Shakespeare

It has been surmised that there is some lost source play for Richard II, but the material for the tragedy was already to hand. There were of course the chronicles of Hall and of Holinshed, from whom he lifts some lines almost verbatim. But there was also the particular example of Samuel Daniel’s The Civile Warres betweene the two houses of Lancaster and Yorke, published in 1595, although it is not altogether clear who borrowed from whom. Daniel was a poet of courtly, rather than theatrical, circles; his sonnet sequence, Delia, had been published in 1592 and had some influence upon Shakespeare’s own ventures in that medium. There was a further association with the dramatist. Until this time Daniel had been part of the household of the Countess of Pembroke, at Wilton; he was tutor to her son, William Herbert, with whom Shakespeare may have had a direct connection through those same sonnets. Daniel was also the brother-in-law of John Florio, whom Shakespeare knew well. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of the Earl of Essex; once more the Essex affinity emerges in this narrative.

If Shakespeare borrowed from Daniel, then in turn the poet borrowed from the dramatist; some effects from Antony and Cleopatra become part of Daniel’s verse drama on the same theme. So there was, in a sense, a meeting of minds. Samuel Daniel is an image of what Shakespeare might have been – a writer of obscure country origins who, by dint of learning and skill, fashioned a career for himself as poet and retainer. There is even the story that, in 1599, Elizabeth had chosen him as unofficial poet laureate in succession to Edmund Spenser; whatever the truth of the matter, there is no doubt that Daniel was considered highly at court.

The Lord Chamberlain’s Men returned to that court for the Christmas season of 1595 about three weeks after their performance at the house of Sir Edward Hoby in Canon Row. It is not known whether they played Richard II before the ageing queen. Six years later she told a visitor to Greenwich Palace that “I am Richard the Second, know ye not that?” and complained that the tragedy “was played fortie times in open streets and houses.” It is not clear what she meant by “open streets” but by “houses” she must have been alluding to private performances of the play, indirectly providing further evidence that the players were indeed hired by nobles or rich men. So, at the very least, she was aware of the play’s existence. Could it have been acted at court at the end of the year?

There was a gap in their performances from 28 December to 6 January, in which interval they travelled to Rutland. In the household of Sir John Harington, at Burley-on-the-Hill, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men gave a performance of an old favourite, Titus Andronicus, as part of the New Year celebrations of 1596. They acted on the evening of their arrival, and left on the following day. Presumably they were well rewarded. It may seem unusual for an entire company to travel over a hundred miles into the heart of Rutland, in order to give one performance of an old play, but as is so often the case in the sixteenth century there are relations and affinities that help to explain the journey. Sir John Harington was an intimate friend of the same Hoby of Canon Row, with whom he had been at Eton. In addition the French tutor in the household, Monsieur Le Doux, was later financed by the Earl of Essex on various expeditions to the continent as an intelligence agent. The mystery deepens in the knowledge that Anthony Bacon’s confidential secretary, Jaques Petit, was also at Burley-on-the-Hill this Christmas and was according to one report posing as Monsieur Le Doux’s valet.⁷ It was he who wrote a letter describing the performance of Titus Andronicus.

So we have Shakespeare and his company paying an especial favour, or tribute, to one of Essex’s affinity. It reaffirms the suggestion that Shakespeare himself was close to the circle of Essex’s supporters, most notable among them the young Earl of Southampton. The familial association between Hoby and Cecil – Hoby’s maternal uncle was William Cecil, Lord Burghley – renders this whole network of friends and relations even more significant, especially since in this period Essex and the Cecils were on friendly terms. Shakespeare, if only briefly, was moving in a world of confidential agents and secret missions, of plot and counter-plot. It was a world that many of his contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe chief among them, knew very well. It must have been a world that Shakespeare himself understood.