In 1585, William Shakespeare, resident of Stratford in Warwickshire, England was 21 years old.  He had been married for three years and had three children.  The first, Susanna, was born six months after her parents’ hastily arranged wedding.  The second and third, Hamnet and Judith, were twins, baptized in February 1585.

In 1592, William’s character and reputation were attacked in a pamphlet written by a dying man, Robert Greene, a writer active in the London theater.  His charge:

[T]here is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

“Shake-scene” is an obvious reference to Shakespeare.  The “tiger’s heart” business is a variation on a line from Henry VI, Part Three: “O tiger’s heart wrapt in a woman’s hide!”  It was William Shakespeare in Greene’s cross-hairs.

Greene died with his pamphlet in manuscript.  His friend Henry Chettle prepared the text for the printer and supervised its publication.  After the pamphlet was published, Chettle received complaints from Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, each of whom felt he had been treated unfairly by Greene.  Chettle published his defense.  He had not been acquainted with either of them, and as for Marlowe “I care not if I never be.”  Shakespeare may have visited Chettle in person to state his case.  Chettle’s reaction:

[M]yself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves his art.

“Divers of worship” refers to people of rank, persons of influence.  When Chettle asked around about this Shakespeare fellow, he found that the man was well thought of both for his character and his skill as an actor and writer.

In the course of seven years, the Stratford townsman had become a part of the London theater scene, recognized for his art by his colleagues and for his character by “divers of worship”.  How this came about is a profound mystery.

Some of the early plays were written during those seven years, although experts disagree on the dates and the order of these early works.  One scholar[1] says that both The Comedy of Errors and Love’s Labor’s Lost could date from as early as 1588 (or as late as 1593 for Comedy and 1594 for LLL).  Others think the earliest play – possibly Henry VI, Part Two — might be as late as 1591[2].

The timing here is delicate.  It’s hard to imagine that a lad from Stratford arrives in London – how did he travel? — walks into a theater and starts working as a playwright.  But if the earliest play was finished and on the stage by 1588, and if William stayed in Stratford until the twins were toddling about the house, there would not have been time for much of an apprenticeship in the theater.

On the other hand, you have to allow enough time for his reputation as “the only Shake-scene in a country” to have reached Robert Greene.  Greene died in September 1592.  Shakespeare’s reputation must have been established well before then to give Greene something to be annoyed about (not that it took a lot).

The puzzle over timing sits inside the mystery of the creation of the plays and poems.  The puzzle, if not the mystery, is taken on in a very entertaining way by the TV show “Will” airing on TNT.

The writers solve the timing puzzle by having Shakespeare arrive in London in 1589 with a play already written.  He walks into James Burbage’s theatre at a moment of crisis.  Burbage has advertised a new play by Christopher Marlowe to open next day.  Marlowe has double-crossed Burbage by signing an exclusive contract with Phillip Henslowe, Burbage’s rival. There is no play.  Burbage will be ruined.  (Incidentally, all of the names are of historical persons who were active in the Elizabethan theater and were associates in one way or another of William Shakespeare.)

Will announces that he has a play to offer.  After the obligatory round of “Who are you?” bellowing, Burbage reads the script and decides that he can make something of it.  After a massive re-write, with Burbage’s beautiful daughter Alice[3] acting as Will’s scribe, the play, Edward III, is offered to the public.

Ironies abound.  The play is written – at least in part – by William Shakespeare but is presented to the audience (in the story) as a play by Christopher Marlowe, who was a marketable commodity.  Centuries later, one theory offered by Anti-Stratfordians is that the Shakespeare canon was written by Christopher Marlowe.  Here, a Marlowe play was written by Shakespeare.

Except it wasn’t a Marlowe play.  The writers are having a little fun.  There was a play titled Edward III of unknown authorship published in 1596. It has been attributed to Shakespeare from time to time.  It was not included in the 1623 Folio but some recent scholars say it is at least partly the work of Mr. Shakespeare.

So, the TV show starts Will’s career in the theater with a play partly written by him, attributed (in TV world) to Christopher Marlowe, and in fact attributed by some scholars – possibly correctly, possibly not – to William Shakespeare.

The writers have a bit more fun with Robert Greene.  On TNT, he doesn’t wait to deliver his insults to Will posthumously.  He engages Will in a battle of wits in a tavern after the theater has closed for the night.  We can always tell who Robert Greene is because the director dresses him in green from head to toe.  He calls Will an “upstart crow “and a “Shake-scene” three years ahead of schedule.  Will’s reply establishes his reputation as a wit who can hold his own with a university graduate such as Greene.

The writers have to grapple with another problem.  This is a story about a writer. Writing is a private activity, not very dramatic.  A clever device adopted by the writers is to have characters pop in and out to provide material for Shakespeare’s development as a writer.  A heavyset neighbor appears to say “Banish plump Jack, and banish the world.”  The line will come in handy in about seven or eight years’ time when Sir John Falstaff speaks it in Henry IV, Part One.

To keep the romantic interest going, and to show that it wasn’t only men who could write, Alice Burbage, played by Olivia DeJonge, who almost ignites the TV screen every time the camera passes by, helps Will finish a line now and again.  He’s working on a future play but is stuck for a word.  “What light through yonder window . . . . . .”  He stalls.  Alice says, “breaks.”  Will: “What’s that?”  Alice: “Breaks.  What light through yonder window breaks?” Will: “Oh yes.  Very good. Thanks.”

Will has already kissed Alice and had to pull away to tell her he is married with three children.  Still, I don’t think he will be able to resist her for much longer, nor she him.

There’s another plot complication to help draw our attention away from the wretched ink-stained work of writing.  In this story, Will is a Catholic.  Catholicism was politically inflammatory in 1589.  The Spanish Armada had been blown onto the rocks in the previous year.  The issue went deeper.  Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, with whom Henry VIII had fathered Elizabeth while he had a wife living.  Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon was not recognized outside England.  As far as the Catholic Church was concerned, Elizabeth was not a legitimate monarch because her birth was not legitimate.

There has long been speculation about Shakespeare’s faith.  In the late eighteenth century, a document was discovered that purported to be the “Spiritual Testament” of William’s father, attesting to his adherence to the Catholic Church.  Its authenticity has been questioned by experts.  Unfortunately, the document disappeared a few years after it was found.

Beyond the question of the father’s faith, some scholars see evidence of an affiliation to Rome in William Shakespeare’s last will and in some of the plays.  Samuel Schoenbaum in Shakespeare’s Lives notes the tendency to project one’s own background onto the scant facts available to us about Shakespeare’s life.  Thus, lawyers tend to believe he had read law; sailors tend to believe he was a seaman; enthusiasts for Italy think he must have traveled there, and so on.  It’s possible that the same phenomenon is at work when we ask about Shakespeare’s faith.

Elizabeth’s government took an interest in anyone openly professing the Catholic religion.  It wasn’t a crime per se to be a Catholic, but participation in a Catholic Mass was punishable by a fine.  Yet, when TNT’s Will leaves Stratford, his mother gives him two items to take with him.  One is a rosary wrapped in a thick cloth.  The other is a sealed letter addressed to a Robert Southwell, a loyal Catholic who later was tortured and martyred for his faith[4].

Carrying those two items together in England in 1589 was not a great way to extend your life expectancy.  The letter is stolen before Will can deliver it.  In the course of the robbery, the cloth-wrapped rosary falls to the pavement and opens to reveal its contents.  The thief knows that Will is a Catholic.

The thief retails the letter to Richard Topcliffe, another historical person, who served Elizabeth by torturing anyone who might do her harm, including particularly adherents of the Roman Catholic faith. (Topcliffe subjected Southwell to torture in the 1590s.  His technique was designed to leave no outward mark on the body of his victim so that he could deny the act.)

At the end of Episode Two, Topcliffe knows that a Catholic agent wants to deliver a treasonous letter to Southwell.  Therefore, the agent knows where Southwell is located, something that Topcliffe would dearly like to know.  To make matters worse, Topcliffe has reason to think that the agent is connected to Burbage’s theater.

Things are looking very dark for Will.  My working assumption for the present is that the suspense is artificial because we know that the real William Shakespeare stayed alive until 1616.  So, I am not too worried about his ability to survive.  However, he has put at risk anyone who knows his secret.  Unfortunately, he has told Alice Burbage of his faith.  I can only hope that the writers are not so heartless as to send Alice into the iron embrace of Richard Topcliffe as the means to remove the temptation that might wreck Will’s marriage vows.

I look forward to the next episode.

 

[1] Sylvan Barnet, General Editor of the Signet Classic Shakespeare.

[2] E.K. Chambers (1930) gives 1590-91 for 2 Henry VI.  Royal Shakespeare Company gives 1591 but hints that Taming of the Shrew may be earlier.

[3] The real Alice Burbage was born in 1576.  She would have been 13 when Will arrived at her father’s theater.  The Alice in the TV show is about Will’s age.

[4] He is Saint Robert Southwell as of 1970, which I am sure he finds very gratifying.