h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Being Shakespeare 2012 Biographical dramatisation with Simon Callow

Written by Jonathan Bate, a one man show with Simon Callow. The theme is ‘All the World’s a Stage’ and the seven ages of man. Each age is illustrated with relevant excerpts from the plays and poems and additional stories about William.

As with almost all biographies of people living prior to the eighteenth century a certain amount of ‘padding’ goes on. The ingredients for an interesting biography of Will Shakespeare must include; the facts gleaned from contemporary documents, conjectures drawn from ElizaJacobean social history, what happened to the general probably happened to the particular, biographical hints from the writings, always dangerous pre 19th century and doubly so when investigating a playwright. All those separate voices, which one do you choose? And the legends.

When the first biographers began attempting to collect information for the life at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries they found very little evidence. One major reason had to be that between then and Shakespeare’s death the country had undergone a civil war, a puritan republic, and the closure of all theatres for eighteen years. But there were still people living in and around Stratford whose parents almost certainly may have remembered the Shakespeares.

Stories were told and accepted into the life. As time went on scholars tested them against new evidences and they have been consigned to footnotes. But they are still of interest, so here are four of them for your delight.

William Shakespeare: Car park attendant.

How did William get into the theatre business? We don’t know. We know nothing about him between the baptism of his twins in February 1585 (although he may not have been in attendance then, he certainly had to be at their conception in April 1584) and 1592 when Greene’s ‘Groatsworth of Wit’ first makes a public allusion to him as a playwright.

One legend has it that when he came first to London he found work holding the horses of the gentry when they rode out to see the plays. Apparently he was so trustworthy and efficient at this task that everyone wanted to employ him and he was eventually forced to take on more staff. These boys, trained by the master, would run up to the riders and announce ‘I am Shakespeare’s boy, sir’.

It has been suggested that anyone wealthy enough to keep a horse would also be able to hire a servant to look after it. Indeed keeping a manservant was probably much cheaper than keeping a horse. And horses were valuable property, not to be left in the hands of strangers. Consider going to the local public swimming baths and handing over your wallet to some strange kid hanging around the entrance.


William Shakespeare: Deer poacher.

Why did Will leave Stratford in the first place? Simple says this legend. At one time he and some friends were caught poaching on the property of the local Justice of the Peace Sir Thomas Lucy. He was variously, depending on the story, shamed by being publicly denounced as a poacher; imprisoned; or publicly whipped. Whatever happened, Will was so irate he turned his considerable talents to writing a scurrilous poem which he attached to the gates of Charlecote Park, the Lucy residence just four miles north of Stratford.

Naturally this insult to a knight of the realm was not to be endured, and he pursued Will to the extent that Will had to flee to London in fear of his life. Sad for the young family but where would English drama be today otherwise? Later scholars would point out that Charlecote didn’t have a deer park, but undeterred the legendists (is that a word? If not, what’s good enough for Will is good enough for me) moved the poaching episode a couple of miles further to Fulford on where there was a deer park on a property then owned by a descendant of Thomas Lucy. Unfortunately for the tale, this deer park did not exist until 1615.

Further evidence to bolster the story was found in the play ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ in which Sir Robert Shallow, justice of the peace in Gloucestershire, has come up to the court to prosecute Falstaff for poaching his deer. There is much made of insulting puns on the luces (called louses) in Shallow’s coat of arms. The Lucy family also had luces in their arms. The luce was a freshwater fish known nowadays as a Pike, and was a punning reference on the Lucy name.

It does however seem unlikely that Will would make such an obscure reference to an event that occurred more than ten years previously in Warwickshire, which most (if not all) of the London audience would not make any connection to. There is in fact a much better candidate for this jest. A justice of the peace called Gardiner who was by all accounts a rogue and no true gentleman, although as he had married a descendant of the Lucy family was entitled to impale his coat of arms with three luces, who was involved in a vicious law suit with one Francis Langley, owner of the Swan Theatre, hard by the Globe.

William Shakespeare and the buxom Jennet Davenant

Thomas Davenant was a vintner who imported wine and sold it from his tavern in Oxford, named in a white hot moment of creative genius, ‘The Tavern’. He had a younger wife who, by all accounts was a beauty and witty and cheerful too. They had a number of children one of whom was christened William. This William Davenant grew up to be a poet and playwright and led an extremely colourful existence.

He took over from Ben Jonson as partner to Inigo Jones for the writing and designing of Court Masques, and on the death of Ben became Poet Laureate. When the Civil War broke out (English, 17th century, the original) he naturally supported the Royalist cause, imprisoned for a time for his involvement in a plot to march on London and crush Parliament. Freed he commanded a packet boat that ran munitions through the Roundhead blockade. He was eventually captured on the Isle of Wight and imprisoned in the Tower for two years.

He survived through to the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, although not unscathed as he contracted syphilis and as a result of the mercury treatments, lost his nose. Despite this he must have been some charmer as he immediately married his physician’s widow.

His claim to fame in this story is that he was Shakespeare’s godson. In later years when he was enjoying a tipple after dinner he would regale the guests with stories of Will stopping off at the Davenants on his way to and from Stratford. After a few more chota pegs he would confidentially inform his friends that he was not just Will’s ‘spiritual poetic’ heir, but in fact his natural son.

His companions recorded their outrage in their day books, the idea that a son could be so loose as to brand his mother a whore. Is there any substance to the story, or can we save Jennet from calumny? Certainly Oxford was on the London Stratford route and a likely place to break the journey. Unfortunately the Davenants kept a tavern not an inn, so sleeping accommodation was not available to rent. Adjacent to the Tavern was an inn, ‘The Crown’ so it would perhaps have been possible for Will to pop over for some extra bedtime cocoa.

Probably the crucial evidence is Shakespeare’s Will. In it he bequeaths a sum in gold to his godson, William Walker of Stratford. No mention of any other godson. Even if Will could hardly confess to a bastard son in his will, he would surely have mentioned a godson. It would appear likely that Davenant wasn’t Shakespeare’s, neither son nor godson.

William and the blushing maiden Anne

On November 28th there is recorded a marriage bond granted to William Shagspere (appropriate in the circumstances) and Anne Hathwey to allow them to marry, subject to the friends named in the bond agreeing to indemnify the Bishop if any suit for damages arises.

Happily for the legendarianists (that’s mine too) on November 27th there is recorded the licence to marry with but one reading of the banns between Wm Shaxpere and Annam Whateley. What’s going on here? Marriage was not allowed during Advent which ran from 1st December to 6th January. Anne Hathaway was pregnant when she married and unless a special licence could be obtained, which allowed for one reading of the banns not the customary three, she could not get to church until the following January by which time it might have been too obvious.

That explains the special licence and the bond indemnifying the bishop (put up by two of Anne’s deceased father’s friends), but does not explain why two different women are named. The most romantic answer is the best. Will had met and fallen in love with the rosy cheeked doe eyed beautiful young virginal Ann Whateley. Being a good girl she wasn’t about to allow Will his way, and so he looked for a final sowing of wild oats elsewhere.

And a fertile ground for sowing was provided by Anne Hathaway, past her best, heading into old maidsville, and according to some nasty minded authors, not too fussy about the company she kept. Will and Anne the Virginal go off to Worcester to obtain a licence to wed but the Hathaways and their neighbours hear about it and hot foot it down to the court to intercept them and ‘persuade’ Will to front up to his responsibilities.

Leaving a grieving Ann Whateley to reject the world and enter a nunnery, from where she later pens a number of plays which she delivers to Will allowing him to become a success on the stage. Or just maybe it was a slip of the pen by the clerk who had been dealing that morning with a disputed case involving tithes and a preacher called Whateley.

Many of the stories still have life. In the play ‘Being Shakespeare’ Callow presents the horse holding episode as fact, with nary a wink. And remember that the writer, Jonathan Bate is a highly regarded Shakespearian scholar and no mere scribbler. But as a press reporter in ‘The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance’ says “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.

When the first biographers began attempting to collect information for the life at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries

should be end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. But you all knew that

Deb

[Amy P]