Robert Nye - The Late Mr Shakespeare

O GOD, who hast laid the foundations of the earth that they shall never be moved, receive the prayers and oblations of thy people: put far from us the present perils of earthquake, and turn the terrors of thy divine anger into a wholesome medicine for the safety of mankind; that they who are of the earth and shall return to earth, may rejoice to be made citizens of heaven by holy conversation.

Through CHRIST, Our Lord. Amen.

But you hadn't said a word about whittawers in this chapter ...

That, madam, is the point if you will take it.

What I'm really doing is avoiding my next chapter - the subject or ruler of which I introduced some few paragraphs above. I need more than a prayer against earthquakes to undertake with impunity what I have now to tell you.

Chapter Twenty What if Queen Elizabeth was Shakespeare's mother?

Well then, now then, William Shakespeare, the matter of his mother, his real mother and was she Mary Arden. Some say she was not. Was she Juliet then, the miller's daughter? That is not likely. The mother of William Shakespeare could not have been a woman who lacked conversation. Given that John Shakespeare was a huge, heavy bull of a man, she must have been a woman of unusual capacity. Yet William Shakespeare's mother would be very pale and haughty. She would have hair that was yellowish-red, and beautiful hands. Her face might be pitted by small-pox, but her body would be sensuous and royal. No woman would ever have possessed to a greater pitch than William Shakespeare's mother that great feminine capacity for identifying her personal desires with righteousness and her personal needs with the justice of God. No woman could have been of higher degree. So then, now then, what if Queen Elizabeth was Shakespeare's mother?

The Queen spoke six languages. She hawked and she hunted and she played the virginals. She danced high and disposedly. Also, the Queen played at chess.

Elizabeth had in her life a kind of kinship with the method of Shakespeare's genius. You might say that in her reign three kinds of mind were evident in England - the Roman Catholic, the Protestant, and that third kind of mind which may be called Shakespearean, neither Catholic nor Protestant, capable of holding two quite different beliefs in balance at the same time. What better mother for the living embodiment of that mind than the Queen herself?

The babe must of course have been fostered. There's no problem with that. The Queen could do anything she liked, but she would not have wanted to keep by her at Court the product of a moment's passion in the Forest of Arden with a piece of rough trade. On the other hand, her agents might have assisted with the boy's education, and seen to it that the way was smoothed for him when he came as a young man to make his fortune in the capital. She took a lively interest in his plays. It is well-known that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written (in a fortnight) at her express command, she having sent word to Mr Shakespeare that it was her sovereign fancy to see 'Sir John Falstaff in love'. The play was first done for the Court revels at Christmas, 1598.

I saw Queen Elizabeth for the first time then. She had very blue eyes and a queer sort of smile. Despite her age and her wig, I noticed at once the resemblance to my master. With both of them you saw their upper teeth gleaming when they smiled, and in fact they always reminded me of an animal's teeth - a fox's teeth, perhaps.

But to the logistics. If the deed was done, how was it done? and when? Supposing Queen Elizabeth to have been Shakespeare's mother, how could his great begetting have come about?

Plague touched the edges of the Court in the summer of 1563. Elizabeth had been on the throne for just five years. She was thirty years old, and in her prime. Already the character of her heart was evident: chaste yet promiscuous. She entertained many suitors, but would marry none. There was not as yet a particular favourite in her affections, such as Lord Robert Dudley would become, or (later) Hatton and then Ralegh and then Essex. But that she would never submit to be married was quite apparent. As Burghley told her, 'I know your spirit cannot endure a commander.'

It was Burghley, then plain William Cecil, who suggested Kenilworth to her as a haven from the plague. The Queen accepted his suggestion with alacrity. She knew that her principal Secretary of State had only her best interests at heart. He was uneasy lest her health should succumb to the foul distemper which presently laid London waste. So she went into the country.

Queen Elizabeth, at thirty, was a lively piece. In the phrases of John Harrington, translator of Ariosto and the privy, quoting Hatton: 'The Queen did fish for men's souls, and she had so sweet a bait that no one could escape her net-work.' She was a perverse and wanton kind of virgin. Her Court hummed with lust. Ben Jonson (who had the intimation direct from Sir Walter Ralegh) said later that she had a membrana on her, which made her incapable of men, though for her delight she tried many. She wore a girdle made of kidskin under a foam of petticoats.

Lord Burghley prepared her escort. He was the sort of Secretary of State who judges the truth of metaphysical principles by their moral consequences; in short, a rat. Twelve Maids of Honour accompanied Elizabeth from Westminster, and thirty Lords of the Royal Bedchamber. Having seen her safely dispatched, Burghley, with his principal catamites, retired to his own palace at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, where, isolated from the rest of the people, he remained until the plague had passed.

The Queen, meanwhile. The incidents of her progress were not auspicious. On the first night, at Windsor, she was so cold despite the midsummer weather that no less than ten of the Lords of the Bedchamber fell by the way. This might be thought appalling, madam, yes, but if Pickleherring uses that word then what is he to say of the completion of Elizabeth's second day's progress, when another ten noble gentlemen went under?

A score of defaulters, however, did not prevent Queen Elizabeth from continuing her journey, and she swanned on through England, shedding men all the way, until at last she arrived at Kenilworth, in safety, but with only one male attendant left to warm her.

This valiant gentleman was spent by morning. Then Queen Elizabeth, great Harry's daughter as well as daughter of the Essex witch Anne Bullen, went out for a walk on her own in the Forest of Arden, and while she is walking meets up with no less than John Shakespeare.

Now John Shakespeare, as your author trusts he has already made clear, was a bit of a man in his own right. By one blow of his fist he'd flattened a thunderbolt once, which he kept in his waistcoat pocket, in the shape of a folded pancake, rolled up, to show his enemies, if they felt like a fight.

When he sees Queen Elizabeth wandering, her hair so long, her breasts so high, he marches straight up to her in the bluebells and offers her the hilt of his sword.

His monarch looks him up and she looks him down.

She likes what she sees.

'What is your name, my man?' says she.

'John Shakespeare, if it pleases your majesty,' says John Shakespeare.

'Well, Mr Hotspur,' the Queen says, 'I will take you on, and you'll be well rewarded on one condition.'

Aha thinks John, but it isn't aha at all, for Queen Elizabeth adds: 'The condition is that you must never employ any low or dirty words in our regal presence. I can't abide a dirty word,' she explains.

True enough, it suits her character, sir, you will admit, for isn't she the great ice-maiden, the winter doxy, with snowflakes on it and the north wind blowing hailstones down her slot. Do not forget the thirty Lords of the Royal Bedchamber. Fallen. Not to speak, madam, of the twelve Maids of Honour skewered on that exceptional clitoris.