Shakespeare may even have lived among them. The eighteenth-century scholar, Edmond Malone, has left a note stating that “from a paper now before me, which formerly belonged to Edward Alleyn, the player, our poet appears to have lived in Southwark, near the Bear garden, in 1596.”3
That paper has never been recovered. But whatever the date of Shakespeare’s removal to the south bank of the Thames, Wayte’s petition reveals one salient fact. Shakespeare was associated with people not altogether dissimilar to the comic pimps and bawds of his plays. He was thoroughly acquainted with the “low life” of London. It was an inevitable and inalienable part of his profession as a player. The fact is often forgotten in accounts of “gentle” Shakespeare but it is undoubtedly true that he knew at first hand the depths, as well as the heights, of urban life.
And then, for the winter season, he was once more in front of the queen. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men gave six performances at court, among them of The Merchant of Venice
and King John. It is also possible that Falstaff made his appearance before the sovereign, in the first part of Henry IV. There is a long-enduring story that Elizabeth was so taken with the comic rogue that she requested a play be written in which Falstaff falls in love; the requests of Elizabeth were never lightly refused, and so appeared The Merry Wives of Windsor. It is a charming, if unconfirmed, story.The nature of The Hystorie of Henry the Fourth
, otherwise known as the first part of Henry IV, has also been the subject of debate. It is not clear whether Shakespeare wrote it with Part Two in mind, or whether the narrative grew under his hand. The first part did in any case provoke controversy of another kind. The Lord Chamberlain, Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham, had been alerted to the fact that the play’s principal comic character was named Sir John Oldcastle. He may well have first seen the play in the presence of the queen at court. He was related to the original Oldcastle, and was not pleased with the farce surrounding the theatrical namesake. The real Oldcastle had been a supporter of the Lollards who had led an abortive insurrection against Henry V; subsequently he had been executed for treason. But he was considered by many to have been a proto-Protestant, and thus an early martyr to the cause of Reformation. His descendant did not approve of his presentation as a thief, braggart, coward and drunkard.So Cobham wrote to the Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney, who in turn passed on the complaint to Shakespeare’s company; Shakespeare was then obliged in the second part of the play to change the name of his comic hero, from Oldcastle to Falstaff, and publicly to disavow his original creation. It is not clear why in the beginning Shakespeare chose the name of Oldcastle. It has been suggested that Shakespeare’s “secret” Catholic sympathies led him to lampoon this Lollard and anti-Catholic. In his Church History
Thomas Fuller writes of Shakespeare’s original use of Oldcastle, “but it matters as little what petulant Poets as what malicious Papists have written against him.” But it seems unlikely that any overt Catholic bias entered the play. The name of Oldcastle had already appeared in The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, and Shakespeare may simply have borrowed it without considering the connection with Cobham.It was in any case changed, and not without a certain humiliation on Shakespeare’s part. In an epilogue to the second part of Henry IV
he himself came upon the stage and announced that “for any thing I knowe Falstaffe shall die of a sweat, vnlesse already a be killd with your harde opinions; for Oldecastle died a Martyre, and this is not the man …” (3224-7). Then he danced, and afterwards knelt for the applause.The connection was not wholly erased, however. In a letter to Robert Cecil the Earl of Essex gave out the news that a certain lady was “maryed to Sir Jo. Falstaff” -this was the Court nickname now given to Lord Cobham. The name of Oldcastle was also still associated with Henry IV
, and in fact the Lord Chamberlain’s Men played for the Burgundian ambassador a play entitled Sir John Old Castell. Shakespeare’s inventions have a habit of lingering in the air.