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.

Neville Letters: Material

“Material” was not an unusual word around 1600. But Shakespeare first uses it in As You Like It and then uses it in many later plays. 

This is a subtle point, but I have discovered several examples like this. There are words that Neville uses regularly in his correspondence in 1599 and that enter the Shakespeare canon around the same time. They are then used often in later plays.

There are many examples like this, and they demonstrate a pattern. I think the explanation for this pattern is that a word like "material" was also common at that time as a French word. The word probably entered English initially from French, but they also existed in parallel. As ambassador to France, Neville was speaking, reading, and writing in French on a daily basis. So it is only natural that French words would enter his working vocabulary. And those words would find their way into his creative writing, i.e. the plays of Shakespeare.

Examples like this do not provide "proof of authorship," but they demonstrate that the Neville hypothesis is consistent with known historical textual evidence. Taken together, they do provide a strong piece of circumstantial evidence for Neville as the author of most or all of the Shakespeare canon.

Here the word "material" appears in Neville’s letters from 21 June 1599, 13 July 1599, and 9 April 1600:

What Restraints have been made for bringing thither the Commodities of this Country; which will be material for me to know, when I shall Treat with the Counsel here. (WW, 1.51)

Not to frustrate so good an Intention, upon a Circumstance so little material unto them. (WW, 1.64)

I wrote unto you lately by a Servant of mine own, advertising you what Propositions I had made unto the King, to discover his Intentions in the most material Points I had negotiated with him since my coming. (WW, 1.168)

And it appears thereafter regularly in Shakespeare’s plays, in the same sense as in the letters:

A material fool! (As You Like It 3.3)

She that herself will sliver and disbranch

From her material sap, perforce must wither

And come to deadly use. (King Lear 4.2)

Whose absence is no less material to me

Than is his father's, must embrace the fate

Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:

I'll come to you anon. (Macbeth 3.1) 

I have outstood my time; which is material (Cymbeline 1, 6)

He would not stay at your petitions: made

His business more material. (Winter's Tale 1.2)

As You Like It: Lord of Amiens and Henry Neville

Sir Henry Neville wrote Secretary of State Robert Cecil a letter on 14 May 1600 "between Amyens and Abbeville." He was traveling from Paris to Boulogne for treaty negotiations with Spain, and his route took him through Amiens, France.

As You Like It is based on Thomas Lodge's 1590 Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie. However, the character "Lord of Amyens" is Shakespeare's invention "Nine characters are added outright [including] Amiens" (Baldwin).

In the First Folio the character is referenced "Amyens" three times and  "Amiens" two times. According to EEBO, Amiens was the much more common spelling, several hundred examples before 1610 and only a few dozen for Amyens. Holinshed Chronicles mentions Amiens in several contexts and spells it with an "i".

What I am suggesting here is that Sir Henry Neville passed through Amiens, France in 1600, around the time that we believe As You Like It was written. The play is set in France and has a character named "Amyens" or "Amiens". Neville's experience in Amiens probably inspired him to pick that character name when writing the play.

One of the main theories I am suggesting on this blog is that As You Like It and Henry V were written all, or in part, while Henry Neville was ambassador to France. Both plays have extremely strong parallels with both the letters he wrote as ambassador as well as his experiences there. This is the some of the strongest evidence, I believe, for the Neville authorship hypothesis.

As You Like It is the first Shakespeare play set in France and Henry V is the first play to contain extensive French dialog. All's Well That Ends Well, another play written a few years later, is also set in France; the King of France, whom Neville often spoke with as ambassador, is a main character. No plays before 1599 are set entirely in France, though some earlier history plays have scenes set in France.

Neville was in Boulogne for several months. As I mentioned in this blog post, in 18 July 1600, two months after arriving in Boulogne, Neville gave a gift of venison to the Ambassador of Spain. Presumably he acquired the venison through deer hunting, and that may have inspired the deer hunting scene in As You Like It where they specifically reference venison: "Come, shall we go and kill us venison?"  (As You Like It, 2.1)

Boulogne-sur-la-mer is surround by the forest Parc naturel régional des Caps et Marais d'Opale. This forest has a lot of deer in it. Neville set the play in the Forest of Arden because that is the setting of Rosalynde. But his experiences in the forest surrounding Boulogne might have influenced the play as well.

Bonus Discussion on the Setting of As You like It

There is absolutely no question that As You Like It  is set in France, because it says in Act 1 Scene 1 that it is in France, Oliver talking about his younger brother Orlando:

OLIVER: Good Monsieur Charles... I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother.

In Act 1 Scene 2 they speak French:

Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?

Shakespeare even tells us that "Bon Jour" is French in Romeo and Juliet:

Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French slop. (3.4)

(Shakespeare does use "bonjour" in a non-french sense in Titus Andronicus:  "With horn and hound we'll give your grace bonjour.")

Specifically, the play is set in the "Forest of Arden". We know that because it says so in Act 1 Scene 1 of the First Folio, the only extant version of the play:

They say hee is already in the Forrest of Arden (1.1)

Shakespeare's play is based upon Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde: or, Euphues' Golden Legacy. We know that because it is obvious from even a superficial reading. Many of the character names are the same, including the heroine Rosalynde... The storyline is very obviously taken directly from Lodge's work. Here is what that work says about the location:

THere dwelled adioyning to the Cittie of Bordeaux a Knight of most honourable

and about the forest:

 Torismond the King of France, who hauing by force banished Gerismond their lawful King that liued as an outlaw in the Fo∣rest of Arden

So As You Like It is set in France; the play makes that extremely clear from the first scene. It is based on a story also based in France that features the "Forest of Arden" which is the forest where the "lawful" King of France goes to hide. The same "Forest of Arden" is a major setting for the play.

There is a character the "Lord of Amiens". Amiens is a city in France.

Neither the play nor the story are set in Warwickshire. They are set in France. The text is unequivocal and unambiguous.

Apparently, there is also a forest in Warwickshire called "Arden" and Shakespeare's mother's maiden name was "Arden". So we have ridiculous chatter like this:
Where was Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden?

The desire to link the play with Shakespeare's life is so strong that the Folger libary's website doesn't even list As You Like It as being set in France: "sometimes considered to be in France".

The play is set in France. The text says it is in France. The text decides the issue, not the maiden name of the supposed author's wife.

As You Like It: Underhand Dissuade and Victuall'd

Neville uses the phrase "underhand dissuade" in 24 Sept 1599. I also offer an example of him using "underhand".

Some have underhand let me know, that the King doth assure himself that the Queen will make Peace, and therefore makes no haste to pay her any thing. (WW, 1.65)

The King did underhand dissuade them from Peace, upon Assurance of a standing Supply from him of 200000 Crownes Yearly, besides other secret Favours. (WW, 1.107)

The OED notes that this sense of “underhand,” “In a secret, covert, or stealthy manner; by secret means; quietly or unobtrusively” was common from c1580. However, a search on EEBO shows no examples of “underhand” used together with “dissuade” in that period.

"disswade" was the most common spelling at the time followed by "dissuade". I have done a search for collocations of "dis*ad*" and "*hand*" within 6 words of each other. Here is what comes up:

Even the word "underhand" wasn't super common at the time:

So as far as I can tell, it's a very unusual usage. I post the searches so others can check my work. If you find something let me know. This database covers TCP1, it could be expanded as well to TCP2.

As You Like It is usually dated to around 1599, the same year this letter was written. Here is underhand and dissuade used together in the exact same sense:

I had myself notice of my
brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to
dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. (As You Like It, 1.1)

What makes this important evidence isn't just that the phrase is unusual. They are being used almost simultaneously in Neville's letter and the play from Shakespeare.

Shakespeare has one other use of "underhand" in Richard III, 5.1:

By underhand corrupted foul injustice

Victualled 

Here is another very similar example of a a phrase appearing in a letter and then appearing in As You Like It. This is a more common phrase, but it's an example of Neville using a technical term in his work as ambassador and then it appearing in a figurative sense in a play.

13 July 1599:

I understand by their Agent they are victualled for a year, and that there is another Fleet preparing to be ready to succeed them in the Action, against they return.  (WW, 1.66)

This is the only use of “victualled” in Shakespeare, though the word “victual” is used in other senses in other plays:

And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
Is but for two months victuall'd.- So to your pleasures;
I am for other than for dancing measures. (As You Like It, 5.4)

What’s remarkable here is not the the shared use of this common term, it’s the timing. Shakespeare never used the word in this sense before 1599. Neville uses the term in its technical sense in 1599, and at essentially the same time, Shakespeare also uses it.

The French Ambassador Connection: Neville, Shakespeare, As You Like It and Henry V

As You Like It and Henry V are both traditionally dated to 1599. There is a very strong connection between these plays and Neville’s diplomatic writing from that year.  Look at this sentence Neville wrote on 16 May 1599, about two weeks after his arrival in France [spelling modernized]:

I repaired to Fontainebleau, and had Access unto the King, where I delivered at large unto him that which I comprised more briefly in the Proposition I presented in writing. (WW, 1.29-30)

 “Proposition” first appears in Shakespeare’s works in As You Like It:

It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the

propositions of a lover (As You Like It, 3.2)

Though “proposition” was not a rare word, Shakespeare never used it before 1599; he uses it once later in Troilus and Cressida, 1.3. Neville wrote a proposal to the French government in French and titled the document: “Proposition faicte à Messieurs du Conseil du Roy” (WW, I, 27). He refers again to these propositions in a letter he wrote in French on 6 June 1599:

La response que vous m’avez envoyé au nom du Roy, aux propositions que j’avois presentées (WW, 1.37)

So in 1599, while Neville is using the word “proposition” in both English and French, the word simultaneously make its first appearance in Shakespeare’s work. The same thing is true for “comprised”:

I comprised more briefly in the Proposition I presented in writing. (WW, I, 42)

HENRY V. Yet leave our cousin Katharine here with us:

She is our capital demand, comprised

Within the fore-rank of our articles.  (Henry V, 5.2)

Though “comprised” was not uncommon at the time, it appears only once in Shakespeare’s works, in Henry V. This use is in the exact same sense as Neville’s; it references demands included in “articles” similar to the demands made in Neville’s “proposition.”  According to the OED, “comprise” is derived from the French “compris.”

A very similar thing happens with “predecessor.” Neville had his first audience with the King of France on 8 May 1599. He wrote a letter about it to Secretary of State Robert Cecil on 15 May. Here are three passages from the letter where both Neville quotes himself and the King using the word “predecessor”:

Wherein I said, that her Majesty did acknowledge his great Wisdom in discovering the Errors of his Predecessors (WW, 1.21)

The King's Answer was, That no Man could better discover the Errors of his Predecessors Counsel in that point then himself, for that it was he against whom they did chiefly put it in Execution. ((WW, 1.21-22)

Prayed him to take order the Intercourse might be continued, in such ample sort as it had been in his Predecessors Times (WW, 1.24)

The word, also a borrowing from French though not uncommon in English, occurs first in in Henry V, and later in Macbeth and Coriolanus:

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. Than ever at one time the clergy yet

Did to his predecessors part withal (Henry V, 1.1)

AMBASSADOR. Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master  (Henry V, 1.2)

In the same letter describing this first audience with the King, Neville quotes the king directly in French:

He wished with as great Affection to the Queen, as to himself, to whom if she were a Man he would call himself a perfect Friend, but being as she is, Je me diray son Serviteur. (WW, 1.21)

Neville uses this word again in a letter from 3 Jan 1600, quoting the King again:

acknowledging himself infinitely beholden to her, and that he would ever remain her Serviteur. (WW, 1.142)

The same word first appears in Shakespeare in Henry V and again, shortly thereafter, in Twelfth Night:

Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foi, je

ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en

baisant la main d'une de votre seigeurie indigne

serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon

tres-puissant seigneur. (Henry V, 5.2)

Et vous aussi; votre serviteur. (Twelfth Night, 3.1)

Serviteur was not an uncommon word in French, though its use in English at the time, judging by a search of Early English Books Online (EEBO), was quite uncommon. Shakespeare is using it as a French word in both cases; “servitor,” which is apparently related etymologically, appears in many plays as an English word.

It is important to emphasize that none of these words appeared in earlier Shakespeare plays. They are words that were important in Neville’s experience as ambassador. Two, “predecessor” and “serviteur,” are used during his first audience with the King of France; one, “proposition,” is used over and over, in English and French, related to his main diplomatic purpose; and “comprised” is used in almost exactly the same context in his letter and the play. The timing and context of these shared uses transcends mere coincidence. There appears to be a real connection.