Shakespeare

But why did the Lord Chamberlain’s Men agree to perform Dekker’s Satiromastix in which Ben Jonson is caricatured? The immediate cause is not hard to discern. Jonson had begun writing for the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars. He and the adult players may have been involved in some kind of quarrel or conflict in connection with their productions of Every Man in His Humour and Every Man out of His Humour . It is perhaps more likely that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men had rejected a new play offered to them by Jonson. Had he expected Cynthia’s Revels to be performed at the Globe? There was another irritant, however. The boys’ companies readily asserted their “gentle” associations and the exclusiveness of the private theatres. The playwrights who wrote for them took some delight in mocking the “common players” of the public playhouses. And this is what Jonson did. In the plays he wrote for performance at Blackfriars he ridiculed the “common actors,” “the decayed dead arras in a public theatre” and those who “will press forth on common stages.” He also accused the actors of being “licentious, rogues, libertines, flat libertines.” 2The players of the Globe took their revenge.

It is even possible that Shakespeare wrote a scene for Satiromastix in which Horace, aka Jonson, comically labours over the composition of an ode. The author of the Parnassus trilogy refers to that “pestilent fellow,” Ben Jonson, and to the fact that “our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit.” 3In a prologue later written for Poetaster , Jonson ruefully berated “some better natures” who had been persuaded to “run in that vile line.” At the time, however, Jonson was not so sanguine. In Poetaster itself he had attacked the Globe for ribaldry and its actors for hypocrisy and stupidity. But one of them in particular is addressed as “proud”: “You grow rich, do you, and purchase?” 4The same actor is also mocked for his coat of arms, when it is made clear that his real pedigree is listed in the Statute of Rogues and Vagabonds that controlled the activities of players. It was in the autumn of 1599 that the Shakespeares had sought to impale their arms with those of the noble family of the Ardens.

Shakespeare did not reply directly. That was not his way. Instead he refers to the whole controversy in Hamlet , the play most notably established upon the devices of the theatre. Rosencrantz remarks to Hamlet that “there is Sir an ayrie of Children, little Yases [an eyas was a young hawk], that crye out on the top of question; and are most tyrannically clap’t for’t; these are now the fashion, and so be-ratle the common Stages (so they call them)” that as a consequence there was “for a while no mony bid for argument, vnlesse the Poet and the Player went to Cuffes in the Question” (1269-85). Hamlet’s uncharacteristically reasonable response is that the boys should not disparage the “common players” when, at a later stage, they were likely to become them.

The whole controversy faded away, and soon enough the major antagonists were working together once more. It had elements of “ado” about “nothing,” too, in the sense that Richard Burbage himself had leased the Blackfriars Playhouse to the Children of the Chapel Royal; the owner of the Globe was making money from his apparent rivals, and it is possible that the “war” was in part an advertising opportunity for the sake of attracting more custom. The nature of Elizabethan society in any case encouraged sudden “flares” followed by equally sudden reconciliations. The rumblings of the controversy, however, can still faintly be heard in Twelfth Night and Troilus and Cressida .

At the end of the century there was a positive rush of Shakespeare’s plays to the printers, which is some indication of his prevailing popularity. In the autumn of 1599 there were new editions of Romeo and Juliet and of the first part of Henry IV; there was also another edition of Venus and Adonis , suggesting that his standing as a poet was still as high as that of playwright. At the beginning of 1600, in fact, a “staying entry” was placed in the Stationers’ Register for “A booke called Amours by J.D. with certain other sonnetes by W.S.” In the previous year, as we have seen, some of Shakespeare’s sonnets had been pirated for a volume entitled The Passionate Pilgrim . It may have been that Shakespeare wanted his real work to be duly registered and noted.

The new edition of Romeo and Juliet was described as “Newly corrected, augmented and amended,” while the new edition of Henry IV was described as being “Newly corrected by William Shake-speare.” It may have simply been an advertising device, to persuade readers of the “newness” of the edition. In the same period the Admiral’s Men, about to move into the recently built Fortune, were also advertising their wares by publishing the works they owned. The two companies, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and the Admiral’s Men, had a virtual monopoly on play texts as well as on plays. But in the phrase “newly corrected” there is at least a suggestion that Shakespeare was actually revising and rewriting his plays ahead of publication. His name was in any case at a premium, and had gone beyond the usual bounds of the universities and the legal Inns. In the summer of 1600 The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It were placed in the Stationers’ Register “to be stayed,” so that the very latest plays would at least in theory soon become available. It certainly meant that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, no doubt including Shakespeare himself, were eager to safeguard what was becoming more valuable literary property. These entries were followed by A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the second part of Henry IV , credited as being “written by master Shakspere.” Curiously enough Julius Caesar was not registered at all. This might suggest that the play was less than successful on the public stage, but there is a more pertinent explanation. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign it was not considered prudent or appropriate to publish a play in which a ruler is assassinated by his courtiers.

The number of Shakespeare’s plays published through 1599 and 1600 also suggests that the printed versions were becoming a staple part of the city’s literary currency, akin to pamphlets and to sermons. For a previous generation they had been catchpenny curiosities. Now they were regularly to be found on the bookstalls. Shakespeare was in the air. The Countess of Southampton was making playful allusions to Falstaff in the same year as verses were being written by admirers “Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare” in which he is praised as “honie-tongued.” 5

It was not an easy time, however, for the companies. In June 1600, the Privy Council limited playing time to two performances a week. The order did not preclude royal performances, of course, and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men played twice before the queen during the Christmas season. They were, however, about to encounter royal disapproval.

The official documents of the case tell their own story. “The Erle of Essex is charged with high Treason, namely, That he plotted and practised with the Pope and king of Spaine for the disposing and settling to himself Aswell the Crowne of England, as of the kingdome of Ireland.” In one count of the indictment he was charged with “permitting of that most treasonous booke of Henry the fourth to be printed and published … also the Erle himself being so often present at the playing thereof, and with great applause giving countenance and lyking to the same.” 1The treasonous book was John Hayward’s account of the abdication and murder of Richard II. The drama that the Earl of Essex greeted with great applause was Shakespeare’s play of the same name. It would seem, therefore, that Shakespeare was somehow implicated in treason and conspiracy. Essex had planned an uprising on the streets of London that would be a prelude to the invasion of the court, ostensibly to protect the monarch from her advisers. Yet the main purpose of the rebellion was to protect Essex himself who, after his failure in Ireland, had been placed under house arrest and was fearful of even more serious consequences.