Martin Stephen - The Conscience of the King

'So?' said Shakespeare violently, rallying. 'We've endured their vilification for years. And not just them. We're vilified by the people who use us most, just like a whore! What of it?' There was a pathetic braggadocio to the man. Or perhaps a trace of real courage. Would Gresham have been happy to fight alongside this man? he wondered. Strangely, against all reason, perhaps he might have been/Providing, of course, he had been able to pour a bottle of wine down him first. Dismissing the thought, he bored in to Shakespeare.

'What if the very powers of the land, the Establishment, its aris-tocracy and nobility, have succumbed to the new power of the theatre? What if, instead of wanting their thoughts and dreams and the wild imaginings read out in private to a closed group of adoring Court ladies and fawning men, they want them played before thousands, night after night? What if they have found themselves lured into Writing plays? Plays they cannot own up to, of course. Heaven forbid that the ruling classes should stoop so low as to write a play! Yet suppose their idle brains have found amusement in so doing? What easier than to find a cipher, a nameless man of the theatre, to give his name to their offerings? What if they chose a feeble poet, a man who had proved his ability for deceit in his life as a spy, and an actor of at best limited ability, to put his name to their work?'

'What if they have?' mumbled Shakespeare, seeming to see the end of the world in the bottom of an empty wine glass.

'Well then,' said Gresham, 'what if some mischief-maker decides to expose these idle aristocrats? Expose them to the Puritans. Expose them to the people as too cowardly to own up to their own words. Expose them as liars. Expose them as deceivers. Expose them to ridiculeV

'And what if they do?' Shakespeare had looked up from his glass now. He gazed into Gresham's eyes, but did not see them. He was looking into a void, an abyss of hopelessness that not even Gresham's greatest depression had plunged him in to.

'What if they do?' continued Gresham remorselessly. 'Well, we know our rulers are liars. Machiavelli told us why they have to be. Yet look at the response when Machiavelli dared to tell people the truth. He was consigned to hell. We must not know that our rulers tell lies! But if they do want to expose the truth,' Gresham carried on remorselessly, 'then two separate forces will work on the source of the lie. On you, Master William Shakespeare. The supposed author of these plays. The man who in reality takes the manuscripts, tidies them up a bit for theatre and puts them out as his work — all for a healthy fee, of course! There'll be the force of those who desperately want their foray into the theatre kept a secret. Then there's the other party, the ones who want their genius acknowledged, who want to take the glory of their writing for themselves.'

Shakespeare's head jerked up at that. So at least one person wanted their anonymity removed, wanted to claim the credit for the play they had laundered through Shakespeare's name.

'What a mess you're in, Master William Shakespeare! One party will try to keep your secret by having you killed. The other party will try everything to keep you alive and pressure you into telling the truth. And the manuscripts, the original manuscripts of the many and varied plays by William Shakespeare, will be in the handwriting of the original authors, for all that one or two may have trusted the writing to a treasured clerk.'

Shakespeare's head shot up. A hit! Which of Shakespeare's wealthy clients had sent his manuscript in by a clerk's hand, and not his own?

'No wonder you're being torn apart,' said Jane. 'You poor, poor man. You just can't win, can you?'

'How did you guess?' asked Shakespeare, looking bleakly at Gresham.

'The pamphlet. There, in the chest. "To our English Terence, Mr Will. ShakeS 'Speare" Terence. Wasn't he the impoverished Roman writer who agreed to publish under his own name works that Roman noblemen had written but for one reason or another didn't care to acknowledge? Congratulations. Ben Jonson would be proud of you. For all your lack of classical learning, you've acted in a true classical tradition.'

'You think you know it all, don't you?' Shakespeare had gone beyond despair, into a region Gresham did not recognise.

'No,' said Gresham truthfully, i never. think I know it all. I like to find out enough to survive.'

An agony of thought passed over Shakespeare's raddled face. Finally, he came to a decision, i was a nobody! I was struggling in the company. I can't act, you know. I'm hopeless! They were going to get rid of me, a poor country boy with no talent except a way with poems. Poems never filled a house. Then this manuscript arrived. A complete play! Addressed to me, with a covering letter and a promise of money if I did what I was told. I knew it was Marlowe, from the writing, the words, the way he used language… so 1 took it. And I gave it my name. I told Hemminge and Condell. My friends, no one else. They thought it was a gold mine. The others in the company, the ones who wanted to get rid of me, looked at me with new respect. "It's good, Will," they said, patronising me, when I produced the first script under my name. "We'll put it on, for a trial, you understand. See how it goes down. See if it works." And it meant 1 could stop working for Cecil. Say goodbye to William Hall. Be William Shakespeare only.'

'Poor old Marlowe, not wanting to be dead at all,' said Gresham. 'And most of all not wanting to be a dead dramatist.' He stopped for a moment. 'So what went wrong with the system?' i don't know!' said Shakespeare. His hands were running over his bald pate, as if the hair was still there. 'Marlowe's plays stopped, ten, maybe twelve years ago. They just stopped. Until now. When he came back. Mad. Diseased. Barking.'

'Any others know?'

'Ah the bloody world and their grandma for all I care!' exploded Shakespeare. 'Lots of people have suspicions. Jonson does, I know.

As for anyone else who knows for certain, well, you're the spy. You tell me!'

'But it didn't end with Marlowe, did it?' said Gresham, relentless. Shakespeare rocked back, hit hard. 'I knew Marlowe. I know the works he wrote under his own name. I know the plays you've written. My favourites?' Gresham was pacing around the room. 'Hamlet. King heir. Marlowe could never have written those! Marlowe's heroes never pause to worry about what other people think. Hamlet's crippled because he can think of nothing else. Leir's damned because he never listens until it's too late! Who else writes plays with your name on themV

'Oxford,' whispered Shakespeare, seeming to draw into himself as a penis will shrink and shrivel with intense cold.

'Who?' said Gresham with intense rudeness.

'Edward De Vere!' Shakespeare shouted back. 'The fucking Earl of fucking Oxford! There were lots of people who wanted to write plays back then. People who didn't dare to have it known.'

'The one who couldn't forget the fart?' said Mannion, who had been listening, engrossed, to the developing conversation.

'What?' said Gresham.

'Oxford. De Vere. The one who couldn't forget the fart.' Mannion gave a guffaw of laughter. Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, had been a fierce patron of the players. He had equipped and served on-board a ship for the Armada. Then he had farted. Before his Queen. In full assembly. He had run from the Court before a word could be said and exiled himself to Europe for years. There he had developed a fondness for the most extravagant Italian style of dress. On his return, he had presented himself before his Queen in all his finery. Whatever else she may have possessed, Queen Elizabeth had a raucous sense of humour. Faced with this extraordinary vision of Italian fashion, she had received his supplications of loyalty with regal splendour. Then she had reduced the Court to fits of suppressed laughter by her next statement.