Shakespeare

There were a small number of Jews in sixteenth-century London, as well as ostensible converts from Judaism known as Marranos, generally living and working under assumed names. In 1594, only two years before the first production of The Merchant of Venice, the Earl of Essex had been instrumental in the apprehension, torture and death of Roderigo Lopez, a Jewish doctor accused of attempting to poison the queen. There is an allusion to that affair in the play itself. But the stage image of Jews essentially came from the mystery plays, where they were pilloried as the tormentors of Jesus. In the dramatic cycle Herod was played in a red wig, for example; it represents the origin of the clown in pantomime. It was the costume of Barabas in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. It is, in effect, the image with which Shakespeare was obliged to work. Yet out of the character he created something infinitely more interesting and sympathetic than the stock type. As a result Shylock has entered the imagination of the world.

CHAPTER 50 What Are You? A Gentleman

Less than three months after Hamnet’s death, John Shakespeare was awarded a coat of arms by the Garter King of Arms. He became a gentleman, and of course his son would share that appellation by inheritance. It is more than likely, in fact, that Shakespeare himself was responsible for the renewal of an application that his father had made – and then dropped – twenty-eight years before. The cost of obtaining the coat of arms had then seemed prohibitive but, in the milder climate of Shakespeare’s new-found affluence, that impediment had gone. It is difficult to be sure of the time needed to procure such a suit, but Shakespeare must have entered his father’s submission before Hamnet’s death. It would have been fitting and appropriate for Shakespeare to wish to pass on his new status to his only son, a natural succession that Hamnet’s death frustrated.

The coat of arms was a rebus, or pun on the name of Shakespeare. On the grant of arms an heraldic drawing was sketched at the top of the page; it showed a falcon, holding a spear, perched above a shield and crest. The falcon is displaying its wings, in the action known as “shaking.”¹ The motto included here, “Non sainz droict,” means “Not without right.” The shaken spear was of gold tipped with silver, as if it were some courtly or ceremonial staff, and the falcon itself was considered to be a noble bird. The livery of the Earl of Southampton contained four falcons, and it is possible that Shakespeare was claiming some kind of relationship with him. The whole device is somewhat assertive, and no doubt reflected the conviction of the Shakespeare males (or at least of one of them) that they were indeed gentlemen.

The Garter King of Arms had granted these arms to John Shakespeare “being solicited and by credible report informed” that his “parentes amp; late Grandfather for his faithfull amp; valeant service were advaunced amp; rewarded by the most Prudent Prince King Henry the seventh of famous memorie.”² This seems to have been sheer invention on the Shakespeares’ part; there is no record of any Shakespeare being honoured by Henry VII. But it may have been one of those “family stories” that are believed without necessarily being investigated.

Shakespeare seems to have been preoccupied with heraldry. In Richard II he displays considerable technical knowledge of the subject, while Katherine says in The Taming of the Shrew (1028-30):

If you strike me, you are no Gentleman,

And if no Gentleman, why then no armes.

To which Petruchio replies:

A Herald Kate? Oh put me in thy bookes.

There is in the same play an episode clearly taken from a volume of heraldry, Gerard Legh’s Accedens of Armory ³ suggesting that Shakespeare was reading such books as early as the 1580s. He wished to demonstrate, and to publicise to the world, his “gentle” state. It was a way of setting himself apart from the still ambiguous reputation enjoyed by most players. It was also an indirect way of associating himself with the Ardens of his mother’s line. In a more immediate sense he was restoring his family’s reputation after the sudden and perplexing withdrawal of John Shakespeare from public business.