Henry Neville, Shakespeare, and Merry Wives of Windsor

The play Merry Wives of Windsor demonstrates an intimate knowledge of Windsor Forest and the surrounding areas. Henry Neville lived at Billingbear House near Windsor Forest most of his life and was keeper of Windsor Forest, as was his father before him.

Professor Randall Martin Suggests Shakespeare Must Have Visited Windsor

Professor Randall Martin's Shakespeare and Ecology describes the local detail in Merry Wives of Windsor:

"Merry Wives of Windsor [is] his most locally detailed play... Set in a small town next to a royal castle and surrounding fields and forest in eastern Berkshire, its fine-grained mosaic of natural and human eco-systems (woods, parks, chases, fields heath, mead, urban and rural buildings) is meshed by distinct corridors (the River Thames, a ditch, footpaths, roads, streets). These features direct much of the toing and froing of the plays' domestic intrigue" (Martin: 33)

He even concludes that Shakespeare must have visited Windsor:

"The spatial accuracy of Shakespeare's references, however, that he also visited the area."

Annals of Windsor (1853) Agrees on the Exact Detail in Merry Wives of Windsor

We believe indeed that Shakespeare has been more than usually careful in conforming his plot to the place or rather that he has brought a greater number of local details to his assistance in the Merry Wives of Windsor than in his other works, We are convinced moreover that he had in view in the composition or perfecting of the play some one particular individual oak and that in the selection of that tree he was guided by the local tradition of the period.

There is a vast 19th century literature on the specific location of Herne's Oak...  For instance this or this...

Henry Neville Grew Up in Billingbear House near Windsor Forest

Here is Neville's description of his offices in 1601:

"The offices I held are two parks, a walk in Windsor Forest, the stewardship of the manor of Sonning, and the keeping of the house at Windsor "

More information on his life and offices can be found at the History of Parliament Online. A similarly excellent article is available on his father was also a justice of the peace

Falstaff Literally Refers to Henry Neville (or his father) in Merry Wives of Windsor

In this passage from Merry Wives of Windsor, 5.5, "the fellow of this walk" refers to the keeper of Windsor Forest, Neville or his father depending on when the play was set:

FALSTAFF. Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!

Compare Neville's letter from 1606:

I am very sorry that it lies not in my power to send you a half a buck; my keepers tell me that there is none in my walk; sure I am that have not seene a pasty of venison of this yeere. I did adventure to send you the side of a stag which I thought might serve your turne as well if it came sweet to you, which the heate of the weather made me fearfull of.

And note the reference above to venison pasties, compare Merry Wives of Windsor, 1.1 :

Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

Cannons in the Canon 7: The Tempest and Mill-Wheels Strike

There is a curious line in the Tempest:

And left thee there: where thou didst vent thy groanes
As fast as Mill-wheeles strike: Then was this Island

If you do a search on EEBO, there are many Mill-Wheel metaphors, but they are different; they deal with the turning of the wheel. For instance:

1584  thyne imagination goeth alwayes aboute lyke the wheele of a mill, and if thou doest put into it good thoughtes, it will yelde thee meale agayne of good workes:

1593 doth grinde the mill, the Wheele turnes round, and neuer standeth still: long is the toyle

1607 by reason of the continuall motion which the wheeles of the mill made, he was taken vp and saued

1610 the couetous or most wealthiest man, is but as the mill-wheele, which though it turne all day about, yet at night is found where it vvas in the morning

1614 Carnall men make their praiers as the water mooues the mill-wheele; when the water ceaseth, the wheele staieth

So why is Shakespeare talking about a mill-wheel striking something, making a noise?

If you follow this blog carefully, you know the answer. From the mid 1580s to the mid 1590s Henry Neville owned and operated an ironworks in Sussex in Mayfield. He cast iron ordnance. Metaphors from that experience are found throughout the Shakespeare canon.

The blast furnaces of that time used giant bellows run by a water wheel. But the water wheel did double-duty. It also drove hammers that pounded on the iron. You can read more in this blog post.

Better yet here is a video of what he is talking about (skip to about a minute in):

Here are two more examples of the same metaphor:

Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
Titus Andronicus, 2.3

To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs,
To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;
Rape of Lucrece

Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
Sonnet 120

Timing of Henry V and As You Like It

My theory has always been that Henry Neville probably finished Henry V and wrote most or all of As You Like It while he was in France as ambassador.

When did Henry Neville return from France?

2 August 1600 - Arrived back in Dover, England (HMC Hatfield, Vol 10, Page 261)

And a flyleaf from the Stationer's Register first mentions them on 4 August 1600.

The textual evidence, based on Neville's letters written from France, suggest that he incorporated content from that time into Henry V and As You Like It. The fact that those plays were registered in August 1600 is extremely strong evidence of Neville's authorship.

Arden of Faversham and Shakespeare Parallels

Well...

Someone on Twitter was saying that The Spanish Tragedy was written by Kyd and Arden of Faversham was also written by Kyd.

I have no idea who wrote either play, but the two plays were not written by the same person. You just have to skim them; it's obvious.

I posted some responses to him on Twitter but I deleted it, so let's just lay out some of the things I found here.

First there are two nice hunting references in the play, including dogs:

Alice. I thought you did pretend some special hunt,
That made you thus cut short the time of rest.

Arden. It was no chase that made me rise so early,
But, as I told thee yesternight, to go

And:

Greene. Well, take your fittest standings, and once more
Lime well your twigs to catch this wary bird.
I’ll leave you, and at your dag’s discharge
Make towards, like the longing water-dog
That coucheth till the fowling-piece be off,
Then seizeth on the prey with eager mood.

Then we have a nice lewd joke:

Clarke. O, Michael, the spleen prickles you. Go to,
you carry an eye over Mistress Susan.

Flinty heart appears ALL OVER Shakespeare, it's an Ovid reference:

Or make no battery in his flinty breast,

Of course not only do we have a cannon metaphor, it involves FORGING the cannon:

Mosbie. Such deep pathaires, like to a cannon’s burst
Discharged against a ruinated wall,
Breaks my relenting heart in thousand pieces.
Ungentle Alice, thy sorrow is my sore;
Thou know’st it well, and ’tis thy policy
To forge distressful looks to wound a breast
Where lies a heart that dies when thou art sad.
It is not love that loves to anger love.

Then we have a nice one about "clamorous" Shakespeare loved that word:

Sirrah, you that ask these questions,
If with thy clamorous impeaching tongue

Richard II even has an impeaching tongue of sorts, if you don't like that there are 14 other "impeach"es to chose from in the canon:

Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue 
Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,

"misevent" in Arden is apparently a word that appears only in this play:

Vengeance on Arden or some miseventTo show the world what wrong the carle hath done.

I hear Shakespeare likes to make up new words too?

pathaires too please someone figure out what's going on with that!

Shakespeare does use "sluttish" a lot:

If homely, I seem sluttish in thine eye:

There is even misgovernment in Shakespeare ("I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.") Holinshed AND Chaucer user it but it wasn't all that common:

Poor wench abused by thy misgovernment!

Arden:

The cullours beeing balefull and impoysoned
How I doo worke of these Impoysoned drugs,

Shakespeare:

How much an ill word may empoison liking. Much Ado About Nothing

As with a man by his own alms empoison'd, Coriolanus