JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS -, hphxlPpn them' arose, writes Aubrey, from 'a wonderful I . He continues: '1 think they were both of Queens' College in Cambridge.'2 On this point Aubrey, who had not known The Move to Tragicomedy: the men perscnn.lly and '"vas ""vriting several decadeS after had T",'h.,... Dlo+-r>'ha.. ,.....,...".1 (\+-h~ .. ~ , died, was probably wrong. A youth cd1pcl John Fletcher who '.'lent to J V~H~ .1 ~'-l'-~lI.._~ c:U~U '-J l~lCl.:oJ Corpus Christi, Cambridge at the surprisingly but not impossibly I early age of II in r59I is likely to be the dramatist. Beaumont, younger by some five years, began his university career when he was vlIly vne year older, at Broadgates Bali - later Pembroke '-"Jll<'''''' Oxford, in I597. He left in the follo.,,,......,.ing year, after hia father I and continued his education at the Inner Temple in London. t Aubrey'S demonstrable errors and his reliance on gossip do not confidence, but at least he seems to have spoken to someone I who knew the men. 'I have smce of Sarum, ~v"'\...ho kncvv'" say that ~Y1i BC<lU111Ulll'S lllain business I was to lop the overflowing;; of M. Fletcher's luxuriant and f flowing wit.' 'Earles' (John I598-I665) knew Beaumont well I enough to write a poem on his death in 16r6. Aubrey goes on with 111l11" ;"';,11d,e 11liul1llallUll Wlll\':ll IS I[TeSlSlUHe In Ene plaUSibility ot its picture of a bohemian bachelor household: 'They lived together on I the Bankside, not far from the playhouse, both bachelors; lay together; had one wench in the house between them, which they did so admire I /probably meaning that each of them admired her as much as the IO. John Fletcher. The only of Fletcher, by an J ~ 11 • I ,. 1 1 t 'I ~ ""~"". unknown artIst, shows him extJenSlvel'V a man of /715 socIal UIUj; llle Salllt (,;tomeS ana CloaK e[c. between them. What exact !~Y!!lg .arrangements \'las hinting at and ;vhat happened if they both wanted to go out when It was ramml! - IS Imoosslhle to The on the basis of evidence likely to be determine. The friends may not accepted in a court ot be said that Shakespeare wardrobes, but Beaumont, to judge by his engraved portrait, managed 579-1625). His name to empioy an exceiient barber and hairdresser. So tar as we know, is indelibly associ2.teQ with that of Francis Beaumont. Indeed the Fletcher nC"',lcr married, but the bachelor hOusehold (<11l110i have sur" earliest biographical account of Fletcher comes in the entry for Beau­ vived after 16r3, when F1ptchpr w~s 31 si.nct' in that year Beaumont mont In the scrappy and often unreliable but nevertheless continuously took a wife who was to bear him two daughters. entertaining and informative notebooks of John Aubrey (r626-97) Fletcher, who belonged to a distinguished ecclesiastic and literary known as his Brief Lives, which he wrote mostiy around 1679-80 family, would have been aware of national politics from an early age. h". 'H~':~\'" ,,,ura ~~r ~"hl:e~,ocl ,,~.;l \."" cl:.,cl u;o "~o .. ;~,, ("... J.J.'-Jl- I U ...... l "l,l.IJ.'-IJ. "",,,-. .1'-' }-,UL!t.lJJ..n",y U.lllU. J.J.~ \...I.1O.,.\J.. 1.,.'-1., 5v.)J.lt'] .1"""'" Ilis fathel, RidlarJ, was a dergyman who, wi[h [he backing of the sentences suggest that Beaumont and Fletcher were the closest of t E8.r! of Essex_ heC3me R!~h!1~ of 1 ~nnrfon in : >:0.': P;f·.-..;r~c~n<:::h,. ~~ friends, soulmates as well as professional colleagues. The 'dearness of Dean of Peterborough, he had been deeply involved in the trial and 194 195 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS 1606 and published in 1607, This 'li.ras a colln.boration vvith BfaUi1iont who had already, at the age of 22, written single-handed what is now his best-known work, The Knight ofthe Burning Pestle- a failure in its own time, perhaps because at its structural originality. Both plays quote from Shakcspeare to comic dfcd. The Knight of the Burmng Pestle, written for ~ boys' company, opens v",.ith an Induction in whi<.:h a Grocer, soon followed by his wife and his apprentice, R8Je (or Ralph), leaps upon the stage to hijack the play that the boys have been intending to give, demanding instead one that will glorify his trade. Offering her son as a substitute actor, the grocer's wife boasts that the lad will act you sometimes at our house that all the neighbours cry out on him. He win fetch you up a couraging part so in the garret that we are all as feared, I Wflrrarrt you, that We quake again. 'we'U fear our chiidren With him it they be never so unruly. no hqr cry 'B~afe comef;, P",~fe comes!' tv theni aEJ be as quiet as lambs. (lines 66-72) II. Francis Beaumont. This handsome engraving ofBeaumont is based on a This may only subliminally recall Bottom in /'1 lv1idsUirttner l~ight's [Jonrair by an unknown artIst. Dream 'I will roar that I will do any man's he:lrt !':ood to he2f me. Cxc\.:ulIon or lVlary, ~ueen ot :>cots, eXhortmg her on the scatiold to 1 Will roar that I will make the Duke say "Let him roar again; let him return to the Protestant fold and praying for her soul before she was roar again!"'( I.2.66-9). Immediately after it, however, there is an beheaded. This was in I 'i 87, when the future playwright was 8 years undeniable Shake~reare quotation as the \X1ife, abettcd by the GWCel, old. Richard was a tough-minded preacher, militant in his faith, and instructs her son to demonstrate his mettle by speaking 'a hu ffine part', not afraid of rebuking even his Queen from the pulpit. Preaching whereupon Ralph launches into five lines only slightly misquoted from before Eiizabeth only a few days after the executlOn, he sternly a speech at Hotspur in one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, rebuked her far indu!gir~g in rcrr'torsc aiid caHc.d fOi- cVcl1 iHOfe 1igUl uu:; IIe.nry T\t, Part One: persecution of her Catholic enemie~. Tn spite of this his life C2me to 2 By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap peaceful if abrupt end. Smoking a pipe of tobacco in his house in To piuck bnght honour from the pale-faced moon, Chelsea on the evening of 15 June 1596 he said to his servant, 'Boy, Or dive lru0 the bOtt011l uf the sea, 1 die', and expired on the spot. His brother Giles, a poet and diplomat Where never f~thnTl')-line touched :.1ny ground, whv tJavdleJ LO lvloscow on a speciai mission in 1588 and wrote. a And pluck up drowned honour from the lake of hell.· book about his experiences n1any of them extremely trying an his return, took over the upbringing of the Bishop'S eight children, The nlisquot::ltion IT1:.1y imply that Beaumcnt thought he knew the including the future playwright. Giles's son Phineas (1582-165°) was lines well enough to quote them from memory. Later in thf' comedy also a clergyman and poet. So John Fletcher had every encouragement comes a burlesque episode which must recall the dead Banquo's to embark upon a iiterary career. appearance to Macbeth in the banquet scene. The apprentice Jasper, Thr. h~o~ ,,!~,. ;" ".,h;",\-. \-.~ ;~ !.-'''-''''., !-... ~!-" ,".L .. t..... ;-:::::::.-... :: .... ..: ........ ~ ..... ~....... ~, ~J...,5UD1.,.." ~l.llU;')~;l (:1:> ill~ uwll gnosT In Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier, written for Paul's Boys around the attempt to frighten his master Venturewe11 into allowing him to I9 6 I97 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS marry his daughter, Luce. Entering 'with his face mealed', Jasper scene, for instance, the Satyr's exit couplet, 'I mnst go; T must r1m, ! threatens Venturewell: Swifter than the fiery sun', recalls Robin Goodfellow's 'Igo, I go look When thou art at thy table with thy friends, how I go, I Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow' (A Midsummer Merry in heart and filled with Night's Dream, 3.2.100-101). And only a few hnes iater the faithful o"v"cr come ill midst of ail thy pnde and shepherdess, grieving the grave of her dead lover, sl?eaks III vlsiLle to alliliell but of herself in lines that faintly recall Titania's memories of Indian i\nd 'Nhisoer such a sad tale in thine ear mother who 'being mortal, of that boy did die' 5) while Shall make thee let the cup fall from also trembling with echoes of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, as And stand as mute and as Death itself. ~~~'H""b' at least to a modern reader, Poor Torn in King Lear: 5, lines He was I And she that bore me mortal: prick my most popular play, Hamlet, provides the basis for a jest in The Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier, a delightful comedy And it wiil bieed; a fever shakes me, weii worthy of revivaLs An unusuai fish has been caught and, as 'a .ltnd the selfsame wind that ma.kes the YOlUlg lalI1b:, shrink 6 .. ~"~~ .... L_ L .. __J L __ L~~_ ' ___ .~~ ........... ....l L .. ~ "'''" .......................... ,-1 ...................... Makes me a-cold. laIC: , Un... 1ll.:.-dU lid.:') U~~ll d!-'!-)VIUl.I.,...U uy "VUHHallUl11\"'UL­ for thl' Dl1kl"~ own tahll' this dinnl'r'. L17arello, known as 'the hungry In his address 'To w.1.C Reader' of the publisheJ text? Flt:tcher describes courtier', goes to great lengths to manoeuvre an invitation to taste this playas 'a pastoraI tmgi-('omeciy' and says that it had its 'this sacred dish'.