauvar's comment on Beatrice Cenci could be applied to both

Guenevere and Mary Stuart: "Unlike the inquisitorial court before which Beatrice defends herself, posterity struggles to understand, not to judge, the strange thoughts and strange deeds which led her there" (127).

The Cenci illuminates Swinburne's work in other ways. Many elements of theme, imagery, and language contained in the Mary Stuart trilogy are also found in Shelley's play. Moreover, critical assessment of The Cenci reflects similar issues in Swinburne's trilogy, and suggests ways of understanding

Swinburne's method. In a brief review of the structural flaws in Shelley's play,

Kauvar responds to the charge that the play is weakened because Shelley's interest in psychological analysis slows down the main action while less important characters reveal themselves in conversation; he points out that

Shelley's assertion in his preface that he intends to shed light on (in Shelley's phrase) "the dark and secret caverns of the human heart" applies to more than the central characters of the Count and his daughter:

[Shelley's] concern was with those secret places . .. where we attempt to forge emotionally and logically acceptable links between the inner and outer worlds of reality. This larger theme is best seen in precisely those characters and scenes which critics have felt to be obstacles to the dramatic success of the play. (126) Here Kauvar links Shelley's dramatic analysis of psychological conditions and

motivations to a universal and transparent human nature, a kind of Arnoldian

humanism that too easily identifies the characters' transgressions with "ours" and thereby permits sympathetic identification rather than analysis. Kauvar's point, however, is that in The Cenci the psychological interest extends beyond the main action, a point applicable to Swinburne. The court of Mary Stuart shares what Orsino labels the "self-anatomy" of the Cenci family, who "analyze their own and other minds" (2.2.108-18), and in this fact may be found an explanation for many characters and scenes lamented as superfluous by

Swinburne's critics. Swinburne himself appears to address this issue in his correspondence with John Nichol (July 1874), where he defends the role of

Bothwell's wife, Jane Gordon:

You object to the title of the third act that Jane Gordon plays too small a part to give it a name as deuteragonist; I cut a great of her part out. . . that there might be nothing (as far as I could see) superfluous in the book, and that the scene might not be (as Jowett at first found it) too prolonged to be duly effective; but if you look you will see that from the first scene of this act when the Queen appears to the last, the phantom or idea of her rival is ever present as a . .. first Nemesis [Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1192], so that her spirit or influence is always on the stage and pervades the action throughout, thus justifying the sub-title, which I meant in each case to be significant. (Letters 2: 302)

Jane Gordon is a secondary character, but not an inconsequential one, for she looms large in the workings of Mary's mind. Mary Beaton plays a similar role in

Chastelard, where we see that the Queen's reception of news of a kiss between 149

Beaton and Chastelard works silently on her throughout a subsequent interview with the knight, until she finally acknowledges her tortured thinking: "O

Chastelard, / Since this was broken to me of your new love /1 have not seen the face of a sweet hour" (Ch. 3.1). This is the motive implied for her rash decision to submit to marriage with Darnley.

This attention to the complexity of character and motive is consistent with

Shelley's technique:

What a study of Shelley's Preface shows is that he worked with a serious attention to what with regard to Coleridge was termed the 'under plot of character'. He carefully analyses his dramatic technique as deployed in the scene for Cenci and Lucretia, his wife, that precedes his murder (IV.i), defining the complexity of motive in both characters at this point in the action. (Cave 86-87)

Indeed, what Stuart Curran finds most remarkable about The Cenci is this attention to the psychology of character—"that we as an audience should be asked to concern ourselves so intimately with the state of mind of Beatrice in its minute adjustments to harrowing circumstance" (73). Curran emphasizes the play as "a dramaturgy not of action but of psychology, not of doing but of being, and in that exemplary work of a being that defies ultimate analysis." He adds:

Shelley's drama is a drama of character.. . grappling with thought. ... It is not so much ideological as profoundly concerned with the underlying power of ideas on the mind. . . . The real action for Shelley is in the mind. And it is that action, the incessant process of thought, that Shelley's drama attempts to imitate, to mirror, and to encourage. The self-reflexiveness of Shelleyan drama is the opposite of playful; it is watchful, cautionary. Beware of converting fictions into fixities. Beware—and be free. (73-77) 150

Hence, we can see the Romantic poet's re-telling of an Italian Renaissance

story repositioned as a late Victorian poet's re-telling of an episode from Scottish

history that makes similar use of the drama of character and the action of the

mind.

Swinburne's treatment of Mary Stuart, like Shelley's of Beatrice Cenci, can be understood through a concept Richard Cave argues is the essence of the dramatic artistry of Coleridge, Shelley, and Byron—that is, to effect "just discriminations"—a balance between a reader's imaginative engagement with characters and the critical responses that are invoked: "They encourage us to wonder at the intricate workings of the human mind and the unique quality of each character's sensibility and to share their fascination with the ways that the mind and the sensibility can shape an individual's destiny" (104). Shelley, then, develops his characters in The Cenci by means of introspection to which readers can respond both sympathetically and critically ("just discriminations").

So too does Swinburne in the Mary Stuart trilogy exploit such Romantic introspective soliloquies—and interpersonal relations—to complicate character analysis and reader responses. Such dramatic practices become both sensational and then commonplace by the end of the century with the coming of

Ibsen's plays—for example, Ghosts in 1891—to the London stage.87 151

4.3 Aspects of Victorian Drama

With the exception of John Ford, and Shelley's Cenci notwithstanding, the

field of historical drama, in Swinburne's estimation, lay "fallow" from the age of

Shakespeare until the advent of Sir Henry Taylor's Philip van Artevelde (1834):

Even the single attempt of Mr. Browning in the line of pure historic drama [Strafford: an Historical Tragedy (1837)] can hardly be counted as successful enough to rank with the master poem of Sir Henry Taylor. Nor indeed are we likely to see the work in this kind which for intellectual majesty and interest, for large and serene possession of character and event, for grasp and mastery of thought and action, may deserve to be matched against Philip van Artevelde. (CIV 15: 463)

Browning's role in the evolution of historical drama is nevertheless relevant, and

we shall return to him after giving consideration to Swinburne's hero, Sir Henry

Taylor.

Taylor (1800-86) is now relegated to the lists of "Lesser Poets" from 1790

to 1837 in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. His works

include a volume of minor poems (1847) and several dramatic poems or plays,

including Isaac Comnenus (1827), Edwin the Fa/r (1842), The Virgin Widow

(1850), and St. Clement's Eve (1862). The Cambridge entry links him with the

"bad" and "failed" drama written by poets of the Romantic revival, but with the

distinction that while for them drama was a byword, for him "the dramatic form was all-pervading and all-powerful." Philip van Artevelde and its 1834 preface are what he is remembered for today; in the Dictionary of National Biography,

Leslie Stephen describes the former as having "great interest as a thoughtful 152 psychological study," while the latter sometimes appears in Victorian anthologies, perhaps less for any statement of dramatic principles than for

Taylor's characterization of the work of Byron, Shelley, and their school as an adolescent and second-rank poetry which he himself had outgrown.88

Philip van Artevelde was "extremely popular" with the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood in the group's early years.89 For William Holman Hunt, Taylor was part of a newer generation of poetry and critical opinion that reached back to moral and national values supposed to be representative of Chaucer and the early English poets: "The fashion for making robbers, regicides, corsairs, betrayers of homes and innocence, heroes of romance, which Byron, Schiller,

Goethe, and Shelley had followed, still captivated the elder world"; meanwhile, a

"newer generation had found in Keats, Wordsworth, and Coleridge the mental matter of robust honesty which Henry Taylor, Tennyson and Browning utilized to teach the manliness and heroism of simple goodness, a basis which Chaucer and the early English poets had made as that on which our poetry should be built" (Memoirs 1. 326-27; qtd. in Landow x).

Hunt's placement of Taylor in this august company "reminds us that his conceptions of poetry were heavily influenced by the writings of that minor figure" (Landow x). Taylor was read during Hunt's painting sessions with the poetry-reading Rossetti:

Then would follow the grand rhetoric from Taylor's Philip van Artevelde, in the scene between the herald and the Court at 153

Ghent, with Philip in reply, a scene very much to my taste, with my picture standing on the easel designed to show the sword of justice, inevitable in the fulness of time, on all such as being strong scourge the weak, and being rich rob the poor, and 'change the sweat of nature's brow to blood. (Memoirs 1: 145; qtd. in Landow x)

Landow documents this reference to act 2, scene 1 in the second part of

Taylor's verse drama, "in which the hero, who has successfully led an

insurrection against the Earl of Flanders, defends the right of the people to revolt

against tyranny and exploitation." The painting on Hunt's easel—Rienzi—

illustrates Bulwer Lytton's novel "which is strikingly similar to Taylor's drama":

In both works the heroes are men of comparatively low birth and scholarly temperament who find themselves forced to abandon their chosen pursuits to lead successful revolts of the lower orders. Cola di Rienzi, like Philip Van Artevelde, for a brief time manages to bring order and justice to the late middle ages and then he perishes, again like Taylor's protagonist, largely because he is ahead of his time. Both works provided romantic, nobly tragic figures with which the young self-conscious Pre-Raphaelites could identify. For Hunt, as for his friends, Philip Van Artevelde represented the socially responsible, politically advanced art for which 1848 called. (Landow x)

Swinburne's library contained a first edition of Philip van Artevelde as well

as a complete edition of Taylor's works from 1877—78 (lots 797 and 798).

Throughout Swinburne's letters and essays, Taylor is a touchstone for historical drama in the nineteenth century; both he and Hunt reveled in occasional

correspondence with the master. If the poetic principles expressed by Hunt in his Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905) "derive rather 154

directly" from Taylor's 1834 preface to Philip van Artevelde (Landow x),

Swinburne's conception of dramatic character also has clear echoes of the

preface. Taylor's remarks on Byron presage Swinburne's dismissal discussed

earlier of the Romantic poet's facility with dramatic character: Byron's

"imperfections" as a poet "are especially observable in the portraitures of human

character (if such it can be called) which are most prominent" in his works:

"There is nothing in them of the mixture and modification,—nothing of the

composite fabric which Nature has assigned to Man. They exhibit rather

passions personified than persons impassioned" (preface 863). Similar to

Jameson's "truth of general nature," Taylor's notion of a "composite fabric" of

passionate extremes—a "mixture and modification" which is only natural—finds

later expression in Swinburne's dramatic theory and practice.90

Swinburne may also have derived inspiration for the character of Mary

Stuart from Philip van Artevelde's Elena (mistress to the titular character), whose part has been described as "perhaps, nearer than that of any heroine in any modern English play (putting Shelley's Beatrice aside) to something great"

(Cambridge). Rossetti's 1853 drawing Hesterna Rosa (Yesterday's Rose), first exhibited at the Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition of 1857 in Fitzroy Square, illustrates lines from "Elena's Song" in act 5, scene 1, of the play, which are included at the bottom of the drawing: "Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife / To heart of neither wife nor maid, / "Lead we not here a jolly life / Betwixt the shine and 155 shade?" / Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife / To tongue of neither wife nor maid, / "Thou wag'st, but I am worn with strife, / And feel like flowers that fade!"

These same lyrics were cited by Swinburne in a letter to the editor of the

Academy in 1876 defending the lyrical work of Henry Taylor (Letters 3: 124).

Swinburne was au courant with other activity in the field of historical drama besides Taylor, and his correspondence with Nichol suggests his awareness of the competitive nature of this prolific field; he comments, for example, on William Forsyth's Hannibal in Italy: A Historical Drama (1872), which was published contemporaneously to Nichol's own Hannibal:

Forsyth seems really ... to have seized the opportunity to immolate himself on your altar by publishing his Hannibal as a foil to yours. It seems to be a most curiously exact repetition of the enterprise and fate of another historian of Rome, Ampere, who crowned his labours in that field by publishing a historico- biographic drama of Caesar written in verse worthy of the applause of Hutton and emulation of Buchanan. (Letters 2: 200)

Nichol's Hannibal trumps Forsyth's, which Swinburne coyly links to the

"enterprise and fate" of the earlier Cesar, Scenes historiques (1859) by Jean

Jacques Ampere, whose verse he deems worth the praise of such unadmired contemporaries as Richard Holt Hutton (1826-97; editor and reviewer at The

Spectator), and Swinburne's nemesis, the poet-critic Robert Buchanan (1841-

1901).

The English civil war was a popular topic for writers of historical plays, including Browning. His Strafford apparently arose from W.C. Macready's 156 request to write him a tragedy; within a year, Covent Garden was the site of

Macready's production of this play about Sir Thomas Wentworth, Earl of

Strafford, and the struggle between Charles I and the Puritans. The play closed after five nights, and Browning's next historical drama, King Victor and King

Charles (1842), was not produced. In Swinburne's library is the first edition of

Strafford, together with the Prose Life of Strafford by John Forster that Browning completed when Forster was sick, and that was attributed to Browning by First and Furnivall in their edition of it in 1892 (both in lot 101).]

Beyond the historical dramas, Browning's contribution to verse drama in general is important to our discussion. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon (1843), produced by Macready at Drury Lane, ran for three nights. J.O. Bailey suggests that its failure on the stage may be seen to demonstrate characteristics that would be a

"a source of strength, success, and revival of the verse drama":

Instead of presenting one-dimensional characters, Browning analyzed mental and emotional states. Besides the conflict between one man and another, he sought to exhibit conflicts of impulse, emotion, and reason within the individual. As Browning himself put it, he conceived of drama as "Action in Character, rather than Character in Action." He insisted upon this characterization in depth, but did not know how to project it for the nineteenth-century stage. (133)

Bailey's argument is similar to criticism that the weakness of Shelley's Cenci lay in its psychological analysis. Similarly, Bailey notes of Browning's Pippa Passes

(1841), which consists of four "inner plays" located within an "enveloping frame," that the dramatic conflict "in each inner play is an internal spiritual struggle 157 between conscience and desire, pride, fear, or self-interest." The characters and situations admittedly may be "stock, even melodramatic," but "internally each simple "villain" is the baser in conflict with the better self (134).

This focus on interior states and spiritual dilemmas can also be seen in the art of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Adrian Poole records that between them the Pre-Raphaelites produced more than sixty illustrations from

Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies, and "in general they sought situations of emotional and psychological complexity"; one example is William Holman

Hunt's Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus (1851):

The denouement scene had been painted before, but no one had delved as deeply into it as Hunt was moved to. He froze the lovers at the moment of maximum ambivalence, when the story could still go more than one way, along with their passions and loyalties. (61)

In a letter to The Times Ruskin praised Hunt's painting for showing "'the contending of doubt and distress with awakening hope in the half-shadowed, half-sunlit countenance of Julia'" (Ruskin 12: 325; qtd. in Poole 61). Similar is

Hunt's Claudio and Isabella (1850) where, "like Julia, Isabella's expression is suspended between hope and doubt" (Poole 63). And "Mariana" from

Tennyson's Poems (1830), inspired by the character in Measure for Measure, displays "evident parallels with the extrapolation of Shakespearean women" both by these artists and by the Jameson circle discussed earlier (182). Of Claribel,

Lilian, Isabel, Mariana, Adeline, Hero, Almeida, and Oriana, that "bevy of desirable lonely women" in Tennyson's early poetry, Arthur Hallam commented, 158

"They are like summaries of mighty dramas'" (Tennyson: the Critical Heritage

148; qtd. in Poole 184).

Thus, both in Tennyson and in the historical and verse dramas of

Browning can be seen the evolution of the Romantic tendency toward

psychological inwardness which would develop further in the dramatic

monologue, one form which performed an important function in bridging the gap

between the writing of history and drama for theatrical performance. This

generic form, especially as developed by Browning, bridged history and drama

by means of a poetry that sets out a psychological crux in a character's

development, played out in the presence of a silent auditor—all set in a historical

context. In November, 1856 when Swinburne was an undergraduate at Balliol

College, Oxford, he joined the "Old Mortality" club with John Nichol and others,

where he read aloud such poems from Browning's newly-published monologues

in Men and Women (1855) as "The Statue and the Bust" and "Bishop

Blougram's Apology" (Cassidy 38). In 1858 Swinburne wrote to a friend: "I

long ... to have talk of Sordello; it is one of my canonical scriptures" (Letters 1:

16), and in 1869 after the publication of The Ring and the Book he praised

Browning for "his greatness as an artist I think (now more than ever) established to all time by his monodramas" (Letters 2: 47). With its "limited aperture of the single personality's straitened vista," the dramatic monologue can be seen as the typical poetic expression of Victorian skepticism concerning "the ability to 159

know the external world" which functioned alongside the period's propensity for

acquiring knowledge (Joseph 73).

The philosopher F.H. Bradley's notion that reality cannot be accessed

directly except through a "limited aperture" had "wide applicability to the

Victorian period."91 W. David Shaw uses it to illustrate Tennyson's belief that

"reality is perspectival" and the ultimate nature of the world "hidden from any

finite mind" (290); he describes Tennyson's method of shifting frames and

opening different windows on perspectives on reality, satisfying the Victorian

desire to look through "magic windows" such as those provided by such

inventions as the diorama, the stereopticon, the panorama, and the magic

lantern (36-37). In the Idylls, internal frames shift from "physical, to

psychological, to metaphysical explanations of Arthur's kingship"; the same

effect is created in Maud by "changing phases of passion in a single speaker,"

and in The Princess, each shift from contemporary prologue to dream romance to songs and lyrics inserted in the narrative and finally to contemporary epilogue

"opens another window in the reader's mind" (116-17). Shifts in point of view,

such as depicting Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere through each other's eyes, are a more effective means of discovering "complex truths" than "a simple

pronouncement about adultery" (282).

One of the shifting frames Shaw describes—internal, narrative, point of view—can be seen in In Memoriam, where Tennyson examines various 160

scientific and theological perspectives, many of which are framed by the

numbered divisions of the poem, in his search for the truth that will enable him to

come to terms with the reality of his friend Hallam's death. Alternatively,

Browning's The Ring and the Book seeks another mode of depicting the truth

behind the reality of a tragic event by presenting the conflicting "voices" of those who have played a part in it in order to open different windows on the truth. His text is physically divided by the alternating voices as well as an introductory exposition of the issue under examination and a conclusion which ascribes to art the ability to locate truth residing in the comprehensive, not the particular, picture. A comment by the Pope anticipates Bradley's concept of limited access to reality:

Man's mind, what is it but a convex glass Wherein are gathered all the scattered points Picked out of the immensity of sky, To re-unite there, be our heaven for earth, Our known unknown, our God revealed to man? Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole; Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense,- There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus!) In the absolute immensity, the whole Appreciable solely by Thyself,~ Here, by the little mind of man, reduced To littleness that suits his faculty, In the degree appreciable too, Between Thee and ourselves. . . . (385)

To the Pope, the mind has access to an objective and divine truth in reduced proportions, but it is a relative truth, proportional to individual sense; appreciation of the whole is a divine property. 161

Swinburne's own propensity for opening windows on reality is evident in the epistolary novel A Year's Letters, composed about 1862-63. In this work, suspiciously characterized by Swinburne as "guileless," an understanding of the characters must be derived from their own letters as well as from correspondence directed to them or about them by others. Complicating the task of understanding, as F.J. Sypher notes in the introduction to his edition of the work, is the fact that while the correspondents each have a "distinctive style," they "vary their tactics to suit the requirements of their situation and the sensibilities of their correspondent"; in addition, the "ironic" letters of Lady

Midhurst, an admitted expert "in applying reverse psychology," contain directions that "may be meant to be obeyed or disobeyed" (xvii), a tactic prevalent in the trilogy, but especially evident in Mary's manoeuvres with Darnley and Murray over the fate of Chastelard. While each letter frames its predecessor and successor, the entire collection is framed by a prologue in which a brief chronology of the "alternate agents and patients of the tale" is sketched.92

Even the monologues of Poems and Ballads (1866), a book Swinburne describes in "Notes on Poems and Reviews" as "dramatic, many-faced, multifarious" (Swinburne Replies 18), are carefully arranged to comment on each other through their physical relation. Each monologue represents an act in a "lyrical monodrama of passion," and occasionally represents a "new stage and scene" (23). "The Garden of Proserpine," for example, was "slipped in" by 162

"design" between the "fierce and frank sensualities" of "Dolores" and the

"repose" of "Hesperia" to express "that brief total pause of passion and of thoughts, when the spirit. . . hungers and thirsts only after the perfect sleep"

(22-24). Access to the female subjects themselves is limited by the perspective of the male speaker.

Such organization of a volume of lyrics and dramatic monologues to give a reader multiple perspectives on truth is also used in Chastelard, published the year before Poems and Ballads. In the opening of (as Swinburne called it) the

"many-sided" Chastelard, Mary Stuart is seen through linguistic frames provided by the four "Maries" (the Queen's attendants), Darnley, and Chastelard, all of whom comment on the Queen and on each other's perspective of her. Each provides a different angle, perspective, or analysis of her character as the trilogy's elusive truth. For instance, the crucial execution scene that closes

Chastelard is literally framed by the upper gallery from which it is viewed by

Mary Carmichael who reports to Mary Beaton, such that information about the

Queen's demeanour during her lover's execution is twice removed—by the frame of the gallery, and that of the second-hand report. Indeed, the entire trilogy may be seen as a series of constantly shifting frames which enable

Swinburne to comment obliquely on the complex issue of assessing Mary's character and actions rather than offering the absolute judgements favoured by

Mary's supporters and detractors alike. 163

Next we turn to Victor Hugo, the key contemporary for Swinburne (Henry

Taylor notwithstanding) in the field of historical drama, whose theory and practice embodies the Romantic struggle of the individual at war with the inner and the outer self, the baser and the better, and, to some degree, programmatic for the Victorians' discussion of dramatic conflict and multiple perspectives on truth. 164

Chapter 5

Victor Hugo and Swinburne's Drama

That Swinburne revered Victor Hugo on many terms is an understatement. Hugo's name is a constant throughout Swinburne's prose and correspondence; his Study of Victor Hugo (1886) fills four hundred pages in the

Bonchurch edition of his works.93 He reveled in Hugo's written acceptance of his literary dedications, and on one occasion even dined with him.94 His library contained several separate volumes of Hugo's works, some with Hugo's presentation inscriptions, as well as three separate collected editions in French, one in ten volumes, one in 48 volumes, and one the collected poetry (lots 377 to

386).

In chapter 3 we highlighted Swinburne's review of John Nichol's Hannibal as the most complete statement in one place of his theory of historical drama; tellingly, much of Swinburne's discussion of the genre proceeds by way of reference to Hugo, and it is clear that if the English dramatists of the Elizabethan age, along with Shelley's Cenci, were prime models for Swinburne's own dramatic efforts, no less so was the continental influence of Hugo in his own time, and in ways more readily apparent and specific than Swinburne's other contemporary hero, Henry Taylor. Indeed, in his comments on Nichol, Swinburne identifies both a native tradition associated with Shakespeare and a

continental tradition associated with Hugo when he analyzes what he sees as two ways of treating a historic subject:

One, that of Marlowe and Shakespeare, in the fashion of a dramatic chronicle; one, that of the greatest of all later dramatists [Hugo], who seizes on some point of historic tradition, some character or event proper or possible to the time chosen, be it actual or ideal, and starting from this point takes his way at his will and from this seed or kernel develops as it were by evolution the whole fabric of his poem. (CW15: 461)

Although he assigns Nichol's play to the English tradition, Swinburne is by no

means provincial in his estimation of either approach:

It would be hard to say which method of treatment requires the higher and the rarer faculty; to throw into poetic form and imbue with dramatic spirit the whole body of an age, the whole character of a great event or epoch, by continuous reproduction of historic circumstance and exposition of the recorded argument scene by scene; or to carve out of the huge block of history and chronicle some detached group of ideal figures, and give them such form and colour of imaginative life as may seem best to you. In some of the greatest plays of Victor Hugo there is hardly more than a nominal connection perceptible at first sight with historical character or circumstance.. . . Nevertheless, these great works belong properly to the class of historical drama: they have in them the breath and spirit of the chosen age, and the life of their time informs the chosen types of ideal character. (461-62)

Swinburne's distinction between historical "reproduction" or "exposition" and

"imaginative life" illustrates Armstrong's point about the Victorian period's tendency to draw a distinction between "an autonomous, ideal, self-derived, imaginative creation and the poetry which is directly dependent on and evolving out of the circumstances of the age in which it is written" (13), or, we might add, 166 about which it is written. Swinburne's own description of Mary Stuart suggests the value he placed on situating historical characters within the active, living context of their times:

The tragedy of Mary's personal life gains half its interest and all its dignity from the great background (not of provincial but) of European history which I have tried throughout to keep steadily before the reader's mind,—the great battle between past and future, death and life, tradition and revolution. (Letters 2: 300-02)

But as the closing line of the passage on Hugo demonstrates ("these great works . . . have in them the breath and spirit of the chosen age"), for Swinburne, the key constituent of the genre of historical drama is the vitality of the historical representation, an idea that is also commonplace in discussions of the genre, whether it be, as noted earlier, Gosse's reference to the attempt to "resuscitate" historical character or Hugo's discussion in the famous preface to his historical drama Cromwell (1827) of the artist's goal "to resurrect history" (46).

5.1 Hugo's preface to Cromwell (1827)

Hugo's preface was a rallying cry in the contest between Classicism and

Romanticism emerging in French literature and, in particular, in the drama.

Lawrence Kerslake locates its polemical criticism of the unities of place and time and its defense of historical plays in the larger argument of Hugo. Kerslake's introductory notes to his own translation of the preface provide a useful orientation to Hugo's perspective: 167

Hugo views drama in the context of a cultural and psychological evolution, and elaborates a theory of art which would allow it to encompass the richness of human experience. ... As Hugo explains in his theory of the three successive ages, drama is above all a way of viewing and communicating the human condition. It is here that Hugo's conception of the inseparable coexistence of the sublime and the grotesque, in life and therefore in art, assumes its capital importance. He considers that "beauty has but one type, ugliness has a thousand" (Hugo/Souriau 1897, 207), and hence only the recognition and inclusion of the "grotesque" will allow the dramatist to achieve an adequate perception of the sublime and to recreate a sense of the totality of experience. . . . The result will not be a simple juxtaposition of comic and tragic elements, but frequently a simultaneous presence of antithetical impulses, sometimes within a single character.95

In the preface, Hugo addresses a number of areas central to Swinburne.

The first is Hugo's conception of the modern age (which begins with

Shakespeare) as a dramatic age. Tracing the development of three ages of

poetry—the ode, the epic, and the drama—in association with corresponding

phases of society, Hugo places drama at the apex of this development: "Drama

is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain drama only in its rudimentary form; fully developed, drama is capable of subsuming and encompassing both

lyric and epic" (Kerslake 259). According to Hugo, "drama is the culminating

point of modern poetry"; Milton's Paradise Lost "is a drama even more than it is an epic." The creation of socially and politically astute drama is linked by Hugo to the divine, or near-divine, character of the artist:

Theatre is a point of view. Everything which exists in the world, in history, in life, in mankind, can and must be reflected in it, but under the magic wand of art. Art scans the centuries, scans nature, scans chronicles, strives to reproduce reality—especially 168

that of customs and characters, which is much less open to doubt and contradiction than are facts. It restores what annalists have cut out, . . . intuits their omissions and remedies them, fills in their lacunae with imaginings which bear the stamp of the period, brings together what they have left scattered . . . clothes the whole thing with a form which is both poetic and natural, and gives it that life of truth and specificity which produces illusion. . . . Thus the goal of art is almost divine: to bring back to life, if writing history; to create, if writing poetry. (263)

We noted earlier Swinburne's association of the dramatic with "the higher school of intellectual poetry." Hugo and Swinburne were part of an ongoing discussion in the nineteenth century about the importance of reviving the dramatic mode and, as Shelley phrased it, "bringing back the drama to its principles" ("Defence"

492). The inferences Hugo draws from this position have many implications in terms of Swinburne's understanding of historical drama and its relation to reality, as well as the rationale behind narrative and character development within the genre.

In the passage above, Hugo enters an enduring conflict between poetry and history that goes back to Aristotle (Lindenberger 3). The very term historical drama suggests the nature of the genre's engagement with "the transactions between imaginative literature and the external world .... with the first word qualifying the fictiveness of the second, the second questioning the reality of the first" (Lindenberger x). Hugo maintains the equilibrium suggested here. Art

"strives to reproduce reality," but locates it in "customs and characters" rather than "facts." The chronicles, annals, and source materials with which we 169 typically associate "reality" and which Swinburne drew on extensively in his

Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Mary Stuart are open to question, contain excisions, omissions, and gaps; art, on the other hand, "restores," "intuits," and

"remedies," "fills in" and "brings together." An earlier passage in the preface makes a similar point with specific reference to the art of drama; linking the epic with history, and drama with life, Hugo anticipates the objection that "drama also portrays the story of peoples" with this note:

Yes, but as life, not as history. It leaves to history the exact sequence of events, the order of dates, ... all of the externals of history. It takes the internal. What history forgets or neglects— details of costumes, of manners, of physiognomies, the hidden side of events—belongs to drama. .. . Don't look for pure history in drama, even if it is historical drama. It writes legends, not descriptions. It is a chronicle, not a chronology. (258-59)

But what does it mean to say that art's tools are the "magic wand," its materials are the "imaginings," and its product is the "illusion" of reality? Hugo establishes earlier the "impassable boundary" which separates "reality according to art" from "reality according to nature": "It would be folly to confuse the two .... The truth of art cannot be absolute reality. Art cannot reproduce the thing itself (263; Hugo's emphasis). So historical drama is the imaginative re­ creation of the past through language rather than an attempt to recreate the natural empirical world of Cromwell, or Beatrice Cenci, or Mary Queen of Scots as any of them really existed (a mode of historical re-creation that is never possible to the historian, of course); through the re-presentation or mimesis of 170 this world by means of the dramatic image, an attempt is made to incarnate its

"truth," as Browning would say.

As the truth in Browning's The Ring and the Book is found not in the parts but the whole, so art formulates its truth both in the facts and in the spaces beyond them:

... It is the glory and the good of Art That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth .... Art may tell a truth Obliquely. (The Ring and the Book 12: 842, 859)

Thus, for Hugo, the poet works with what is "characteristic" (263). Hugo is careful to distinguish between a superficial addition of"local color," consisting of

"simply adding a few gaudy strokes here and there to a work which is in all other respects false and conventional," and local color found "in the very heart of the work, so that it spreads outward on its own, naturally and evenly." The play, he states, "should be totally suffused with this color of the period; it must be in the very air" (263-64). This is just what Swinburne asserts about Hugo's plays: they are properly considered historical dramas because they contain "the breath and spirit of the chosen age" (CW/15: 462). For Hugo, accuracy is the dramatist's

"most important ability," but not the "superficial accuracy of the descriptive school" (Blackmore 51), and here again, we see Swinburne in support of Hugo's approach:

The Cromwell of Hugo, in his strength and weakness, his evil and his good, is as actual and credible a human figure as the Cromwell 171

of Carlyle, whether or not we accept as probable or possible matter of historic fact the alloy of baser metal which we here see mingled with the fine gold of heroic intellect and action. He who can lay hold of truth need fear no charge of falsehood in his free dealing with mere fact; and this first play of Hugo's ... is, with all its licence of invention and diversion of facts, an example throughout of perfect poetic truth and life. (CW15: 462-63)

Both art and history appear to offer access to reality, however mediated by language, what Browning calls "the mediate word" (The Ring and the

BookM: 861). Jameson's universalizing "truth of general nature" is not the province of fictional characters alone. The development of Hugo's ideas about character provides a fitting theoretical framework for the views of Jameson and

Swinburne expressed in their critical writings and in Swinburne's own dramatic practice. For Hugo, the notion of drama as "a mirror which reflects nature" is two-dimensional and insufficient; it must be a "focusing mirror which collects and concentrates the rays of light, rather than weakening them" (Kerslake 263).

Blackmore translates this as a "concentrating mirror" (45), which is a strikingly apt image for Hugo's principle; applied to character, it means that "every figure must be focused on its most salient, individual, precise trait" (Kerslake 264). This focus or concentration is expressed through the Romantic and Victorian notion of the divided self (as in Tennyson's "The Two Voices"), which, for Hugo, is inherent in the poetry of a Christian age:

Once Christianity had said to mankind: You are dual; you are composed of two creatures, the one perishable, the other immortal; the one fleshly, the other spiritual; the one chained by appetites, needs, and passions, the other borne up on the wings of 172

inspiration and imagination; the one always stooped towards its mother, the earth, and the other constantly soaring towards heaven, its true home—from that moment, drama was created. Is drama in fact anything other than the contrast which we see every day, the perpetual struggle between two opposing forces which characterize our lives, warring over humanity from the cradle to the grave? (259)

The poetry born of Christianity "is thus drama," and its characteristic feature is

"the real," which results from "the natural combination of two types, the sublime and the grotesque, which commingle in drama as they do in life and in all creation. For true poetry, complete poetry, lies in a harmony of opposites" (259).

The intersection of the grotesque and the sublime (which Hugo associates with comedy and tragedy) is what constitutes art—art that can access reality:

If we systematically separate these two trunks of art, preventing their branches from intermingling, the only fruit they will produce will be, on the one hand, abstract representations of vices and follies; and, on the other, abstract representations of crimes, heroism, and virtue. The two types, separated and on their own, will go their individual ways, on each side abandoning the real. Hence, after these abstractions, there will be something left which needs to be represented: humanity: after these tragedies and comedies, something which needs to be created: drama. (259-60)

Hugo was arguing against constraints on the modern theatre in the form of

French classical "theories, arts of poetry, and systems"; in place of "the despotism of systems, codes, and rules" he posited, like Wordsworth and

Shelley, "the general laws of nature, which reign over all art, and the particular laws which, for each work, derive from the conditions which are appropriate to each subject. The former are eternal, internal, and durable; the latter are

variable, external, and function only once" (262; 265). We are reminded of

Griffin's highlighting of Carolus Verardus and the notion that the matter of a

history should be left to dictate its own dramatic form (see chapter 3).

What is key for the conception of character is Hugo's juxtaposition of

contrast and interdependency: on the one hand, Christianity, "the modern

muse," senses that "not everything in creation is beautiful in human terms, that the ugly exists alongside the beautiful, the misshapen near the graceful, the

grotesque on the other side of the sublime, evil with goodness, shadow with

light" (257; Hugo's emphasis). Yet, in drama, as in "real life," argues Hugo, everything is interdependent:

The body has a role to play as does the soul; and the people and events activated by this dual agency appear as alternatively comical and terrible, sometimes simultaneously comical and terrible. . . . Great men, for all their greatness, always have within them a lower self which makes a mockery of their intelligence. That is what makes them human, and that is what makes them dramatic. (260)

The grotesque is an "appropriate" and necessary element that departs from the

"monotony" of the sublime and the beautiful (261).

How are these concepts expressed in practical terms, and in familiar characters? Hugo links the sublime, which possesses "all charms, graces, and forms of beauty," with such character types as Juliet, Desdemona, and Ophelia, and contrasts it with the grotesque: "The . .. [grotesque] will assume all follies, 174 weaknesses, and forms of ugliness.... It will be the repository of passions,

vices, crimes; it will be lascivious, servile, gluttonous, treacherous, quarrelsome,

hypocritical; by turns it will be lago, Tartuffe, Basile; Polonius, Harpagon,

Bartholo; Falstaff, Scapin, Figaro" (258). Beauty, however, is transcended by the grotesque on account of its limits:

Beauty (to put it in human terms) is form considered only in its simplest aspect, its most perfect symmetry, its most absolute harmony with the way we ourselves are designed. Consequently, its overall effect, though always complete, is always limited, just as we ourselves are. What we call ugliness, on the other hand, is a detail of a vast pattern that extends beyond our comprehension, and harmonizes not with humanity but with the whole of creation. That's why it always appears to us in new, incomplete shapes. (Blackmore 29)

5.2 Swinburne and Hugo's "concentrating mirror"

We can see the influence of such ideas of Hugo on character in

Swinburne's essays on the early dramatists, in his essay on Shelley, and in his comments on the character of the Queen of Scots. Hugo's notion of drama as a

"concentrating" mirror reflecting nature but also a "focusing mirror which collects and concentrates the rays of light" of a character—including both the beautiful and the ugly, the good and evil aspects of character—enhances our understanding of Swinburne's tendency to conceive of characters as "types."

Types, or archetypal characters, however, tend towards a dominant trait—the largely or wholly good or evil. For example, Swinburne notes that the figure of

Bianca in Ford's Love's Sacrifice "is set up for admiration as a pure and noble type of woman," and that the friar is designed on the whole for a type of sincere and holy charity" {CW12: 382; 386). What, then, of the "mixed" or complex character in which good and evil are combined?

What Hugo's metaphor of the concentrating mirror helps us grasp is

Swinburne's antipathy toward "flat and shallow" characters such as those for which he dismisses Coleridge's poetic drama Remorse (CI/1/15: 148), and his interest in complex characters in whom diverse "rays of light" are concentrated.

Shakespeare's Cleopatra and his Imogen can be named as types—"the incarnate sex" and the "immortal godhead of woman" respectively (CW 11:

162)—without impairing their potential for dimensionality. Hugo's notion of the concentrating mirror may be seen as an access point into that "vast pattern that extends beyond our comprehension," of which ugliness is but a detail. This is one way to understand Swinburne's attention to the potential for "lifelike" and

"distinct" features in the characters he designates as types—his highlighting of

Ford's Ithocles and Orgilus for the "height and dignity which ennoble alike the slayer and the slain" (CIA/11: 381); his praise of Ford for his depiction of the

"strife and violence of a nature divided against itself and the "strong delight of extremities" (CW 11: 399); and his suggestion that in Troilus and Cressida,

Shakespeare "has set himself as if prepensely and on purpose to brutalize the type of Achilles and spiritualise the type of Ulysses" (CI/1/11: 144). 176

This representation of duality is not an easy achievement in Swinburne's concept of drama, but it is a conventional approach to character in successful drama. Take, for example, Swinburne's conclusion about Cain and Manfred that the lack of "difference perceptible, except in strength and knowledge, between

Lucifer and Cain" is symptomatic of Byron's incompetence with "the mysteries and varieties of character" (CH/15: 129). It appears clear that Swinburne wanted Byron to pay attention to the different natures of Lucifer and Cain in their angelic and human natures, with differing spiritual and psychological motivations, and especially that Lucifer's motive and goal was far grander than that of Cain, however much they might be allies. Swinburne's assessment of success appears to lie in how "natural" and "alive" are the representations of this duality, as he expresses in his discussion of Shelley's Cenci, where "the two leading figures are drawn absolutely right: the criminal and the martyr are equally natural and equally alive" (C1/V15: 338).

So far we have discussed briefly Hugo's view of the modern age as a dramatic age; the period's ongoing discussion about reviving the dramatic mode; the implications of Hugo's position on drama for Swinburne's understanding of historical drama (its relation to reality and the rationale behind narrative and character development); the term historical drama as a balanced phrase; how art reproduces reality (historical drama as the imaginative re-creation of the past through language); and ideas about character (the concept of drama as a 177

concentrating mirror, with its focus expressed through character dualities).

Throughout we have drawn on examples from Hugo's preface on Cromwell and

Swinburne's comments on Hugo as an historical dramatist, as well as

Jameson's depiction of the character of Shakespeare's heroines (Cleopatra and

Lady Macbeth), and Swinburne's own discussion of Renaissance drama

(Shakespeare and Ford) and the Romantics (Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley).

Such a range of examples illustrates Swinburne's emphasis on complex

characters in which good and evil are mixed.

We get a better sense of Swinburne's focus on these dualities from his

essay on the Jacobean dramatist Cyril Toumeur (1575-1626), whose

"truthfulness" and "power" as a "dramatic student and painter of human

character" Swinburne sought to defend. Where Toumeur fails, Swinburne

acknowledges, is precisely on the point of vitality of contrast. Not all the

characters in The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), he admits, "are equally or

sufficiently realized and vivified as active and distinct figures"; the two elder sons

(Supervacuo and Ambitioso) of the duchess Gratiana "are little more than

conventional outlines of such empty violence and futile ambition as might be inferred from the crude and puerile symbolism of their respective designations"

(CW11: 466). Where he succeeds is on similar grounds: "The third brother

[Junior / Spurio] is a type no less living than revolting and no less dramatic than detestable; his ruffian cynicism and defiant brutality are in life and death alike 178 original and consistent, whether they express themselves in curses or in jeers"

(466-67). Here the reference to "original" reminds us of Hugo's conclusion above that ugliness "always appears to us in new, incomplete shapes." Again,

Toumeur fails in the character of Hippolito, brother and accomplice to the hero,

Vendice, since Hippolito is "seldom much more than a serviceable shadow"; on the other hand, the character of their sister Castiza rises above "the common type of virginal heroine who figures on the stage of almost every dramatist then writing" because "the author's profound and noble reverence for goodness gives at once precision and distinction to the outline and a glow of active life to the colour of this pure and straightforward study" (467). Less remarkable is

Tourneur's treatment of Gratiana, "whose wickedness and weakness are so easily played upon and blown about by every gust of penitence or temptation," but even here Swinburne recognizes the finer touches: "There is the same lifelike vigour of touch in the smallest detail of the scenes between her children and herself (467).

The same range of observations about types and dualities is found in

Swinburne's discussion of the figure of Fulvia in Nichol's Hannibal:

In a few scenes and with a few strokes the figure of Fulvia stands before us complete. From the slight and straggling traditions of Hannibal's luxurious entanglement in Capua, Mr. Nichol has taken occasion to create a fresh and memorable type of character, and give colour and variety to the austere and martial action of his poem by an episode of no inharmonious passion. To no vulgar 'harlot' such as Pliny speaks of has he permitted his hero to bow down. The revolted Roman maiden who casts her life into the arms 179

of her country's enemy is a mistress not unworthy of Hannibal. From the first fiery glimpse of her active and passionate spirit to the last cry of triumph which acclaims the consummation of her love in death, we find no default of flaw in the noble conception of her creator. (CW15: 465)

The contrast of "vulgar 'harlot'" with mistress "not unworthy" reflects Swinburne's

appreciation of complex characterization. There is nothing "fresh and

memorable" or "complete" about the simple type of a harlot. Wherever they exist

on the moral continuum, what apparently intrigues Swinburne is their passion

and their consistency; so in Fulvia, Swinburne finds that "the resolute

consistency which maintains and vindicates her passion and her freedom is throughout at once natural and heroic" (466), while the figure of the mother in

Toumeur, "whose wickedness and weakness are so easily played upon and

blown about by every gust of penitence or temptation," is deemed unremarkable.

Before we consider how the views about drama and character expressed

by Hugo and in turn Swinburne aid in understanding Swinburne's treatment of character, especially Mary's, in his trilogy, we should pause to gather together some of the ideas that will be emphasized in the argument to follow. In his essays on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Swinburne stressed the ways in which the dramatists of the periods presented dramatic character. Specifically, he praised them for constructing characters with "distinct," "life-like," and

"original" qualities. Such a character as Nichol's Fulvia in Hannibal is "a fresh and memorable type of character" whose function is both to display that type, 180 but also to "give colour and variety to the austere and martial action" by means of "no inharmonious passion" (see above p. 178)

From his reading of Hugo's plays, Swinburne takes the idea that the writer of a historical drama gives to some "detached group of ideal figures" carved from "history and chronicle" what is essential to the play: "form and colour of imaginative life." A writer like Hugo, then (and Swinburne claims such a position for himself too), constructs characters that "have in them the breath and spirit of the chosen age" (see above p. 165). As Hugo puts it in his preface to

Cromwell, the "color of the period . .. must be in the very air" (see above p. 170).

Hence, in a way, Swinburne combines his approach to dramatic character from both his study of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and from his reading of

Hugo. Further, Hugo's image of the concentrating mirror facilitates Swinburne's elaboration of complexity in character, hinting even at unexamined or unexplored depths of character and motivation. Hugo provides both a justification and an example of the utility of such a concentrating mirror.96

Moreover, it is through the display and juxtaposition of human duality— the war between passions and passionate natures and their disparate motives and goals—both within and between characters, that we get fresh, new, but ultimately incomplete glimpses of a character's complexity. Both Jameson (as discussed earlier) and Hugo contribute to notions of character such as the 181 divided personality, truth to nature, and the unsatisfactory abstractions and caricatures that arise out of human traits and passions depicted in the extreme.

By understanding Swinburne's conception of character types in this way, we can move beyond the tendency to read his female characters, Mary Stuart in particular, as one-dimensional and interchangeable signs in the way that Praz and many others do. Instead, we can read them as both clearly defined types in dramatic action, and as a complex interplay of dramatic characteristics brought into focus by the "concentrating mirror."

Such linking together or separating what we might call "simple" from

"complex" characters was consistent with many approaches to characterization in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. For instance, Dickens's lawyers and accountants are, by and large, "simple" characters, almost archetypes. On the other hand, Browning's Ring and the Book attacks the conventional typology applied to the major figures in the Roman murder case (Guido, Pompilia, and

Caponsacchi) as murderer, pure victim or harlot, and philandering priest by means of a complex (and preferred—hence twenty-thousand lines) approach to character—a complexity also exploited in Dickens's later heroes and heroines.

5.3 Swinburne's Articles on Mary Stuart

Swinburne's comments about the historical Mary in the Encyclopaedia

Britannica article and his "Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots" capture many of the complexities and ambiguities we have been discussing. In 182 the opening chapter of the dissertation I contextualized these two articles in terms of Victorian historiography, where I set out Swinburne's sources systematically; here I employ a narrower thematic and rhetorical focus in order to draw out associations between Hugo's preface to Cromwell and Swinburne's approach to character.

Let us begin with Swinburne's conclusions about Mary for Encyclopaedia

Britannica, which are worth presenting at length:

Mary Stuart was in many respects the creature of her age, of her creed, and of her station; but the noblest and most noteworthy qualities of her nature were independent of rank, opinion or time. Even the detractors who defend her conduct on the plea that she was a dastard and a dupe are compelled in the same breath to retract this implied reproach, and to admit, with illogical acclamation and incongruous applause, that the world never saw more splendid courage at the service of more brilliant intelligence, that a braver if not "a rarer spirit never did steer humanity." A kinder or more faithful friend, a deadlier or more dangerous enemy, it would be impossible to dread or to desire. Passion alone could shake the double fortress of her impregnable heart and ever- active brain. The passion of love, after very sufficient experience, she apparently and naturally outlived; the passion of hatred and revenge was as inextinguishable in her inmost nature as the emotion of loyalty and gratitude. Of repentance it would seem that she knew as little as of fear, having been trained from her infancy in a religion where the Decalogue was supplanted by the Creed. Adept as she was in the most exquisite delicacy of dissimulation, the most salient note of her original disposition was daring rather than subtlety. Beside or behind the voluptuous or intellectual attractions of beauty and culture, she had about her the fresher charm of a fearless and frank simplicity, a genuine and enduring pleasure in small and harmless things. (408-09)

Here is a portrait of vitality similar to those praised by Swinburne in his essays on dramatic characters. There are "noble" qualities—splendid courage, brilliant 183

intelligence, bravery—and the extremities of a passionate nature: love, hatred

and revenge, loyalty and gratitude, all set out in a series of opposites that

vacillate between her nature and contemporary and later responses, not always

set up in parallels, so that the apparent virtues become as problematical as the

conventional vices. For example, Swinburne links "the passion of hatred and

revenge" with "the emotion of loyalty and gratitude" as "inextinguishable" features of Mary's nature. Similarly, she knows little of "repentance" or "fear." In each case, the linkages are of items not typically seen as compatible.

We note how the parallelism of phrases in the passage just quoted, often of the same word function and length (isocolon), act in parallel asyntactic constructions (parallelism or parison), and are used together in the figure of

"compar" that the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century rhetoricians identified. Just as frequently, Swinburne uses parallel construction that balances phrases but contrasts meanings or ideas in the device of "antithesis." As if to further emphasize these parallels and contrasts of character, Swinburne draws the verbal net tighter by the use of alliteration and assonance, sometimes extending the repetition of consonants or vowels to entire syllables or words (anaphora).

By such rhetorical means, the character of Mary is made complex in the sense we have just discussed, a combination of parallel and contrasting qualities and traits, virtues and vices, set out in a rhetoric of antithesis that mimics the meaning rhetorically. 184

Swinburne's representation of Mary clearly demonstrates that propensity to understand rather than judge discussed in the case of Shelley's Cenci:

The society in which the child was thenceforward reared is known to readers of Brantome as well as that of imperial Rome at its worst is known to readers of Suetonius or Petronius,—as well as that of papal Rome at its worst is known to readers of the diary kept by the domestic chaplain of Pope Alexander VI. Only in their pages can a parallel be found to the gay and easy record which reveals without sign of shame or suspicion of offence the daily life of a court compared to which the court of King Charles II is as the court of Queen Victoria to the society described by Grammont. Debauchery of all kinds, and murder in all forms, were the daily matter of excitement or of jest to the brilliant circle which revolved around Queen Catherine de' Medici. After ten years' training under the tutelage of the woman whose main instrument of policy was the corruption of her own children, the queen of Scots, aged fifteen years and five months, was married to the eldest and feeblest of the brood on the 24th of April 1558. (376-77)

Mary's girlhood is thus contextualized within an historical range of political and religious courts whose "worst" features, as represented in written historical records, we are invited to reflect upon or imagine as a means of understanding the role of her upbringing in her character and behaviour. In the following passage, the practices of the royal court are conflated with those of Catholicism to account for, and essentially normalize, the less flattering aspects of her character:

Hitherto, according to all evidence, she had shown herself on all occasions, as on all subsequent occasions she indisputably showed herself, the most fearless, the most keen-sighted, the most ready-witted, the most high-gifted and high-spirited of women; gallant and generous, skilful and practical, never to be cowed by fortune; never to be cajoled by craft; neither more 185

unselfish in her ends nor more unscrupulous in her practice than might have been expected from her training and her creed. (389)

We note all the superlatives in a pattern of climax and the repeated hyphenated

adjectives that convey her typical behaviour, followed by antithetic phrases that

emphasize the link between aspects of her character, her training, and her

creed.

Notably, alongside the worldliness detailed here and in an account of

Mary provided by an emissary of Elizabeth's court (Sir Francis Knollys) at the

time of her flight into Carlisle, an account deemed by Swinburne "at once the

best description and the noblest panegyric extant of the queen of Scots," the

poet is concerned to emphasize a contrasting naivete: "It is remarkable that he

[Knollys] should not have discovered in her the qualities so obvious to modern

champions of her character—easiness, gullibility, incurable innocence and

invincible ignorance of evil, incapacity to suspect or resent anything, readiness

to believe and forgive all things" (397). The use of the term "invincible ignorance"

alludes ironically to both the central Calvinist doctrine of invincible ignorance of

one's state of salvation (whether one is of the elect or of the reprobate), as well

as to the Catholic notion of the invincible ignorance of those who have never

heard the Gospel or who are incapable of understanding it. Swinburne turns the theological idea and uses it in reverse (in reference to both traditions) to emphasize and defend the excusability of the Queen's behaviour on the basis of her ignorance of evil, an ignorance he emphasizes through a series of 186 synonyms in words and phrases ("easiness, gullibility, incurable innocence . .. incapacity to suspect. . . readiness to believe and forgive all things"), a passage that culminates in an echo of Paul's hymn to love in 1 Cor. 13.7:

"Charity . . . thinketh no evil; . . . beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (KJV).

It is a complex portrait, but not, in Swinburne's eyes, an inconsistent one, as is evident from his "Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots." Here he carefully and repeatedly disentangles the effects of Mary's "training" from the

"natural" characteristics that transcend them:

At her best and worst alike, it seems to my poor apprehension that Mary showed herself a diplomatist only by education and force of native ability brought to bear on a line of life and conduct most alien from her inborn impulse as a frank, passionate, generous, unscrupulous, courageous and loyal woman, naturally self-willed and trained to be self-seeking, born and bred an imperial and royal creature, at once in the good and bad or natural and artificial sense of the words. In such a view I can detect no necessary incoherence; in such a character I can perceive no radical inconsistency. (441)

Again, we note the emphatic arrangement of positive attributes in a pattern of climax. The passage's final sentence recalls Jameson's notion of "consistent inconsistency" which makes it impossible to reduce a character to "any elementary principles" (see above p. 128). Swinburne's concern here, and as we saw in his descriptions of dramatic characters, is to demonstrate coherence and consistency of character while including conflicting emotions; it is precisely on this basis that he evaluates the efforts of both her supporters and her detractors. 187

In the case of her biographer William Hosack, he finds that the limits of the range of "paradoxical possibilities" in the study of human character have been breeched:

And that limit is reached and crossed, cleared at a leap and left far out of sight, by the theorist who demands our assent to such a theorem as this: That a woman whose intelligence was below the average level of imbecility, and whose courage was below the average level of a coward's, should have succeeded throughout the whole course of a singularly restless and adventurous career in imposing herself upon the judgment of every man and every woman with whom she ever came into any sort or kind of contact, as a person of the most brilliant abilities and the most dauntless daring. (423-24)

In elaborating this paradox for the sake of argument, Swinburne only heightens the disparity of its elements:

Let us admit, though it be no small admission, that Mary Stuart, who certainly managed to pass herself off upon every one who came near her under any circumstances as the brightest and the bravest creature of her kind in any rank or any country of the world, was dastard enough to be cowed into a marriage [to Bothwell] which she was idiot enough to imagine could be less than irretrievable ruin to her last chance of honour or prosperity. (424)

Coherence and consistency of character are precluded by shallow assessments:

"And what manner of whitewash is that which substitutes for the features of an erring but heroic woman those of a creature not above but beneath the human possibility of error or of sin?" (428)

Swinburne's reference to Mary as "an erring but heroic woman" suggests more sympathy for George Buchanan's representation of her (in Swinburne's 188 words) as "an acceptable and respectable type of royal womanhood—a pardonable if not admirable example of human character"—than for either the incredible "ideal of Prince Labanoff s loyal and single-hearted credulity" or

James Anthony Froude's ideal of "implacable and single-eyed animosity" (423;

428). Fully cognizant of Mary as "the mistress of Bothwell, the murderess of

Darnley, the conspiratress against the throne and life of her kinswoman and hostess [Elizabeth]," Swinburne still asks whether Mary is "by any necessary consequence the mere panther and serpent of his [Froude's] fascinating and magnificent study" (428).

Time and again Swinburne cites the dualistic influence of her upbringing on binary aspects of character:

It would be an inhuman absurdity to expect the presence or condemn the absence of what nothing far short of a miracle could have implanted—the sense of right and wrong, the distinction of good from evil, the preference of truth to falsehood. The heroine of Fotheringay was by no means a bad woman: she was a creature of the sixteenth century, a Catholic and a queen." (430)

And it is to her awareness of this temporal, religious, and class context that

Swinburne turns to offer what excuse he can "without any straining of moral law or any indulgence in paradoxical casuistry":

To spare the life of a suicidal young monomaniac [Chastelard] who would not accept his dismissal with due submission to the inevitable and suppression of natural regret, would probably in her own eyes have been no less than ruin to her character under the changed circumstances and in the transformed atmosphere of her life. . .. The act of Chastelard was the act of a rebel as surely as the conduct of Darnley three years afterwards was the conduct of 189

a traitor; and by all the laws then as yet unrepealed, by all precedents and rights of royalty, the life of the rebellious lover was scarce less unquestionably forfeit than the life of the traitorous consort. . . . Supposing she had taken part in the slaying of Darnley, there is every excuse for her; supposing she had not, there is none. (438-39; 442)

In her defense, Swinburne uses the writings of Mary's detractors, Froude and Knox, to validate their recognition of what was "really admirable in her nature, and was ineradicable as surely as it was unteachabie by royal training or by religious creed," while demonstrating, by a literary analogy with "the most impossible monster of incongruous merits and demerits which can be found in the most chaotic and inconsequent work of Euripides or Fletcher," the incredulity, incoherence, and inconsistency of a portrait like Froude's (430; 441).

His "Note" on Mary concludes with an encapsulation of all his points in a few final, emphatic lines:

Considered from any possible point of view, the tragic story of her life in Scotland admits but of one interpretation which is not incompatible with the impression she left on all friends and all foes alike. And this interpretation is simply that she hated Darnley with a passionate but justifiable hatred, and loved Bothwell with a passionate but pardonable love. For the rest of her career, I cannot but think that whatever was evil and ignoble in it was the work of education or of circumstance; whatever was good and noble, the gift of nature or of God. (442)

Again, the balance of isocolon helps the passage to sustain the binaries in the antitheses, so the rhetoric conforms to and confirms the psychological and motivational argument in a gesture of consolidation. 190

As might be anticipated, Swinburne also highlights Mary's particular qualities by setting them side by side with those of her antagonist, Elizabeth. In so doing, he no more vilifies or whitewashes Elizabeth than he does Mary.97 His juxtaposition of their different qualities is reminiscent of his setting out of opposing characters in his essays on drama, and his apparent recognition that it is the mixture of and struggle between contrary impulses that enlivens a character—historical or dramatic. Thus, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica article he ascribes to Elizabeth "vigorous intelligence," but highlights "the almost incredible want of tact or instinctive delicacy which distinguished and disfigured" that intelligence (379). The implied contrast here to Mary is made clear in the similar phrasing and terms used in the "Note" to demonstrate qualities he argues are inapplicable to Mary: "A woman utterly wanting in tact, intuition, perception of character or grasp of circumstances—a woman abnormally devoid of such native instinct and such acquired insight as would suffice to preserve all but the dullest of natures from ludicrous indiscretion and perilous indelicacy" (425). In the article, Elizabeth's character is, like Mary's, set up in a series of contradictory parallels: she is an "incredible mixture of heroism and egotism, meanness and magnificence"; she is "fearless almost to a fault in face of physical danger," and "constant in her confidence" despite the discovery of

"household conspirators" against her life, yet "cowardly even to a crime in face of subtler and more complicated peril" (406; 409-10). While her qualities of 191 fearlessness, heroism, and intelligence are clearly complementary to

Swinburne's depiction of Mary, the term "cowardly" is a loaded descriptor that separates the two, given Swinburne's insistence that "no one ever dared to suggest that Mary Queen of Scots was a coward" ("Note" 423).

Yet it is not in degrees of bravery, intelligence, or heroism that Swinburne locates the essential difference between the queens. If we look at his summary comments on them, we are reminded of his criticism of Byron for failing to distinguish, other than in degree, comparable qualities between characters; the defining sins and virtues of the two Queens are in nature, not degree. Of Mary,

Swinburne concludes in his article:

For her own freedom of will and of way, of passion and of action, she cared much; for her creed she cared something; for her country she cared less than nothing. She would have flung Scotland with England into the hell fire of Spanish Catholicism rather than forgo the faintest chance of personal revenge. Her profession of a desire to be instructed in the doctrines of Anglican Protestantism was so transparently a pious fraud as rather to afford confirmation than to arouse suspicion of her fidelity to the teaching of her church. ("Mary Queen of Scots" 409)

From this point, he derives a clear distinction between the two queens:

Elizabeth, so shamefully her inferior in personal loyalty, fidelity and gratitude, was as clearly her superior on the one all-important point of patriotism. The saving salt of Elizabeth's character, with all its wellnigh incredible mixture of heroism and egotism, meanness and magnificence, was simply this, that, overmuch as she loved herself, she did yet love England better. Her best though not her only fine qualities were national and political, the high public virtues of a good public servant; in the private and personal qualities which attract and attach a friend to his friend and a follower to his leader, no man or woman was ever more constant 192

and more eminent than Mary Queen of Scots. (409-10)

With the emphasis on the juxtaposition of the two queens, each contending with the other and with their own mixed impulses, Swinburne concludes his article on

Mary for Encyclopaedia Britannica. Turning to his dramatic trilogy, we find the treatment of Mary remarkably consistent with the representations in this

passage and with the terms used by Swinburne for character analysis in his discussion of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

5.4 Character of Mary in Swinburne's Drama

We can highlight various aspects of Mary Stuart's character in the trilogy: life-like, original, fresh, memorable, and, special to her case, inscrutable. A key means of emphasizing her vitality is the textual prominence of elemental imagery in association with her, often highlighted by Mary herself. She repeatedly defines herself in terms of intermingled elements like air and fire:

"The wind and sun are in my blood; I feel / Their fire and motion in me like a breath /That makes the heart leap" (S. 4.1). She identifies with the nature of fire, wishing to be "free as fire," and equating her physical and spiritual confinement with restrained or dying flames, so that her heart "is shut / As a sealed spring of fire," "sinks down / As a dead fire in ashes," and, imprisoned, is "as fire / Pent in a grate, bound in with blackening bars" (B. 2.1; 4.3; 5.6). Perhaps her most emphatic identification with the elemental is found in the last act of Bothwell, when she completes her escape from Lochleven Castle: 193

I will believe I am free as fire, free as the wind, the night, All glad fleet things of the airier element That take no hold on earth; for even like these Seems now the fire in me that was my heart, And is a song, a flame, a burning cloud That moves before the sun at dawn, and fades With fierce delight to drink his breath and die. (B. 5.7)

It is but a step further to the apocalyptic vision of her return from exile and her determination to "Let loose the fire of all my heart to feed / On these that would have quenched it" (B. 5.13). The bitter irony of both visions is that she will never again be this free.

The metaphor of fire captures Mary's dual capacity for love and destruction as an integral part of her being, as when she expresses her all- consuming passion for Bothwell:

I doubt not of this hand, That holds my heart, if it be strong or no, More than I doubt of the eyes that light mine eyes, The lips that my lips breathe by—O my life, More than I doubt of mine own bitter love, More than of death's no power to sunder us, Of his no force to quench me who am fire, Fire for your sake, that would put all these out To shine and lighten in your sight alone For warmth and comfort, being to all eyes beside Or fear or ruin more fleet of foot than fear. (B. 2.10)

This passage emphasizes the elemental power of fire, especially when directed by love: death may have the elemental force of water, but is no match for this fire that "would put all these out" and bring swift "fear or ruin" to her enemies, while it is a beacon of light and "warmth and comfort" to her lover (B. 2.10). 194

Swinburne employs the unusual syntax of "death's no power" and "his no force" to emphasize that death is vanquished by the vitality of her passion. Bothwell himself highlights the dual nature of her passion when he distinguishes the

"flame's heat" which should be directed at her enemies from that "large and liberal light" he reserves for himself (B. 2.2; 3.11).

The irony is that Mary's love for Bothwell is its own self-destructive fire, perhaps because it tips the essential balance in that duality that is recognized by her admiring enemy, John Knox:

Her soul Is as a flame of fire, insatiable, And subtle as thin water; with her craft Is passion mingled so inseparably That each gets strength from other, her swift wit By passion being enkindled and made hot, And by her wit her keen and passionate heart So tempered that it burn itself not out, Consuming to no end. (S. 1.2)

Mary's vitality comprises an inseparable "mingling" of craft and passion that thrives on a careful equilibrium which must be "tempered" so that it does not consume itself. In Knox's description can be seen both the awe of her passion as well as the threatening danger of it, a combination that in Knox's extravagant praise mingled with condemnation renders her the "original" that Swinburne describes. This passage catches such ambiguities by its ironic reference in the last two lines to Mary's motto ("In my end is my beginning"), but above all, in the reference to Exo. 3:2 (KJV)—"behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush 195 was not consumed"—here applied (or deliberately misapplied) by Knox (or

Swinburne) to Mary Stuart, not as the presence of God to the prophetic leader

(Moses), but to the woman consumed by fiery passion without end.

A similar ambiguity that marks her originality is demonstrated by Sir

William Drury, who calls the imprisoned queen who withers away in Elizabeth's

England a woman "of heart / So fiery high, so swift of spirit and clear, /.... So large of courage, so superb of soul" that she shall be a "world's wonder to all time, / A deadly glory watched of marveling men" (MS. 4.2). The epithets

"world's wonder" and the oxymoronic "deadly glory" play off of the passive spectating of "marveling men"—is it too much to suggest an allusion here to the seven wonders of the world? We are reminded once again of Bothwell's summary declaration that she is "entire" and is "herself / And no self other"

(R 2.18).

Finally, the concept of Mary as an inscrutable enigma—self-contained and ambiguous—is promoted by her own comments on Darnley and the

Scottish lords: "Here come my riddle-readers" (Ch. 2.1). In the preface to

Cromwell, Hugo observes that Shakespeare thought of tragedy "as a source of emotions of every possible kind" rather than as "a set of easy-to-solve incidental descriptive puzzles" (Blackmore 47); Swinburne, too, appears more interested in the "complicated riddle," as he labels the debate around the authenticity of the famous Casket Letters in his "Note" on Mary (428). It is reasonable to infer that 196 her "riddle-readers" were confronted with the challenge from Mary to read her as a riddle, as are the play's "readers" challenged to join in the ambiguous play of

98 meaning.

All of the character aspects discussed above are nicely captured in an excerpt from Charlotte Bronte's Shirley (1849), which Adrian Poole has argued has echoes of Anna Jameson's preface to Characteristics of Women (1846).

Swinburne was a great admirer of the Bronte sisters, and wrote critical essays on both Charlotte and Emily (1877; CW14). In Shirley, the narrator describes the conversation of Caroline Helstone as she and Robert Moore read

Shakespeare's Coriolanus together "as of something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful; when once gone, no more to be reproduced as it had been, than the glancing ray of the meteor, than the tints of the dew-gem, than the colour or form of the sun-set cloud, than the fleeting and glittering ripple varying the flow of a rivulet" (ch. 6; qtd. in Poole 108). Poole argues that the references to

"meteor" and "dew-gem" establish an affinity with Jameson, as demonstrated in the passage below from the dialogue that precedes the stories in Jameson's text: Medon: Analysing the character of Cleopatra must have been something like catching a meteor by the tail, and making it sit for its picture. Alda: Something like it, in truth: but those of Miranda and Ophelia were more embarrassing, because they seemed to defy all analysis. It was like intercepting the dew-drop or the snow-flake ere it fell to earth, 197

and subjecting it to a chemical process, (qtd. in Poole 108)

Jameson, suggests Poole, "is drawing on an idea of the volatile, liquid, fluent, mercurial and metamorphic 'nature' of women to which Shakespeare's own plays give such powerful expression" (109). Swinburne was certainly conscious of this characteristic in Shakespeare; concluding his discussion of Antony and

Cleopatra, he writes: "In sum, Shakespeare has elsewhere given us in ideal incarnation the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, the perfect mistress, or the perfect maiden: here only once for all he has given us the perfect and the everlasting woman" (CW11:137). Yet he was also alert to the practical and strategic uses of such ascriptions, as we see in his comments on the character of the stepmother, Levidulcia, in Tourneur's The Atheist's Tragedy.

It has been objected that her ready avowal of weakness as common to all her sex is the undramatic epigram of a satirist, awkwardly ventriloquising through the mechanism of a tragic puppet; but it is really quite in keeping with the woman's character to enlarge and extenuate the avowal of her own infamy and infirmity into a sententious reflection on womanhood in general. (CW11:466-67)

In Swinburne's text, Mary traverses this continuum from the eternal feminine to

"herself / And no self other."

Particularly resonant is Jameson's notion of "intercepting" and

"subjecting" the snowflake, with its intricate and unique pattern of composition, to a "chemical process" of analysis. How do you separate the elements of a dewdrop for examination? Both Hugo and Swinburne eschewed the analytic 198 dissection of art, and, in Hugo's language, the "dogmatic mutilators" who sought to apply the rigid rules of the unities to Providence's rich distribution of events, peoples, and figures (Kerslake 261). We return to Hugo's assumption that poetry will act like nature in combining oppositions, "mingling its creations together, but without confusing them, shadow with light, the grotesque with the sublime; in other words, body with soul, the animal and the spiritual" (Kerslake 258). To

Hugo, failing to recognize the coexistence of these creations is to question both

"Nature" and the divine:

[The modern Muse] must wonder whether an artist's limited, relative logic is preferable to the infinite, absolute logic of the Creator; whether a human being has the right to correct God; whether Nature is made more beautiful by being mutilated; whether (so to speak) it is Art's job to cut up humanity, life, creation; whether anything can move better when its muscles and supports have been taken away; whether, in short, something is more harmonious when it is less complete. (Blackmore 23)

How then, do you access that complex pattern that is beyond our comprehension? For Hugo, the "artist of genius" works "by intuition rather than instruction":

Not like a chemist, who lights his burner, fans his fire, heats his crucible, analyses and decomposes; but like a bee, which flies on golden wings, alights on every flower, and draws honey from it without the calyx losing any of its brilliance or the corolla any of its perfume. (Blackmore 43)

So we get Mary, warts and all, but the question is open as to how far

Swinburne's text moves toward the harmony of the "complete" in her representation. This question is explored further in the final two chapters of the 199 dissertation which examine dramatic structure and discourse in Swinburne's text. 200

Chapter 6

Dramatic Structure in the Trilogy

In this chapter and the following one I undertake more detailed analysis of

Swinburne's text in two areas: dramatic structure and dramatic discourse. I apply to Swinburne's text critical approaches discussed in earlier chapters, and develop them further through the application of narratological and semiotic analysis. Under dramatic structure I apply aspects of narratology to show how a recognition of the complexity of the dramatic structure as one that goes beyond a chronological narrative is essential to an integrated reading of Swinburne's work. The historical and chronological arc of the central narrative of the trilogy is supported by Swinburne's conception of Bothwell as a contingently linked series

(a chain) of circumstances and events essential to full comprehension of the story, a conception that effectively collapses the conventional distinction between fabula (chronological story events) and suzjhet (events rearranged for dramatic impact). However, a narratological approach to the dramatic structure of the trilogy suggests that the extent of Swinburne's creative tinkering with the narrative should neither be overlooked nor minimized. 201

For example, Chastelard opens in media res—with Mary esconced in the

Scottish court, and then relies on analepsis (flashback) for the backstory of her journey from France to Scotland. Mise-en-abime ("story-within-a-story") is used for character and thematic development, as when Mary interrupts the dramatic discourse to narrate her vision of the ideal king, or for a battle scene (Ch. 2.1).

There are anachronies (the movement forward in time of Mary's marriage to her cousin Darnley so that it coincides with Chastelard's ill-fated transgressions in the Queen's bedroom); narrative gaps between the plays (Chastelard ends with the title character's death in 1562; the time frame of Bothwell is 1566 to 1568; and for Mary Stuart it is 1586-87); and compression (blink and you'll miss the birth of the Queen's child in act 2, scene 6 of Bothwell, while in Chastelard, only the first of the courtier's indiscretions in Mary's bedchamber is presented as a scene; the second, arguably more significant because it compounds the first, is compressed to a mere reference by Mary in the course of her deliberations over his fate). Swinburne also acknowledged that in anticipating by two years "the event of Darnley's nuptials," that is to say, by postponing "for two years the event of Chastelard's execution," he was able to "compile or condense into one dramatic scene the details of more than one conversation recorded by Knox between Mary and himself ("Note" 438). Other structural features include paired execution scenes (Chastelard's and Mary Stuart's), the circular orientation of the nemesis motif whereby Mary Beaton holds the Queen's fate in her hands and tests her memory of Chastelard as a deciding factor), and the use of act and

scene titles as framing devices—all these point to the "arrangement" of the

narrative for dramatic purposes, something for which Swinburne shows

continuing concern in his correspondence, despite the implied linear design of a

chain of circumstances.

Roland Barthes writes that narrative is present "in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime, painting (think of

Carpaccio's Saint Ursula), stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news item, conversation" (Image Music Text 79). From a narratological perspective, then, we can see that there are many ways in which Swinburne's conception of his dramatic narrative as a chain of public and private details contends with other features of the narrative, including his division of the action into three more-or- less self-contained dramas. Although it is unclear at what point Swinburne first conceived of his work as a trilogy, he certainly did so by the time Bothwell was published, and his outline of the project is telling:

I hope when my projected trilogy of Mary Stuart is finished—of which the last part will be as it were the epilogue of the central tragedy to which Chastelard was designed as the prologue—each section of the poem will take its proper place and be read and judged in its proper light as part (if I may say so) of an epic or historic whole. To have mixed up the broader political or national interests with which I have attempted to deal in the second or central part, with the prelude which treated of the last episode of the heroine's girlhood—the last tragic glimpse of reverberation of her early years in France among lovers and singers who could not hold their own in a strange country and a changing time—would have been incompatible with my plan and incongruous with my project. Chastelard, begun at college when I was yet an undergraduate, could not and was never meant to be more than a mere love-play played out between two single figures before the curtain should rise, as in actual history, on the wide and crowded stage of her lifelong tragedy. (Letters 2: 305)

Here the project as a whole is conceived in a logical progression of prologue, central drama, and epilogue," but at the same time Swinburne's language gestures less towards this progression than towards a dramatic movement unique to each section. Each section has its place and is to be read and evaluated ("judged") in its own context. So although the concluding scene of

Chastelard points toward the central drama to follow, with the courtier's execution followed by an usher's command to "Make way there for the Lord of

Bothwell; room— / Place for my lord of Bothwell next the queen" (Ch. 5.3), yet the play is also situated as an endpoint—it treats the "last episode of the heroine's girlhood" and is deemed "incompatible" and "incongruous" with the central period of the Queen's reign.

Swinburne's terms "prelude" and "reverberation" raise associations that are both denotative and connotative. In common usage a prelude denotes something that serves as the introduction, preface, or opening to the main event, action, performance, and so on. Musically it denotes, for example, the first movement of a suite or the overture to an opera. An overture incorporates all the musical themes to be developed later in a composition, and in this sense is forward-looking; it also requires close attention to the underlying motifs. The 204 movement of opera itself, however, is static. As a revival of Greek drama, music and dance are essential features to opera; the linear story plays second fiddle to musical interludes that elaborate the emotions accompanying the narrative stages. The dramatic movement in Chastelard may be characterized as operatic. While the action progresses towards the inevitable conclusion of

Chastelard's execution, the movement is largely a series of interludes—music

(Chastelard's songs), dance (the masque), pictorial images and flashbacks, and discourse sequences. Swinburne's reference to Chastelard as "a love play played out between two single figures" also suggests the prologues of Greek drama (by convention everything that precedes the entrance of the Chorus); for example, the prologues of Euripides frequently constitute a single character joined by a second character who engages in dialogue with the prologue.

The term "reverberation" raises especially interesting associations.

Reverberation is a series of tightly spaced or overlapping but decaying echoes of sound produced by the reflection of sound waves in an enclosed space, or the reflection and scattering of sound produced by an initial violent oscillation. Its synonym is "repercussion," or a remote or indirect consequence of some action.

Reverberation and repercussion are constitutive of the dramatic action of

Chastelard—the source of the oscillation (life in the French court) persists in songs, memories, and preoccupation with the past, emphasizing the disintegration of the kind of royal court life Mary knew in France as well as the disintegration of a fading ideal of monarchy.

Thus the in media res opening in the Scottish court juxtaposed with analeptic narratives of life in the French court sets up a tension between past and present orientation that contrasts a vibrant French court with a dour, life- sapping Scottish one, as described by Mary: "I wonder men die south; meseems all France / Smells sweet with living, and bright breath of days / That keep men far from dying" (Ch. 1.2). The unfolding historical moment of Mary's sojourn in

Scotland is intercepted by episodes of pastoral and romance that offer (as discussed in the application of Wikander's argument in chapter 3), an

"ahistorical alternative to the historical world"—an idyllic counter to the former's intrigue and duplicity. One example of this ahistorical alternative is the opening scene of Chastelard in which the Maries reminisce about summertime in the

French court, its bountiful garden enclosure, and the games and love songs played and sung—echoes of a pastoral world whose loss is emphasized by the

Queen's later depictions of the sterile, wintery, moribund landscape and people of Scotland:

I look each day to see my face drawn up About the eyes, as if they sucked the cheeks. I think this air and face of things here north Puts snow at flower-time in the blood, and tears Between the sad eyes and the merry mouth In their youth-days. (Ch. 1.2) (The 'historical world' is one in which the very life-force—blood—is dried up by the unnatural figure of snow at "flower-time.")

This land of mine hath folded itself round With snow-cold, white, and leprous misbelief, Till even the spirit is bitten, the blood pinched, And the heart winter-wounded; these starved slaves That feed on frost, and suck the snows for drink. ... (8. 1.1)

(We note the harsh imagery of deprivation and disease associated with her current world—snow-cold, white, leprous, bitten, pinched, winter-wounded, starved slaves, feed on frost, suck the snows.)

The two worlds are conflated when Mary adopts the damsel-in-distress persona of the romance world to cope with the "real" world—this is the context for much of the vampiric imagery in the plays and for her preoccupation with death; that is, her lifeblood is being drained in a sterile and foreign world where there is "no man" to save her. The wintry landscape described above suggests the conventional romance motif of the Sleeping Beauty, lying in a state of suspended animation, or magic sleep. Indeed, the Queen associates a world of sleep with an escape from the corruption of the brazen world in a classic pastoral lament: "I would the whole world were made up of sleep / And life not fashioned out of lies and loves."100

The incompatability of the two modes (the golden romance world and the brazen world) is suggested by the Queen's reference to how the songs of 207

Chastelard (who is linked with this pastoral idyll) "lied loud" in predicting her warm reception in Scotland—the chosen verb introduces a note of falsehood and betrayal into his character which is emphasized by the alliteration and strong vowel shifts. This note extends one introduced earlier by Mary Hamilton who reminisces about the tensions that arose between the Queen and the four

Maries as they cast love-lots with plucked fruit in the Louvre garden. Beaton's claim that, in contrast to the Queen, she got only empty stalks, suggests the presence of a worm in the bud, or the snake in the garden of Eden, such that the notion of a pastoral world is compromised. Echoes of Chastelard's falsity (the snake / worm in the garden / bud), and of jealousy between the Queen and the

Maries, reverberate throughout the play.

Analepsis, or flashback, is a significant mode in the play of approaching the past, and often consists of emblematic narratives. Mary's wistful reflection on an heroic ideal of kingship ("To be King James") is also part of the ahistorical romance world. A concrete emblem is visualized through language and imagery evocative of Renaissance medallions whose pictorial designs and mottoes both commemorated and conveyed the royal image.101 The pictorial perspective is heightened as Mary expands the theme of royal courage and vitality in a tableau that contains the fury of battle within static images:

then to have men say

They saw you—yea, I saw the king's face helmed Red in the hot lit foreground of some fight 208

Hold the whole war as it were by the bit, a horse Fit for his knees' grip—the great rearing war That frothed with lips flung up, and shook men's lives Off either flank of it like snow; I saw (You could not hear as his sword rang), saw him Shout, laugh, smite straight, and flaw the riven ranks, Move as the wind moves, and his horse's feet Stripe their long flags with dust}02

Time is frozen in this visual sign, as is all of the "presence" of the King as a transcendental signifier, and the visual (the iconic equivalent to speech) is transferred to the grammar of the written word. The repetition of the verb "saw"

emphasizes the pictorial, as does the depiction of the king's helmeted face at the foreground of the battle, the static image of him holding the war like holding the bit of a horse, and the emphasis on seeing rather than hearing ("You could

not hear"). The image creates a kind of mise en abyme or narrative moment of infinite regression whereby the emblematic vision becomes an intertextual portal into an expansive body of cultural and historical images of kingship, so that one key image evokes hundreds of years of Scottish culture and history.103 Thus the image loses its presence to become at once the summary / summation of history, and its termination, as Mary writes the ways in which she cannot "be

King James." Her cycle ends when her "presence" is removed in Mary Stuart, yet we are reminded of her motto, "en ma fin est ma commencement' (in my end is my beginning)—and of Griffin's notion (discussed in chapter 3) of how the action in a historical drama is contextualized within a historical continuum, and the figure of a monarch, through his lineage, stretches both backward and 209 forward beyond the boundaries of the actual play. The play has a beginning and an end, but its subject does not.

The recessive containment of the mise en abyme accounts for the circularity of the Queen's own efforts to save Chastelard from execution (she grants a reprieve and then rescinds it), and is exemplified in a key scene in the

central act of the play. In this scene, the Queen, briefly alone and secured in her

boudoir away from the constant surveillance of the court, addresses both her

reflection and the mirror that produced it:

Fair mirror-glass, I am well ware of you, Yea, I know that, I am quite beautiful. How my hair shines!—Fair face, be friends with me And I will sing to you; look in my face

Now, and your mouth must help the song in mine. (3.1)

The implications of this kind of mirror confrontation in the literature of certain writers of the nineteenth century have been clarified as transforming the activity

of a woman looking in the mirror from its "traditional emblematic meaning" of vanity (vanitas) to a representation of complex psychological processes

involving "recognition, identity, and self-consciousness" in which a woman's

response to the "'oxymoronic'" nature of the mirror image as both self and other

can range from a feeling of "disunity" signifying "psychological disorientation" to the "shock of nonrecognition" that marks a "deep disturbance in . . . self-

conception" (La Belle 14-15, 22, 40-43, 113). 210

Mary's dialogue with her mirror image might be classified with those extreme confrontations that are indicative of "profoundly disorganized selves,"104 but my focus here is how the scene suggests the Queen's efforts to reconcile the reverberations of her past life with the realities of her present situation. The interruption of this key psychological moment by the sudden appearance of

Chastelard's reflection in her mirror (like Lancelot's in Tennyson's "The Lady of

Shalott") is suggestive of the power and volatility of these decaying echoes and shifting signifiers—marked by what Derrida calls differance, in which meaning is both distinguished from other meanings (the face is not the face but a listener; the mirror is true but not true) and is also endlessly deferred. Chastelard's drafting of Mary Stuart to play the cruel mistress to his ideal courtier according to the medieval code of courtly love stalls her efforts to adapt to a new role as monarch of Scotland, and his indiscreet appearance in her chamber is both a practical and symbolic manifestation of that fact, as are the queen's circular attempts to both free Chastelard and maintain her reputation. A break from the endless circularity is indicated with the execution of Chastelard in the play's final scene and the Queen's anticipated partnering with another member of the

Scottish court, Lord Bothwell. The usher's cry to make way for the lord of

Bothwell is as clear an advertisement of a new curtain rising as one could ask for, but the forward impetus of the Queen's new alliance is belied by its following immediately upon Beaton's closing comment: "But if I live then shall I see one 211 day / When God will smite her lying harlot's mouth— / Surely I shall" (Ch. 5.3).

Beaton signals the continuance of the Chastelard problematic through her person with its changing face.

Similarly, the central play of the trilogy, treating "the broader political or national interests," moves through emblematic pictures and dreams, to an apparent "second coming" of the Queen, who promises to return from exile and vanquish her oppressors:

If God pluck not all hope out of my hand, If aught of all mine prosper, I that go Shall come back to men's ruin, as a flame The wind bears down, that grows against the wind, And grasps it with great hands, and wins its way, And wins its will, and triumphs; so shall I Let loose the fire of all my heart to feed On these that would have quenched it. I will make From sea to sea one furnace of the land, Whereon the wind of war shall beats its wings Till they wax faint with hopeless hope of rest, And with one rain of men's rebellious blood Extinguish the red embers. I will leave No living soul of their blaspheming faith Who war with monarchs; God shall see me reign As he shall reign beside me, and his foes Lie at my foot with mine. ... (8. 5. 13)

Yet the still-born character of her impetus is reinforced again when the epilogue bridges a gap between this charge to action and her imprisonment in England, with which the final play opens. Swinburne's own defence of this closing scene to Lord Houghton emphasizes the continuing backward orientation of the dramatic movement: 212

Nor. . . can I subscribe to your objection raised against the parting menaces of the Queen as she embarks. This valediction was intended to mark the close of the last serious personal passion or private interest of the heart in all her life, and to enforce the position indicated throughout the poem which she holds as representative of the past. (Letters 2: 307)

So where Chastelard is the last episode of girlhood, Bothwell ends with a

"valediction" marking another ending—Mary's last love as an adult woman—and her symbolic or anticipated marriage to the state. We are reminded that she represents and seeks to entrench the past and "break beneath" her feet "these new things of men's fashion" (8. 5.13).

Throughout the trilogy the dramatic movement teases us with this forward-backward impetus in which the forward potential is never realized. Mary never rises to the occasion of historical destiny. Even in the epilogue, the potential for action that lies with the Babington conspirators who plan to free

Mary and kill Elizabeth is swiftly undercut before the scheme gets off the ground, and before we know it, they are imprisoned, executed, and the Queen herself is headed to the block, signaling the end of her physical life and sealing her fate as representative of the past.

A circular movement in the trilogy itself is also created by the "cheville ouvriere of the whole poem" which Swinburne "hit upon" while he was sketching out in his head "the skeleton" of the epilogue. This was the use of Mary Beaton as a nemesis to the Queen "to serve as hinge of the plot and direct cause of the 213 catastrophe from a dramatic point of view," or, as he described it in a later letter to Lord Houghton, "a dramatic motif which will serve at once as a connecting link between this and the two parts preceding and as a good solid hinge for the dramatic movement of the third" (Letters 3: 122; 4: 72). The dramatic motif is vengeance; the hinge is Beaton's plan to deliver to Elizabeth a compromising letter in which Mary has put down gossip and her true feelings about the English

Queen—a plan that will be executed should the Queen of Scots fail to recognize a tune sung by Beaton as that of the long-dead Chastelard:

if she quite Forget that very swan-song of thy love, My love that wast, my love that wouldst not be, Let God forget her now at last as I Remember: if she think but one soft thought, Cast one poor word upon thee, God thereby Shall surely bid me let her live: if none, I shoot that letter home and sting her dead. (M.S. 4.2)

Beaton sings the tune, and subsequently delivers the letter that will push the wavering Elizabeth to execute the Stuart queen. Swinburne later observed that

"the dramatic invention of Mary Beaton's revenge as the cheville ouvriere of the whole piece, 'the very pulse of the machine,'" is one of two points "on which I should wish the play to rest its claims."105

Whether or not Swinburne did "hit upon" this motif at this late stage is questionable, given Beaton's penchant for ominous pronouncements throughout the trilogy,106 and the emphasis on Mary's fateful inability to "read" her character

(Mary recognizes Beaton to be "as 'twere a type" to her "and sign / Incognizible" 214

[B. 5.8]). Perhaps he was referring only to the specific device of the test she gives the Queen and which the Queen fails. But the consequence is to tie the epilogue (Mary Stuart) to the prologue, and Mary's fate twenty years later to the reverberations highlighted in Chastelard. The pairing of the Queen's execution with that of Chastelard's reinforces the circularity of the dramatic movement.

Both scenes close their respective plays, and are foregrounded by means of a similar narrative device; that is, Beaton is the audience for a narrative report of the executions by other bystanders who record the execution scenes as they take place below them.

Swinburne admitted the introduction of the Beaton motif was "an invention," yet he justified it as "not in contradiction with fact nor (as I think) out of character or at war with probability" (Letters 3: 12). Thus Swinburne's own contention that in Bothwell he has "throughout followed history with the most dogged or doglike fidelity" (fabula) is compromised by his "arrangement" of these events for dramatic effect (suzjhef):

I do really perceive that 'the events which did actually transact themselves on this God's earth' [Lang notes this is CarlyleseJ at that particular time were the most dramatic as well as tragic in their interest that even Shakespeare . . . could have imagined and arranged; and that this arrangement would be thrown out, and the significance of the whole thing marred, by the omission or alteration of any one link in the chain of causes and effects running through those twenty-six months of history: Remove or modify a single detail, and the incidence of the next, with all that follows it, becomes inexplicable, disjoined from its actual and natural connexion. (Letters 2: 284) 215

Just as he contextualized each play in the trilogy within an epic or historic whole, so Swinburne contextualizes the events of Bothwell within "the significance of the whole thing"—that is, within the bounds of Bothwell itself. In so doing, he subtly naturalizes his representation of events as an arrangement of historical truth, claiming that both the "omission" or "removal" and the "alteration" or modification of any one link will break an "actual" (existing in reality) chain of causes and effects, and inviting us to accept as "natural" the relationships of cause and effect drawn by him, in effect obscuring the presence of Swinburne the dramatist in the narrative.

Yet it is clear that choices are being made throughout with both dramatic and historical principles in mind, and, indeed, Swinburne defends and justifies these choices in correspondence with his peers. To Lord Houghton he defends both the inclusion and the modification of material associated with Bothwell's wife, Jane Gordon:

I ... am not prepared to admit the superfluity of the part of Jane Gordon, which has been very considerably curtailed in order not to make the poem any longer than was absolutely necessary for the development of the general design; in which however the total omission of this short part would have made, I think, a sensible gap. (Letters 2: 307)

His worry over "the drier political details" in Bothwell is that "without some reference to them the action (and consequently the passion) is unintelligible"; this concern for melding drama and history in a dramatically coherent and historically sensible whole contends with his fascination for the parts, since he 216 sees "every stage of the action" as "a tragic drama of itself which cries aloud for representation" (Letters 2: 153; 211-12). Convinced that "Shakespeare alone" could grapple satisfactorily with "the enormity of the subject together with its incomparable capability ... for dramatic poetry" and wring "the final prize of the tragedy from the clutch of historic fact," he later declares that "in shorter space the mere action could scarcely have been concentrated, while for the play of passion and the workings of character there would have been no room at all"

(Letters 2: 212; 284). Here in the making of room for the "play of passion" and the "workings of character" is the realization of Swinburne's conception of a tragic drama in every stage of the action, and the locus of a tension in the play between the dissemination of historical events and their elaboration.

We can make sense of this tension by returning in more detail to Griffin's defence of the distinctive aesthetic of the history play as being its emphasis on gestures which draw our attention to the plot's immersion in a historical continuum by directing our attention beyond the play's formal boundaries—"back toward the time before, and forward to the time after, the play's conclusion" (see above p. 94). If present in the play, the monarch, whose line stretches back to the unrepresented past and extends potentially to an unrepresented future, is a figure of continuity in an articulated drama in which a number of local endings coexist with a far ending constituted by the whole of the multi-partedness towards which historical drama tends. In this sense, Swinburne's inclination to 217 see a tragic drama represented in every stage of the action is generic to historical drama.

The extent to which Swinburne did perceive Bothwell at least to be a series of dramatic moments is underscored by his declaration that "there are sixty scenes altogether; so it might stand on a French playbill as 'Drame en 5 actes et 60 tableaux': the symmetry being as perfect as unintentional."

{Letters 2: 284). Here Barthes's discussion of Diderot, whose work Swinburne knew, is apt:

As is well known, the whole of Diderot's aesthetics rests on the identification of theatrical scene and pictorial tableau: the perfect play is a succession of tableaux, that is, a gallery, an exhibition; the stage offers the spectator 'as many real tableaux as there are in the action moments favourable to the painter'. The tableau (pictorial, theatrical, literary) is a pure cut-out segment with clearly defined edges, irreversible and incorruptible; everything that surrounds it is banished into nothingness, remains unnamed, while everything that it admits within its field is promoted into essence, into light, into view. Such demiurgic discrimination implies high quality of thought: the tableau is intellectual, it has something to say (something moral, social). . .. (Image Music Text 70)

If we turn to Swinburne's use of sub-titles in the text for each act of the trilogy

(as set out below), we can see how he was working in the manner described by

Barthes. Each sub-titled act contains a number of scenes, or tableaux; however, by focusing our analysis at the broader level of the acts rather than the scenes, we get a good sense of Swinburne's complex arrangement of the larger action that incorporates these tableaux: 218

Chastelard Bothwell Mary Stuart actl Mary Beaton David Rizzio Anthony Babington act 2 Darnley Bothwell Walsingham act 3 The Queen Jane Gordon Burghley act 4 Murray John Knox Elizabeth act 5 Chastelard The Queen Mary Stuart

The expectation that each act carries the name of the character dominating the action therein is clearly fulfilled in act 4 of Bothwell, named for John Knox, who delivers his infamous fire-and-brimstone sermon on Mary, but it is not so apparent in act 2 of Chastelard, named for Darnley, who enters only near the end of the act, at which point Mary announces that she will wed him. We find a clue to Swinburne's motivation in constructing the action in the letter to Nichol cited in chapter 4:

You object to the title of the third act that Jane Gordon plays too small a part to give it a name as deuteragonist; I cut a great deal of her part out, in spite of friendly remonstrances and lamentations, that there might be nothing . . . superfluous in the book, and that the scene might not be . . . too prolonged to be duly effective; but if you look you will see that from the first scene of this act when the Queen appears to the last, the phantom or idea of her rival is ever present as a . . . first Nemesis, so that her spirit or influence is always on the stage and pervades the action throughout, thus justifying the sub-title, which I meant in each case to be significant. (Letters 2: 302)

Expanding on his strategy, Swinburne continues: "Thus, in the fifth act, the protagonist is left alone for the first time, without any present influence at hand of friend or foe, to shift for herself and 'fight for her own hand ; therefore this act is headed by her name specially to distinguish it from the rest, in each of which there was some alien influence predominant in her mind or in her fortunes"

(302).

With this last point in mind, when we return to act 2 of Chastelard,

Darnley's role as an alien influence is clear. The Queen's choice of him as husband (unknown to Chastelard and to the reader until the end of the act) marks a turning point in her fortunes, and is also apparently tied to her distress at the news Mary Seyton gives her at the beginning of the act of a kiss between

Beaton and Chastelard. She is clearly troubled by the news, denying four times that she is "wroth,"107 and in the following act she confesses her distress: "O

Chastelard, / Since this was broken to me of your new love /1 have not seen the face of a sweet hour" (Ch. 3.1). In retrospect, her melancholy discourse with

Chastelard in act 2 is clarified, as are the conflicted emotions that lead

Chastelard to speculate that "she must mean evil," and we understand the significance of her choice of Darnley.

Looking at the subtitles for the closing acts of each play, we can extrapolate further. Both Chastelard and Mary Stuart close with acts bearing their respective names, thus bookending (as we have already discussed) the execution scenes of these two characters. Likewise, the shift from "The Queen," the subtitle of act 5 in Bothwell, to "Mary Stuart," the subtitled act that closes the 220 final play, is telling. Assigning Mary Stuart titular status in the act that closes with her execution turns the final focus emphatically toward her, while the substitution of "Mary Stuart" for "The Queen" foregrounds her individuality and humanity at the conclusion of Swinburne's complex depiction of her life and character.

Thus, against the historical linearity of the action a variety of other thematic patterns become apparent when we focus on the trilogy's acts and scenes, and each turn of the kaleidoscope lays out a new tableau. The linear historical narrative, as we have also seen, interacts with or is intercepted by other literary modes of approaching the past such as tragedy, pastoral, and romance, allowing for what Griffin calls "walled off micro-drama[s]" within the boundaries of the plays.

In this chapter we have highlighted the ways that a narratological approach (analepsis, prolepsis, mise en abJme, etc.) can elucidate a comprehensive, often circular, dramatic structure. The public and private details of the chronological events and characters contend with Swinburne's literary attention to signs, language, poetic devices, metaphor, and emblems (all of which we have examined), in which the historical narrative outlined in the dissertation's introduction seems at times to be submerged. Nevertheless, much of the interest of the trilogy—as well as the conflicted interpretations of the narrative events themselves—is located precisely in such literary effects. 221

Chapter 7

Mapping Mary: Dramatic Discourse in the Trilogy

The longest play in the English language raises all kinds of problems for detailed textual analysis. How can one give a coherent account of three long plays that makes some sense of their textual and discursive issues? There are, of course, different ways of organizing such a discussion. One such way is by theme (love, death, vengeance, power, and so on). Another is by character, but even limited to major characters, this is a large task. A third way is by literary devices, and some of these are discussed below. But detailed analysis of all three plays is more than can be covered in a dissertation, so on what basis should one be chosen and the others ignored? Or should one choose a scene from each? One might also organize the discussion by various theoretical approaches; this again is a large task.

While I use elements from each of these possibilities, it seems best to problematize the plays by highlighting those aspects that recur throughout the trilogy, and to seek to draw them together through a discussion of the various ways in which language functions in the text to generate meaning, largely through challenging conventional cultural and hermeneutic codes. I then link the discussion of dramatic discourse to the theory of the readerly / writerly text (in 222

Barthes and others) as a means of showing how more complex readings of the trilogy, and specifically of Mary's character, can be opened up.

In the history play "proper," as Cavanagh argues, language is viewed as complicit in the challenge to public power, and play worlds are haunted by "the specters of seditious, treacherous or otherwise unregenerate speech" (see above p. 91). Any one section of Swinburne's trilogy easily supports this perspective, but I will draw on the opening scene of the first act of Chasteiard for a sampling of how discourse operates in the trilogy. In this scene the Queen's waiting-ladies, the four Maries (Beaton, Seyton, Hamilton, and Carmichael) discuss the Queen and related matters amongst themselves, and then with

Chasteiard and Darnley, respectively, as they enter and exit the scene. Analysis of the scene demonstrates the extent to which this is a signifying text, that is, one in which the communicative process of sending and receiving messages by means of language (including non-verbal language) is foregrounded.

As J.L. Austin argues in writing about the ways in which speech acts—as forms of verbal discourse—embody social practices, no discourse is mere words. Words, along with the speech-acts that accompany them, continually transmit messages through a multiplicity of language systems, or codes. Such codes can be, as Keir Elam outlines them, of every kind: kinesic, vestimentary, pictorial, and so on (52-57). However, this complex relationship, through which meaning is created, defined, and refined, can perhaps be more usefully read for our purposes through Barthes s grouping of codes as part of the complex transaction between writer and reader. Unlike Elam's detailed breakdown,

Barthes identifies five major codes: hermeneutic, semic, symbolic, proairetic, and cultural.108 Such codes may, of course, be in agreement with or in opposition to (or in another relation to) the words used to express them, as

Austin explains:

It has come to be commonly held that many utterances which look like statements are either not intended at all, or only intended in part, to record or impart straightforward information about the facts. .. . [M]any specially perplexing words embedded in apparently descriptive statements .. . serve ... to indicate (not to report) the circumstances in which the statement is made or reservations to which it is subject or the way in which it is to be taken and the like.109

In the opening scene of Chastelard, then, the characters make reference to some of these codes. An exchange among the Maries about men serves as an illustration:

Mary Carmichael. Lord Damley's [hair] is a mere maid's yellow.

Mary Hamilton. No; A man's, good colour.

Mary Seyton. Ah, does that burn your blood? Why, what a bitter colour is this red That fills your face! if you be not in love, I am no maiden.

Mary Hamilton. Nay, God help true hearts! I must be stabbed with love then, to the bone, Yea to the spirit, past cure. 224

Mary Seyton. What were you saying? I see some jest run up and down your lips.

A series of references between the Maries (blood, hearts, stabbed to the bone, spirit, and cure) sets up a code in which the circulation of the blood is a metaphor for love. Mary Seyton then interprets Hamilton's feelings through another code—kinesics (or body language), deducing passion from the rising colour in her cheeks. Yet she is unsure of what the message is, stopping to check "What were you saying?" and observing "some jest" in the movement of

Hamilton's lips (and perhaps her tone of voice).

A similar illustration is found in an exchange among the Maries that arises when they recall sitting in "that Louvre garden" and plucking fruits "to cast love- lots with in the gathered grapes." Beaton remarks that she got nothing "but the stalk of a stripped bunch /With clammy grape-juice leavings at the tip," to which

Carmichael replies:

Ay, true, the queen came first, and she won all; It was her bunch we took to cheat you with. What, will you weep for that now? for you seem As one that means to weep. God pardon me! I think your throat is choking up with tears. You are not well, sweet, for a lying jest To shake you thus much.

Beaton's rejoinder that she is "well enough" is overridden by these signs of anguish, which compel Seyton and Hamilton to learn more from her expressions: Mary Seyton. If you be well sing out your song and laugh, Though it were but to fret the fellows there.— Now shall we catch her secret washed and wet In the middle of her song; for she must weep If she sing through.

Mary Hamilton. I told you it was love; I watched her eyes all through the masquing time Feed on his face by morsels; she must weep.

Seyton and Hamilton expect to be privy to "secret" feelings that will be given away through the language of tears. Both women also highlight the culture of surveillance that surrounds court life—Seyton through her plan to watch Beaton as she sings, and Hamilton through her reference to having watched Beaton "all through" the masquing time (with clear connotations of masking oneself and one's feelings). Just as Swinburne's trilogy presents the reader with a "text" to be read and decoded, so is his dramatic world presented as a text to the characters who inhabit and confront it, and who comment constantly on its textuality and their own. From the illustrations above, it is clear that the characters are used to reading each other as texts, and are preoccupied with the process of coding and decoding.

In the opening scene of Chastelard, we are witness to the process of codification—that of creating, defining, and refining meaning—through the characters' discourse and in particular through the metalinguistic function of that discourse.110 Below is an excerpt from the Maries' discussion of the Queen and

Chastelard: 226

Mary Seyton. And [she is] the most loving: did you note last night How long she held him with her hands and eyes, Looking a little sadly, and at last Kissed him below the chin and parted so As the dance ended?

Mary Hamilton. This was courtesy; So might I kiss my singing-bird's red bill After some song, till he bit short my lip.

Mary Seyton. But if a lady hold her bird anights To sing to her between her fingers—ha? I have seen such birds.

Mary Carmichael. Oh, you talk emptily;

She is full of grace. . . .

Again we have a reference to the close surveillance endemic to court life.

Seyton generates meaning from the Queen's gestures—that she is "loving"—but we are not sure how to read this code, since a piece of gossip ("did you note") follows immediately upon that description. Hamilton then modifies the code— what Seyton presented as love, she presents as courtesy, and uses the metaphor of the singing-bird to drive home her point. Seyton derives yet another modification of meaning based on gesture and sexuality ("But if a lady hold her bird anights"), at which point Carmichael concludes the segment by characterizing their discourse as empty talk, and adding the declarative, "She is full of grace," a comment that extracts the Queen from the gossip-filled court and links her with the powerful signifier of the Virgin Mary.

All these references in this opening scene, I would argue, can be grouped under Barthes's hermeneutic code, which is signified as a key code in just these 227 few pages of text. The hermeneutic code consists of all the segmented units in a text "whose function it is to articulate in various ways a question, its response, and the variety of chance events which can either formulate the question or delay its answer; or even, constitute an enigma and lead to its solution"

(Barthes, S/Z 17). In order to appreciate how this code operates in the text, it is useful to step back for a moment and examine the paratextual material that prefaces Chastelard. In his Paratexts: thresholds of interpretation, Gerard

Genette has discussed the relevance of such material—prefaces, dedications, epigraphs, chapter titles, even letters of the author—noting its importance for setting a direction of how to read. The Mary Stuart trilogy contains no prefaces, but each play includes one or more epigraphs (see appendix C). Chastelard, and thus the entire trilogy, I would argue, opens with this epigraph from the

Voyages of Sir John Mandeville:

Another Yle is there toward the Northe, in the See Occean, where that ben fulle cruele and ful evele Wommen of Nature: and thei han precious Stones in hire Eyen; and thei ben of that kynde, that zif they beholden ony man, thei slen him anon with the beholdynge, as dothe the Basilisk. MAUNDEVILE'S Voiage and Travaile, Ch. xxviii.111

Particular quotations used as inscriptions or epigraphs "can set up important resonances before the reader begins the text in question" (Allen 105). These lines from Mandeville invoke at least two of Barthes's codes: the cultural and the hermeneutic. To Barthes, the cultural code is "the set of references and the general knowledge of the period which support the discourse. For example, 228 psychological, sociological, medical knowledge, etc. These codes are often very strong" (Barthes, Grain 74). Hence, the cultural codes positioning Mandeville's words as an epigraph encourage the reader to situate Mary in a cultural pantheon of dangerous and exotic women. For example, Mandeville's Voyages raises associations with epic narratives like Homer's Odyssey in which the male hero wanders through strange lands and encounters such dangerous women as the Sirens, Circe, and Medusa. The Medusa-like ability of Mandeville's women to slay men with a look of the eye associates the Queen with a cultural assumption of woman as dangerous, and marks her in the narrative code as

"other." Nineteenth-century readers would have no trouble placing Mary, a foreigner twice-removed (England via Scotland and France) within the context of a line of mythical and historical femme fatales such as were regularly resurrected in the art and culture of Victorian England, in the art of Swinburne's companions in the Pre-Raphaelite art movement, and in Swinburne's own infamous volume, Poems and Ballads (1866).112 Writing in the early twentieth century, Samuel Chew assumes that Swinburne "boldly accepted the alternative which he implied in the motto from Maundeville" and that the tragedy "is that of the victims of une belle dame sans merci. . . ." (197).

Yet the Mandeville epigraph also raises associations with travel narratives like Marco Polo's visit to foreign lands, and thus with Mary herself as a voyager, a traveller, to strange new worlds (France, Scotland, England), and the hero who encounters many adventures and dragons (such as her cousin,

Elizabeth I). Mandeville came to be accepted as the literary precursor of later real-life voyages, such as those of Columbus to the new world of America, and the voyages of Magellan and Drake, or Raleigh's establishment of Virginia named for Elizabeth I (in Mary's lifetime). Nineteenth-century voyages like the doomed Franklin expedition of 1845-59 kept travel narratives in the popular imagination.113

At the same time, the choice of Mandeville's text raises questions about how to read and apply its narrative code. Despite its acceptance as a foundational narrative for many centuries, the status of the Voyages shifted in the nineteenth century with challenges to the veracity of the text. Mandeville's reputation was finally decimated in an Encyclopaedia Britannica article written by Edward W. B. Nicholson, Librarian of the Bodley Library at Oxford, and Sir

Henry Yule (9th ed., 1889). The voyages came to be viewed as fantasy or as riddles meant to be deciphered for their commentary on real life. In particular, the second half of the Voyages (which gives rise to the epigraph in question) was dismissed as fantasy.

To this day the status of Mandeville's account is uncertain,114 and it is unclear what status to give the epigraph that prefaces the trilogy. On the one hand it raises questions about exploration and mapping unknown territory, while on the other it suggests a narrative code that is not transparent in that it features 230 fantasy or coded commentary. Should we assign to the narrative the status of scientific journal or fantastic voyage? Swinburne is writing an historical drama, but prefaces it with a narrative of questionable status. What, then, is the status of his own narrative? How should we view the depiction of Mary as 'other'? The hermeneutic code is subtly invoked by the uncertain status of the Mandeville epigraph which destabilizes the very narrative it prefaces, and leaves the reader uncertain of how to relate the epigraph to the text that follows. As Genette observes, the relationship between an introductory epigraph and the text that follows is "still prospective" for the reader, and in the case of paratexts whose commentary on the text is puzzling, the significance "will not be clear or confirmed until the book is read"; even then, "the attribution of relevance in such cases depends on the reader, whose hermeneutic capacity is often put to the test" (149; 158). It makes sense, I would argue, to think of the Mandeville paratext in Genette's terms, as more of a "threshold' than a boundary or sealed border, "a zone not only of transition but also of transaction, a privileged place of a pragmatics and a strategy, of an influence on the public, an influence that... is at the service of a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it" (2).

The hermeneutic code is taken up in the opening scene of the play, as discussed above, and is thematised as the scene progresses. In response to 231

Mary Hamilton's confusion about the nature of the Queen's attraction to men, the other Maries base various theories on a reading of kinesics:

Mary Carmichael. I think her cunning speech— The soft and rapid shudder of her breath In talking—the rare tender little laugh— The pitiful sweet sound like a bird's sigh When her voice breaks; her talking does it all.

Mary Seyton. I say, her eyes with those clear perfect brows: It is the playing of those eyelashes, The lure of amorous looks as sad as love, Plucks all souls toward her like a net.

Mary Hamilton. What, what! You praise her in too lover-like a wise For women that praise women; such report Is like robes worn the rough side next the skin, Frets where it warms.

Mary Seyton You think too much in French.

As Mary Hamilton's comments indicate, the enumeration of the Queen's physical characteristics recalls the anatomizing of the lover's qualities in courtly love poetry. In each of the speakers' texts, "Mary" as signified is foregrounded, with each text focusing on an aspect of the use of words (signifiers). Mary

Carmichael stresses speech (breath, talking, laugh, sound, voice, talking); Mary

Seyton stresses sight (eyes, brows, eyelashes, looks); Mary Hamilton stresses reputation (praise, report); and Mary Seyton stresses language and the incompatibility of English and French. Each speaker's subjectivity is also foregrounded by the placement of personal qualifiers (I think, I say, You praise,

You think) when they are defining the Queen. Similes are prominent as the 232 vehicle of choice to convey their meanings (like a bird's sigh, as sad as love, like a net, lover-like / like robes [double simile]). But when Hamilton and Seyton comment on each other's idiolect, or way of speaking, the emphasis is shifted away from the descriptive content of the passage while raising the question of what we are to make of these characterizations of the Queen.

The entrances of Darnley and Chastelard further draw out the hermeneutic code by taking up the "lover-like" praise of the Maries, but inverting it so that its status as praise is ambiguous.115 Darnley ends a short diatribe about his treatment in the court by declaring that Mary's love "is like a brier that rasps the flesh," while Chastelard adopts a courtly lover's martyr-stance to describe the Queen:

I know her ways of loving, all of them: A sweet soft way the first is; afterward It burns and bites like fire; the end of that, Charred dust, and eyelids bitten through with smoke.

Yet again, the status of the narrative is undercut by the meta-commentary that follows:

Mary Beaton. What has she done for you to gird at her?

Chastelard. Nothing. You do not greatly love her, you, Who do not—gird, you call it. I am bound to France; Shall I take word from you to any one? So it be harmless, not a gird, I will.

The meaning of both Beaton's and Chastelard's discourse is rendered uncertain by this exchange. Chastelard's foregrounding of the use of the word "gird" by the 233 qualifier "you call it" draws attention to the word's potential meanings. "Gird" is used here in its sixteenth-century noun-form of a sarcastic remark, though

Beaton uses it as an intransitive verb.116 Her use of "gird" generates a negative connotation, which Chastelard twice modifies, first by asserting the paradoxical converse—that not to gird is not a sign of love (in other words, even though you don't make sarcastic attacks, you don't necessarily love her)—then by confirming that a word, if a gird, can do harm. Chastelard's language puts both terms—love and gird—into contestation. His exchange with Beaton emphasizes the extent to which much of the trilogy's dramatic discourse is related to characters checking up on whether and how each other is using various codes, especially for words like "gird" that are in contention. For example, Chastelard's skepticism of Beaton's praise of the Queen prompts him to ask, "Why do you praise her gracious looks to me?" And he responds with this caveat to her offer to help his relationship with the Queen: "If you mean mercifully, /1 am bound to you past thought and thank; if worse, /1 will but thank your lips and not your heart."

Thus, before Mary enters the action, the representation of her character has already been established as problematic, and language has been implicated in the rendering of covert agendas. Once she enters the action in scene 2, the hermeneutic code continues to be highlighted, with Mary explicitly positioning herself as a riddle to be read. Subject to the constant surveillance of a panoptic 234 court society, she notes: "How they look! / The least thing courteous galls them to the bone. / What would one say now I were thinking of?" She gives

Chastelard "stuff for riddles" and later notes the entrance of the lords of her court with "Here come my riddle-readers" (Ch. 2.1). In fact, Mary largely takes over the task of reading herself as a text, and becomes the primary agent for interrogating her own representation. Shortly into the second scene, which is situated at a court masque, she draws Chastelard's attention to her apparel:

"Look, this breast-clasp is new, / The French king sent it me." Chastelard's response draws attention to the signifying properties of the ornament: "A goodly thing: / But what device? the word is ill to catch." Already the implications are ambiguous, as the signifiers slide from "good" to "ill." Mary then reads the device:

A Venus crowned, that eats the hearts of men: Below her flies a love with a bat's wings, And strings the hair of paramours to bind Live birds' feet with. Lo what small subtle work: The smith's name, Gian Grisostomo da—what? Can you read that? The sea froths underfoot; She stands upon the sea and it curls up In soft loose curls that run to one in the wind. But her hair is not shaken, there's a fault; It lies straight down in close-cut points and tongues, Not like blown hair. The legend is writ small: Still one makes out this—Cave—if you look.117

Her reading of the ornament invokes an emblematic code that complements the cultural code announced by the Mandeville epigraph, but, significantly, with qualifications. The Renaissance device was a specific type of emblem that 235 carried potential functions of identification and communication.118 Taken as a portrait of its owner, the Queen's device apparently signifies Mary as a devouring Venus. Yet depending on the stage of its historical evolution, the nature of the specific device, and the occasion of its display, the device could range from a definitive moral portrait to a transitory characterization (Russell

1985).

The presentation of the Venus device raises questions that frustrate attempts at a definitive reading: a gift of the French king, does the device represent his perception of female fatality or merely warn against the dangers of love? Does Mary adopt its signification when she displays it? Worn at a masque, should it be considered an occasional device that expresses an aspect of character or transitory mood? Finally, does Mary's observation of a fault in its construction suggest that the signifying function of the device is flawed? The communicative potential of the motto typically increases speculation through obscurity: only the word Cave emerges from the legend, recalling the pronouncement of the resurrected Christ, noli me [cave] tangere119—do not touch, and its more sinister Victorian manifestation: "There is a glare in some men's eyes which seems to say, 'Beware, I am dangerous; noli me tangere'."120

Merimee's short story, "La Venus d'llle" (1837), offers an interesting parallel pointing to the potential for ambiguous readings; in the story, the inscription

CAVE AMANTEM on a statue of Venus is alternately translated as "Beware of 236 him who loves you, mistrust lovers" and 'Beware if she loves you."121 Thus, the device's signifying power conjoined with a characteristic riddling potential highlights the hermeneutic code and further delays a response to the question of

Mary's character.

A helpful concept at this point is C.S. Peirce's division of semiotic signs into three types: iconic, indexical, and symbolic. The icon is of particular relevance to our discussion because in the trilogy it is frequently the dominant mode of the sign. An iconic sign, according to Peirce, "represents] its object mainly by its similarity" (57); that is, by "similarity" he means its qualities resemble those of the object it represents (168). However, as the receiver and interpreter of the sign, Mary's detection of a "flaw" in the "Venus crowned" device is an implicit critique of its iconic fitness as a signifier.

The significance of this critique can be better appreciated by under­ standing more about how semiotic codes operate. Codes can be identified through their characteristic and specialized vocabularies which are created "by specific communities to encode realities that they perceive to be critical to their communal experiences"; these vocabularies emerge from cultural determinants rather than natural ones. They are markers of cognitive processes peculiar to their host communities, and so the codes produced by these cognitive differences influence how one perceives the world (Danesi 90). The notion of a default mode in culture similar to the default mode of computer software is important in highlighting how our ways of knowing the world operate through an established "network of codes" that, unless intentionally changed, will

"automatically operate according to its original format" (Danesi 95). Thus Mary's critique of the Venus device may be seen as a challenge to the default mode of a culture that reads women—whether mythical sirens or sixteenth-century monarchs—as femmes fatales. Her strategy here (and elsewhere as we shall see) is one of defamiliarization of our perception, achieved here by drawing attention to the constructed nature of the Venus device, and forcing us to look with fresh eyes on the familiar Renaissance device.122

One target of Mary's critique is the courtly love code that organizes

Chastelard's world view. "Courtly love" is a dominant, gendered component of absolute monarchy and a dominant political component of medieval

Christianity.123 In the nineteenth century, the tradition of courtly love was still operative, in however attenuated a way, in the interest in medieval romances and in the gendered position of women within the Victorian social world—in

Victoria's court as well as in Mrs. Stickney Ellis's saccharine tracts on the

Women of England. In Chastelard, Swinburne exploits the conventions of medieval and Renaissance courtly love that he derived from his own reading of medieval literature, and especially Renaissance drama.124 In courtly love poetry and romance, and in Swinburne's poetry, as Harrison suggests, "spheres of experience and levels of expression frequently merge": 238

Unrequited carnal passions are often spiritually ennobling; political loyalty is transformed into service to the beloved; devotion to the lady is equivalent to devotion to God; valorous death in her service becomes the highest good. Thus passion and service often lead to a desire for self-immolation, and death represents release from, as well as fulfillment of, both physical and spiritual passions. (32-33)

According to Harrison, Chastelard both espouses courtly love values and acts them out in his life; he argues that dramatic tension in the play "is generated almost exclusively by the dynamic and suicidal passion of the hero for the dark and capricious heroine" (44). Chastelard's love for Mary Stuart "fits the courtly pattern, even to his projecting upon her the image of a belle dame sans merer

(Harrison 26). Indeed, it is Chastelard whose language most closely resembles that of the Mandeville epigraph, as in this conversation with Mary Beaton:

Have you read never in French books the song Called the Duke's Song, some boy made ages back, A song of drag-nets hauled across thwarts seas And plucked up with rent sides, and caught therein A strange-haired woman with sad singing lips, Cold in the cheek like any stray of sea, And sweet to touch? so that men seeing her face, And how she sighed out little Ahs of pain And soft cries sobbing sideways from her mouth, Fell in hot love, and having lain with her Died soon? one time I could have told it through: Now I have kissed the sea-witch on her eyes, And my lips ache with it:125

Under the code of courtly love, then, Chastelard's "default mode" signifies Mary as sea-witch. Joseph Allen Boone explains the sexual politics of courtly love:

The representation of sexes emerging from courtly ideology concurrently maintained a hierarchy of male dominance despite the reversal ostensibly involved in elevating the lady to a position 239

of social and spiritual superiority vis-a-vis her lover. For the male subject hypothesized by medieval love literature, by allowing himself to suffer mental woe and undergo trials for his lady, remained in practical charge of events. ... In troubadour verse it is typically the male poet who addresses the woman; her representation is shaped entirely by his emotional and imaginative needs. (42; Boone's emphasis)

Thus, the centre of Chastelard's semiotic system, or his transcendental signified, to use Derrida's terminology, is Mary herself, perceived in the conventions of courtly love in his verbal and intellectual world. Terry Eagleton sets out the concept of the transcendental signified efficiently:

Just as Western philosophy has been 'phonocentric', centred on the 'living voice' and deeply suspicious of script, so also it has been in a broader sense 'logocentric', committed to a belief in some ultimate 'word', presence, essence, truth or reality which will act as the foundation of all our thought, language and experience. It has yearned for the sign which will give meaning to all others— the 'transcendental signifier'—and for the anchoring, unquestionable meaning to which all our signs can be seen to point (the 'transcendental signified'). A great number of candidates for this role—God, the Idea, the World Spirit, the Self, substance, matter and so on—have thrust themselves forward from time to time. Since each of these concepts hopes to found our whole system of thought and language, it must itself be beyond that system, untainted by its play of linguistic differences. It cannot be implicated in the very languages which it attempts to order and anchor: it must be somehow anterior to these discourses, must have existed before they did. It must be a meaning, but not like any other meaning just a product of a play of difference. It must figure rather as the meaning of meanings, the lynchpin or fulcrum of a whole thought system, the sign around which all others revolve and which all others obediently reflect. (131)

The centre—the transcendental signified—functions to "limit the free play of terms and concepts within it, in other words, to foreclose such play" (Habib 106). 240

The transcendental signifier, such as the term "Mary" as used by Chastelard, may be deconstructed by analyzing the assumptions or embedded signs that underlie the "metaphysics of presence." The transcendental signifier in

Chastelard's textuality—that is, his use of words in the texts ascribed to him—is

"Mary"—but the transcendental signified is the semiotic system within which

"Mary" functions as an intellectual framework using the courtly love ideology, and within which Chastelard's use of language constructs her with a fixed, rigid, unchanging set of signifiers. Hence Mary Stuart is a fixed figure for Chastelard, and her name conjures up for him a set of consistent and unchanging meanings.

Harrison's claim, then, that in Chastelard "historically empty conventions of courtly love are presented dramatically as earnest and moving solutions to the problem of human passion" (43) can be challenged by focusing on the terms of

Mary's critique of courtly love.126 We saw how Mary sought to defamiliarize the signifying system of the Venus device by pointing out a flaw in the workmanship.

She undertakes a more clearly deconstructive analysis of courtly love when she unpacks Chastelard's endearment, "sweet love," decentering it from its dominant role in his world of meanings. She challenges—and deconstructs—the fixity of

"sweet love," destabilizing it and marking out its free play in her re-writing of his logocentric fixation on her as a presence that embodies his "sweet" signifier:

You call love sweet; yea, what is bitter, then? There's nothing broken sleep could hit upon So bitter as the breaking down of love. You call me sweet; I am not sweet to you, 241

Nor you—O, I would say not sweet to me, And if I said so I should hardly lie. But there have been those things between us, sir, That men call sweet. (Ch. 2.1)

Mary teases out the contraries (sweet / bitter) behind Chastelard's endearment.

Sweet is associated with love, and bitter with the breaking down of love. Mary is

also associated with sweet ("You call me sweet"), but things get messy when

she highlights the contradictory situation that she is "not sweet" to Chastelard.

The terms of Mary's critique can be elaborated by applying

A.J. Greimas's heuristic model of the semiotic square, which posits a relation

between contradictory terms of binary oppositions or contraries as a means of

differentiation.127 As Danesi explains, "Given a sign Si (eg. rich), we determine

its overall meaning by opposing it to its contradictory -Si (not rich), its contrary S2

{poor), and its contradictory -s2 (not poor)" (54). The model looks like this:

rich (si) pj^js g-f ^e^lrgr^ Poor (s2)

not poor (-s2) not rich (-Si)

Each of the contradictory terms encompasses more meaning than the corresponding terms of the binary opposition that generates them. In other words, "not poor" encompasses more meanings than nch , while "not rich

encompasses more meanings than "poor". Thus what the square's technique

suggests is that "oppositions involve gradations or scales .... that shape how we recognize signs" (Danesi 54).

To apply this model to Swinburne's text, along the axis of contrariety we

can place "sweet" and "bitter." Each term gives rise to many partial synonyms.

"Sweet" may be related to taste (tasty), appearance (pleasant), and demeanour

(pleasurable), while "bitter" suggests something unpleasant, untasty, and

unpleasurable—connotations all captured by the term "sour" as well as "bitter".

For each contrary term we can establish an axis of contradiction. The

contradictory terms for sweet / bitter can be posited as "not sweet" and "not

bitter," respectively, as shown below:

sweet (si) cixi5 oj concur y bitter (s2)

not bitter (-S2) not sweet (-S1)

In the case of sweet / not sweet (or non-sweet), the relation of negation suggests an axis of sub-contraries that may include degrees of less (or more) 243 non-sweetness, tensions between these degrees, privations (or deprivations) of sweetness, and various negations of it. "Not sweet" includes more than "bitter," as Mary Stuart's final comment in the passage indicates ("But there have been those things between us, sir, /That men call sweet"). Similarly, "not bitter" encompasses more than "sweet". Both these relations of negation reveal sites of paradox and ambiguity—"sweet" applies but does not apply. The square allows us to see a more subtle, nuanced play of signification, in that Mary Stuart's being "not sweet" allows for far more modes of signification than just being

"bitter." Thus Mary draws attention to the play of signifiers within Chastelard's system, and demonstrates that Chastelard's centre (the transcendental signified of "Mary" in his system of courtly love) is not stable.

Turning to another example of Chastelard's structuration, we see similar instability in the signifiers, although he continually collapses his rhetorical questions onto his over-riding semiotic, the pre-eminence of Mary herself:

Why should one woman have all goodly things? You have all beauty; let mean women's lips Be pitiful, and speak truth: they will not be Such perfect things as yours. Be not ashamed That hands not made like these that snare men's souls Should do men good, give alms, relieve men's pain; You have the better, being more fair than they, They are half foul, being rather good than fair; You are quite fair: to be quite fair is best. {Ch. 5.2)

Chastelard uses a kind of apophatic or negative theology to construct Mary, telling us what she is (fair, beautiful, perfect) by way of telling us what she is not 244

(good). Values like goodness and truth are linked with the "half foul" nature of women who are not like Mary (women who "do men good, give alms, relieve men's pain"). Yet Mary herself combines an absolute good ("all beauty," "more fair," "quite fair") with an absolute evil ("snarfing of] men's souls"). The signifieds begin to slide around in terms of their place in conventional semiotic systems in the "real" world, and function instead in the world of the text (here, Chastelard's world) to create a set of referential meanings that establish codes that to us are always evolving, deconstructing, building, and destroying the notion of Mary as a stable signifier, as she is to him. Mary herself highlights her scepticism at

Chastelard's courtly love projections when he links her "sweet[ness]" with God's favour; she cries "Ah my sweet fool, / Think you when God will ruin me for sin /

My face of colour shall prevail so much / With him, so soften the toothed iron's edge / To save my throat a scar?" (Ch. 5.2).

Like Chastelard, other characters posit Mary as a dominant metaphor

(but not necessarily a transcendental signified) central to their own structures.

For instance, Murray, her half-brother and potential usurper, posits Mary as the binary opposite of the natural order embodied in monarchy when he conveys the corrupt state of her reign by iconically linking her to a stately tree that has succumbed to disease:

These few brief years, have blown from off your boughs All blossom of that summer, though nor storm Nor fire from heaven hath wrecked nor wind laid low That stately tree that shadowed a glad land, But now being inly gnawn of worms to death, And made a lurking-place for poisonous things To breed and fester at its rotten root, The axe is come against it. (B. 5.4)

The "stately" tree (with its pun on the conventional image of the family tree or tree of state) and the diseased tree function in the passage as signifiers, respectively, of an ideal natural order and its perversion. Murray's speech echoes the words of John the Baptist preaching repentance before the coming of Christ: "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire"

(Matthew 3:1-12 KJV). In this case, Murray's emblematic depiction shuts down any potential for play in the signifiers through his proscription against either alternate readings of the circumstances or the possibility of amelioration:

"none . . . / Can read this truth awry," and "no tide of tears / Could wash from hand or soul the sinful sign / That now stands leprous there."128

On the other hand, the Calvinist preacher Knox links Mary through typology to the binary of belief / misbelief, clearly referencing her as the Catholic head of state when he notes that all offences "have one head, / The hateful head of unstanched misbelief (B. 1.2). To him, Mary signifies the enemy of

God—a "dangerous" foe—and at the same time is his tool, by God himself

"brought up against the people of God / To try their force or feebleness of faith"

(S.1.2). Knox uses the typological code to link Mary with a long line of biblical whores and harlots, and to posit her as the embodiment of "Death" and "Ruin." 246

"Dissensions, wars, rumours of wars, and change" are all signs of God's disfavour with her reign. In his semiotic system Mary is the binary opposite of

Knox's dominating transcendental signifier, God; instead, she is read by him in a typological way that incorporates not just all biblical whores but also all actions performed on her behalf by her male followers:

for these, What were they but as shadows in the sun Cast by her passing, or as thoughts that fled Across her mind of evil, types and signs Whereby to spell the secret of her soul Writ by her hand in blood? What power had they, What sense, what spirit, that was not given of her, Or what significance or shape of life Their act or purpose, formless else and void, Save as her will and present force of her, Gave breath to them and likeness? None of these Hath done or suffered evil save for her, Who was the spring of each man's deed or doom And root for each of death, and in his hand The sword to die by and the sword to slay. (B. 4.7)

Here Mary is the very foundation of misbelief.129 Yet Swinburne's conception of

Knox and Mary as evenly matched opponents is reflected in Knox's own apparent status as God's spokesman, who carries "all these folk bound up in his brow" (Ch. 1.1). It is because of this status that Mary's challenge to Knox's power is so potent when she points to the arbitrariness of signification by demanding, "With what sign-manual has God warranted / Your inquisition of us?" (B. 1.3). With one targeted question she decentres Knox's semiotic system, opening up to examination concepts he has invested with the absolute authority 247 of his religious and political position. Her query reminds us that human language is a social system of codes, tools for the creation of meaning that are at anyone's disposal.130

This point is brought home by another set of references that complicate

Mary's character and link her with signifieds of greater virtue. Whereas

Chastelard, as we saw earlier, invokes a negative theology to construct his

Mary, others invoke its opposite, a cataphatic, or positive theology, which explains what Mary is to them. Bothwell actually invokes both a negative and positive theology when he describes Mary:

Not being almighty, nor from all man's moods Divided, but as passion-touched and mixed With all such moods as men are; nay, not these, But such as bear the rule of these and lead Which way the will—women's; and being so mixed She is even the more entire, more whole and strong, Herself and no self other. (B. 2.18)

In a description that recalls Holman Hunt's painting, The Light of the World

(1854), which shows Christ knocking at the door of the human soul, Arthur

Erskine describes her "bright fiery heart" which is like "the traveller's lamp / That makes all shadow clear as its own light" (B.2.2). Sir Drury calls her a woman

"born right royal; full of sins" (in contrast to Carmichael's earlier ascription in

Ch. 1.1, "full of grace"), "but of heart / So fiery high, so swift of spirit and clear, /

.... So large of courage, so superb of soul" that she shall be a "world's wonder to all time, / A deadly glory watched of marvelling men" (MS. 4.2). And while her 248 opponents depict her as the target of destruction in the apocalypse, she is also identified with the Church itself and martyrdom at her impending execution: "And all in red as of a funeral flame / She stands up statelier yet before them, tall /

And clothed as if with sunset."131

Mary's challenge of Knox's sign-system is a good example of how referencing the cultural code can heighten a message's iconicity and produce meaningful responses. To take, for example, another of Mary's critiques of the courtly love code, her comment on Chastelard's idiolect, that he has a "subtle riddling skill at love / Which is not like a lover" (Ch. 1.2), exploits social analysis and ambiguities, and heightens the dramatic tension. Another instance of raising the iconic level is found in Damley's challenge to the Queen to "get you some painting" to repair the gap between language and appearance:

I say that looking with this face of yours None shall believe you holy; what, you talk, Take mercy in your mouth, eat holiness, Put God under your tongue and feed on heaven, With fear and faith and—faith, I know not what— And look as though you stood and saw men slain To make you game and laughter: nay, your eyes Threaten as unto blood. (Ch. 4.1)

Here Darnley highlights the lack of resemblance between Mary's body language and her discourse as a means of charging her with duplicity.

The trilogy is full of such instances, often built on metaphorical and metalinguistic language. Darnley, for example, mocks Mary's Italian secretary,

David Rizzio, and his close association to the Queen, by substituting Mary 249

Carmichael's epithet "Saint David" with "King David now, / King David psalmist," to which she replies, "See you play not Saul, / Who are something of his stature in our eyes, / Much of his mighty presence; be it not said / He hath snipt your skirts already" (8 1.1). Carmichael's allusion is calculated to undermine

Darnley's confidence, and her success is evident in his response: "Who said that?" The Saul-David correspondence recurs in Mary Stuart when Elizabeth recounts how the imprisoned Queen portrays herself as a persecuted David who

"cannot so / Fly by the window forth as David," a reference that prompts

Elizabeth's observation that "It seems she likens us to Saul, and looks / Haply to see us as on Mount Gilboa fallen" (4.1). Similarly, Mary's jailor, Paulet, responds self-consciously to her suggestion that he is as ignorant as Peter was in being questioned about his lord: "I know not where the cause were to be sought /That might for likeness or unlikeness found / Make seemly way for such comparison /

As turns such names to jest and bitterness" (MS. 1.2).

The cultural code functions through allusion to traditional cultural forms.

We see from these responses, for example, how sensitive the characters are to the cultural power of naming. Mary herself employs iconic signifiers to establish resemblances more fitting to her self-conception. She would rather "play / Esther than Judith" (both biblical queens who saved their people—Esther through political manoeuvring, Judith by decapitating the enemy Holofernes), an allusion from which she generates this meaning: "for the people's sake / To God make intercession, than deprive / The meanest of the people born of life' (M.S 3.1).

Hers is a shrewd distinction between Esther's relatively stable image, encompassing "peerlesse beauty" and "perfit Grace," and that of Judith which, over the centuries, has been the site of conflicting identities from "patriot to

Virgin Mary prototype to femme fatale."n2

With similar shrewdness, Mary selects her father, James V, as a role model:

To be King James—you hear men say King James, The word sounds like a piece of gold thrown down, Rings with a round and royal note in it— A name to write good record of; this king Fought here and there, was beaten such a day, And came at last to a good end, his life Being all lived out, and for the main part well And like a king's life. . . ,133

Mary uses an auditory image to elicit a visual icon. Evoking the kind of devices and mottos used by monarchs to embody powerful political statements (Strong,

Splendour at Court 58), by implication she identifies with these signs of noble royalty. Yet it is notable that for each of the signifiers employed by Mary and discussed above, the grammatical mode is conditional, and none is closely attached to a definitive signified. Perhaps the clearest example of this gap between signifier and signified is found in an exchange between Babington and his fellow conspirators:

Babington. Look on this picture; from its face to-day Thus I pluck off the muffled mask, and bare Its likeness and our purpose. . . . 251

There ye stand, Fashioned all five in likeness of mere life, Just your own shapes, even all the man but speech, As in a speckless mirror; . . .

See what verse I bade write under on the picture here: These are my comrades, whom the peril's self Draws to it;

Barnwell. and we prate And threaten here in painting: by my life, I see no more in us of life or heart Than in this heartless picture. (M.S. 1.1)

The attempt to make this emblematic painting into an iconic sign fails when its

receiver questions its likeness to life, just as Mary does with the Venus device.

In chapter 3, we saw how in Shakespeare's plays the audience itself is compelled to participate in the construction of meaning. To understand how

Swinburne's trilogy also invites audience / reader participation, it is useful to invoke Barthes's distinction between two kinds of writer—one who writes for an instrumental purpose in a transitive mode (the scripteur or ecrivanf), taking the reader to a world beyond the act of writing—and one who uses "to write" as an intransitive verb (as an author or ecrivain), whose act of writing produces

"writing." Barthes argues the point by stressing the grammatical shifts:

[The] grammatical notion .. . concerns the verb to write itself. It would be interesting to know at what point the verb to write began to be used in an apparently intransitive manner, the writer being no longer one who writes something, but one who writes, absolutely. (How often we now hear in conversations . . . : 'What is he doing?'—"He's writing.) ("To Write" 141) Now it is clear that Swinburne set out to write about events in the life of Mary

Queen of Scots with the motive of showing, to his mind, an accurate (but still fictional) representation of her character, but it is also true that his text draws attention to the activity of writing, and language, itself. We see this practice in the many rhetorical devices used, such as word play, antithesis, and alliteration, some of which are set out below:

I bade you not be wise; or, if I bade, It was to be obeyed not. (6. 1.1)

(amplification and possible paronomasia—bade / bade / obeyed)

and their names Who would have made of royalty in me Ruin, and marred the general name of king, Shall with their lives be perfectly put out, Royally ruined (8. 2.1)

(alliteration and paronomasia—royalty / ruin / royally ruined)

I have ridden hard by stars of March or May With false or true men to my left and right The wild night through, for death or kingly life. ... (S. 5.11)

(assonance, alliteration, consonance, antithesis, isocolon, prozeugma—hard by stars of March or May, false or true, left and right, death or kingly life)

Catch like infection from plague-tainted air The purulence of their purity. . . . (MS. 1.1)

(alliteration and assonance—plague, purulence, purity)

We also see it in his use of poetic language to heighten the drama of characters' speech, as in this excerpt from an alliterative extravaganza by Mary: 253

there the wind and sun Make madder mirth by midsummer, and fill With broader breath and lustier length of light The heartier hours that clothe for even and dawn Our bosom-belted billowy-blossoming hills Whose hearts break out in laughter like the sea For miles of heaving heather. (MS. 1.3)

(assonance and alliteration—made madder mirth by midsummer; broader breath; bosom-belted billow-blossoming; lustier length of light; heartier hours, hearts, heaving heather)

Mary frequently draws attention to language as a vehicle for constructing meaning not necessarily related to a referential world, as when she queries the lords:

what will you make of me? Will you not swear I love this prisoner? Ye are wise, and ye will have it; . . .

Ye be wise men and many men, my lords, And ye will have me love him, ye will swear That I do love him; who shall say ye lie? (Ch. 4.1)

Here, the power of male status and its reputed wisdom, multiplied in number, arbitrarily constructs a love relationship between Mary and Chastelard. Similarly, the Queen worries about pardoning Chastelard because of the wide range of gestures he can use to generate ambiguous meanings:

Are you sure, If I would pack him with a pardon hence, He would speak well of me—not hint and halt, Smile and look back, sigh and say love runs out, But times have been—with some loose laugh cut short, Bit off at lip—eh?(C/7. 4.1) 254

Barthes's interest in writing, as in S/Z (1970), his analysis of Balzac's

Sarrasine, stresses the reader and the reader's act in reading. Barthes divides

literature into two kinds of texts that correspond with the two kinds of writer

outlined above. In the case of literature written in the transitive mode by a

scripteur or ecrivant, the reader is made passive, the observer who looks to the world beyond the text that is being described, to accept it or to repudiate it.

Barthes calls this a readerly (lisible) text, in which the signifiers point to expected and customary signifieds, raising no questions about content or meaning.

However, in an intransitive text, the reader's function becomes all important in participating with a text that Barthes calls writerly (scriptible). He writes:

Here we discern the total being of writing: a text consists of multiple writings, proceeding from several cultures and entering into dialogue, into parody, into contestation; but there is a site where this multiplicity is collected, and this site is not the author, as has hitherto been claimed, but the reader: the reader is the very space in which are inscribed, without any of them being lost, all the citations out of which a writing is made; the unity of a text is not in its origin but in its destination, but this destination can no longer be personal: the reader is a man without history, without biography, without psychology; he is only that someone who holds collected into one and the same field all of the traces from which writing is constituted. (Barthes, "Death" 54)

Readerly texts, then are fixed in content and means, and hence are static, making a reader be conforming and passive in the "presence" of the text, while a writerly text is dynamic, allowing the free play of signifiers, with meanings that are often in conflict or indeterminant. Such approaches to texts and language point to useful ways in which the ambiguities and clashes of meaning and image, of theme and character in Swinburne's trilogy can be surveyed if not captured by the reader's act of reading of what can be regarded in many ways as a writerly text.134

Indeed, Barthes's conception of the writerly text's potential for disrupting the readerly one fits Swinburne's trilogy well. From a readerly perspective, we can argue that Swinburne sets out to resolve the historical enigma of Mary's character / reputation by representing all the (in his mind) relevant details on which her character and actions can be evaluated. Yet the figure of the Queen resists the readerly approach, foregrounds her inscrutability, and mocks those who attempt to 'read' her text. But moreso, she acts as a destructive force in the trilogy, not necessarily on the level of her historical and cultural reputation as a femme fatale and destroyer of men, but as a semiotic force engaged in deconstructing the various sign systems through which meaning about her is produced. Her textual character calls us to awareness of the self-fashioning culture in which she is immersed, of the available codes of signification amongst which she negotiates, and of the way in which signification is built out of intertextual references, or in Barthes's term, the already read. She is the vehicle through which the passive reader is prodded to become an active participant in the dramatic text's creation of meaning—that is, in a writerly text. 256

While attention to the nature of language is embedded in the discourse of all the characters in Swinburne's trilogy, Mary's is particularly meditative in its reflections, as in the samples below:

I would I had done with need of forging words That I might keep truth pure upon my lips. I am weary of lying, and would not speak word more To mock my heart with and win faith from men. ... (6. 1.1)

(abstractions and binaries: forging words, truth / lying, mock /faith)

Words, all words; I am weary of words: I have heard words enough To build and break, if breath could break or build, Centuries of men. . ..

Nay, no words: A word may wound and no word heal again, As none can me—whom all men's words may wound— Who am liable to all buffets of men's tongues, All stripes of all their scandals. ... (6. 1.3)

(frequent and emphatic repetition of "words" and the alliteration of "w" [weary of words, word may wound]; the alliteration and antithesis of "To build and break, if breath could break or build"; and the alliteration and repetition of "all" and the alliteration / consonance of "stripes" and "scandals")

Such meditative metalanguage—that is, philosophical, moral, or psychological reflections on the use and limits of language—is characteristic of

"highly ideational drama" like Shakespeare's Hamlet (Elam 155). Thus, I would argue that treating Swinburne's trilogy as a readerly text has too often led to the disappointment and negative judgements that frequently have characterized its 257

reception, while approaching it as a writerly text opens up dramatic sites of

conflict embedded in the linguistic interaction of the characters, and the

interaction of the text with the reader.

To recapitulate, we set out in this chapter to examine how language

functions in the dramatic discourse of Swinburne's text to generate meaning,

and to highlight its role in the challenge to public power, mostly through the

challenge to conventional cultural and hermeneutic codes. Approaching the text

as a signifying one—that is, one that foregrounds the communicative process of

sending and receiving messages by means of verbal and non-verbal codes, we

examined the opening of Chastelard to demonstrate the characters'

preoccupation with the codes used to read each other as texts, over and above their actual words. We highlighted the significance of the hermeneutic code in the text through attention to paratextual material such as the opening epigraph to Chastelard, and demonstrated Mary's central role in reading herself as text through her commentary on the emblematic breast-clasp (the "Venus crowned" device) she wears. We introduced Peirce's notion of the iconic sign, and the problem of resemblance, to illustrate the basis for Mary's critique of signifiers

like the "Venus crowned" device. We also introduced Danesi's notion of a default mode in culture to show how Mary uses a strategy of defamiliarization to challenge the default mode in which she is read as a femme fatale. Next, we examined Mary's deconstruction of herself as the transcendental signifier in 258

Chastelard's semiotic system of courtly love, using Greimas's semiotic square to

elaborate the terms of her critique, following up with her decentering of the

Calvinist preacher John Knox's sign-system which posits her as a signifier of

misbelief in binary opposition to his transcendental signifier of God. Finally, we

looked at how referencing the cultural code in conjunction with heightening the

iconic level of a message exploits social analysis and ambiguities, and

heightens the dramatic tension; we also focused on the text's metaphorical and

metalinguistic language, as well as the characters' sensitivity to the power of

naming.

Turning to the role of audience / reader participation in the construction of

meaning, we invoked Barthes's distinction between a transitive and intransitive

mode of writing, and demonstrated how Swinburne's text draws attention to the

activity of writing through the use of rhetorical devices such as word play, antithesis, and alliteration. Again, Mary is central in drawing attention to

language as a vehicle for constructing meaning that is not necessarily related to a referential world, and she is central in the use of meditative metalanguage to reflect on the limits and constraints of language. Hence, Barthes's distinction between a readerly text, with its static reader, and a writerly one, which requires the reader to look at language rather than through it, helps us access the text's embedded sites of conflict. 259

Conclusion

The structure of the trilogy that was outlined in the introduction isolates the main events and characters of the drama, and sets up the context for the different approaches to Mary's ambiguities concerning signs, motives, and meanings. Each of the events requires a reader's engagement to read meanings, first, to determine Chastelard's love intentions and Mary's responses—rendered more complex through the mis/readings of the four

Maries—and the political motives versus the personal emotions of the marriage with Darnley; second, to determine the role of Rizzio and the suspicion about

Mary over the murder of Darnley, as well as the fraught marriage with Bothwell in the second play; and third, to determine the ambiguous recurrence of the scheming Mary Beaton (with echoes of Chastelard recalled and forgotten) with the elusive problems of fact, truth, and falsehood in the trial and the warrant for execution in the final play. The written words of the writerly text construct a complex dramatic structure requiring active participation to follow with the text the ambiguous turns through the labyrinth.

Swinburne's conception of his trilogy as manifesting, on one level, the transition from a fading order (divine monarchy) to an emerging one

(democracy) inclines readers to the assumption that the royal power of the Queen of Scots is the centre of contest in the drama as a whole, as well as in

Swinburne's historical articles and commentaries. From one perspective this assumption seems clear. The historical Mary arrived to rule a kingdom where she had been born but not raised, and which had embraced, in the Reformation, a religious and political stance that was anathema to her upbringing in the

Catholic French court. It is her crown and how she wears it that disruptive forces—John Knox, the Scottish lords and citizenry, and the English—target.

Yet from the start Mary's royal status is complicated, like both Elizabeth and Victoria's, by her anomalous position as a female monarch, since however she may negotiate and compromise on matters of church and state, or seek to adopt or adapt to the gendered attributes and prerogatives of traditionally male power, she cannot alter the fact of her sex. The oxymoronic status of female royal power in the sixteenth-century Scottish court and society as represented by Swinburne in the trilogy destabilizes the assumptions of public power and shifts the contest of power relationships from a unidirectional to a bidirectional mode.

In the semiosphere (Danesi's term for the world of signs, codes, and texts), culture is both restricting and liberating. Mary is restricted by the panoptic male hierarchy of the court, yet seeks to liberate herself by appropriating that very culture: she challenges the default code posited by the text(s) and attempts to modify it to suit her purposes. The disrupter of male power as much as male power disrupts her royalty, she identifies and attempts to fill up the gaps in the signifiers.

The cultural and political uses of heroic images of historical figures has been examined in Cubitt and Warren's Heroic Reputations and Exemplary Lives through the analysis of intersecting and overlapping (but not co-terminous) discourses of the heroic and of exemplarity (2). Cubitt defines the status of an exemplary life as an element within the general study of heroic reputations:

"Such a life is one valued and admired not merely (or even necessarily) for its practical achievements, but for the moral or ethical or social truths or values which it is perceived both to embody and through force of example, to impress on the minds of others" (2). This "moral discourse of exemplarity" is juxtaposed with "other ways of defining heroic status—essentially with those that celebrate

(as Carlyle did) the role of Great Men (or more rarely Women) as historical agents" so that "the tensions and intersections between the moral and the historical in the development and elaboration of heroic reputations" can be studied as a means of "charting their ideological fluctuations" (2).

We can see this tension in Swinburne's treatment of Mary Stuart's character in both his prose articles and the dramatic trilogy. His defense and his appreciation of Mary Stuart in his articles and correspondence depend less on the merits of historical than of personal agency. He is less concerned with whether Mary was party to the conspiracy to murder her husband than with how the circumstances, one way or the other, fit the historical context. He is not at all loathe to admit Mary's shortcomings as an historical agent—Elizabeth I easily transcends in patriotism the Scottish Queen who would have "flung Scotland with England into the hellfire of Spanish Catholicism rather than forego the faintest chance of personal revenge" ("Mary Queen of Scots" 409)—but he is at pains to emphasize the worth of her "natural" character—that which is immune to the social and political milieu of her training. This is the ground on which he cements her reputation.

In emphasizing the concept of heroic reputations as "cultural constructions reflecting the values and ideologies of the societies in which they are produced," Cubitt makes a useful distinction that we can apply to

Swinburne's treatment of the historical Queen:

The assumption here is not, of course, that the real actions and personalities of individuals are irrelevant to their reputations, but that any reputation that proves durable necessarily involves a translation of the individual existence into imaginative terms which resonate with the structure of meaning and value that compose a given culture. What resonates is not the life as lived, but the life as made sense of, the life imaginatively reconstructed and rendered significant. (3)

This assumption of a culturally relevant translation of biography is behind many studies of Mary Stuart along the lines of Lewis's Romancing the Nation, which surveys the "Georgian Mary" and the "Victorian Mary," and so on. Clearly

Swinburne himself is engaged in this translation process in his twenty-year endeavour to represent to Victorian Britain Mary's tragic career in sixteenth- century Scotland. What complicates the readers response to his representation

of Mary, however, is the self-reflexiveness of the translation process with which

he endows his own dramatis personae. His characters' attention to reputation and self-fashioning is without a doubt complementary to the historical and cultural milieu of the Renaissance as rendered by the work of the New

Historicists, but the slip-sliding of signifiers throughout the dramatic text disallows any final determinant of the Queen's character.

Hence, "Mary" as a signifier in the whole text is variable, contradictory, and unstable. At the same time "Mary" functions as a transcendental signifier to

Chastelard in the first play; she is the binary opposite of John Knox's transcendental signified (God) in Bothwell, where Bothwell himself does not follow Chastelard in using her name ("Mary" as a signified) as a transcendental signifier—his interest in her is part passionate love, but more political purpose; and in Mary Stuart the Babington conspirators with their political aims contrast with Mary's redefinition of her signified as a Christ figure, as she finally claims the role of transcendental signifier for herself. At the end she has become the meaning above meaning that controls the final action (a martyr for her religion as Christ was for his)—yet she is also a queen without a country. Hence, her presence is continually deferred, and never achieved, just as in courtly love the beloved is always desired and never achieved. What we are able to see instead is the network of relations through which Mary's character is constituted—in essence, a series of reflecting mirrors of her presence, but the Queen herself is never fully present either in them or in their representation in the text. If she is present in her last words, which echo Christ's ("Into thine hands, O Lord, into thine hands, I Lord, I commend my spirit'), she is then deconstructed, first by a voice that cries "So perish all found enemies of the queen!" and then by Mary

Beaton, to whom Barbara Mowbray gives the opportunity for a last look, rather than looking herself, upon the queen. Beaton is also given the last word, closing the play with an allusion to Chastelard's fate: "I heard that very cry go up / Far off long since to God, who answers here." Thus, as mirrors held up to mirrors reflect only themselves, so the many facets of Mary are shown to be an absence.

**********

When we stand back to look at the whole text, it is evident that the trilogy encompasses Swinburne's entire canon. In Swinburne's own words, the "mere" play of an undergraduate, Chastelard was published at the moment when he had his first controversial and sensational success with Poems and Ballads

(1866). Bothwell came out at the time of his poetic maturity, when he was declaring his affinities with French writers, including Baudelaire and Hugo. Mary

Stuart, the major dramatic work of his later years, coincided with the work he regarded as his masterpiece, Tristram of Lyonesse, itself revisiting the courtly love motifs that had figured so largely in Chastelard at the beginning of his career. His farewell to the Mary Stuart project was announced in the poem

"Adieux A Marie Stuart" (1882), of which selected sections are included here:

I

QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought, With hopes that rose and fell, Red star of boyhood's fiery thought, Farewell.

They gave their lives, and I, my queen, Have given you of my life, Seeing your brave star burn high between Men's strife.

The strife that lightened round their spears Long since fell still: so long Hardly may hope to last in years My song.

But still through strife of time and thought Your light on me too fell: Queen, in whose name we sang or fought, Farewell.

IV

Love hangs like light about your name As music round the shell: No heart can take of you a tame Farewell. Yet, when your very face was seen, III gifts were yours for giving: Love gat strange guerdons of my queen When living.

O diamond heart unfiawed and clear, The whole world's crowning jewel: Was ever heart so deadly dear So cruel?

Yet one for you of all that bled Grudged once one drop that fell: Not one to life reluctant said Farewell.

V

Strange love they have given you, love disloyal, Who mock with praise your name, To leave a head so rare and royal Too low for praise or blame.

You could not love nor hate, they tell us, You had nor sense nor sting: In God's name, then, what plague befell us To fight for such a thing?

"Some faults the gods will give," to fetter Man's highest intent: But surely you were something better Than innocent!

No maid that strays with steps unwary Through snares unseen, But one to live and die for: Mary, The Queen.

VII

Though all things breathe or sound of fight That yet make up your spell, To bid you were to bid the light Farewell.

Farewell the song says only, being A star whose race is run: Farewell the soul says never, seeing The sun. Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears, The song must say but so That took your praise up twenty years Ago.

More bright than stars or moons that vary, Sun kindling heaven and hell, Here, after all these years, Queen Mary,

Farewell.

The selected lines repeat the familiar themes of the trilogy: Mary's beauty and cruelty, and her praiseworthiness, along with the problematic nature of that praise. There remains an absolute refusal to see her as 'innocent' and a finding of her nobility therein. Swinburne's sister Alice recognized this refusal in a letter commenting on these verses: "I am sure no one ever appreciated her [Mary] on all sides as you do, people only seem able to admire & praise blindly, or hate & abuse equally blindly, but you can see through & admire & think ill of— altogether" (Uncollected 2: 430).

Between the completion of Mary Stuart in 1881 and his death in 1909,

Swinburne published such substantial works as the long narrative poems

Tristram ofLyonesse (1882) and The Tale ofBalen (1896). His prolific output during this time includes several dramas and volumes of poetry, the epistolary novel Love's Cross-Currents (1905), and "scores of topical poems, articles, and studies" (Lafourcade 241). But never again did he write anything so ambitious as his largest and most complex drama. As we saw in the introduction to this dissertation, Swinburne feared that Bothwell, the mainstay of his trilogy on Mary 268

Stuart, might prove "an utter failure," but he hoped that it was "not merely by far the greatest work I have done ... but a really great poem and fit to live as a typical and representative piece of work." Whether or not Swinburne's opposition of failure and greatest work can be justified from either side, an extended analysis of the trilogy's composition and reception history, its theoretical underpinnings, its generic links to historical drama, its complex dramatic structure, and its challenging discourse, allows a reader to intervene in order to discuss, compare, and disentangle the text's multiple meanings, resonances, and associations. Appendix A—Text of Adieux A Marie Stuart by A.C. Swinburne

QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought, With hopes that rose and fell, Red star of boyhood's fiery thought, Farewell.

They gave their lives, and I, my queen, Have given you of my life, Seeing your brave star burn high between Men's strife.

The strife that lightened round their spears Long since fell still: so long Hardly may hope to last in years My song.

But still through strife of time and thought Your light on me too fell: Queen, in whose name we sang or fought, Farewell.

II

There beats no heart on either border Where through the north blasts blow But keeps your memory as a warder His beacon-fire aglow.

Long since it fired with love and wonder Mine, for whose April age Blithe midsummer made banquet under The shade of Hermitage.

Soft sang the burn's blithe notes, that gather Strength to ring true: And air and trees and sun and heather Remembered you.

Old border ghosts of fight or fairy Or love or teen, These they forgot, remembering Mary The Queen.

Ill

Queen once of Scots and ever of ours Whose sires brought forth for you Their lives to strew your way like flowers, Adieu.

Dead is full many a dead man's name Who died for you this long Time past: shall this too fare the same, My song?

But surely, though it die or live, Your face was worth All that a man may think to give On earth.

No darkness cast of years between Can darken you: Man's love will never bid my queen Adieu.

IV

Love hangs like light about your name As music round the shell: No heart can take of you a tame Farewell.

Yet, when your very face was seen, III gifts were yours for giving: Love gat strange guerdons of my queen 271

When living.

O diamond heart unflawed and clear, The whole world's crowning jewel: Was ever heart so deadly dear So cruel? Yet one for you of all that bled Grudged once one drop that fell: Not one to life reluctant said Farewell.

V

Strange love they have given you, love disloyal, Who mock with praise your name, To leave a head so rare and royal Too low for praise or blame.

You could not love nor hate, they tell us, You had nor sense nor sting: In God's name, then, what plague befell us To fight for such a thing?

"Some faults the gods will give," to fetter Man's highest intent: But surely you were something better Than innocent!

No maid that strays with steps unwary Through snares unseen, But one to live and die for: Mary, The Queen.

VI

Forgive them all their praise, who blot Your fame with praise of you: Then love may say, and falter not, Adieu. Yet some you hardly would forgive Who did you much less wrong Once: but resentment should not live Too long.

They never saw your lip's bright bow, Your swordbright eyes, The bluest of heavenly things below The skies.

Clear eyes that love's self finds most like A swordblade's blue, A swordblade's ever keen to strike, Adieu.

VII

Though all things breathe or sound of fight That yet make up your spell, To bid you were to bid the light Farewell.

Farewell the song says only, being A star whose race is run: Farewell the soul says never, seeing The sun.

Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears, The song must say but so That took your praise up twenty years Ago.

More bright than stars or moons that vary, Sun kindling heaven and hell, Here, after all these years, Queen Mary, Farewell.

Source: A Century of Roundels. Vol. 5 of Swinburne's Poems. 259-63. 273

Appendix B—Swinburne's Mary Stuart Trilogy: a Summary

Based on the Chatto and Windus edition of Swinburne's Dramas (1905)135

Swinburne's dramatic trilogy on Mary Stuart comprises Chastelard

(1865), Bothwell (1874), and Mary Stuart (1881).136 Each play is subtitled "A

Tragedy," and each is prefaced by a separate dedication to Victor Hugo as well as epigraphic material. There are no prefaces accompanying the plays, although

Swinburne's two articles on the life and character of Mary Queen of Scots (from the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Fortnightly Review) were attached as appendices to later editions of Mary Stuart. While the two later plays list the

"Dramatis Personae," Chastelard lists "Persons." Unlike Chastelard, the two later plays specify the time setting: Bothwell is set from March 9, 1566 to May

16, 1568, and Mary Stuart is set from August 14, 1586 to February 18, 1587.

Each play has five acts, and each act has a subtitle, which Swinburne "meant in each case to be significant" (Letters 2: 302). With minor exceptions, the listing of acts, scenes, and settings follows the arrangement in this edition. The varying lengths of the summaries of different acts and scenes reflects the varying length of the action contained therein. 274

Chastelard (1865)

Textual Apparatus:

Chastelard is prefaced by three short epigraphs and a dedication to Victor

Hugo. The first of two epigraphs that appear on the title page is a French verse by Ronsard (1524-1585); the lines also appear in translation in act 5, sc. 2. The second epigraph is a verse from the Scottish ballad, "The Queen's Marie." The third epigraph, an excerpt from the Voyages of Sir John Mandeville (1300-

1399?), appears opposite the title page of act 1. See appendix C for details.

Action:

Chastelard moves up the time of Mary's marriage to Darnley to coincide with the events of the play, that is, the transgression and subsequent execution of the French courtier Chastelard, who is found in the Queen's chamber.

Structure:

ACT I. MARY BEATON.

SCENE I.—The Upper Chamber in Holyrood The four MARIES.

We are introduced to contrary perspectives on the Queen's character as Mary's four ladies-in-waiting talk among themselves and with the courtier Chastelard, who enters the scene.

SCENE II.—A Hall in the same. The QUEEN, DARNLEY, MURRAY, RANDOLPH, the MARIES, CHASTELARD, &C.

The setting is a court masque, during which the Queen is acutely aware of the surveillance of the Scottish lords as she dances and flirts with Chastelard. She draws attention to the ambiguities of representation through discussion of the Venus device she wears on her breast, and voices her distaste at the prospect of marriage to Darnley.

SCENE III.—MARY BEATON'S Chamber: night. Enter CHASTELARD.

Chastelard mistakes Mary Beaton for the Queen, and exchanges a kiss with her. Beaton expresses her love and shame. Their encounter is seen and commented on by Mary Seaton and Mary Hamilton.

ACT II. DARNLEY.

SCENE I.—The great Chamber in Holyrood. The QUEEN and MARY SEYTON.

The Queen quizzes Mary Seyton for details of the reported kiss. Father Black reports on people's negative talk about the Queen. The Queen does not disclose her knowledge of the kiss when Chastelard attends her, but her conversation is ominous to him as she relates a bitter dream, parses the word 'sweet,' and contemplates the late King as an ideal model of authority. The lords—her "riddle-readers"—enter, and she announces her choice of Darnley as husband. They exit, and Chastelard asks Beaton to do an unnamed thing for him on the couple's wedding night.

ACT III. THE QUEEN.

SCENE I.—The Queen's Chamber. Night. Lights burning in front of the bed. Enter CHASTELARD and MARY BEATON.

Chastelard hides under the Queen's bed. The Queen and Darnley enter together, and Darnley exits. The Queen's self-talk as she undresses before her mirror suggests her bifurcated identity. Chastelard reveals himself in her mirror; the Queen confesses her jealousy of Beaton; Chastelard declares his love and loyalty, but refuses to leave until he is discovered by Darnley and taken away by the guards. 276

ACT IV. MURRAY.

SCENE I.—The Queen's Lodging at St. Andrew's. The QUEEN and the four MARIES.

Mary discusses the question of Chastelard's death with her Maries; there is mention of a second transgression by him. The Queen has an equivocal conversation with her brother, Murray, in which she demands Chastelard's death before he comes to trial.

ACTV. CHASTELARD.

SCENE I.—Before Holyrood. A crowd of people among them Soldiers, Burgesses, a Preacher, &c.

Citizens gossip about Chastelard and the Queen; Mary is linked with Biblical harlots.

SCENE II.—In Prison.

Determined to die, Chastelard tears up a reprieve from the Queen brought to him by Beaton. Later the Queen arrives, seeking the return of her warrant. The two talk sadly until the guard enters and removes Chastelard for execution. The Queen assures Beaton that she will ransom herself to save Chastelard, and bids her watch how things fare from an upper window.

SCENE III.—The Upper Chamber in Holyrood. MARY BEATON seated: MARY CARMICHAEL at a window.

In an upper chamber, Mary Carmichael relays to Mary Beaton the play-by­ play of Chastelard's execution and Mary's reactions as the scene unfolds below them. An usher heralds the entrance of the lord Bothwell, who takes his place beside the Queen once the execution is done. 277

Bothwell (1874)

Textual Apparatus:

On opposite pages (following the title page) are an epigraph, Greek lines from Aeschylus's Choephoroe. 535-601, and a dedication to Victor Hugo. In the epigraph, the Chorus comments after Orestes has discussed the plan to murder his mother and Aegisthus in order to avenge the honour of his murdered father,

Agamemnon. See appendix C for details.

Action:

Assassination of Mary's court secretary, Rizzio, in conspiracy led by

Darnley; conspiracy and murder of Darnley (Bothwell and Mary both implicated);

Mary's abduction by / marriage to Bothwell; her abdication and flight into

England.

Structure:

ACT I. DAVID RIZZIO.

SCENE I.—HOLYROOD. Enter DARNLEY and MARY CARMICHAEL.

A very long scene with many speakers, entrances, and exits, it opens with Darnley and Mary Carmichael trading gibes as Darnley expresses his jealousy of the Queen's secretary and favorite, the Italian musician David Rizzio, and makes clear his own kingly ambitions [n.b. historically, he was made king but not given the crown matrimonial]. Morton enters; Carmichael exits. Darnley discusses plans with Morton for killing Rizzio and seeks assurance about their course of action and the outcome, and whether Mary suspects anything. Darnley exits; Mary Beaton enters. Morton and Beaton discuss the Darnley—Rizzio— Queen triangle. Morton exits. Beaton is now convinced Rizzio will die; she is conscious of having her foot "on the verge, / The narrowing threshold of a thing so great," and sees herself as "watcher of the first watch" (16).

Enter the Queen, Rizzio, and Mary Seyton. Rizzio and the Queen discuss her discomfort in the present land as contrasted with sunny France. Rizzio counsels her to forgive her exiled half-brother Murray [n.b. historically, he was in an ongoing power struggle with Mary for control of Scotland], since he may be useful and can be dispensed with later. The Queen refuses. Rizzio admits his counsel was at Murray's request, and now advises her that Murray must die, which the Queen accepts as a counsel at least more sure and less strange than his former one. Mary discusses her weariness of life and love; Rizzio sings a tune, and exits; Bothwell enters. Mary discusses her uncertainty about Bothwell's feelings toward his wife, whom she bade him marry only for an alliance with the "race of Gordon". She expresses her distrust of men and hurt by Bothwell. They discuss getting rid of Darnley. Exit Mary.

Bothwell reflects on his own ambitions. Beaton enters and warns him of something to happen, and it is made clear she expects Rizzio's death that night.

SCENE II.—THE HIGH STREET. BURGESSES and PEOPLE.

Citizens discuss politics, and interpret meteorological events as signs of the sickness accompanying Mary's reign in Scotland. Enter John Knox, on his way to Holyrood to speak with Mary. He and Ochiltree converse about Mary, Darnley, and Rizzio. Knox sees himself as God's mouthpiece: "Nor I speak word but as he hath set it me" (49). Knox converses with the citizens; referring to Mary's Catholicism, he ascribes all offences to one head—"The hateful head of unstanched misbelief (50).

SCENE III.—HOLYROOD. The QUEEN and Rizzio; MARY SEYTON and MARY CARMICHAEL in attendance.

The Queen and Rizzio discuss Darnley. Mary regrets her marriage. Contrary to her command for privacy, Darnley and Beaton enter, Beaton having told Darnley that the Queen has asked for him. Darnley and Mary wrangle with each other, and Darnley announces Knox. Mary dismisses Darnley and Rizzio. Knox and John Erskine of Dun enter. Mary admonishes Knox because she has endured "the naked edge" of his "sharp speech" (61). She challenges Knox's calling her to account for Darnley's behaviour, asking "With what sign-manual has God warranted / Your inquisition of us?" (63). She expresses her weariness of words. She and Erskine exit to consult. Mary Seton comments on Knox's "great" face and presence (69). Knox counsels the ladies. Beaton and Knox discourse on words and concepts. Erskine returns; Knox is dismissed. The Maries discuss supper.

SCENE IV.—DARNLEY'S LODGING. DARNLEY and SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS.

Darnley and Douglas discuss plans for killing Rizzio, Darnley still seeking reassurance.

SCENE V.—THE QUEEN'S CABINET. The QUEEN, RIZZIO, COUNTESS OF ARGYLE, LORD ROBERT STUART, ARTHUR ERSKINE, in attendance.

Mary has enjoyed the sport of matching wits with Knox. Rizzio sings a tune. Darnley and Ruthven enter, followed by Fauldonside and Douglas. Rizzio is dragged away out of sight of the Queen, who argues with Ruthven and Darnley. Ruthven exits, and Darnley explains that he hopes to further his royal ambitions through Murray, who is returning from exile. Ruthven re-enters and reports that Rizzio has been stabbed to death. The Queen declares: "I am content. Now must I study how to be revenged." She tells Darnley: "You have taught me worthier wisdom than of words; / And I will lay it up against my heart" (89).

ACT II. BOTHWELL. TIME, FROM MARCH 10,1566, TO FEBRUARY 9,1567.

SCENE I.—THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER. Enter DARNLEY and ARTHUR ERSKINE, severally.

Darnley and the Queen discuss Rizzio's death and the conspirators' aim to usurp her throne. Darnley outlines his expectations of Mary: that she will concede to the Protestant faith, and to himself as king. He vows to protect her from harm. Manipulating his royal ambitions, Mary persuades him to betray his fellow conspirators and to aid her escape. She meets with Murray and the lords, agreeing to submit to them, then calls her servants to arrange her escape.

SCENE II.—RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF HOLYROOD. Enter ARTHUR ERSKINE, TRAQUAIR, and STANDEN. 280

The three men wait with steeds to escort the Queen to Dunbar. Erskine predicts that Mary will make her escape: "Her spirit is to her body as a staff/ And her bright fiery heart the traveller's lamp / That makes all shadow clear as its own light" (124-25). Mary and Darnley enter from the abbey vaults. Mary insists on riding with Erskine, and tells Darnley to ride alone, "and safer" (125).

SCENE III.—MURRAY'S LODGING IN HOLYROOD. Enter MURRAY, MORTON, and RUTHVEN.

Morton and Ruthven acknowledge their cause is lost. The Queen has reached Dunbar, and, supported by Bothwell, Huntley, and other lords, has raised a force of eight thousand; they arrive in Edinburgh that day. Morton and Ruthven leave for exile, but urge Murray, who was not party to Rizzio's murder, to make peace with the Queen.

SCENE IV.—HOLYROOD. The QUEEN and SIR JAMES MELVILLE.

Melville advises the Queen to restrain expressing her disdain for Darnley lest it provoke the king. Enter Darnley and Murray. The Queen welcomes them both and explains that Darnley's expected oath will clear him of any role in Rizzio's murder. She explains also that Bothwell [n,b. historically, he was exiled and his lands forfeited for a prior transgression], is now to be given the forfeited lands of Maitland of Lethington (her secretary of state, who had counselled against her marriage to Darnley). Murray is displeased at her intent; he and the Queen leave to meet their councilors. Darnley tells Melville he realizes he is being mocked by Mary, and regrets betraying his colleagues.

SCENE V.—A STREET. Enter TWO BURGESSES.

The two men discuss the consequences of Darnley's betrayal of his allies—Ruthven is dead, and Maitland and two others potentially doomed. Unsupported, Darnley has fled to Glasgow. The men are doubtful Elizabeth will accede to Mary's request to return the exiled conspirators as prisoners.

SCENE VI.—CASTLE OF ALLOA MURRAY and DARNLEY.

Darnley seeks assurance from Murray that he is not against him, accusing him of working against his reconciliation with Mary, and supporting his isolation from her before and after the recent birth of their son. Murray denies having 281 cause or power to harm him, suggesting that neither of them are in her favour. Darnley is skeptical of everyone as traitors after his life, and is determined to save himself and get vengeance. Enter the Queen and Bothwell; after Mary registers her displeasure at his presence, Darnley exits. Bothwell, Murray, and the Queen discuss how to handle Darnley. Tensions around power are evident between Bothwell and Murray. Murray exits. Bothwell and the Queen talk further; Mary in particular talks about love.

SCENE VII.—EDINBURGH. THE PARLIAMENT-HOUSE.

The QUEEN seated in state; near her Du CROC and MURRAY; DARNLEY in front, as at his arraignment; on the one side the Lords of the Congregation; on the other those of the Queen's party, BOTHWELL, HUNTLEY, CAITHNESS, ATHOL, and the ARCHBISHOP OF ST. ANDREW'S.

The Queen requests that Darnley publicly reveal his complaints against her; Darnley refuses to be manipulated, and makes no accusation. The Queen ends the session and prepares to head to Jedburgh to deal with border uprisings.

SCENE VIII.—HERMITAGE CASTLE. The QUEEN and BOTHWELL.

On hearing Bothwell has suffered a wound, the Queen rides out to see him. She urges Bothwell to love her, notes how present and future circumstances act to divide them, and expresses doubt about men's love as she prepares to journey on to Jedburgh.

SCENE IX.—THE QUEEN'S LODGING AT JEDBURGH. The three MARIES.

The three Maries discuss whether the Queen, who has caught fever during the long ride, will live. Beaton emphasizes that she herself will not die before, or long outlive, the Queen. Mary enters, her thoughts wandering to past reminiscences. Enter Bishop of Ross, from whom Mary seeks absolution for her sins and reconciliation with God and the world. Enter Murray with news of Darnley's arrival from Edinburgh and his request to see the Queen. Mary will neither see him nor accede to Murray's request that the king stay the night. On learning the sick and wounded Bothwell has arrived, she excitedly prepares to see him. 282

SCENE X.—CRAIGMILLAR. The QUEEN, MURRAY, BOTHWELL, MAITLAND, HUNTLEY, andARGYLE.

The Queen agrees to allow Morton and most of the conspirators to come home. She discusses with Maitland the problem of divorcing Darnley and her concern that it could affect her son's birth-right. Maitland assures her they will "find mean whereby without wrong done / To your son's title, you shall well be quit / Of your ill-minded husband," and declares that Murray will "look / As through his fingers on the work we do / And say no word" of what he sees (167). Murray emphasizes that he has sought this council for "none but honourable and lawful ends," to procure the Queen's "just and honest freedom, and repeal / The banished Morton, whose advice thereto / Shall not be fruitless" (168). He exits. Argyle suggests Murray will not know enough of their plans to thwart them, and the lords agree to sign a bond to assassinate Darnley. Exeunt all except Bothwell and Mary.

Mary declares to Bothwell that she is "very love, / And no more queen or woman ... all diskingdomed now, / Made twice a slave, mine own soul's thrall and yours" (172-73). She desires "to be no more your lover, no, / But even yourself, yea more than body and soul, / One and not twain, one utter life, one fire, / One will, one doom, one deed, one spirit, one God; / For we twain grown and molten each in each /Surely shall be as God is and no man" (173). Bothwell echoes her desire, and plans to "clear" their way to "grow up to God" by "carving one weed's earthly coil away / That cumbers our straight growing"—that is, by killing Darnley.

SCENE XI.—COURTYARD OF A HOSTELRY AT WHITTINGHAM. BOTHWELL and MORTON.

Bothwell informs Morton that, on the latter's return from exile, a sickly Darnley has fled to Glasgow. Morton demands a warrant from Mary for Darnley's death before proceeding further.

SCENE XII.—CALLANDER. The QUEEN and LADY RERES.

The Queen expresses hopeful feelings to Lady Reres. Bothwell enters and points out a waiting messenger from Darnley in Glasgow as he prepares to take his leave of Mary. She wishes that love, "That can change life, seat and disseat the soul," could give them back the last twelve hours, "And twice consume and twice consummate life" (176). Exit Bothwell, and enter Crawford to plead for Darnley's safety. Replying that she has "no remedy for fear", the Queen 283 nevertheless gives notice that she will attend Darnley, who "shall not long live in this fear of me" (178-79).

SCENE XIII.—DARNLEY'S LODGING IN GLASGOW. DARNLEY on a couch, as sick; CRAWFORD in attendance.

Darnley feels doomed. Upon the Queen's arrival, he asks Mary's forgiveness, who in turn questions him about reported plots to establish her son's regency. Darnley trusts the Queen's ambiguous assurance that the couple will be reunited when he is well again, and she makes plans to take him to Craigmillar for his recovery.

SCENE XIV.—THE QUEEN'S APARTMENT IN THE SAME. The QUEEN and PARIS.

The Queen gives a letter to Bothweil's servant, Paris, to deliver to his lord—the letter explains that she is bringing Darnley to Craigmillar and asks for confirmation "If our past purpose for Craigmillar hold / Or if the place be shifted" (191). She recites the contents of the letter to Paris; it includes expressions of her power to reassure Darnley and the fact that she almost pities him, but is acting against him according to Bothweil's will. There is a long expression of her love for Bothwell and dislike of dissembling with Darnley, though she is determined to do so.

SCENE XV.—KIRK OF FIELD. Enter BOTHWELL.

Anticipating the realization of his ambition, Bothweil's joy and lust nevertheless are muted. Paris brings him the Queen's request for an update; Bothwell sends him back with a diamond and a change of venue—the assassination will take place at Kirk of Field rather than Craigmillar.

SCENE XVI.—THE QUEEN'S LODGING IN GLASGOW. The QUEEN in bed; LADY RERES and PARIS attending.

The Queen asks for news of Bothwell; she is doubtful about his "inner thoughts" (201-02). Paris prepares to take Darnley onward.

SCENE XVII.—DARNLEY'S CHAMBER IN KIRK OF FIELD. DARNLEY and NELSON. 284

Darnley is ill at ease, the more so because Mary visits him by day but spends the nights at Holyrood. Enter Robert Stuart, Abbot of St. Cross, with a clandestine warning of impending danger, while the Queen is heard singing beyond the room. Unsure whether to trust Stuart, Darnley plans to read the truth of things in Mary's face. The Queen is heard singing the song Rizzio sang the night he was killed. Darnley changes his mind about confronting her. Mary enters, and they discuss Stuart's warning. She reassures him, then continues to sing Rizzio's song.

SCENE XVIII.—BEHIND KIRK OF FIELD. BOTHWELL, ORMISTON, HEPBURN of BOLTON, and HAY O/TALLA.

As they make their plans, the conspirators discuss Mary's character—her royalty, her mixed passions; her man's heart; she is, declares Bothwell, "the more entire / Herself and no self other" (218). Left alone, Bothwell contemplates how this day will seem from a future perspective, and he is satisfied that whatever the outcome, at least he will live not a beast's, but a king's or a man's life.

Paris brings the following news from the Queen: Robert Stuart intends to challenge Darnley's contention that he had warned him against the Queen, and thus Stuart may be the vehicle that accomplishes their aims. Bothwell sets back their plans for a night so he can speak to Stuart and determine the likelihood of this: "if he be sure, / He shall serve us as a glove to wear / And strike, and have the whiter hands to show" (222).

SCENE XVIX.—DARNLEY'S CHAMBER. DARNLEY and NELSON.

Darnley recites a dream of shipwreck and death, with images out of the Queen's song. Enter Robert Stuart, demanding Darnley admit telling the Queen of his visit and warning. They exchange words; he exits. Darnley is proud of standing his ground and wishes the Queen had witnessed the exchange.

SCENE XX.—THE GARDEN BEHIND KIRK OF FIELD. BOTHWELL, ORMISTON, HAY.

The conspirators begin their work.

SCENE XXI.—DARNLEY'S CHAMBER. The QUEEN, DARNLEY, Earls of CASSILIS, HUNTLEY, and ARGYLE. 285

The Queen and Bothwell visit Darnley; as they leave, the Queen notes it is the anniversary of Rizzio's death. Darnley, left with his servants, fears for his life. Hearing the advancing conspirators, he begs salvation from imminent death, and the scene closes with his cry, "Out of her hands, God, God, deliver me!" (240)

ACT III. JANE GORDON. Time: From February 10 to June 11, 1567.

SCENE I.—BOTHWELL'S APARTMENT IN HOLYROOD. BOTHWELL, ORMISTON, HEPBURN OF BOLTON, and other Gentlemen.

Bothwell expresses concern about Paris's fearful and moody demeanour after Darnley's death, and regrets having taken him into his confidence. Bothwell expresses his own kingly ambitions. When Paris brings news of the Queen, Bothwell warns him he can stay in his service or go, but must keep silent about the conspiracy. Bothwell plans to ride Darnley's horse and present himself "kinglike to the time / And come before men royal, who shall know /1 stand here where he stood in all their sight" (247). He sends some of his men to take the temperature of the street and find out what rumours exist. He plans to go to Stirling in a few days, lie low, and in the spring call the parliament. Should he live or die, he "shall not wake nor sleep with them that fear /Whose lives are as leaves wavering in a wind, / But as a man foiled or a man enthroned / That was not fooled of fortune nor of fear" (248).

SCENE II.—ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. The body of DARNLEY lying on a bier. Two men in attendance.

The attendants discuss Darnley's apparent death in an explosion, and his uninjured body. Enter the Queen and Bothwell. The Queen expresses a mix of pity and hate for Darnley, as well as her uncertainty about Bothwell's love. Circumstances dictate that they head for Seyton Castle rather than Stirling. Mary declares: "do you but lead, / Would I not follow naked through the world?" (253)

SCENE III.—SEYTON CASTLE. LORD HERRIES and SIR JAMES MELVILLE.

Hemes and Melville discuss the Queen's activities, such as her giving Bothwell governance over parts of the kingdom, her plea to the French king for funds from her dower "wherewith to levy hireling bands in France" (254), and her promise to the English ambassador Killegrew that Bothwell will stand trial for 286

Darnley's death so that a full hearing is given to the rumours and charges. Melville recounts showing the Queen a letter of criticism from "a faithful Scot", with the consequence that he himself was blamed for devising, by his own counsel, "for Lord Bothwell's wreck" (255), and had to flee to avoid being slain by the earl.

Hemes explains his haste to depart, having spoken unsuccessfully to the Queen against apparent plans to compel Bothwell's wife to sue for divorce by having a lady proclaim herself his "precontracted" paramour, or to push for an annulment on the basis of consanguinity, despite the couple having received a papal dispensation to marry in the first place. The plan includes enlisting the good will of Jane Gordon's brother, Huntley, through restoration of his forfeited lands.

In an impassioned speech, Hemes expresses his desire to plead again with the Queen, given that the state is imperiled by the awakening of democratic forces, for which he holds her responsible. He is concerned that Mary, "less by place than kind / Royal", should "fall for love's light sake self-slain" (260). Melville and Hemes further discuss whether there may be plans afoot to solve the problem through the death of Bothwell.

Enter the Queen, Bothwell, Seyton, the Maries, and attendants. Hemes appeals to the Queen for another word, and when they are left alone, he urges her not to wed Bothwell; to which she again denies having had any thought. Enter Bothwell and Murray; exit Hemes. The Queen asks Murray's counsel about the lies and libels in the streets; he replies that trials for the conspirators should go ahead soon. Bothwell and the Queen ask Murray to add his name to the conspirator's bond after the fact. He refuses, saying he gave consent only for a divorce between Darnley and Mary, and is heading for London to assuage Elizabeth before leaving for Italy via France. Bothwell challenges the need for this, but Murray asserts his will, and bids farewell.

Bothwell urges that his trial take place before any counsel from Elizabeth comes back. He distrusts Murray's royal ambitions. Before they leave, he intends to give order to silence anyone party to the Darnley conspiracy whose conscience is troubled by remorse, and says he has already had to do so.

SCENE IV.—THE UPPER CHAMBER IN HOLYROOD. The QUEEN and MARY BEATON

Beaton describes the volatility of the throngs who "grow thick in rumour" (275) and narrates for the Queen the scene below, where Bothwell and Maitland 287 have arrived. Bothwell enters, and discloses the contents of a letter to Mary from Elizabeth, which he has just taken from a messenger waiting below. Through Sir William Drury, Elizabeth bids Mary favour and support the cause of Lennox (Damley's father). At her request, Bothwell lists for Mary her supporters and opponents, before bidding farewell to attend his trial. He rides out on Darnley's horse, a point noted by Beaton as Mary waves her handkerchief and speaks admiringly of her lover.

SCENE V.—THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN THE TOLBOOTH. BOTHWELL, with ORMISTON and others attending, at the bar, ARGYLE presiding as Lord Justice; LINDSAY as assessor, CAITHNESS, CASSILIS, ROTHES, ARBROATH, MAXWELL, HERRIES, and others, as jury; ROBERT CUNNINGHAM as spokesman for Lennox.

Lennox does not appear at the trial; an error in the date is noted on the charge against Bothwell; the charges are dismissed.

SCENE VI.—THE HIGH STREET. BURGESSES and PEOPLE.

Citizens discuss the trial, Bothwell's annulment, and his adulterous relationship with the Queen. They are skeptical of an act passed in the Queen's name that affirms the Protestant religion in the realm. They describe emblematic depictions of Bothwell and Mary's guilt that are hung against the walls by night— these are "tongues that prophesy but truth" (291). They contend that despite laws enacted against defaming the characters of Bothwell and the Queen, the "lips of poor men" refuse to be silenced.

They recount the signing of a bond, instigated by Bothwell, by lords and bishops at Ainslie's Tavern; the bond declared Bothwell's innocence in the king's murder, and commited the signers not to disrupt a union between the Queen and Bothwell should she agree to marry him. One citizen has knowledge that Elizabeth has been informed of all this, and asserts that, despite her slowness to help so far, she would win hearts in Scotland for pursuing vengeance for Darnley's murder: "for our queen / Hath sworn she cares not for her lover's sake / To lose France, England, and her natural land, / And would go with him to the wild world's end / Stript to her smock ere leave him" (293).

Evidence of Bothwell's royal power is seen in promises he makes to mutinous followers who prevent the palace gates from opening. With the gates opened, the citizens discuss the Queen's expected trip to Stirling to visit her son, 288 and their expectation that God's judgment on Mary and Bothwell "waits to take them triumphing, and turn / To tears their laughter and our grief to joy" (295).

SCENE VII.—STIRLING CASTLE. The QUEEN and HUNTLEY.

Huntley counsels against Mary's plan to be abducted by Bothwell. Mary won't listen, and Huntley exits. Enter Beaton and Paris; Paris is to take back word of Huntley's mind. Mary says she found it trustless. She is perturbed by Bothwell's faith in him, and that he has confided their plans to him. She asks that Bothwell send word if the plan is off, or else send 300 men. She sends a ring with hair enclosed from her head ornament in token of her love. Exit Paris. Mary talks of her son to Beaton, and the child's little love of her. She wonders about meeting him in the distant future.

SCENE VIII.—DUNBAR. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE. MAITLAND and SIR JAMES MELVILLE.

Maitland and Melville recount the supposed abduction of Mary by Bothwell and his forces, feeling the Queen has in essence "killed herself (308). Enter the Queen, Bothwell, and Huntley. The Queen prevents the two men from killing Maitland for having betrayed their counsel on the abduction to the lords.

SCENE IX.—THE SAME. The QUEEN, BOTHWELL, and the ARCHBISHOP of ST. ANDREW'S.

The Queen asks for counsel from the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, noting she is daily "More taxed for willing bondage, or my lord / For violence done upon me" (311). The Archbishop recounts public reenactments of Darnley's murder, and requests from both France and England to have her son, James, removed to their countries for security. The Archbishop counsels public relations to deal with the abduction and planned marriage to Bothwell. He advocates proclaiming Bothwell's divorce and following up quickly with their marriage on the basis of Mary's need for a husband's help.

Mary wants reassurance from Bothwell that she takes precedence over his wife in his heart; Bothwell scoffs at the request. Mary is concerned that Bothwell's divorce on a charge of past adultery will free him from his current wife but not leave him free by law to wed again. She fears being forsworn by Bothwell, and asks the Archbishop to obtain reassurances, but the Archbishop urges her to be content. Mary is trustless; fear wrangles with faith; she is unsure of the man for whom she has given up so much. 289

SCENE X.—HOLYROOD. Enter HERRIES and SIR JAMES MELVILLE.

Hemes and Sir James Melville recount the couple's marriage and Mary's apparent regret. Herries thinks Mary's demeanour is for show, while Melville thinks it real: "She is heart-struck now, and labours with herself, / As one that loves and trusts not but the man / Who makes so little of men's hate may make / Of women's love as little" (322). Bothwell's arrogance garners the hate of townsmen, and troubles surround the couple, "So that their world within doors and without / Swells round them doubtfully toward storm" (323). Herries notes the Queen's overthrow is imminent at the hands of the lords, including Maitland, Lindsay, and himself, who support her child over her. Melville concludes: "But I misdoubt me lest the sun be set / That looked upon the last of her good days" (324).

SCENE XI.—THE SAME. The QUEEN and BOTHWELL; MARY BEATON and ARTHUR ERSKINE in attendance.

Mary and Bothwell quarrel. Jane Gordon enters and gives a farewell speech; she can see the distance between the couple. Bothwell urges a show of unity to the still doubtful Queen.

SCENE XII.—STIRLING CASTLE. MAITLAND and LINDSAY.

Maitland and Lindsay comment on the Queen's divided heart, and make plans for their supporters' interception of the couple's flight to Borthwick Castle.

SCENE XIII.—BORTHWICK CASTLE. The QUEEN and BOTHWELL; MARY BEATON in attendance.

The Queen and Bothwell discuss their situation: they are surrounded by Morton's folk, and Bothwell's trusted man Balfour has joined forces with Melville against him. Mary urges Bothwell to head for Dunbar Castle without her. He intends to spend the night at Borthwick. At Mary's observation that he had not slept well the previous night, he describes a dream of peril he had, in which both Jane and Mary figured. Mary interprets it to mean that "she should comfort you, / Whom I should bring to wreck", and asserts that the dream "gives sign of how firm she sits and fast yet in your heart, / Where I was never" (348). The lords arrive to find Bothwell fled; Mary makes arrangements to secretly join him at Haddington. 290

ACT IV. JOHN KNOX. TIME: JUNE 15 AND 16,1567.

SCENE I.—CARBERRY HILL. The QUEEN, BOTHWELL, and SOLDIERS.

The Queen's and the lords' forces meet at Carberry Hill. Mary sees the fight as either the end or the beginning of a new reign. She loves the fight itself, and wishes she could participate as man and king. The French ambassador, Du Croc, brings news of the lords' demand that she give up Bothwell and of their proposal that Bothwell fight in "personal battle" with a selected number of men on both sides.. The Queen is defiant: "Say how I sit here / In this mean raiment, on this naked stone, / Their queen to judge them, and with heart to weight / Their fault against my mercy" (365). She declines to have Bothwell fight a representative from the other side, insisting "It is my cause; me must they strike, or none; / Myself am all the quarrel; let them yield / Or give me battle" (366). Exit Du Croc. The Queen and Bothwell discuss battle strategy, and Bothwell concludes that, lest their cause be lost in general battle, he must fight in single battle. Mary urges that he select someone who had a part in Darnley's murder, but declines his choice of Morton, who she once spared, as unworthy of Bothwell's sword. Bothwell tells Mary to send messengers to find out whom he must meet, while he shores up the lines.

SCENE II.—THE CAMP OF THE LORDS. MORTON, LINDSAY, DU CROC, KIRKALDY ofGRANGE, and others.

It is agreed to let Lindsay, rather than Morton, fight Bothwell, since he is not recognized as part of the Darnley conspiracy, and can justify fighting Darnley's slayer for his sake. While the messengers set off, Morton tells the Laird of Grange to take "two hundred horse" to cut off Bothwell's escape should he try to flee.

SCENE III.—THE QUEEN'S CAMP. The QUEEN and BOTHWELL.

The Queen's forces have fled, and her camp is surrounded by enemy forces. Bothwell sees a last chance in fighting a single opponent. Mary blames herself for his peril, urging him to kill her, "For if I live I shall but deal more death /And where I would not shall the more destroy, / Living and loving" (379). Bothwell states his preference to fight and leave his memory "kinglike" (380). Mary claims had she been born her father's son, her deserting forces "should have fought, and found / A king to fight for" (381). Kirkaldy of Grange brings news that Lindsay has been chosen to fight Bothwell, but Mary solicits a deal to 291 surrender if her husband can go free. Seeing the cause is lost, Bothwell is resigned to this plan, and when Kirkaldy returns with an agreement for Mary to return to Edinburgh and for Bothwell to enter exile, he leaves, and the Queen yields herself up.

SCENE IV.—THE CAMP OF THE LORDS. MORTON, HUME, LINDSAY, &C.

The Queen is led into camp; Morton notes she "comes not like one captive" (391). She questions the lords' intentions, and threatens them; they prepare to take her to Edinburgh.

SCENE V.—EDINBURGH. A ROOM IN THE PROVOST'S HOUSE. Enter MAITLAND and PROVOST.

The two men discuss Mary's courage and fortitude upon entering the city amidst the crowd's cry for judgement on her. Maitland assures the provost that Mary will be divorced but "shall not die nor lose her royal name" (396), but the provost is unsure because of the crowd's clamoring and the Queen's antagonism toward her enemies: "her mood / Is as a wind that blows upon a fire, / And drives her to and fro" (397). Maitland plans to speak with her.

SCENE VI.—ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. The QUEEN and an Attendant.

The Queen entrusts a letter to Bothwell to an attendant, promising him future gifts, though she is aware she may be betrayed. Enter Maitland, declaring "I come to plead with you for your own life, / Which wrath and violent mood would cast away" (399). He claims she has been separated from Bothwell for her honour, and that he can show her a letter from Bothwell to Lady Jane demonstrating "She was his wife and you his concubine, /. . . and each week / Since they were first but as in show divorced / And but of craft divided, on some days / Have they held secret commerce to your shame / As wedded man and wife" (399). She ignores his news, and he points out that she can depend on neither England nor France, and would be friendless except "had you not / In your own kindly kingdom yet some friends / Whose hearts are better toward you" (400). Exit Maitland. Mary recommits herself to Bothwell, and calls for support through her casement window, vowing vengeance on the town when she receives only taunts. Enter the provost, who beseeches her to eat and take rest. She refuses, declaring "Die or live I needs must at their bidding [her enemies]; but to sleep, / Eat, drink, weep, laugh, speak or keep silence, these / They shall not yet command me till I die" (402). 292

SCENE VII.—THE HIGH STREET. A crowd of CITIZENS.

The citizens call for Mary's death. Enter Knox, whose long sermon incites them further by linking shame and dishonour in the land to Mary's identity as a Catholic and a female ruler. Recalling the end of those who have loved her— Chastelard, Riccio, Darnley, and the exiled Bothwell—he queries "what end shall she" who was the beloved and whom God has put in their hand "to smite or spare / That hath done all this wickedness?":

for these, What were they but as shadows in the sun Cast by her passing, or as thoughts that fled Across her mind of evil, types and signs Whereby to spell the secret of her soul Writ by her hand in blood? What power had they, What sense, what spirit, that was not given of her, Or what significance or shape of life Their act or purpose, formless else and void, Save as her will and present force of her Gave breath to them and likeness? None of these Hath done or suffered evil save for her, Who was the spring of each man's deed or doom And root for each of death, and in his hand The sword to die by and the sword to slay. (413)

He aligns God's will with her punishment:

... I say That for this woman's sake shall God cut off The hand that spares her as the hand that shields, And make their memory who take part with her As theirs who stood for Baal against the Lord With Ahab's daughter; for her reign and end Shall be like Athaliah's, as her birth Was from the womb of Jezebel, that slew The prophets, and made foul with blood and fire The same land's face that now her seed makes foul With whoredoms and with witchcrafts. (416-17) 293

SCENE VIM.—A ROOM IN THE PROVOST'S HOUSE. The QUEEN, ATHOL, and MORTON.

Mary learns her letter to Bothwell was intercepted, and of the plan to take her to Holyrood and thence to Lochleven Castle to "secure / The life we pluck out of the popular mouth / That roars agape to rend it" (420). Alluding to "the state / And holy magic that God clothes withal / The naked word of king or queen," Mary remains defiant: "and this town / Whence I go naked in mine enemies' hands / Shall be the flame to light men's eyes that read / What was endured and what revenged of me" (422).

ACT V. THE QUEEN. TIME: FROM JULY 20,1567 TO MAY 16,1568.

SCENE I.—HOLYROOD. MORTON and MAITLAND.

The two men discuss the proclamation issued that sets out their cause and right to move against the Queen; it does not include a charge of murder. They discuss Mary's potential sources of support—France offers none, and England's response is lukewarm. Queen Elizabeth wants wardship of the Scottish heir, but though Maitland agrees he would be safer outside the reach of Scotland's factions, he does not advocate this course of action. They discuss the strife between themselves and Mary's kin, and the strategies of both factions for power, which could include death or imprisonment for the Queen and later her son. They stress the need to remain allied with France against England, despite England's threat of arms to assist Mary and her supporters.

Apparently Mary is pregnant by Bothwell, and they insist his lineage will not reign. Maitland prefers a scenario where Mary would be titular queen and "in her name / The council govern of our trustiest heads" (432), while James becomes a ward of France or England. They are agreed that Bothwell must be caught and killed, and divorced from the Queen before his death. Morton prefers that she be imprisoned in England and James crowned king. Maitland believes the council will not allow "For her removal hence or titular reign" (433), but if she abdicates in favour of James, he believes she will live, and the evidence of her complicity in Darnley's death found in the casket letters will not be made public; otherwise, he fears she will be tried and executed on the basis of this written evidence. Morton recounts the interception of Bothwell's servant who was to deliver to him the casket of letters that held incriminating letters by Mary to Bothwell, as well as the bond signed for the death of Darnley. Maitland hopes the lords will not seek 294 her death, and that public anger will be appeased with the dismantling of her chapel and the torture of the two men who set the explosion the night Darnley died. Morton brings up their need of Murray, who is detained in France by the efforts of Catherine de Medici to have him shift his hope for alliance from England to France. Maitland notes that England will call on France and/or Spain to strike in support of Mary should the council condemn Mary to death. Morton emphasizes Scotland's need of Murray, more than either queen needs him: "none but he /. . .must rise / Regent of Scotland" (438).

SCENE II.—LOCHLEVEN CASTLE. The QUEEN and MARY BEATON.

The Queen wonders about her fate, and about Beaton's demeanour, who seems more animated, calm, and steadfast while sharing Mary's prison than when they were free. She asks Beaton: "Hast thou part, / Think'st thou, as in time past, predestinate / In all my days and chances?" Beaton replies "Yea, I know it" (439). Having imagined "Men could not make me live in prison long; / It were unlike my being, out of my doom; / Free should I live, or die" (441), Mary nevertheless finds some favour in the view, though this follows with her threat to "find those friends / That found these walls and fears to fence me with / A narrower lodging than this seven feet's space /That yet I move in, where nor lip nor limb / Shall breathe or move for ever" (441). She imagines Beaton's presence at her death a comfort and "a boon" to her, "Being cradle-fellows and fast-hearted friends" (441). Though she dreams no more about Bothwell, she expresses her commitment to him in somewhat ambiguous terms: "At yet God knows how utterly I know /1 would be hewn in pieces—yea, I think— / Or turned with fire to ashes for his sake: / Surely I would" (442).

Enter Lady Lochleven with news that three messengers from the parliament—Melville, Ruthven (Jr.), and Lindsay—have arrived. Melville is given audience with her, and informs her of the council's terms compelling her to abdicate in favour of her son or face trial and judgement. Mary asserts her royal prerogative: "not again / We thought to hear of judgment, we that are, / While yet we are anything, and yet must be, / The voice which deals, and not the ear which takes, / Judgment. God gave man might to murder me, /Who made me woman, weaker than a man, / But God gave no man right, I think, to judge, / Who made me royal" (447). Melville informs her he has a secret note from Elizabeth's ambassador assuring her that she can not be held to any bond she signs under duress, and asserting Elizabeth's friendship and support. Mary accepts Elizabeth's counsel that she "subscribe / My traitors' writing," and bids her enemies in for the purpose. Enter Ruthven and Lindsay. 295

She hesitates and declines to sign: "Wherefore should I sign? / If I be queen that so unqueen myself / What shall it profit me to give my foes / This one thing mine that hallows me, this name, /This royal shadow?" (451-52). Lindsay lays his hand on her arm to indicate her powerlessness, a gesture she interprets as itself a sign "To seal mine abdication" (452). She signs the papers; exit the three messengers. She is tempted to recall them and "unsign their writing, and here die" (453), but Beaton reminds her of her wrangle with Lindsay, and she acquiesces.

SCENE III.—HOLYROOD. MAITLAND and SIR NICHOLAS THROGMORTON.

The English ambassador and Maitland argue the politics of England's intentions toward Scotland, with Maitland emphasizing their discovery of Elizabeth's secret promise of assistance directed at the Queen. Enter Murray, having visited Elizabeth after escaping from France. Throgmorton seeks reassurance that he will ally himself with England over France. Murray asserts that he will serve Scotland over either Mary or Elizabeth, notwithstanding the latter's implied threats of war over their treatment of Mary. He is determined to accept the regency regardless, but will first speak with the former queen.

SCENE IV.—LOCHLEVEN CASTLE. The QUEEN and GEORGE DOUGLAS.

Murray visits Mary and lectures her, but allows that things may work out in the future, so long as she does not propagate resistance. In discussion with Douglas after Murray's departure, she elicits his support for her cause.

SCENE V.—HOLYROOD. MURRAY and MORTON.

The two men discuss the state of affairs. Murray is frustrated by the different counsels he is receiving, and concerned for the stability of the state given how it lives "many-minded and distraught of will" (482). Morton is concerned about preachers who reign "With heavier hand than ours upon this state" (483). Murray is more concerned with the failure of proposed marriage alliances to deepen the bond between him and both Huntley and Argyle, whose support has shifted from the Lennox clan to their competition, the Hamiltons. Murray discusses a potential wedding match between Methuen and Mary, designed to frustrate the ambitions of the Hamiltons. He needs help to cross them, since he cannot count on France, which "Grows chillier toward us than the 296 changing wind / That brings back winter" (486). Enter Sir William Douglas to inform them that an escape attempt by the Queen has been foiled.

SCENE VI.—LOCHLEVEN CASTLE. The QUEEN and MARY BEATON.

The Queen, disguised for a second attempt at escape, awaits the assistance of a page. If she does not gain her freedom this night, she "shall live / Not one day more of darkling life, as fire / Pent in a grate, bound in with blackening bars" (494).

SCENE VII.—THE SHORE OF LOCH LEVEN. GEORGE DOUGLAS, BEATON, RICARTON, with Attendants.

Assisted by Douglas and others, Mary completes her escape: "I will believe /1 am free as fire, free as the wind, the night, / All glad fleet things of the airier element / That take no hold on earth" (496). This is the "first night" of her "second reign" (497), as she makes plans to raise an army.

SCENE VIII.—HAMILTON CASTLE. The QUEEN, ARGYLE, and HUNTLEY.

The three discuss strategy. Mary sends Beaton with letters to England and France, and with verbal word to Spain, for support. She notes Beaton's constant involvement in her life, but calls her a "sign / Incognizable" (508-09).

SCENE IX.—LANGSIDE. MURRAY, MORTON, HUME, LINDSAY, OCHILTREE, SIR WILLIAM DOUGLAS, KIRKALDY, and their Forces.

Murray's forces prepare for battle.

SCENE X.—ANOTHER PART OF THE FIELD. Enter HERRIES andSEYTON, with their soldiers.

The Queen's forces retreat in battle; Murray urges no killing.

SCENE XL—THE HEIGHTS NEAR LANGSIDE. The QUEEN, MARY BEATON, FLEMING, BOYD, and young MAXWELL.

Mary sees all is lost, and prepares to flee south by horse. SCENE XII.—DUNDRENNAN ABBEY. The QUEEN and HERRIES.

Mary enumerates her supporters, including the Swinburne family. She decides against fleeing to France, and plans instead to go to Carlisle.

SCENE XIII.—THE SHORE OF SOLWAY FIRTH. The QUEEN, MARY BEATON, HERRIES, GEORGE DOUGLAS, Page and Attendants.

Herries urges the Queen not to leave Scotland, but she goes, vowing to return and vanquish her enemies: "I will leave / No living soul of their blaspheming faith / Who war with monarchs; God shall see me reign / As he shall reign beside me, and his foes / Lie at my foot with mine; kingdoms and kings / Shall from my heart take spirit.... I will. .. break beneath my feet / These new things of men's fashion" (532). Beaton's line closes the play: "But I will never leave you till you die."

Mary Stuart (1881)

Textual Apparatus:

On opposite pages (following the title page) are an epigraph, Greek lines from Aeschylus's Choephoroe. 309-315, and a dedication to Victor Hugo. See appendix C for details.

Action:

From the Babington conspiracy to free Mary to Mary's execution by

Elizabeth's decree.

Structure: ACT I. ANTHONY BABINGTON.

SCENE I.—BABINGTON'S LODGING: A VEILED PICTURE ON THE WALL. Enter BABINGTON, TICHBORNE, TILNEY, ABINGTON, SALISBURY, and BARNWELL.

Babington urges his fellow conspirators in a bid to free Mary to draw inspiration from their pictorial representation. He reads a letter from Mary with instructions on freeing her, and tears it up. They discuss killing Elizabeth. Barnwell complains that "we prate and threaten in painting" (21). They argue amongst themselves. Enter Ballard, who criticizes them for loose lips. More infighting takes place. All leave, but Ballard is arrested by soldiers who have entered.

SCENE II.—CHARTLEY. MARY STUART and MARY BEATON.

Mary and Beaton talk. The conversation touches on an unsent letter from Mary to Elizabeth, repeating criticism and gossip from Lady Shrewsbury about Elizabeth; Mary had requested that Beaton burn it. Mary notes she wouldn't exchange her fortune for that of Elizabeth. She talks of Babington's plan and her hopes. Her jailor Paulet gives her permission to ride to Tixall.

SCENE III.—BEFORE TIXALL PARK. MARY STUART, MARY BEATON, PAULET, CURLE, NAU, and Attendants.

Mary is arrested while out riding. Paulet is to look for evidence of Mary's involvement in the plot to kill Elizabeth.

ACT II. WALSINGHAM.

SCENE I.—WINDSOR CASTLE. QUEEN ELIZABETH and SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM.

Elizabeth refuses to brand her own name by agreeing to Mary's execution. Walsingham recounts the details of the Babington conspiracy.

SCENE II.—CHARTLEY. MARY BEATON and SIR AMYAS PAULET. 299

Beaton asks Paulet about the evidence against Mary. In a soliloquy, she reveals she retains Mary's letter to Elizabeth, and she begins to think about Chastelard. She is at the "landmark of my life" (77). She informs Mary of her trial at Fotheringhay in a month's time. Mary does not see herself as subject to account.

SCENE III.—TYBURN. A Crowd of Citizens.

The citizens describe the trial of the conspirators in the Babington plot—all are condemned, and give speeches in which they die for / in the Catholic faith.

ACT III. BURGHLEY.

SCENE I.—The presence-chamber in Fotheringay Castle. At the upper end, a chair of state as for QUEEN ELIZABETH; opposite, in the centre of the hall, a chair for MARY STUART. The Commissioners seated on either side along the wall: to the right, the Earls, with LORD CHANCELLOR BROMLEY and LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY; to the left, the Barons, with the Knights of the Privy Council, among them WALSINGHAM and PAULET; POPHAM, EGERTON, and GAWDY, as Counsel for the Crown. Enter MARY STUART, supported by SIR ANDREW MELVILLE, and takes her place.

Mary's trial. She claims innocence of the plot to kill Elizabeth, that she is above judgement, and that her word should be believed. Incriminating letters are presented, and she responds. She ends the trial by demanding "a full and open parliament / Hearing, or speech in person with the queen" (118).

ACT IV. ELIZABETH.

SCENE I.—RICHMOND. WALSINGHAM and DAVISON.

Walsingham and Davison complain about Elizabeth's vacillation, and decide they need better proof of Mary's guilt. France informs Elizabeth of their view of the prerogative of princes, and that Mary dead may be more dangerous than alive. Walsingham presents arguments to sway Elizabeth, declaring "You / 300

Are very England" (137). Elizabeth is concerned for her reputation; she goes over the options, but reserves judgement.

SCENE II.—FOTHERINGHAY. SIR AMYAS PAULET and SIR DREW DRURY

Paulet and Drury converse; Paulet will not 'remove' Mary for Elizabeth's convenience. Drury describes Mary as a "world's wonder" and a "deadly glory" (151). Enter Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton. Mary brings a letter to be given to Elizabeth. She discusses her faults with Paulet and Drury. Exit Paulet and Drury. Beaton and Mary talk of Chastelard, though Mary doesn't remember his name. Mary is relieved she never spoke or wrote her heart out to Elizabeth such as to show her queenship "in a glass". But she notes menace in Beaton's speech. Beaton wonders to herself whether Mary will remember Chastelard when tested. She reads in a glass the queen's heart—that she shall not die.

SCENE III.—GREENWICH PALACE. QUEEN ELIZABETH and DAVISON.

Elizabeth wishes that Mary would die without the blame being placed on her. To Davison, she reads Mary's recently written letter, and is moved with sympathy by it. Davison warns her of the "discourse of siren or snakes", and gives Elizabeth the letter that Beaton had held back and has now sent to Elizabeth. On reading it, Elizabeth is moved to sign the death warrant.

ACTV. MARY STUART.

SCENE I.—MARY'S CHAMBER IN FOTHERINGHAY CASTLE. MARY STUART and MARY BEATON.

The warrant is served. Mary notes Beaton is "dumb as death". She asks her physician, Gorion, to speak to the Spanish king, and requests vengeance on her death. She is described as queenlike and in Biblical imagery ("clothed as with sunset").

SCENE II.—THE PRESENCE CHAMBER. SHREWSBURY, KEN, PAULET, DRURY, MELVILLE, and Attendants.

From a gallery, the execution is narrated for Beaton by Barbara Mowbray. Beaton interjects at several stages to link current events to past events related, 301 by implication, to Chastelard. A voice cries, "So perish all found enemies of the Queen!" Beaton closes the scene with "I heard that very cry go up / Far off long since to God, who answers here." Appendix C: Paratextual Sources, Translations, and Commentary

Chastelard

Chastelard is prefaced by two short epigraphs, a dedication, and a third epigraph. The first of two epigraphs that appear on the title page is a French verse by Ronsard (1524-1585); the lines also appear in translation in act 5, scene 2 of the play. I have been unable to locate the source of these lines in

Ronsard.

Au milieu de I'avril, entre les lys naquit Son corps, qui de blancheur les lys memes vainquit; Et les roses, qui sont du sang d'Adonis teintes, Furent par sa couleur de leur vermeil depeintes.—RONSARD

Translation:

With coming lilies in late April came Her body, fashioned whiter for their shame; And roses, touched with blood since Adon bled, From her fair colour filled their lips with red:

The second epigraph is a verse from the Scottish ballad, "The Queen's

Marie."

What need ye hech! and how! ladies? What need ye how! for me? Ye never saw grace at a graceless face; Queen Mary has nane to gie.-The Queen's Marie 303

Hech = pant; how = to tarry; linger (glossary; Ballads of the English Border)

Swinburne's version of this ballad is collected in his Ballads of the English

Border, (1925; ed. with introduction, glossary, and notes by William A.

Maclnnes). Maclnnes describes Swinburne's extensive reading in the balladry and folklore of the Northumbrian border:

So proficient did he become through all this wide, intensive reading that many competent critics agreed with Rossetti in ranking Swinburne first among the authorities on the subject. . . . From 1858 onwards, Swinburne had the definite aim of re-writing certain ballads and here he utilized every available version and shred of a theme. By skilful interpolation of stanzas from various renderings and by adding or substituting his own interpretation when necessary, he succeeded in reconstructing a number of ballads which could easily deceive the most skeptical critic of their authenticity.... In the task of re-setting a ballad he combined a wealth of literary judgment with the finer qualities of poetical appreciation, (viii)

For various reasons, including the appearance of Child's English and Scottish

Ballads (1857-58), Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland (1858-61), and another contribution by Allingham in 1865, Swinburne, "as his bibliographer has suggested, .. . most probably abandoned his idea of a collection during the last months of 1861" (Maclnnes x).

Swinburne's notes to his version of "The Queen's Marie" indicate that with the exception of two stanzas, he followed a version of the ballad published for the first time in Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802; rpt

1869). Following Scott, he claimed, "all but exactly," he added "such various readings only as appear to be of real merit" (243). The stanza above, which 304 does not appear in Scott, is one such variant. It is taken from a version of the ballad entitled "Mary Hamilton" which appears in George Ritchie Kinloch's

(17967-1877) collection Ancient Scottish Ballads (1827). Notwithstanding his retention of this stanza, Swinburne compared the "pathetic vulgarisms" of

Kinloch and Motherwell to the "stateliness and completion" of Scott's "far superior" version. He also emphasized the ballad's limited basis in fact, making reference to an excerpt from Knox that accompanied Scott's notes to the ballad:

"That this great ballad relates to Mary Stuart and Darnley there is of course no doubt; but its actual basis of fact seems of the loosest. A French chambermaid and an apothecary are the culprits [of a newborn's murder in Mary's court] brought forward by Knox" (243-44). Scott notes that these two figures have traditionally been altered to Mary Hamilton (the Queen's Marie) and Lord

Darnley.

Below is Swinburne's version of "The Queen's Marie" as it appears in

Ballads of the English Border. There are minor differences of spelling and punctuation between the epigraph in Chastelard and the stanza as it is found in this edition. I have appended the more extensive notes that accompany Scott's version in the Minstrelsy. A version of the ballad entitled "The Four Marys" with musical accompaniment, as well as a ballad by Robert Burns entitled "Mary

Queen of Scots' Lament," can be accessed at www.contemplator.com/scotland.html. 305

THE QUEEN'S MARIE

MARIE Hamilton's to the kirk gane Wi' ribbons in her hair; The King thought mair o' Marie Hamilton Than of a' the ladies there.

Marie Hamilton's to the kirk gane Wi' ribbons at her briest; The King thought mair o' Marie Hamilton Than he listened to the priest.

Marie Hamilton's to the kirk gane Wi' gloves upon her hands; The king thought mair o' Marie Hamilton Than the queen and a1 her lands.

She hadna been about the king's court A month but barely ane, Till she was beloved by a' the king's court And the king the only man.

She hadna been about the king's court A month but barely three, Till frae the king's court Marie Hamilton, Marie Hamilton durstna be.

The king is gone to the abbey garden To pull o' the saim tree, To scale the babe frae Marie's heart, But the thing it wadna be.

O she has row'd it in her apron And set it on the sea; "Gae sink ye or swim ye, bonny babe, Ye'll get nae mair o' me."

Word is to the kitchen gone, And word is to the ha', And word is to the noble room Amang the ladies a' That Marie Hamilton's brought to bed And the bonny babe's missed and awa1.

Queen Marie came tripping down the stairs Wi' the gold rings in her hair; "O where is the little babe" she says, That I heard greet sae sair?"

"O no, O no, my noble queen, Think nae sic thing to be; It was but a stitch into my side And sair it troubles me."

"Get up, get up, Marie Hamilton, Get up and follow me; For I am going to Edinburgh Town, A rich wedding for to see."

O slowly, slowly raise she up And slowly put she on; And slowly rode she out the way Wi' mony a weary groan.

The Queen was clad in scarlet, Her merry maids all in green; At every town that they came to They took Marie for the queen.

"Ride hooly, hooly, gentlemen, Ride hooly now wi' me! For never, I am sure, a wearier burd Rade in your companie."—

But little wist Marie Hamilton When she rade on the brown That she was going to Edinburgh Town And a' to be put down.

"What need ye heck! and how! ladies? What need ye how for me? Ye never saw grace at a graceless face, Queen Marie has nane to gie." 307

When she gaed up the Tolbooth stairs The corks frae her heels did flie; And long e'er she cam down again She was condemned to die.

When she cam to the Netherbow port She laughed loud laughters three; When she cam to the gallows foot The tears blinded her ee.

"Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, The night she'll hae but three, There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton, And Marie Carmichael, and me."

"Often have I dressed my queen And put gold upon her head; But now I've gotten for my reward The gallows tree to tread."

"Often have I dressed my queen And put gold upon her hair; But now I've gotten to my reward The gallows to be my share.

"O ye Mariners, mariners, mariners, That sail upon the sea, Let neither my father nor mother get wit This dog's death I'm to die."

"I charge ye all, ye mariners, That sail out ower the faem, Let neither my father nor mother get wit, But that I'm coming hame."

"For if my father and mother get wit And my bauld brethren three, O mickle wad be the gude red blood This day wad be spilt for me!"

"O little did my mother ken, That day she cradled me, The lands I was to travel in Or the death I was to die!"

[Walter Scott's note in the Minstrelsy, which begins with an excerpt from John Knox's History of the Reformation, continues with Scott's commentary, and concludes with an excerpt from Crawford's History of Renfrew.]

"In the very time of the General Assembly, there comes to public knowledge a haynous murther, committed in the court; yea, not far from the queen's lap; for a French woman, that served in the queen's chamber, had played the whore with the queen's own apothecary. The woman conceived and bare a childe, whom, with common consent, the father and mother murthered; yet were the cries of a newbome childe hearde, searche was made, the childe and the mother were both apprehended, and so were the man and the woman condemned to be hanged in the publicke street of Edinburgh. The punishment was suitable, because the crime was haynous. But yet was not the court purged of whores and whoredoms, which was the fountaine of such enormities; for it was well known that shame hasted marriage betwixt John Sempill, called the Dancer, and Mary Levingston * sirnamed the Lusty. What bruit the Maries, and the rest of the dancers of the court had, the Ballads of that age does witnesse, which we for modestie's sake omit; but this was the common complaint of all godly and wise men, that if they thought such a court could long continue, and if they looked for no better life to come, they would have wished their sonnes and daughters rather to have been brought up with fiddlers and dancers, and to have been exercised with flinging upon a floore, and in the rest that therof followes, than to have been exercised in the company of the godly, and been exercised in virtue, which in that court was hated, and filthenesse not only maintained, but also rewarded; witnesse the Abbey of Abercome, the Barony of Auchtermuchtie, and divers others, pertaining to the patrimony of the crown, given in heritage to skippers and dancers, and dalliers with dames. This was the beginning of the regiment of Mary, Queen of Scots, and these were the fruits that she brought forth of France. Lord! look on our miseries! and deliver us from the wickedness of this corrupt court!" - Knox's History of the Reformation, p. 373-4.

Such seems to be the subject of the following ballad, as narrated by the stern apostle of Presbytery. It will readily strike the reader, that the tale has suffered great alterations, as handed down by tradition; the French waiting-woman being changed into Mary Hamilton, and the queen's apothecary into Henry Darnley. Yet this is less surprising, when we recollect, that one of the heaviest of the queen's complaints against her ill-fated husband was his infidelity, and that even with her personal attendants. I have been enabled to publish the following 309

complete edition of the ballad, by copies from various quarters; that principally used was communicated to me, in the most polite manner, by Mr. Kirkpatricke Sharpe, of Hoddom, to whom I am indebted for many similar favours.

*"John Semple, son of Robert, Lord Semple (by Elizabeth Carlisle, a daughter of the Lord Torthorald,) was ancestor of the Semples of Beltrees. He was married to Mary, sister to William Livingston, and one of the maids of honour to Queen Mary; by whom he had Sir James Semple, his son and heir," &c. afterwards ambassador to England, for King James VI, in 1599. - CRAWFORD'S History of Renfrew, p. 101.

The title page is followed by a dedication page. Swinburne dedicated

Chastelard (and Bothwell and Mary Stuart, as we shall see), to his revered

master, Victor Hugo (see chapter 5):

I DEDICATE THIS PLAY,

AS A PARTIAL EXPRESSION OF REVERENCE

AND GRATITUDE,

TO THE CHIEF OF LIVING POETS;

TO THE FIRST DRAMATIST OF HIS AGE;

TO THE GREATEST EXILE, AND THEREFORE

TO THE GREATEST MAN OF FRANCE;

TO

VICTOR HUGO

The third epigraph to Chastelard is preceded by the dramatis personae page (called "PERSONS" in this play only) and appears opposite the title page of act 1. It is an excerpt from Sir John Mandeville (1300-1399?): 310

Another Yle is there toward the Northe, in the See Occean, where that ben fulle cruele and ful evele Wommen of Nature: and thei han precious Stones in hire Eyen; and thei ben of that kyne, that sif they beholden ony man, thei slen him anon with the beholdynge, as dothe the Basilisk. MAUNDEVILE'S Voiage and Travaile, Ch. xxviii.

The passage from the Voyages (1357-71) cited by Swinburne is not found in chapter 28 as indicated in the epigraph. It is located in chapter 31, entitled OF THE DEVIL'S HEAD IN THE VALLEY PERILOUS. AND OF THE CUSTOMS OF FOLK IN DIVERSE ISLES THAT BE ABOUT IN THE LORDSHIP OF PRESTER JOHN.

Bothwell

Like all three plays in the trilogy, Bothwell has prefatory matter. It opens with an epigraph (following the title page), Greek lines from Aeschylus's

Choephoroe: 585-601. Choephoroe [The Libation Bearers] is the second play in the trilogy by Aeschylus known as Oresteia. (1. Agamemnon; 2. Choephoroe; 3.

Eumenides [The Furies]). The title refers to Orestes and Electra, the children of

Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who seek revenge on their mother and her consort, Aegisthus, who had murdered Agamemnon on his return from Troy.

This passage follows a discussion by Orestes with the Chorus about the plan to murder his mother and Aegisthus in order to avenge the honour of Agamemnon:

(Trans. Grene and Lattimore) 311

Chorus Numberless, the earth breeds dangers, and the sober thought of fear. The bending sea's arms swarm with bitter, savage beasts. Torches blossom to burn along the high space between ground and sky. Things fly, and things walk the earth. Remember too the storm and wrath of the whirlwind.

But who can recount all the high daring in the will of man, and in the stubborn hearts of women the all-adventurous passions that couple with man's overthrow. The female force, the desperate love crams its resisted way on marriage and the dark embrace of brute beasts, of mortal men.

The prefatory matter continues on the opposite page with a dedication in

French to Victor Hugo, which precedes the dramatis personae page:

A VICTOR HUGO.

Comme un fleuve qui donne a I'ocean son ame, J'apporte au lieu sacre d'ou le vers tonne et luit Mon drame epique et plein de tumulte et de flamme, Ou vibre un siecle etient, ou flotte un jour qui fuit.

Un peuple qui rugit sous les pieds d'une femme Passe, et son souffle emplit d'aube et d'ombre et de bruit Un del apre et guerrier qui luit comme une lame Sur I'avenir debout, sur le passe detruit.

Au fond des cieux hagards, par I'orage battue, Une figure d'ombre et d'etoiles vetue Pleure et menace et brille en s'evanouissant; 312

Eclair d'amour qui blesse et de haine qui tue, Fleur eclose au sommet du siecle eblouissant, Rose a tige epineuse et que rougit le sang.

Translation:

TO VICTOR HUGO

Like a river that gives its soul to the ocean, I bring to that sacred place whence poetry thunders and flashes My epic drama, it too being full of thunder and flames, Wherein vibrates an extinguished century, where a fleeing daylight floats.

A groaning people trodden down by a woman Passes by, and its breath fills with dawning and shadows and noise A harsh and warlike sky that shines like a sword Over an upright future, over a shattered past.

In the depths of the frantic skies, beaten by the storm, A visage clad in shadow and in stars Weeps and threatens and shines as it fades away;

A lightning flash: love that wounds and hatred that kills, A flower that opened at the height of the dazzling century, A rose with its thorny stem reddened by blood.

(Trans. Donald Jackson)

Mary Stuart

The final play of the trilogy opens with an epigraph (following the title page), Greek lines from Aeschylus's Choephoroe. 309-315:

(Trans. Grene and Lattimore) 313

Chorus For the word of hatred, spoken, let hate be a word fulfilled. The spirit of Right cries out aloud and extracts atonement due: blood stroke for the stroke of blood shall be paid. Who acts, shall endure. So speaks the voice of the age-old wisdom.

On the opposite page is a dedication to Victor Hugo, again preceding the dramatis personae page:

I DEDICATE THIS PLAY,

NO LONGER, AS THE FIRST PART OF THE TRILOGY

WHICH IT COMPLETES WAS DEDICATED,

TO THE GREATEST EXILE, BUT SIMPLY

TO THE GREATEST MAN OF FRANCE:

TO THE CHIEF OF LIVING POETS:

TO THE FIRST DRAMATIST OF HIS AGE:

TO MY BELOVED AND REVERED MASTER

VICTOR HUGO. 314

Notes

1 Earlier critical treatments are covered in the reception history of the trilogy in chapter 2. Unpublished work from this period includes Josephine Chandler, "The So-Called Elizabethan Tragedies of Swinburne: A Study in Literary Assimilation" (Diss. U of California, 1935); Curtis Dahl, "Swinburne's Trilogy on Mary Queen of Scots" (Diss. Yale U, 1945); and Grace Hadaway Boswell, "Swinburne's Mary Queen of Scots and the Historical Mary" (Diss. U of Georgia, 1960). See the bibliography in Stine for a list of early M.A. thesis work which may include treatments of Swinburne's trilogy.

2 See Dahl, "Swinburne's Loyalty to the House of Stuart," "Autobiographical Elements in Swinburne's Trilogy on Mary Stuart," "The Composition of Swinburne's Trilogy on Mary Queen of Scots," and "Swinburne's Mary Stuart: A Reading of Ronsard." Dahl argues that Mary Stuart dies "a martyr not so much for the Catholic religion as for an aesthetic 'religion' of beauty, passion, and poetry" that is reflective of the poet's conception of his own experiences ("Autobiographical Elements" 94). Chastelard proved a useful tool for Mario Praz's explorations of the fatal woman in The Romantic Agony. See also Kinneavy; Fuller; and Stevenson.

3 See Lewis, "The Reputations of Mary Queen of Scots" and Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation; see also Tonnies, "The Representation of Mary Stuart in Nineteenth-Century British Drama: A Comparative Analysis of Conflicting Images." Also in the last two decades were published monographs and essay collections that link writings on and depictions of the Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, and Queen Victoria. These include Rohan Maitzen, Gender, Genre, and Victorian Historical Writing; Rosemary Mitchell, Picturing the Past: English History in Text and Image 1830-1870; Geoffrey Cubitt and Allen Warren, eds., Heroic Reputations and Exemplary Lives; and Lynette Felber, ed., Clio's Daughters: British Women Making History, 1790-1899.

4 See, for example, Cave, ed., The Romantic Theatre; see also Fischer; Carlson; and Hoagwood SWatkins, eds.

5 The two articles are "Mary Queen of Scots" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 9, 1883) and "A Note on the Character of Mary Queen of Scots" (Fortnightly 315

Review, January 1882). They were appended to a later edition of the trilogy and also reprinted in Miscellanies in The Complete Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (The Bonchurch Edition) (14: 376-410; 422-442). Citations of these articles are taken from Miscellanies. Subsequent references to the Bonchurch edition of Swinburne's works will be abbreviated to CW.

6 Mitchell, Picturing the Past 2. See her first chapter for a related bibliography of developments in visual culture.

7 George Brodie, A Constitutional History of the British Empire From the Accession of Charles I to the Restoration, new ed. (London: Longman's, 1866); Henry Hallam, A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages (1818; supp. vol. 1848); The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II (1827); Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History (3 vols., 1837); Francois Guizot, Histoire de la revolution d'Angleterre depuis Charles I a Charles II (2 vols., 1826-27; English translation, 2 vols., Oxford, 1838); Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (1828; English translation by W. Hazlitt, 3 vols., 1846); Histoire de la civilisation en France (4 vols., 1830); Histoire de la republique dAngleterre et de Cromwell (2 vols., 1854); Histoire du protectorat de Cromwell et du retablissement des Stuarts (2 vols., 1856); J.A. Froude, The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth (12 vols., 1856-70; reissued in 1870 as The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada); and J.R. Green, A Short History of the English People (1874).

Burrow notes that "the idea of a Whig interpretation of English history is simple in outline, complex in detail," and asserts that one definitive characteristic is "confidence in the possession of the past" and "in understanding the present": "Whig history that earns the name is, by definition, a success story: the story of the triumph of constitutional liberty and representative institutions" (2-3). We are reminded, however, that these classifications of historians are general. Burrow tells us that "Froude was no Whig, but his History ultimately supported rather than challenged a central Whig sentiment: a sense of the privileges the English derived from their history. It lies, as it were, in the debatable lands along the borderline of Whiggism, and helps us to chart its vagaries" (242).

8 Jann 185. Slee clarifies the sense in which professional history was defined as "science":

Scientific, that is, in method and in a dispassionate and objective search for truth, but not scientific in the sense of 316

establishing universal laws. Much misunderstood, Bury coined the phrase 'History is a science, no less, no more', to express the concept of history as a data bank established and verified by research techniques, and to distinguish it from the older, more philosophical interpretations of history. (131)

9 Kenyon 215-17. The work consisted of the following: A History of England from the Accession of James I to the Disgrace of Chief Justice Coke 1603-16 (2 vols., 1863); Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage 1617-23 (1869); The Duke of Buckingham and Charles 11624-28 (2 vols., 1875); The Personal Government of Charles 11629-37 (2 vols., 1877); and The Fall of the Monarchy of Charles 11638-42 (1882).

10 Okie 215. Burrow credits Green with instigating the English Historical Review, founded in 1886 (98).

11 Kenyon notes that while Froude diverged from Ranke in choosing to exercise moral judgement on his subjects, "in his approach to the archives and his handling of evidence he showed himself a true disciple of Ranke; in fact, he was the only nineteenth-century Englishman who even approached the great German" (133; 123).

12 Slee (44-45) mentions the practice of colleges "turn[ing] their students out to private tutors" for instruction in "new subjects" like modern history.

13 William Holden Hutton 50-51; see also Swinburne's Letters 1: 30, n.1 and 6: 170. Another view of the relationship between Stubbs and Swinburne is offered by Henry Scott Holland in A Bundle of Memories (London: Wells Gardner and Co., 1915):

All this recalls to me the verdict of Bishop Stubbs, to whose country vicarage Swinburne retired for six months in order, according to our Balliol legend, to learn where Ramoth-Gilead was, for ignorance of which he had been ploughed in "Divinity." There he sat on the ground at Mrs. Stubbs's feet, and read to her "Queen Mary," to her great dislike and astonishment. The Bishop judged him to be not a man of strong or vehement passions, but of intense intellectual imagination. (2-3; in Rooksby, ed., 364-65)

About Holland, Rooksby notes: Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) was educated at Eton and Oxford, which he entered in 1866 and came under the influence of T.H. Green (1836-82) who had belonged to the Old Mortality Society with Swinburne roughly a decade before. Holland eventually became Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and a canon of St. Paul's Cathedral. (Algernon Charles Swinburne 361)

14 Kenyon 151, 149; Burrow 98. Kenyon writes that "with the exception of Stubbs, all the English historians of the High Victorian era were amateurs.. .. Their work often partook of the nature of literature or general reading" (96). Slee notes:

The professor's function had been defined by the University Commissions of the 1850s. . .. [The] supreme duty remained research. He was to establish himself as the chief representative of learning. It was a role which Stubbs assumed with ease. . . . Both [Stubbs and Seeley] published learned and stimulating works which helped to establish the Regius Chair at the forefront of historical learning. (129)

15 Burrow 130-31. For a brief account of Palgrave and Kemble, see Kenyon 150. Although Burrow explains that the notion of a "Burkean tradition" is subsumed in his book under the wider and more familiar concept of a Whig interpretation of English history, he characterizes the former as "an aspect of nineteenth-century English political thought, approached . . . through the study of historiography," and adds:

From Burke onwards, a self-conscious and influential school of English political thinking has held that political wisdom, and the identity of a society, and hence in some measure the appropriate conduct of its affairs, are found essentially in its history. It would only be consistent with this view to find the subsequent elaborations of it conducted not in treatises of political theory—the normal quarry of the historian of political thought—but in historiography. (2)

16 Lang notes that Swinburne's poem, "The Death of Sir John Franklin," came in second (Letters 1: 31, n. 3); it is reprinted in Posthumous Poems, ed. Edmund Gosse and T.J. Wise (London: W. Heinemann, 1917) and also in CWV. 1-8. 318

See Wellesley Periodicals Index. See also the attribution by Lang in Letters 1: 30, n. 2; he notes the ascription is not supported by W.R.W. Stephens, Freeman's biographer and bibliographer. Freeman's landmark work was the History of the Norman Conquest (1867-79).

18 The Oxford University Calendar for 1859, Swinburne's final year, details the historical texts to be mastered for examination, "and demonstrates clearly the emphasis on mastering books rather than periods" (Slee 40). Hallam, Gibbon, Guizot, and Sismondi are among the classics listed (40-41).

19 For an account of Victorian biography and its relation to intellectual discourse, see David Amigoni, Victorian Biography: Intellectuals and the Ordering of Discourse (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993).

20 Slee 60. Slee points out that the relation posited between history and science by the "new wave" of historical scholars" worked by analogy rather than by imitation:

The concept of science offered an analogy which historians adopted in order to stress the objective and academic nature of the historical enterprise.. .. For the 'new school' the concept of science was not a model upon which to base their activities, but a vehicle of expressions by which to drive its seriousness home to others. Most historians denied strenuously that history was, or ever could be, an exact science. . . . Historical scholarship was 'scientific' only in the sense that it involved the mastery of a definite objective and severe method and technique. (132-33)

21 Slee 90-91. See Slee 91-92 for a sample of questions on examination papers for both constitutional and political or general history.

22 Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures 110 (in Slee 89-90). Slee is at pains to emphasize that the successful scheme to combine colleges and their resources was neither "initiated" nor "even encouraged by Stubbs" (89).

23 166. Having studied with Stubbs, however, it is likely that Swinburne knew and used Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, which was widely available in Latin and was published at least by 1880 in an English translation. 319

24 I have been unable to locate information about Caboclu. It is possible that the name is inaccurate—a transcription error of Swinburne's notoriously difficult handwriting.

25 Cited in J.H. Burns from the preliminary pages of the eight-volume 1905 edition of Burton's History, excerpts are from reviews in Blackwood's Magazine and the Standard.

26 Letters 2: 302. Stine briefly discusses the scholarship that demonstrates that Swinburne did, however, utilize the less controversial parts of Froude, in particular in Mary Stuart (200-02). According to Stine, Froude's otherwise "provocative" depiction of Mary Stuart in his History was such that he "almost single-handedly changed the current of Marian literature in the latter third of the nineteenth century" by engaging other writers to respond to him on Mary's behalf (143-44).

27 An earlier letter to Henry Arthur Bright (31 December 1874) makes a similar point in regard to the historian Hosack. Swinburne writes:

I am reading Mr. Hosack's book with interest—but his conception of Mary remains unintelligible to me, and seems even less flattering in reality than Froude's—exaggerated and inaccurate as I take the latter's view to be. For if she married Bothwell without love, through motives of fear or of policy, knowing him for the murderer of Darnley, she was an unprincipled coward; and if she was the one person in the country who did not know or believe in his guilt, she was simply a fool. I cannot believe or conceive her to have been either fool or coward—a view of her character, I should think, which would have much astonished her contemporaries; I prefer to regard her, as seems just and reasonable, as a woman not more scrupulous at a pinch than those among whom she had been brought up, but capable of superb daring and devotion, with the materials in her, not certainly of a saint, but very certainly of a heroine and a martyr. But the Mary of her 'defenders'—I call them her calumniators—seems to me an incoherent and impalpable incredulity. (Letters 2: 358-59)

John Hosack (bap. 1813, d. 1887) was a police magistrate and author. His work, Mary Queen of Scots and Her Accusers (Edinburgh, 1869) was reissued in an enlarged second edition in two volumes in 1870-74. Mary Stewart: a brief 320 statement of the principal charges which have been brought against her, together with answers to the same, was published posthumously in 1888.

28 Stine locates Swinburne's trilogy in the latter two periods, arguing that the poet, "in effect, created two different women with the same name. His earlier Mary was a sensuous and devious seductress while his later creation was a queen of great presence whose driving force was her political and not her social ambition" (x). Stine also claims that the three "very different views" of Mary considered in his dissertation, "when taken together, give us a composite picture which brings us as close to the truth about her as we are likely to come" (241).

29 Lewis, Romance and Nation 247, n. 32. Lewis cites Scott Dramatized, ed. H. Philip Bolton (London, 1992), pp. 375-93.

30 See the bibliography in Tonnies for additional works that appeared during and after the composition of Swinburne's trilogy.

31 Lewis, Romance and Nation 173. Some examples are Sir David Wilkie's The Preaching of John Knox before the Lords of the Congregation, June 10th, 1559 (1822-32) and The Escape of Mary Queen of Scots from Lochleven Castle (1837), Sir William Allan's Knox admonishing Mary Queen of Scots (1823), Lord Lindsay compelling Mary to abdicate (1824), The Landing of Mary Queen of Scots at Leith, 1561 (1827), and The Murder of David Rizzio (1833).

According to Roy Strong, the fifty-six works exhibited at the Academy "were just the top of a more sizeable iceberg. In addition, the cult proliferated through thousands of engravings after contemporary portraits and reconstructions of incidents from her life" (Painting the Past 135).

The 1840s through to the 1870s was "the great age of history painting," coincident with that of history writing as literature; scenes and events from the life of Mary Stuart were prominent among "compelling" themes from the past for the Victorians (Strong, Painting the Past 55-56; 47). In particular, notes Strong, "scenes from history are preoccupied with the vanishing and transitory nature of monarchy. Imprisonments, executions, the sad fate of exile and defeat in battle are recounted again and again in the persons of Mary Queen of Scots, Lady Jane Grey, Henrietta Maria, Charles I, Charles II, James II and Bonnie Prince Charlie" (59-60).

Among paintings in the forties are William Powell Frith's Knox reproving Mary Queen of Scots (1844) and Ford Madox Brown's The Execution of the 321

Queen of Scots (1841), and in the fifties, Joseph Severn's Mary Queen of Scots at Lochleven Castle (1850), Frith's Queen Mary's Last Look at France (1852), and Robert Herdman's Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1867).

32103. Public approval, notes Pittock, was signaled by Victoria's requesting a performance of a Jacobite song on her first visit to Scotland in 1842.

33 Lewis, Romance and Nation 171-72. But as Lewis points out in "The Reputations of Mary Queen of Scots" (12), expressions of pity by Victoria do not necessarily constitute a defense of Mary.

34 See Life at the Court of Queen Victoria, 1861—1901, Illustrated from the Collection of Lord Edward Pelham-Clinton. Ed. Barry St. John Neville. (London: Methuen, 1984): 141-43. Queen Victoria describes the event in her journal:

At length the day had arrived when the long expected, arranged & postponed Tableaux were to take place .... At 1/2 p. 9, all went over to the Council Room, where the stage & seats were arranged as 2 years ago. The invitations to the guests were divided between the 4 days of the Performances. A portion of the excellent string Band of the Marines, played appropriate pieces, during & between the Tableaux. The latter were 5 in number, Esther, in which took part Helen, Ina Mc Neil), Adeline Loftus, Alice Cowell, Mrs Muther, Abdul, & my 2 Indian servants Ahmed Husain, & Gusuf Beg, — Fotheringay, in which took part Louise, as Mary Queen of Scots, Beatrice, Helen, Feo Gleichen, Betty Ponsonby, Col: Collins & Victor Biddulph. . .. The curtain was as usual dropped twice to allow of one's having 3 views. The Tableaux were really lovely & so well arranged. Abdul had helped to arrange the oriental draperies for the ladies .... Fotheringay represented the moment when poor Mary Queen of Scots, took leave of her ladies. Louise looked lovely as the Queen standing on the steps looking up, & Beatrice as her half sister the Dss. of Argyle, leaning against her. Louise changed the position each time, but very appropriately. In the 2nd scene she no longer stood on the steps, but gave her hand to "Maitland" her Secretary (Col: Collins), who knelt & kissed it. Louise's expression was beautiful & sad beyond measure. Beatrice also looked sweet, with hands upraised & looking up as in 322

prayer. Mozart's "Ave Verum" was played during this scene. (142- 43)

35 See Sharon Aronofsky Weltman for a list of scholars who conflate the two works (120; n. 10). Weltman sees Ruskin's queen as taking on "more power and greater responsibility than Patmore could imagine for his angel" (108). She draws attention to Elizabeth Helsinger's distinction between "two visions of Victorian womanhood as the Angel in the House and the Angel out of the House" and her selection of Ruskin's "Of Queens' Gardens" to define "the outside angel," but notes that "Helsinger's play on the Angel in / out of the House obscures the very real difference in Ruskin's choice of the word 'queen' over 'angel.' The word 'queen' grants a more immediately present and political power in the age of Victoria than does the word 'angel'—a distant, ethereal wisp" (110). Nevertheless, for the purposes of the present discussion, we need not be concerned about conflating the two.

36 179. See Ellen Johnston, "The Wrongs of Mary Queen of Scots," in Autobiography, Poems and Songs of Ellen Johnston, the "Factory Girl" (London, 1867): 75-76.

37 See Spongberg 88; Lewis, Romance and Nation 151, 153.

38 "Plotting Women" 124-25. Mitchell points out that the emergence in current research of "a far more complex picture of the reality of Victorian women's lives" has begun to challenge the "interpretive schema" of the separate spheres, which allocates "the domestic and moral sphere to women and the political and public sphere to men" as a means of explaining the lives of women "of all ranks and classes"; however, she reaffirms that the thesis "was a stable subject of contemporary debate and an undeniable cultural phenomenon" ("The Red Queen" 158-59).

39 Lewis, Romance and Nation 86-7; 90. For echoes of Mary Stuart's experience in Caroline's "ordeal", see Lewis, Romance and Nation 147-49.

40 See "Swinburne's Loyalty to the House of Stuart" and "Autobiographical Elements in Swinburne's Trilogy on Mary Stuart."

41 Harrison notes: "In the Eton College Library are two unpublished college essays donated by T.J. Wise on December 10, 1924. One, in Latin, is entitled 'De Morte Mariie Scotorum Regina' (On the death of Mary Queen of Scots), and the other, 'On the Character of Mahomet.' Both are brief (164). 323

See app A. References to Mary Stuart also pepper Swinburne's prose work. In an essay on Beaumont and Fletcher, we are told that Richard Fletcher was just turned seven when his father, minister of the parish, and "afterwards queen's chaplain, dean of Peterborough, and bishop successively of Bristol, Worcester, and London,. .. distinguished and disgraced himself as the spiritual tormentor of Mary Stuart's last moments" (CIV 12: 409). And in the parodic "Report of Proceedings of the Shakespeare Society," it is reported that "Mr. A. cited the well-known scene in which Oberon discourses with Puck on matters concerning Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth (CI/V11: 198).

43 Letters 4: 64. On 12 December 1876, Swinburne wrote to Theodor Opitz to give him the requested permission of publishing a German translation of Bothwell. Lang notes:

Theodor Opitz published a scholarly work on Mary Stuart in two volumes at Freiburg im Bresgau in 1879 and 1881. He translated Swinburne's Bothwell and Mary Stuart (as well as Marino Faliero) into German verse, and later even transposed parts of his version of Bothwell into rime, but he never succeeded in getting any of these translations published. See Bernhard Fehr, "Swinburne und Theodor Opitz," Englische Studien, 62 (1927), 243-49. (Letters 3: 230, n. 1)

Swinburne wrote again to Opitz on 24 June 1879, thanking him for having "done my tragedy the honour to find it worthy of the time and toil necessary for the completion of a task so prolonged as the translation of a work so voluminous," adding that "the honour thus conferred on it is, I assure you, not the less cordially felt and gratefully welcomed for the fact that publishers should shrink from the enterprise of introducing it, even under such auspices as yours, to the reading world of your countrymen" (Letters 4: 64).

44 Letters 1: 35. Lang identifies Swinburne^s reading as Lettres, instructions et memoires de Marie Stuart, rein d'Ecosse; publies sure les originaux et les manuscrits du State Paper Office de Londres et des principales archives et bibliotheques de /'Europe, et accompagnes d'un resume chronologique parte Prince Alexandre Labanoff(7 vols. London, 1844), and notes that the last volume included an "'Inventaire de la garde-robe et autres effets de Marie Stuart et listes de ses serviteurs.'"

The range of Swinburne's reading is indicated in a letter from William Michael Rossetti (6 October [1867]), which mentions Swinburne's questions 324 about Tuelet and Knox. Meyers notes that Swinburne was seeking information on the edition by Jean Baptiste Alexandre Theodore Teulet of Lettres de Marie Stuart (Paris: Didot Freres, 1859) and on John Knox, The History of Religion Within the Realm of Scotland (1586), which was included in Knox's Works, edited by David Laing (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1846-64).

45 For a detailed summary of the action of the three plays, see app B.

46 224. The scheme began well enough. Swinburne wrote to William Rossettion 17 July 1874:

As to the stagification of Bothwell, I have put the matter unreservedly into the hands of Watts, as my representative; I have also written today to Brown in reply to a letter which came by the same post as yours, proposing that he and Watts should meet Oxenford as my friends at Mrs. Bell's (the aspirant Mary Stuart). I stipulate only that nothing is to be added or substituted; I give the fullest license of selection and excision. (Letters 2: 312-13)

Lang notes that John Oxenford (1812-77), "dramatist, critic, and translator," was "drama critic for The Times from 1850 until his death, and his harshest word was as spun sugar" (Letters 2: 312-13 n. 6). The DNB states that he became theatre critic for The Times in 1840, and also contributed review articles to many periodicals. He wrote "well over a hundred plays," some of them quite successful.

In a letter to Swinburne (22 August 1874), Watts recounts the "long talked-of meeting with Oxenford" which took place the previous week: "He says he will undertake the work of adapting Bothwell for the stage on the terms of half profit both of its production upon the boards & of the issue of the curtailed acting edition to be published by Chatto" (Meyers 1: 326). Watts asks whether Swinburne will agree to Oxenford's handling of the work, after describing his two ideas as to the nature of the project:

Either the play must be cut into two—the first to end with the Death of Darnley—or [it] must be cut into about 5 or 6 tablaux (in the French way) in which case the present division into acts would have to be ignored and perhaps other parts of the present arrangement of the play departed from .... seeing that to attempt to produce it in anything like its present form would be a certain failure. Swinburne's response on 23 August 1874 is quite agreeable:

As to Mr. Oxenford's half share in the profits of the acted play and acting edition, again, if his proposal seems to you reasonable, I cannot but be content to close with it. Either of his plans for adaptation would be equally acceptable to me. The division into tablaux instead of acts is one which had occurred to me as the best if not the only way of re-forming it for the stage, and would I should think in any case be the most satisfactory method by far of representation. How far the general arrangement of the play might be otherwise readjusted than by this breaking up of the acts would if necessary be a matter for further consideration. I should not dream either of objecting to any suppressions or of consenting to any interpolations. (Letters 2: 328)

On 27 August 1874, Swinburne wrote to Edwin Harrison:

I am glad . . . that a rumour is true (though published in the newspapers in connection with my name!!) which you may have heard and disbelieved, to the effect that it is about to be arranged for the stage by Mr. John Oxenford, a playwright of note, as I am told, and will (D. always V.) be brought out next theatrical season, when I shall expect all my friends and all the faithful in Oxford to rally round it and me. (Letters 2: 332)

In a letter to George Powell (1 September 1874), Swinburne notes that he shall probably "go to London and see personally how the theatrical prospects of Bothwell advance or recede" (Letters 2: 336).

Two letters to Watts on 18 October and William Rossetti on 19 October 1875 (Letters 3: 77-80) see Swinburne involved in the laborious process of "revising the revision" of Bothwell (presumably done by Oxenford). To Rossetti he writes that Watts "perhaps also told you that I am engaged in revising a revision of Bothwell for stage purposes, which really seems to me to promise not ill: but the labour is fatiguing and irritating (in a certain way) out of proportion to its amount" (80). His letter to Watts is a detailed complaint about the incomprehensibility of the revised text despite his acknowledgement of the "skilful and successful condensation of the whole" (77). He notes that to his expectation, but not Watts's, "I find more (under correction) to object to in the retention than in the rejection of superfluities" and has "marked as for omission a good deal in Act One that appears to me pointless and tedious. . .. (77). In acts 2 and 4, he complains:

As it is, I really do not understand what is proposed, or what transpositions can possibly make sense of the fragments of scenes retained. Without some further explanation by word of mouth, this whole part of the book now before me is as a problem in Euclid or a scene in vulgar fractions to my weak intellect—i.e., is utter chaos. (78)

Finding some scenes in the last act "admirably well curtailed and recast", he finds "others again quite unintelligibly selected and transposed in defiance of time, place, and congruity, and to the utter confusion of the story" (78).

Still eager, though, he writes to Watts on 2 January 1876: "Remember that I hold myself wholly at your disposal whenever it may be time to summon me up to a conference in town on the adaptation of Bothwell to the stage. Of course I look forward to the occasion with some interest" (Letters 3: 102). The last clear reference is a letter to Watts, 22 January 1876, asking for news "of the stage prospects of Bothwell" (Letters 3: 127). Although it is unclear whether a later reference to Watts on 8 March 1876 is to the project, it is certainly possible: "I am very glad that both you and Minto think so well of my project for recasting the Marian trilogy" (Letters 3: 148). For further correspondence on the proposed adaptation, and the possible involvement of another writer, Edwin H. Brooke, see Meyers 1: 317-18 and 2: 48.

47 In his review of Chastelard in The Nation (18 January 1866), James noted that Swinburne had "restricted himself to the complete and consistent exhibition of her [Mary's] character alone" and consequently had missed the "dramatic element." The words of Darnley, Murray, and the four Maries were "merely the respective signs of a certain number of convenient speeeches," while Chastelard's extended descriptions of Mary simply caused the story to halt and the play to languish (83). For a survey of critical responses to Chastelard, see Hyder, Swinburne's Literary Career and Fame 24-30. For insight into the Victorian critical terms of debate, see Armstrong.

48 See Hyder, Lit. Career 159-61 and 194-95.

49 An exception is Theodore Wratislaw's Algernon Charles Swinburne: A Study (1900). Wratislaw places Chastelard "among the finest, not among the least fine, of the poet's works" (35), and notes the "dramatic ingenuity of condensation and selection" exhibited in Bothwell, though he finds "the interest" of both Bothwell and Mary Stuart to be "historical rather than poetic" (67; 94).

50197. Writing a few years later, Ifor Evans also finds this scene in which Darnley "is shown completely unmanned by the death which he believes awaits him" to be "one of the finest in the trilogy" (62). In his discussion of Swinburne's career, he provides a balanced view of the trilogy, noting that Swinburne's achievement in Chastelard "has been frequently underestimated," that the verse of Bothwell contains "lines of rare excellence," and that the long speech of John Knox in act 4 "is perhaps Swinburne's greatest achievement apart from his lyrical poetry" (59, 62, 64).

51 199. A 1909 American edition of Swinburne's dramas selected and edited by Arthur Beatty is interesting in this light. On the basis of their being "among the most characteristic products" of Swinburne's "dramatic genius," Beatty includes three plays: Atalanta in Calydon, Erectheus, and Mary Stuart (the final play of the Mary Stuart trilogy). The prefatory note mentions that "the poet himself decided upon the representative of his plays written on the model of Shakespeare, for he was of the opinion that he had never written anything worthier of discriminating appreciation than Mary Stuart." Swinburne makes a similar point in the dedicatory epistle to the 1904 Collected Poems (xii). The Beatty edition includes annotated notes on the play (378-84), and also directs readers to Swinburne's article on Mary Stuart in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which "contains all the essential facts, and is highly interesting as a prose statement of the substance of the trilogy" (378). Another American edition of Swinburne's Poetical Works, published by John D. Williams, includes "the most celebrated" of Swinburne's dramas." Curiously, these include the first and second, but not the final installment of the trilogy. Presumably the publisher had access to it as Tristram of Lyonesse, published a year later than Mary Stuart, was included in this "Complete Edition."

52 91-92. Lang's caustic comment on Fuller's biography of Swinburne was that "perhaps, after all, her biography is best read as comic pornography or black humor"; see his introduction to VP 9: 1/2 (Spring-Summer, 1971).

53 52. See also his earlier article, "The Swinbumian Woman," Philological Quarterly 58 (1979): 90-102.

54 See, however, Lewis's comments that "questions of voice actually suffuse Swinburne' play" and that the play is framed by the "voices and perceptions" of the women who surround Mary and share her name (the four 328

Maries), "and whose longings mirror the queen's own" (Romance and Nation 190; 192).

55 See Webb for an overview. Hoagwood (26) writes that the critical consensus from the eighteenth-century period onwards that Romantic drama was a failed art form is belied by "a growing cultural preoccupation with this supposedly failed genre" both in the Romantic period and our own. Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are publicly critical of the state of the drama, but at the same time, they continue to write them, "and Byron writes stageworthy plays though denying that he does so. Byron also serves on the committee for Drury Lane, trying for years to promote the production of Joanna Baillie's plays, for example, while denying that he has an interest in the stage."

56 Mathur 2; 41-44; Webb 20. See Hoagwood and Watkins for a brief account of this revaluation. See also Hoagwood, "Romantic Drama and Historical Hermeneutics." As he notes, drama, always a "public medium, both in its medium of performance and in its subject matter as well. . . remains so during the Romantic period, despite misleading cliches about 'mental theater'" (27).

Reading Byron's phrase "mental theatre" in the context of the political philosophy of Rousseau, Burke, Godwin, Coleridge, and others, Hoagwood argues that "the category of mental formations and reformations was normally understood as a political category (Hoagwood's emphasis); thus, he concludes that "to suppose that a mental theater somehow cannot (or even to suppose that Byron's mental theater does not) engage itself with social issues, even at the level of conscious authorial intention, would be an anachronistic mistake" (34- 35).

Hoagwood also suggests that the censorship of plays in the period for precisely their public connections, as in the case of King Lear "because of its apparent applicability to George III" (27), could be behind Lamb's "famous preference for reading plays, as opposed to seeing them" (52, n. 20; Hoagwood's emphasis). He also cites Conolly's explanation in The Censorship of English Drama (5) that censored passages were generally included in the printed text of plays. Julie A. Carlson links the phenomenon of closeting Shakespeare to a triangle of social, political, and gender issues.

57 The Athenaeum's review of Mary Stuart (10 December 1881) observed that Swinburne's trilogy "may challenge comparison with the comic trilogy of Beaumarchais and with the famous Wallenstem trilogy of Schiller, works which together constitute the chief dramatic accomplishment of the past century."

58 Letters 2: 282. "Epic" is a term Swinburne frequently employs in conjunction with descriptions of the trilogy. The implications of the term deserve more attention than can be given here. See, for example, Herbert F. Tucker, Epic: Britain's Heroic Muse, 1790-1910 (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2008). The following passage from Swinburne's 1872 review of John Nichol's Hannibal suggests that on one level at least he may have been referring to the traditional epic conventions (see chapter 1 in Fischer for a catalogue of these):

The main career of Hannibal down to the battle of the Metaurus is traced scene after scene in large and vigorous outline; and for the action and reaction of dramatic intrigue we have the simpler epic interest of the harmonious succession of great separate events. Throughout the exposition of this vast subject, as act upon act of that heroic and tragic poem, the life of one man weighed against the world and found all but able to overweigh it, is unrolled before us on the scroll of historic song, there is a high spirit and ardour of thought which sustains the scheme of the poet, and holds on steadily through all change of time and place, all diversity of incident and aim. (464)

59 See also Hunter.

60 Griffin (65) refers to Irving Ribner's argument in The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare, rev. ed. (London: Methuen, 1965): 69-71.

61 74; 78. Griffin is drawing on S.H. Butcher's conclusion regarding the Aristotelian theory of beginning and ending that "the operative point is whether or not the play chooses to direct the attention to the preceding 'events'; whether it 'carr[ies] us back in thought' to emphasize the precedent events. It is in the attention of the spectator that we find this wedge driven between tragedy and history" (74; Griffin's emphasis).

62 Wikander 64. The reference is to Henry IV in Chapman's The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron (1608), a pair of two five-act plays, and to Edward III in Jonson's unfinished fragment, Mortimer His Fall (printed in the 1640 Folio of Jonson's Works). 119. Banks's historical dramas include one on Mary Queen of Scots entitled The Island Queens, or The Death of Mary Queen of Scotland (1684). Vol. 8 of The Cambridge History of English and American Literature notes that the piece was at first forbidden from being acted, but was subsequently acted under the name of The Albion Queens.

The titles of Banks's various plays are indicative of his approach: The Rival Kings, or The Loves of Oroondates and Statira. A Tragedy, acted at the Theatre Royal. 1677. [Founded on La Calprenede's Cassandre.]; The Destruction of Troy. A Tragedy acted at His Royal Highness the Duke's Theatre. 1679; The Unhappy Favourite, or The Earl of Essex. A Tragedy, acted at the Theatre Royal, by their Majesty's Servants. 1682. Prologue and epilogue by Dryden; Vertue Betray'd, or Anna Bullen. A Tragedy, acted at His Royal Highness the Duke's Theatre. 1682; The Innocent Usurper, or The Death of the Lady Jane Gray. A Tragedy. 1694; Cyrus the Great, or The Tragedy of Love, as it is acted at the Theatre in Little Lincoln's-lnn-Fields, by His Majesties Servants. 1696. [Taken from Madeleine de Scudery's Le Grand Cyrus.]

64 Wikander's argument that the Restoration brought a break with Shakespearean tradition can also be seen in light of the closing of the theatres by the Puritans and their reopening in 1660, when dramatists shifted to being socially daring with sexual farces but politically conservative, with royalty depicted in exotic lands in operatic heroic tragedies.

65 The play was produced at the Lyceum Theatre in April 1876. On 7 July [1875], Swinburne had written to Edwin Harrison: "My first and last verdict on Tennyson's play was that there was a very pretty song in it. The two last appearances of the Queen are also effective and once or twice almost pathetic—at least, by comparison with the first four acts. It is certainly less exhausting than Browning's libel on Aristophanes" [Aristophanes' Apology; Including a Transcript from Euripides: Being the Last Adventure of Balaustion (1875)] (Letters 3:40). If the verdict itself did not change, it was certainly handed down more than once by Swinburne; see, for example, Letters 3: 67, et. al.

66 Swinburne uses imagery typical of Victorian criticism; Armstrong notes that "it is common to find imagery of organic life, blood and warmth and imagery of colouring, painting and blending used to describe what is meant by suggestiveness, the poem which is moral without being didactic" (12).

67 See, for example, G.F. Watts, Wife of Pygmalion (1868) and William Bume-Jones's "The Heart Desires," Pygmalion Series (1868-70) and a second series (1875-78). The Elizabethan dramatist John Marston told the tale in The Metamorphoses of Pygmalion's Image (1598), and Swinburne's Pre-Raphaelite colleague, William Morris, included it in The Earthly Paradise (1868 -70).

68 For example, "it floats supreme" incorporates the corollary of sinking like a stone. The leviathan was an image of chaos; variousness and uncontrollability were implied by the monster's seven heads. Bothwell seems to have lent itself to such "monstrous" appellations. Besides Reynolds's depiction of it as a "monstrous drama" (114), Ifor Evans claimed that despite its excellencies, "nothing can quite compensate for its length; it is like some pathological thing, some diseased monster, blown up and unnatural" (64).

69 For a general survey of Swinburne's theory of dramatic poetry, see Connolly, which also includes a brief discussion of historical drama (123-27).

70 vii. A telling anecdote about a meeting with Swinburne is recalled by the art critic and novelist Sir Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921) in Memories (London: Methuen, 1912):

I saw Swinburne again, in the summer of 1897: lunching with him and Theodore Watts-Dunton, at their villa at Putney.

Afterwards, we went upstairs to Swinburne's study, and found him supremely happy, and as busy as a man could be, over his early editions of the Elizabethan Dramatists. Several of the rarest and least known—the rare editions of most rare men—he showed me with enthusiasm and pride; reading out or reciting a line here and a line there, and criticizing always favourably, and generally shrewdly, by the way. I am not Bibliophile enough to know, but I suspect that his collection of the Elizabethans was as memorable as is Edmund Gosse's cabinet of the Dramatists of the Restoration. (65-66; in Rooksby, ed., 426-27)

71 Swinburne's library contained this book (lot 85). Swinburne's library is recorded in Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, edited by A. N. L. Munby. This volume contains the British Library copy of the Catalogue of the Library of Algernon Charles Swinburne by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, June 19-21, 1916, at the order of the executors of "the late W.T. Watts-Dunton" (253- 337). Subsequent references to lot numbers are from this volume. 332

11 Letters 2: 153. For the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845), one of only two "flaws" in all of Shakespeare's work was that Antony and Cleopatra rushes through so many historical events that an audience cannot follow the plot (Sauer 48); Hyder has also noted that as a model of self-discipline for Swinburne, the play was "hardly a safe" one (Lit. Career 161). In a note on Schlegel's comment, Sauer writes:

Schlegel's inability to appreciate the unity of Antony and Cleopatra is surprising. He sees the play merely as a rapid series of events occurring all over the Roman world, and fails to recognize that it is not primarily an historical drama, but rather a play about the overwhelming passion of the title characters. Indeed, Antony and Cleopatra is a more unified play than Julius Ceasar, which Schlegel praises so highly. (164)

A. C. Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy does not discuss Antony and Cleopatra as a tragedy. To him it is "tragic history or historical tragedy" (5), full of "confusion which bewilders the reader's mind" because it is "the most faultily constructed of all the tragedies" (260). Bradley later published an essay on Antony and Cleopatra in Oxford Lectures on Poetry (1909).

73 Faas makes a similar point in discussing the rise of psychological poetry in the work of the young Tennyson, and, "even earlier," in Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads (4).

74 Letters 2: 284. The quotation from Wordsworth (in Kauvar 13) is from a letter to Isabella Fenwick, and reads in full as follows: "My care was almost exclusively given to the passions and the characters, and the position in which the persons in the Drama stood relatively to each other, that the reader (for I had then no thought of the Stage) might be moved, and to a degree instructed, by lights penetrating somewhat into the depths of our nature." The sentiment is similar to the interest expressed in his preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798) to convey "the essential passions of the heart."

75 See Stavisky 77-105 for a general account of the Furnivall controversy involving Swinburne and Frederick James Furnivall (1825-1910), founder of the New Shakespeare Society, which Swinburne parodied in "A Report of the Proceedings on the First Anniversary Session of the Newest Shakespeare Society." 333

For a recent discussion of Swinburne's Shakespearean criticism, see chapter 2 of Sawyer, who argues that Swinburne's appropriation of Shakespeare demonstrates a "subversive potential" in the rhetoric through which an "alternative-voiced discourse that promoted a radical agenda in sexuality and politics" underlay the more apparently conventional discourse (82).

77 Hoeckley 9; 31. On the engagement of Victorian women (and men) with Shakespeare through "character criticism" and other critical modes, see Kathryn Prince, "Character Criticism and its Discontents in Periodicals for Women." Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals (New York: Routledge, 2008): 62-80.

78 Hoeckley 17. She cites the following works: Kimberly Van Esveld Adams, Our Lady of Victorian Feminism: The Madonna in the Work of Anna Jameson, Margaret Fuller, and George Eliot (2000); Judith Johnston, Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters (1997); and Tricia Lootens, Lost Saints: Silence, Gender, and Victorian Literary Canonization (1996).

79 Poole 91. Jameson is not mentioned in Swinburne's Letters; nor are her works listed in the incomplete sale catalogue of his library, but he undoubtedly knew her work.

80 Poole 96. While Cowden Clarke and Faucit both imagined the "'pre- dramatic' life" of their characters, Faucit "also expresses a desire to continue their stories into the future, especially in the cases of Portia and Imogen." Poole continues: Unlike Cowden Clarke, she explicitly challenges the finality of the Shakespearean plot. . . . Her Portia is still troubled by Shylock and the state in which he has been left. So she starts to visit him and care for him as no one has cared for him since the death of his beloved wife Leah, until he can turn his own life into story and give it to a sympathetic listener. . . . For all Imogen's angelic tenderness, she has simply suffered too much from Shakespeare's plot to endure. . . . Faucit imagines this Imogen wasting to death, ethereally and always forgivingly. ... It is interesting to note the dissent provoked by these imaginative excursions: Browning and Ruskin remonstrated with her over Portia, and Tennyson over Imogen. (96-97) 334

Hoeckley suggests that Jameson "anticipates" in a limited way some later notions of "performativity" in gender theory as developed by Judith Butler and others (20).

82 Mary alludes to Cleopatra to describe her relationship with Bothwell. She declares: "I had rather have looked on Actium with Mark Antony / Than bound him fast on Cydnus" (B. 4.1). In response to Bothwell's own allusion to the "tale of Rome," she responds, "had I been / She for whose lips love let the round world fall / And all man's empire founder. ... I had not given my galleys wings for fear / To bear me out of the eye of battle, nor / Put space of flight between me and my love" (B. 4.1). Notably, in an earlier allusion she links herself with Antony's wife, Fulvia, first through negation and then through affirmation, as a means of counterpointing the injustice of John Knox's behaviour towards her: "I am no wife of Antony, to try / My needle's point against his tongue's edge; yet /1 have cause as good as Fulvia's" (B. 1.5).

83 Hoagwood 28. On Romantic displacement, see McGann.

84 The British government, under William Pitt, held a series of treason trials in 1794 in which so-called radicals were arrested; three men (Thomas Hardy, John Home Tooke, and John Thelwall) were tried for high treason and were exonerated. The trials, nevertheless, had a censoring effect on British radicalism as well as on individual authors. For more background, see Barrel, John and Jon Mee, eds., Trials for Treason and Sedition, 1792-1794. 8 vols. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006-07. See also Barrel, John. Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide 1793-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.

85 Swinburne had met Wordsworth when he was twelve (Hyder, Lit. Career 3). Swinburne's writings on the Romantic poets include a preface to a selection of Byron's poems (1866), later reprinted as "Byron" in Essays and Studies (1875); William Blake: A Critical Essay (1868); an introduction to Christabel and the Lyrical and Imaginative Poems ofS. T. Coleridge (1869) rpt. in Essays and Studies; a preface to the French translation by Tola Dorian of Shelley's Les Cenci (1883); and "Wordsworth and Byron" in Miscellanies (1886).

Swinburne's library contained the following editions of the authors mentioned by Webb; many thanks to William Whitla for access to this list: 335

Blake: Poems ed. R. H. Shepherd (1874) (lot 64). Lyrical Poems, with Introduction by W. Raleigh (1905) (lot 64). Selections from his Works, with Notes, by M. Perugini (1901) (lot 64). Poetical Works ed. W. M. Rossetti presentation copy from W. M. Rossetti in 1874 (1874) (lot 65). Poetical Works ed. W. M. Rossetti Presentation copy from D. G. Rossetti in 1880 (1875) (lot 66). Works, Poetic, Symbolic and Critical. Ed. with a Memoir by E. J. Ellis and W. B. Yeats. 3 vols. (1893) (lot 67). Poetical Works with Variorum Readings. Ed. John Sampson (1905) (lot 68). Swinburne, A. C. William Blake: A Critical Essay. (1906) (lot 68). —. William Blake: A Critical Essay. (1906) (lot 69). Poetical Works. Ed. and annotated by Edwin J. Ellis. 2 vols. (1906) (lot 69). The Life of William Blake [Pictor Ignotus] with Selections from his Poems and Other Writings. Ed. Alexander Gilchrist. 2 vols. (1863) (lot 70). Letters with Life. Ed. Frederick Tathm. Ed. A. G,. B. Russell. Presentation copy from Russell to ACS in 1906 (n.d.) (lot 71). [Engravings] Intro. Laurence Binyon (1902). (lot 260). Prophetic Books of William Blake: Jerusalem. Ed. E. R. D. Maclagan and A. G. B. Russell. Presentation copy to ACS. (1904) (lot 261). Jerusalem, [facsimile] Presentation copy to ACS. n.d. (lot 262). Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Ed. Muir. n.d. (lot 263) Illustrations of the Book of Job reprint n.d. (lot 308). Symons, Arthur. William Blake. (1907) (lot 352). Ellis, Edwin J. The Real Blake: A Portrait Biography. (1907) (lot 466).

Byron: Conversations with the Countess of Blessington (1834) (lot 122). Poetical and Prose Works. Ed. E. H. Coleridge and R. E. Prothero. 13 vols. (1898-1901) (lot 123) Poetical Works, with a Memoir by W. B. Scott n.d. (lot 128). Fugitive Pieces. Facsimile ed. of suppressed edition of 1806 (1886) [T. J. Wise] (lot 265).

Coleridge: Anima Poetae. Ed. E. H. Coleridge (1895) (lot 112). Poems on Various Subjects (1796) (lot 156). Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems (1817) (lot 157). Biographia Literaria. Ed. S. Shawcross. 2 vols. (1907) (lot 157). Specimens of His Table Talk. Ed. H. N. Coleridge. 2 vols. (1835) (lot 158). 336

Poetical and Dramatic Works, n.d. With autograph of ACS in 1849 (lot 159). Anima Poetae, from Unmpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ed. E. H. Coleridge (1895) (lot 160). Poems. Pickering (1848) (lot 396).

Keats: Letters to his Family and Friends. Ed. Sidney Colvin (1891) (lot 324). Letters to Fanny Brawne. Intro, by H. Buxton Forman (1878) (lot 410). Poetical Works. Ed. H. Buxton Forman (1906) (lot 411).

Shelley: Biagi, G. Last Days of Percy Bysshe Shelley: New Details from Unpublished Documents (1898) (lot 60). Letters to Elizabeth Hitchener (1908) (lot 221). Poetical Works. Ed. F. S. Ellis (1895). Kelmscott Press edition; presentation copy to ACS by William Morris in 1895 (lot 420). Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems (1826) (lot 717). Shelley Papers (1833) (lot 717). Poetical Works. Ed. Mrs. Shelley 4 vols. (1839) (lot 718). Poetical Works. Ed. W. M. Rossetti. 2 vols. (1870) (lot 719). Shelley Memorials. Ed. Lady Shelley (1859) (lot 719). Relics of Shelley. Ed. Reid Garnett (1862) (lot 719). Poetical and Prose Works. Ed. H. Buxton Forman. 8 vols. Presentation copy to ACS from Theodore Watts (1876-80) (lot 720). Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations, and Fragments. Ed. Mrs. Shelley. 2 vols. (1840) (lot 721). Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, and Other Poems, edited by B. Dobell, one of 300 copies, Shelley Society, 1886 (lot 722). The Masque of Anarchy, a Poem. Ed. T. J. Wise, one of 200 copies, ib. 1892, presentation copy, with autograph inscription : "To Algernon Chas. Swinburne, Esq. with kindly regards from Thos. J. Wise, March, '93" (lot 722). Hellas, a Lyrical Tragedy. Ed. T. J. Wise, one of 300 copies, uncut, Shelley Society, 1886 (lot 723). Address to the Irish People, with Introduction by T. W. Rolleston, ib. 1890, presentation copy, with autograph inscription :" To A. C. Swinburne with kindest regards from Thos. J. Wise, 52 Ashley Rd., N. 1-1-96" (lot 723). Prologue to Hellas, with Introductory Note, by Richard Garnets, edited and annotated by Thomas J. Wise, only 20 copies printed, portrait, original boards, uncut, presentation copy, with inscription "To A. C. Swinburne, Esq. with T. J. Wise's sincere regards, June 17th, 1886" For 337

private distribution only, 1886 (lot724). The Cenci, Extracts from Reviews of the First Performance, 7th May, 1886, with a Preface by Sydney E. Preston, frontispiece, only 35 copies printed, uncut, presentation copy, with inscription : "To .A. C. Swinburne, Esq. with kindest regards from Thos. J. Wise, June 11th, 1886." For private circulation, 1886 (lot 725). Adonais, edited, with Introduction and Notes, by W. M. Rossetti, Oxford (lot 726). Shelley (P. B. and Elizabeth) Original Poetry, by Victor and Cazire, edited by Ric[har]d. Garnett, uncut, 1898 (lot 727). Thomson (Jas.) Shelley, a Poem, with other Writings relating to Shelley, etc. one of 190 copies, uncut, printed for private circulation, 1884 (lot 727). Trelawny, E. J. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, portrait, etc. 1858 (lot 727). Works. Ed. with Notes, by R. H. Shepherd, 1875 (lot 728). Poetical Works, Second Series, n. d. (lot 728). Poems from Shelley. Selected and arranged by Stopford A. Brooke, 1880 (lot 728). MacCarthy.D. F. Early Life, with Letters, Writings. Portrait, n. d. (lot 728). Les Cenci, traduction de Tola Dorian, avec Preface de A. C. Swinburne, uncut. Paris, 1883; another copy, ib. 1883 (lot 729). Dowden, Edward. Life of Shelley. 2 vols. 2 portraits, red cloth 1886 (lot 730). Lexical Concordance to the Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Compiled and arranged by F. S. Ellis, half morocco, uncut, t. e. g. presentation copy to A. C. Swinburne, from the compiler, with inscription, imp. 8vo, 1892 (lot 731). Hellas. Drame Lyrique. Traduction de Tola Dorian with presentation inscription from the translator (1884) (lot 902). . [Another copy] (1884) (lot 903). . [Another copy] (1884) (lot 904). Epipsychidion. Intro. Stopford Brooke and note by A. Swinburne. Ed. R. A. Potts. Only 15 copies printed. [T. J. Wise] (1887) (lot 905). The Masque of Anarchy. Facsimile of Shelley's MS. with Intro by H. Buxton Forman (1887) (lot 906).

Southey: Omniana, or HoraeOliosiores. 2 vols. (1812) (lot 232). Life and Correspondence. Ed. by his Son. 6 vols. (1849-50) (lot 750).

Wordsworth: Poems. First Edition. 2 vols, in 1 (1801) (lot 861). 338

The Recluse (1888) (lot 861). Poems, Including Lyrical Ballads. 2 vols. (1815) (lot 862). Poems, [another edition] (1847) (lot 862). The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind (1850) (lot 863).

86 In her study of the idea of the "silent or incoherent woman" in Romantic drama, Catherine Beau Burroghs argues that Shelley "temporarily subverts" this stereotype with the creation of Beatrice, only to revert to form in the last act of the play when Beatrice idealizes herself as virtue personified. Thus, for Burroghs, Beatrice loses the sympathy and interest of the audience soon after Cenci's murder (109).

87 See Cave on how Romantic poets anticipated the inward-turning drama of Ibsen. While The Pillars of Society was the first of Ibsen's plays to be performed in England, followed by A Doll's House, Ghosts is the play that attracted a hostile reception in several countries. Robert Tanitch writes that London critics had a field day (303).

88 It is included in an appendix to Victorian Poetry and Poetics, ed. Walter E. Houghton and G. Robert Stange, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968): 861-65.

89 Landow xx. A collected edition of Taylor's plays and poems appeared in 1863. The Cambridge entry observes that the "unfortunate" Taylor, like other "intermediaries," was "pushed from his stool, almost before he was fairly settled on it, by Tennyson, who used quite different forms and methods, and by Browning, who partly used the same, but added many others and wielded them with much greater power. As a dramatic poem, Philip van Artevelde stands very high. . . . But Taylor had the fault—common to both Wordsworth and Southey, of whom he was a kind of disciple—of want of concentration in writing; he lacked action and narrative power."

90 In correspondence describing the ideal of Van Artevelde he sought to create, Taylor's remarks echo Jameson's notion of "consistent inconsistency":

yet there are probably divers traits here and there in the portraiture which may not seem to be exactly consistent with this outline, for I have not been solicitous of minute consistency in drawing my characters. I am of opinion that one who writes under such a solicitude will necessarily lose for his representations the freedom of nature, and with it the truth to nature, consistency, or at least a high degree of it, not being in point of fact natural to man. {Correspondence 56)

91 Joseph 73. See F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay 229.

92 See Swinburne's dedication in the textual notes to A Year's Letters 168.

93 Hyder notes that the Bonchurch edition is "somewhat misleading" in its grouping of A Study of Victor Hugo with both earlier and later material from Essays and Studies (1875) and Studies in Prose and Poetry (1894) {Swinburne as Critic 153).

94 Swinburne visited and dined with Hugo on 22 November 1882, when his hero was nearly eighty-one. Writing an account of the evening to his mother a few days later, he noted: "After dinner, he drank my health with a little speech, of which—tho' I sat just opposite him—my accursed deafness prevented my hearing a single word" {Letters 4: 316). To John Nichol he wrote on December 8, 1882, that Hugo had received him "with literally fatherly kindness" {Letters 4: 322).

95 256. Citations from the preface are from the translation by Laurence Kerslake; where that translation is incomplete, an alternate translation by Blackmore has been used.

96 His views were not universally accepted by his contemporaries, as evidenced by the announcement in the London Telegraph (1883) of a forthcoming production of "the famous drama" Cromwell, at the Theatre de L'Odeon, in Paris, "after being neglected 55 years." The announcement was accompanied by a diatribe on Hugo's claims to "historical accuracy and conscientiousness" in the play, which concludes by labeling it "an outrageous caricature of English history" whose production on the stage "could scarcely fail to be a blow to M. Hugo's fame as a dramatist if not a poet." The article was reprinted in The New York Times on July 14, 1883 (available in their on-line archives). Hugo himself was to prepare a shortened version for the stage.

In 1906, a rather mixed account of the play featured Swinburne's criticism: 340

Swinburne, poet and critic of high order, indulges in extravagant praise of Cromwell for "poetry and thought, passion and humor, subtle truth of character, stately perfection of structure, facile force of dialogue and splendid eloquence of style." What more can be needed to make it the greatest drama of the nineteenth century? And yet it certainly is not that. It is, on the other hand, a splendid attempt of a youthful genius to combine the merits and power of the English and the French ideals of the drama without the necessary preliminary practice in either. Its first line was a shock to classic taste, for it was merely a date, an echo of an almanac. Contrary to French tradition, the play brings a large number of persons on the stage, and, while it does not widely depart from the unities of time and place, it fails to preserve the much more essential unity of action. The play turns on the question: Will the Protector become king of England? Each successive act answers it in a contradictory way until it is decided finally in the negative. It departs widely from the facts of history, and has little regard for the truth of character. The main personages are set in unnatural, overwrought contrast, and the minor excite little interest or none at all. The action is forced and the effect melodramatic. And yet the whole is unmistakably a great work of a great poet. (Bates 18-19)

97 Swinburne felt he had "done justice to Elizabeth" and was evidently proud of the characterization (Letters 4: 234; 246).

98 Further implications of the riddle construct for Swinburne are suggested by this comment on Troilus and Cressida in his Study of Shakespeare:

It would be as easy and as profitable a problem to solve the Rabelaisian riddle of the bombinating chimaera with its potential or hypothetical faculty of deriving sustenance from a course of diet on second intentions, as to read the riddle of Shakespeare's design in the procreation of this yet more mysterious and magnificent monster of a play. Alike in its most palpable perplexities and in its most patent splendours, this political and philosophic and poetic problem, this hybrid and hundred-faced and hydra-headed prodigy, at once defies and derides all definitive comment. (CW11:142) 341

The Rabelaisian riddle is found in Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534; 1532; bk 2, ch 7). On his travels in Paris, Pantagruel visits the Library of St. Victor, and lists its magnificent catalogue of books, including the following title:

Questio subtilissima, utrum Chimera, in vacuo bombinans, possit comedere secundas intentiones, et fuit debatuta per decern hebdomadas in concilio Constantiensi (The most subtle question whether a Chimaera, bombinating in the Void, can be nourished on secondary intentions: one which was debated for ten weeks before the Council of Constance).

See Francois Rabelais, The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. J.M. Cohen (New York: Penguin Classics, 1955).

As either metaphor or analogy, the Rabelaisian riddle has had popular appeal for writers from Swinburne to Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley, and can be found, along with close variants, in speeches, reviews, and other writings up to the twenty-first century.

99 The importance of this pattern to Swinburne is suggested by his comment on the subject of Hannibal: "I am rather inclined to agree ... that the only real end of a poem on Hannibal is the end of his life, and to wish that an Epilogue of at least the same length as the Prologue had been given. As a work of art, too, I think it would have gained in symmetry by this exact counterpoise of the end with the beginning—each removed by a space of years from the main intervening action . . . (Letters 2: 200).

100 Ch. 2.1. In a preceding passage the Queen associates a world asleep with security and certitude:

I would sometimes all things were dead asleep That I have loved, all buried in soft beds And sealed with dreams and visions, and each dawn Sung to by sorrows, and all night assuaged By short sweet kisses and by sweet long loves For old life's sake, lest weeping overmuch Should wake them in a strange new time, and arm Memory's blind hand to kill forgetfulness.

101 On the Renaissance medal, see Rudolph Wittkower's comments in "Hieroglyphics in the Early Renaissance," Developments in the Early Renaissance, ed. Bernard S. Levy (Albany: State U of New York Press, 1972): 74-83. Examples of Scottish monarchs' deployment of chivalric motifs and heraldic symbolism in the production and representation of power are given in Louise Olga Fradenburg, City, Marriage, Tournament: Arts of Rule in Late Medieval Scotland (Madison: U of Wisconson Press, 1991), p. 179. A number of coins, medals, and miniatures of Mary are reproduced in Helen Smailes and Duncan Thomson, The Queen's Image (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1987).

102 Ch. 2.1. Rosemary Freeman describes similar features in Spenser's Faerie Queene, where the treatment of battle action "always retains something of the fixed unmoving quality of a heraldic image .... Movement is framed and formalised" (108). A similarly static battle tableau is again envisioned by Mary: "And under us we saw the battle go / Like running water; . . . yea, one seemed to catch / The very grasp of tumbled men at men, / Teeth clenched in throats, hands riveted in hair" (Ch. 2.1).

103 Mise en abfme (Fr. put or placed into the abyss, into infinity), a term used in contemporary literary and art theory in reference to an image reproduced within itself, such as the device of having an embedded narrative reproduce or reflect a frame narrative. The term derives historically from heraldry in which the smaller shield placed within a larger shield is described as mise en abyme.

104 La Belle 113. Other fruitful avenues of exploration include Lacan's concept of the mirror stage, and Kristeva's model of the split subject.

105 Letters 4: 253. The full statement is as follows: "The two points on which you touch—the balance of (at least, attempted) justice between the two opposite figures of the queens, and the dramatic invention of Mary Beaton's revenge as the cheville ouvriere of the whole piece, 'the very pulse of the machine,' are exactly those on which I should wish the play to rest its claims."

106 See, for example, the closing line in Bothwell where Beaton asserts to Mary that "I will never leave you till you die" (B. 5.13).

107 "For me, God knows I am no wit wroth, -not I"; "I am not wroth"; "I am not wroth"; "I marvel what thing should be done with me / To make me wroth."

108 Barthes's five codes are set out in his work, S/Z. Although not without controversy, his generalized categories are more practical than Elam's for our 343 purpose here. There are, of course, many ways of categorizing codes. Danesi, for example, sets out four major types: social (underlying social communication and interaction), mythic (such as the hero code), knowledge (through which various kinds of knowledge are represented and communicated), and narrative (through which factual and fictional events are represented and contextualized in a time frame in order to create a specific view of reality) (84-88).

109 Since my focus here is the foregrounding of codes, I shall not be applying Austin's speech-act theory in the detailed fashion Swinburne's text otherwise warrants.

110 Elam points out that in the drama, "the metalinguistic function often has the effect of foregrounding language as object or event by bringing it explicitly to the audience's attention in its pragmatic, structural, stylistic or philosophical aspects. At an extreme of linguistic self-consciousness, such commentary serves to 'frame' the very process of character-to-character or actor-to-audience verbal communication, and so becomes part of a broader metadramatic or metatheatrical superstructure" (156).

111 The chapter number is an error; this passage appears in chapter 31.

112 See Bram Dijkstra for an extensive treatment of this theme in the nineteenth century.

113 While at Oxford, Swinburne won second prize in a competition to write a poem about the doomed expedition. See "The Death of Sir John Franklin" in Posthumous Poems.

114 See Giles Milton's The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville (London: Allison & Busby, 1996) which retraces Mandeville's steps to determine if the voyage was real.

115 Note that each continues the use of similes to describe Mary, in this case her love.

116 The word dates from before the twelfth century; it is Middle English from the Old English gyrdan, and is related to Old English geard (yard or enclosure). As a transitive verb, it denotes encircling, binding, or surrounding (such as a belt) as well as providing or equipping, particularly with the sword of knighthood. As an intransitive verb it means to prepare for action—to gird one's loins. 344

117 The Venus device is probably unrelated to a specific source but rather drawn from images and motifs encountered in Swinburne's catholic reading. Jewels of Mary featuring mermaid and Cupid motifs, a jewelled girdle presented her by the French king, and "The Shepheard Buss" embroidery warning of the dangers of love may have provided inspiration: see app. 4 in The Duke of Hamilton, Mary Queen of Scots: The Crucial Years (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1991), and Peter M. Daly, ed., The English Emblem and the Continental Tradition (New York: AMS, 1988): 24-25; Fig. 21.

Amongst the many potential sources of Venus imagery such as Botticelli's Birth of Venus and the Temple of Venus in Spenser's Faerie Queene (4.10.37-47), one might mention the frontispiece to Otto Vaenius's Amorum Emblemata (1608), depicting a charioted Venus and Cupid above tortured figures of humans, birds, and fish. A more speculative, but tempting link, in light of Swinburne's penchant for subverting Christian imagery, is Ledesma's Spanish epigram in the first of Vaenius's Amoris Divini Emblemata (1615), translated by Mario Praz as "The hawk of Divine Love, which has the soul for its prey, feeds on hearts" (Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2nd ed. [Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1964], p. 140).

118 For a history and theory of the device, see Daniel S. Russell, The Emblem and Device in France (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1985). For a discussion of Swinburne's participation in the Victorian revival of emblematics and his use of emblematic imagery in the Mary Stuart trilogy, see M. McKenna, "'Masks of words and painted plots': Swinburne and Nineteenth-Century Emblematics," Emblematica 9:1 (Summer, 1995): 177-97.

119 John 20:17; The New College Latin & English Dictionary (1966; New York: Bantam, 1981) includes both versions of the phrase (p. 38).

120 The Victorian essayist Walter Bagehot employed the expression in an account of Lord Brougham in 1857: see "Historical Essays," in The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, ed. Norman St John-Stevas, 9 vols. (London: The Economist, 1968), III, 178.

121 See "The Venus of Hie," in Carmen and Other Stories, trans. Nicholas Jotcham (New York: Oxford UP,1989), p. 142; "La Venus d'llle" was originally published in the Revue des Deux Mondes (May 15, 1837), and in a volume of other stories in 1841. Merimee's story also alludes to Racine's Phedre (1677) and the Queen's identification of herself with a malevolent Venus in the line, "C'est Venus tout entiere a sa proie attachee!" (1.3; cited in Merimee 141). 345

Swinburne, a fan of continental writers such as Merimee, Gautier, and Baudelaire, had likely read the story.

122 Mary's critique of the device's "fault" bears an interesting resemblance to Ruskin's discussion of the "true" and "false" grotesque in Modern Painters (vol. 3, pt. 4, ch. 8). Here Ruskin illustrates two renderings of a griffin—one the product of the "honest imagination" of its Lombard-Gothic workman, and hence a piece of "true" grotesque, the other a piece of "false" grotesque from classical (Roman) architecture, the product of a "false composer" who composes by "line and rule." He contrasts the cocked ears of the false griffin, which would impede his flying, with those of the real griffin, which are "flat to his head, and all the hair of them blown back, even to a point, by his fast flying. . . ." The real griffin bears the essence of imagination, defined by Ruskin as "seeing to the heart" and thus incapable of erring. By pointing out the unnatural depiction of the Venus's hair, Mary, it can be argued, aligns herself with what is real and true over what is false, emphasizing the gap between the device's signifying features and her own self-representation, and highlighting her role in the text of interrogating representation in general.

123 For background, see Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983). See also, within the vast bibliography on courtly love, F.X. Newman, ed., The Meaning of Courtly Love (Albany: State University of New York, 1968); Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love, ed. Frederick W. Locke (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1963); and D.W. Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1963). Two more recent studies are Paolo Cherchi's Andreas and the Ambiguity of Courtly Love (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1994) and Don Monson's Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition (Washington, D.C., 2005).

124 Harrison notes that Swinburne "appears to have read more extensively in medieval literature, to have studied it more thoughtfully, and to have retained more of what he read than did either Morris or Rossetti" (6).

125 Ch. 3.1. The reference to the Duke's song could be to William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1071-1127). Les chansons de Guillaume IX, due d'Aquitaine, ed. Alfred Jeanroy, was published in Provencal (Paris: Champion, 1913).

126 Beaton's comment to Chastelard that the Queen's "hard heart is not yet so hard as yours" (Ch. 5.1) also suggests a critique of Chastelard's courtly love ethos. 346

For an account of Greimas's model, see the foreword by Fredric Jameson as well as Greimas's essay, "The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints" in A.J. Greimas, On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987).

128 Here biblical echoes of Pilate washing his hands combine with literary ones of Macbeth: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine / Making the green one red" (Macbeth 2.2). Renderings of Pilate washing his hands with which Swinburne was likely familiar include an engraving by Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Pilate Washing his Hands (No. 9), one of fourteen prints of the Engraved Passion series, and the painting by Mattia Preti (1613-1699) of Pilate Washing his Hands (before 1663).

129 See also Louis 18-19 for a reading of this passage.

130 In principle, if not necessarily in practice. Mary asks Darnley to "teach" her words "to move men's minds with" (S.1.3).

131 MS. 5.2. The reference is to the "woman clothed with the sun" in Rev. 12.

132 See "The History of Ester" in The Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Francis Quarles., ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 3 vols. (1880; New York: AMS, 1967) 2: 50. See also Elena Ciletti, "Patriarchal Ideology in the Renaissance Iconography of Judith," Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, ed. Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1991): 38. On Judith as "lustful predator" in the nineteenth century, see Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de- Siecle Culture (New York: Oxford UP, 1986): 375-80.

133 Ch. 2.1. The reputation of James V remained largely favourable until the end of the nineteenth century; see Caroline Bingham, James V King of Scots 1512-1542 (London: Collins, 1971): 11-13.

134 114. To clarify these distinctions, the two kinds of texts can be set out in parallels and contrasts: 347

Readerly Writerlv instrumental; transitive intransitive scripteur / ecrivant author / ecrivain lisible scriptible work text move from writing to world beyond it aim is to produce writing draws attention to author and finished work draws attention to act of writing (for example, rhetorical devices) idle or redundant reader; accept or reject text reader has role, function linkage between signifiers and signifieds signifiers have free play; no is clear, conventional, compulsory direct, compulsory links to signifieds static play

135 Because of the length of the trilogy, a detailed summary is provided as a scholarly aid.

136 At one point, Swinburne apparently conceived of "Fotheringay" as the title of the third play. See Lucy Fountain's record of a meeting with Swinburne on 15 September 1870 in 'An Evening With Swinburne', Galaxy, 12:2 (August 1871), 231-4 (in Rooksby, ed., 155-58). 348

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