Why do modern editions of As You Like It show "de Boys" instead of the correct "de Bois"?

Update: Apparently the latest Oxford Shakespeare agrees with me. I didn't realize this at the time of the post.

Summary: the surname "de Boys" in modern spelling editions of As You Like It is simply a mistake; "y" and "i" were interchangeable in the 16th century and the surname was always intended as "de Bois", the French word for forest. It is not an "Anglicization."

In his masterwork Shakespeare and Ecology, Randall Martin points out that the "de Boys" surname is a change from Shakespeare's source text. Thomas Lodge's 1590 Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie  refers to the deceased father as "John of Bordeaux".

In As You Like It, the family name is spelled "de Boys". Here is the text from the First Folio, the only extant text of the play:

I am no villaine: I am the yongest sonne of Sir Rowland de Boys, he was my father, Orlando my Liege, the yongest sonne of Sir Roland de Boys.

Randall suggests that this is an Anglicization of the French word "bois" meaning forest. This appears to be the conventional wisdom, and most Shakespeare editors seem to agree, since they continue to use that spelling in 2018. However, this is simply a mistake.

As we saw in the case of Amyens/Amiens, "y" and "i" are used interchangeably in this play in the First Folio. "de Boys" is not an Anglicization, it is simply "de Bois" written with the y instead of an i, just like Amiens.

There are literally dozens of examples of this in EEBO. (I believe the same thing is true for French-language texts of the time).

Obviously, the surname "de Bois" (of the forest) relates to the plot of the play. It was completely intentional. By perpetuating "de Boys" until this day, they are lessening people's understanding of the play.

What motivates this kind of thing? Well there is some assumption that Shakespeare didn't speak, read, and write French. That probably motivates some of the thinking. Another is the dogma that the "Forest of Arden" in As You Like It relates to the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire since that is where William Shakespeare came from (and his wife's maiden name is "Arden" too!)

This belief is perpetuated even though the source text for the play is about the "Forest of Arden" and is clearly set in France, and Act 1 Scene 1 of As You Like It, Oliver describes his brother as "the stubbornest young fellow of France". People speak French in the play and there are many French names, including de Bois.

So, obviously, modern editions of the play with modern spelling should have "de Bois," since "de Boys" was simply a 16th century equivalent spelling of the same French word. QED.

Measure for Measure: The Provost and the Execution

This example shows a French borrowing entering the Shakespeare canon after Neville's experience as ambassador to France. But it also raises the possibility that Neville learned about an incident during his time as ambassador and incorporated that scenario into a play. In this letter dated 30 May 1599, Neville describes the King of France ordering a provost to execute some French soldiers:

And for the same purpose, there having been lately discovered an Enterprise which the Count Maurice had upon a town called Charlemont, not far from Sedan, wherein certain French Men of the King's Garrisons adjacent were employed; the King hath sent a Provost thither to do round Justice upon them, and to proceed to their Execution. [spelling modernized]  (WW, I, 42)

The word “provost” only appears in one of Shakespeare’s works, the play Measure for Measure (ca. 1603-1604). In the play, the character named “Provost” is ordered by Angelo to execute Claudio:

LUCIO. Has censured him

Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath

A warrant for his execution.

ISABELLA. Alas! what poor ability's in me

To do him good?  (Measure for Measure, 1.4)

ANGELO: Where is the provost?

PROVOST: Here, if it like your honour.

ANGELO: See that Claudio 

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning  (Measure for Measure, 2.1)

The use of “provost” with “execution” was not common at the time, according to a search of Early English Books Online (EEBO). After all, an English executioner or jailer was not called a “provost.” Interestingly, Neville's good friend Henry Savile was the Provost of Eton at the time. One has to wonder if this wasn't partly an inside joke.  However, there is a similar example from the 1596 in The Historie of Philip de Commine, translated from the French by Thomas Danett:

But this traiterous Earle, who kept the Dukes chamber (being of timber) so straightly that no man might enter in; refused the doore to these gentlemen, saying that the Duke had commanded him to be hanged with speed; and further sent divers messengers to the Provost to hasten the execution. Thus was this Cisron hanged to the Duke of Burgundies great prejudice.  (Commynes: 167)

The sense of “Provost” used in the above examples by both Shakespeare and Danett specifically refers to a French official, as described in sense 5a in the OED:

An officer charged with the apprehension, custody, and punishment of offenders… In France many of the officials called prevost (prévôt) were specially charged with the keeping of public order and the apprehension, custody, trial, and punishment of offenders, for which they had considerable powers of summary jurisdiction.

In the Danett passage above, “Provost” is indeed a translation of the French “prevost”:

"Monseigneur veult qu'on s'avance de le pendre [the execution]"; et par messagier hastoit le prevost [provost]. (https://archive.org/details/mmoiresdephili02commuoft/page/50)

Neville’s use is also a translation, most likely, of a report he heard first in French and transmitted back to England. It’s worth noting that the use of “Provost” in this French sense in Measure for Measure is probably out-of-place, since the play is set in Vienna.

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.

Cannons in the Canon 4: Hammer'd Iron/Steel in My Head

As discussed in previous posts, Henry Neville owned and operated an ironworks in Sussex from the mid 1580s to the mid 1590s. He was directly involved in the production of "iron ordnance" (cannons). The works of William Shakespeare are suffused with imagery and metaphors from that experience.

The ironworks had a water wheel than ran giant bellows which pushed air into the blast furnace and also ran great hammers that pounded the iron. Here is a nice description of the hammering and why it was necessary (interesting website with photos):

"However cast iron was brittle, and needed remelting and hammering at a finery forge to convert it into highly durable ‘wrought’ iron. Forges now also used waterwheels to power bellows, to re-melt the sows at a high temperature, but their main function was turning huge mechanical hammers to pound the result into short thick iron bars, called anconies. The hammer was attached to a shaft on the waterwheel and could pound the iron up to 60 blows per minute, so forge production was also increased."

This must have been quite noisy! Maddening in fact. Check this:

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

The guiding principle of this blog is that people write what they know. They pull on their personal experience in their creative writing. This is a commonplace assumption everywhere except in Shakespeare studies. From before the time of the earliest plays and poems, Neville was involved in the ironworks. So we should expect to find it in the earliest works, and we do. Titus Andronicus is believed to be one of Shakespeare's earliest plays. A search of EEBO doesn't turn up a lot of examples of hammers in the head (click to see the full list):

Another example from one of Shakespeare's early poems:

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

It's interesting to connect the "wheel" metaphor here with the trees that are being cut down to fire the furnaces and the springs that are being used and diverted to power the waterwheel. I leave it to you whether that is reading too much into these common metaphors and the fact that "steel" rhymes with "wheel". 

"hammer'd steel" is quite uncommon too. Very few examples, but interestingly George Peele uses the term in The Battle of Alcazar: "plant this negro moore that clads himselfe in coat of hammerd steele" published anonymously in 1594, the same year as the Rape of Lucrece. It has also been suggested that George Peele co-wrote Titus Andronicus. So it's possible this is his metaphor which Shakespeare adopted or vice versa. Very few examples in EEBO:

There are even fewer examples for hammer'd iron. Neville's foundry didn't make steel, it made cast iron. King John has a lot of "iron" talk which I will get into more later, but I leave you with this:

Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?  King John, 4.1

Bonus passage from the non-canonical Troublesome Reign of King John:

But who so blind, as cannot see this beam,

That you forsooth would keep your cousin down,

For fear his mother should be used too well?

Aye, there’s the grief, confusion catch the brain,

That hammers shifts to stop a prince’s reign.

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.

A Neville Reading of Randall Martin's Shakespeare and Ecology (Part 1)

Professor Randall Martin's Shakespeare and Ecology offers a fascinating study of deforestation, warfare, and other ecological concerns in Shakespeare's works. I am going to go through the book here, showing how much evidence it provides for Henry Neville's authorship of the Shakespeare plays.

"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)

In the above passage, Martin explains how the play demonstrates a detailed knowledge of the landscape of Eastern Berkshire. Of course, Sir Henry Neville is from there. Billingbear is 14 miles from Windsor Castle. He and his father were keepers of forests in Windsor; he organized deer hunting in those forests for both Queen Elizabeth and King James. See History of Parliament for extensive documentation of this. 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 "

Martin realizes there is an anomaly here, so he tries to explain how William Shakespeare could have such detailed knowledge:

"Shakespeare's knowledge of Windsor place names and topography might have come from the new generation of maps and chorographies, or place-writings, that represented The spatial accuracy of Shakespeare's references, however, that he also visited the area, possibly when the patron of his acting company, Lord Hunsdon, was installed as a knight of the Garter at Windsor in 1597. Mistress Quickly (playing the Queen of Fairies), alludes somewhat extraneously to its ceremonies in the final scene."

Martin suggests that the knowledge is so detailed that Shakespeare must have actually visited Windsor. Of course, Neville grew up in that area and returned there after the death of his father in 1593. So if Neville wrote the play, he would have based it on his own personal intimate knowledge of the area. 

Martin has no actual evidence that Shakespeare visited Windsor. He also has no actual evidence that Shakespeare attended a Garter installation. But he seems to think that the details in the play suggest that whoever wrote the play did attend such an installation and must have visited Windsor.

It is an undisputed fact that Sir Henry Neville attended a Garter installation at Windsor in 1595. The Folger Shakespeare Library's Chronology for 1595 says (John Casson has done extensive research into this issue):

Apr 23,Wed St George’s Day Garter ceremonies, Whitehall.

 Queen’s Lieutenant: William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham.

 Description by Baron Breuning, the Duke of Wurttemberg’s envoy, who was

invited to attend; a coach was sent for him and his party of seven.

‘We drove down to the Thames, where one of the Queen’s eight-oared barges

awaited us. On the deck of the boat lay a bolster or cushion of gold cloth on

which I was seated in solitary grandeur by Sir Henry Neville. The others sat

apart on either side. This part of the boat was also divided from the rest by

two contiguous doors, and had an awning of red satin. The interior of the boat

was ornamented with coats-of-arms and other paintings, and the floor was strewn

with lovely fragrant flowers’.

 ‘When we arrived at court we were led by Sir Henry Neville, who never left our

side during the whole of the subsequent proceedings, into the Presence Chamber’. 

(Note, Neville had not been knighted yet at this point, but his father was already dead. So this must be a reference to him.) 

Martin goes on to discuss Shakespeare's rural identity. Of course, Neville also shares that characteristic. He spent most of his life living in the countryside, first Billingbear, then Mayfield, then back to Billingbear. Forest management was a key aspect of his and his father's professional life. Martin follows with an amazing discovery in Neville studies:

"In 1568 William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth's most powerful minister, licensed two French glassmakers to cut wood for their furnaces in Windsor Great Park. The wood was processed by in-forest saw pits like the one Shakespeare represents in The Merry Wives of Windsor and juxtaposes spatially against the large mature tree, Herne's Oak (4.4.51, 5.4.2)."

As the keeper for Windsor Forest, Neville's father must have been involved in this license. In addition, Neville must have had detailed knowledge of the saw pit. It is extremely difficult to imagine how Shakespeare would have known such details.

Check out my article on Kuhn's Paradigm Shifts to understand what is going on here. The current paradigm, William Shakespeare Orthodoxy, doesn't account for the facts. There are anomalies that the researcher cannot explain. But a different paradigm, the Neville Authorship Hypothesis, not only accounts for the facts, it suggests new and fruitful avenues of research.

More to come on all of this! 

Henry Neville, Merry Wives of Windsor, and the Gift of Venison

Major Update to this Post:

I've found a 1606 letter from Neville that mentions a gift of deer as well as venison pasty:

I am very sorry that it lies not in my power to send you half a buck; my keepers tell me that there is none in my walk; sure I am that I have not seen a a pasty of venison of this year.

The key implication of this letter is that venison pasty is the type of thing he eats all the time... See the passage below from Merry Wives of Windsor: "Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner"

Neville makes mention of a gift of venison in this letter from 18 July 1600, written from Boulogne where he was engaged in treaty negotiations with Spain:

Since I sent the Ambassador Venison, he hath sent my Wife and my Sister some Spanish Gloves and Perfumes. (WW, 1.230)

I found another reference to Neville giving venison as a gift. A list of Christmas presents received by Sir James Whitelock in 1613 includes “Sir Henry Nevill of Pillingbear, a side of a doe” (Liber Famelicus of James Whitelock, Page 32).

Of special interest is the mention in Merry Wives of Windsor, where venison is also offered as a gift:

PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well.
I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow.

ROBERT SHALLOW. Master Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it
your good heart! I wished your venison better; it
was ill killed. (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  (Merry Wives of Windsor, 1.1)

Come, shall we go and kill us venison?  (As You Like It, 2.1) 

          

This is not hunters' language: he that strikes
The venison first shall be the lord o' the feast; (Cymbeline, 3.3)

Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood,
But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison! (Cymbeline, 4.4)

In summary, we have two examples of Neville giving a gift of deer meat, including Neville using the word “venison” to describe the gift. Merry Wives of Windsor, probably written around the same time, includes a scene that revolves around the gift of “venison.”  As the keeper of royal forests in Windsor, he was very very involved with deer hunting with the Queen (and later King James). Many sources attest to this, I will do a blog post on this later.

Key Source Material: Iron Foundries in Sussex

One of the things I'm going to post on this blog are links to key research materials necessary for understanding Henry Neville and thus the plays of Shakespeare. As I've mentioned many times, Neville owned and operated an ironworks in Sussex from the mid 1580s to the mid 1590s.

John Norden's The surveyors dialogue from 1607 gives a fascinating description of deforestation and how the furnaces functioned. I am going to excerpt here and modernize the spelling. Much research has been done on Shakespeare and his concerns about forest ecology. Read this and understand where that comes from. Neville was watching the forests being cut down and he was playing a big part in it.

Note the reference to bellows and hammers. As I mentioned in previous posts, these were driven by waterwheels. If Neville wrote the works of Shakespeare, there should be metaphors about these things in the plays and poems:

Such a heat issueth out of the many forges, & furnaces, for the making of Iron, and out of the glass kilns, as hath devoured many famous woods within the Wealds.... It is no marvel, if Sussex and other places you speak off, be deprived of this benefit: for I have heard, there are, or lately were in Sussex, near 140 hammers and furnaces for Iron... the hammers and furnaces spend, each of them in every 24. hours, 2, 3, or four loads of char coal, which in a year amounts to an infinite quantity, as you can better account by your Arithmatique, than I.

That which you say, is true, but they work not all, all the year: for many of them lack water in the Summer to blow their bellows. And to say truth, the consuming of much of these in the Weld, is no such great prejudice to the weal public, as is the overthrow of wood & timber, in places where there is no great quantity: for I have observed, that the cleansing of many of these welde grounds, hath redounded rather to the benefit, then to the hurt of the Country: for where woods did grow in superfluous abundance, there was lack of pasture for kine, and of arable land for corn.... Beside, people bred amongst woods, are naturally more stubborn, and uncivil, then in the Champion Countries.


Another example, Irelands naturall history, 1657, and even mentions the necessity of repairing them.

Here is a description of the bellows. Note the reference to pipes:

And here is the reference to bellows maker:

"a list of whose names and offices here followeth: wood-cutters, who fell the timber; sawyers, to saw the timber; carpenters, smiths, masons, and bellow-makers, to erect the iron-works, with all the appurtenances thereof, and to repair them from time to time"

Here is another example from much later in 1674:

IN Iron-work Furnaces are the greatest and most regular moving Bellows that are any where used; the which are commonly turned by the evenest over∣shot Wheels. Now the Times wherein these Bel∣lows rise and fall, are Roots of the Strength of such Bellows-blast upon the fire; for rising in double Quickness admits double air in the same Time; which being in like manner squeezed out a∣gain, double Quickness makes double Expulsion, and consequently double Swiftness; (the whole pas∣sing through the same Twire-pipe in half the time;) and double Swiftness makes quadruple effects upon the fire or Furnace, as aforesaid.


here's something from 1555 on bellows and furnaces:
Anghiera, Pietro Martire d', 1457-1526. | Eden, Richard, 1521?-1576.
The decades of the newe worlde or west India conteynyng the nauigations and conquestes of the Spanyardes,

 yowe muste chiefely auoyde the lacke of water, the vse of water, as a thynge of greatest importaunce and most necessarie in this effecte: for by the force and weyght of the course hereof, wheeles and dyuers other ingenious instrumentes are adapted with ease to lyfte vppe greate bellowes to make fyers of great poure, to beate with hammers of great weyght, and to turne myghtie and stronge eugens, by the force whereof the trauayles of men are so much furthered, that withowt such helpe, it were in maner impossible to ouercome suche tedious trauayles or to arryue to the ende of the woorke, forasmuch as the force of one wheele may lyfte more, and that more safely then the paynefull labour of a hundreth men:

Cannons in the Canon 3: Neville, Shakespeare, and Hamlet

In Hamlet, Marcellus on the battlements describes preparations for war, and describes either the “daily cost of brazen cannon” (First Quarto) or the “daily cast of brazen cannon” (First Folio):

Why this same strict and most observant watch

So nightly toils the subject of the land,

And why such daily (cast/cost) of brazen cannon

And foreign mart for implements of war;

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week.

What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?  (Hamlet 1.1)

In a 19 November 1599 letter to Robert Cecil, Neville describes a very similar situation:

This King, whatsoever his Meaning is, hath been very careful of late to furnish himself of Ordinance [cannons], and hath taken order for the casting of 50 or 60 Pieces here in the Arsenal, whereof 30 are already cast and tried; he hath also appointed great Store of Arms to be bought in sundry Towns as I am informed, wherein he may happily have a double end, to furnish himself for all Occasions, and to disfurnish the Towns. (WW, 1.130)

In other words, in preparation for war, the king is producing ordnance (cannons). He has put in orders for 50 or 60 pieces and 30 are already completed and tested. In addition, he is purchasing arms in towns. This both increases his store of weapons while depleting the stores in the towns. These are two separate preparations for war.

A search of EEBO shows that the use of “cast” to mean “manufacture artillery” was not very common at the time. So this passage does double duty to resolve the controversy. It provides another contemporaneous example of “cast” in this sense. It also provides further insight into why, in preparing for war, you might both manufacture cannons and also purchase them elsewhere. All of this evidence argues for a “cast” reading instead of “cost”.

It is worth noting that Neville owned an ironworks used for making artillery, so it’s not surprising he is interested in ordinance manufacture and dwells on it in this letter. It’s also worth noting that Shakespeare uses artillery imagery in figurative and literal senses extensively throughout Hamlet and other plays.

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.

Cannons in the Canon #2a: Bellows-Mender

Update: I found an example of bellows mending!
Account for 1537-8
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol31/pp174-194
To John Houghe, organmaker, for mending the organs this year, 12d
To the said John Houghe, organmaker, for mending a pair of bellows, 5s.

And another one!!
1553
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/early-eng-text-soc/vol128/pp394-396
payed to Ihon howe for mendynge the great organs & mendynge the bell'owes and for mendynge the lyttell' organs, as dothe appeare by a byll'

And more:
1559
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/churchwardens-st-martin-fields/1525-1603/pp179-195
It'm payd the laste of July to the Orgen maker for tow new skyns (fn. 20) for the bellowes xiijd, for a pounde of glewe iiijd, for fyre jd, for xiiij new springes for the bases ijs iiijd, for latten for the tonges and tow new stoppes ijs, for shew makers (fn. 21) ends ijd, for ther worke for him and his felowe for tow dayes

In Midsummer Night's Dream, typically dated to 1595/1596, a character is introduced as Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

What is a bellows mender? This is not a new question. Here is an edition of Shakespeare's plays  from 1790:

Here is the current Wikipedia entry, connecting the "flute" in his name with the pipe organs:

"Flute's name, like that of the other mechanicals, is metonymical and derives from his craft: "Flute" references a church organ, an instrument prominently featuring the bellows a bellows-mender might be called upon to repair."

Wikipedia also tells us this about pipe organs around 1600:

"In England, many pipe organs were taken out of churches during the English Reformation of the 16th century and the Commonwealth period. Often these were relocated to private homes."

With pipe organs removed from churches, this could be a joke about how someone in that profession wouldn't have much work, and so would need to become an actor. That's a real possibility.

Searching the OED gives some more context. "Bellows" in the sense of instruments used to blow air into a fire, has a very long history in English. Much more recent and much, much less common in 1600 was "bellows" used in the sense of pumping air into a pipe organ.

A search on EEBO produces very very few examples of "bellows" literally related to musical instruments.  One comical passage from Nicholas Breton's The Forte of Fancie from 1570, though, does refer to an organ with burst bellows, but it seems to also be a metaphorical reference to the lungs:

Organes, with the bellowes burst, and battred many wayes: his fife, three holes in one: his Harpe, with nere a stringe: great pittie trust mee for to see, so broken euery thinge:

This might even have been an inspiration for whoever wrote the Shakespeare play, since Breton's works are often compared with Shakespeare's and many similarities have been found.

Robert Greene in his 1592 work A Quip for an Upstart Courtier actually uses the word in a very similar sense to Shakespeare. This is the same Robert Greene who died in 1592 but whose Greene's Groats lampoons Shakespeare:

so then he began to tell mee, that by his art he was a skinner, the second said hee was a ioyner, the thirde was a sadler, the fourth a waterman, the fifte was a cutler, the sixt was a bellows mender, the seuenth a plaisterer, and the eight a printe

But this was written before Midsummer Night's Dream, so may have been the source for this character.

There's another possibility. As I mention here, giant bellows were necessary to run blast furnaces, one of which Henry Neville owned at Mayfield in Sussex to produce iron ordinance.

And I've actually found a reference to such an occupation in a book written a bit later Irelands naturall history, 1657, and even mentions the necessity of repairing them.

Here is a description of the bellows. Note the reference to pipes:

And here is the reference to bellows maker:

"a list of whose names and offices here followeth: wood-cutters, who fell the timber; sawyers, to saw the timber; carpenters, smiths, masons, and bellow-makers, to erect the iron-works, with all the appurtenances thereof, and to repair them from time to time"

Interestingly, John Florio in his 1598 World of Words references an Italian word for bellows maker:
manticciaro, a bellowes maker
mantice, mantici, mantico, a paire of bellowes: also the guts whereby euery creature drawes breath

The Most Shakespearean Neville Quote Yet

This from a letter sent to Thomas Windebank on 10 January 1600. This is Neville writing to someone he knew well, a contemporary from Berkshire. He probably didn't expect this letter to be shared widely, unlike the diplomatic letters he sent to Robert Cecil. Neville seems unguarded here and makes reference to a to Ashridge Wood in Berkshire, which Windebank would have known well:

"I should be glad to return, for the burden is too heavy for my purse, and is likely to increase, by the repair of English gentlemen to whom I cannot shut my gates, so that sometimes I have 12 or 16 of them at table. I will hold out as long as I can, and then my motto shall be, "fie upon honour that brings no profit;" and I will be a hermit in Ashridge or the forest, and do penance for the faults committed here. I am ashamed to see what idols we make of ambassadors there, when so little courtesy is shown them here."

Almost every word or phrase appears multiple times in Shakespeare's works:

"fie"!

"forest hermits"!

"honor that brings no profit"!

"shut the gates"!

"As he in penance wander'd through the forest; " (Shakespeare)

Credence: Diplomatic Language in Henry Neville and Shakespeare

I keep collecting these examples because they demonstrate what I believe to be a real pattern. I believe that we can trace words and phrases that Neville began using during his time as Ambassador to France and then found their way into the plays and poems.

Some of these words are unusual, like cicatrice. Others are much less so. But actually, I think the ability to trace how more common words enter the canon provides stronger evidence of authorship.

In a letter from 19 February 1599, before he left for France, Neville wrote: "I would see both my letters of credence and my instructions, before they be signed."

The OED kindly explains what that means: Chiefly (now only) Diplomatic. Something, usually a document, which gives claim to credit or confidence; a letter of credence, a person's credentials.

The word "credence" was not new in 1599 nor unusual. A search on EEBO shows it to be quite common. But before 1599, the word does not appear at all in Shakespeare's works.

The first appearance is in All's Well That Ends Well, 1.2:

KING OF FRANCE. Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business and would seem
To have us make denial.

FIRST LORD. His love and wisdom,
Approved so to your majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.

And then again, 3.2:

DUKE OF FLORENCE. The general of our horse thou art; and we,
Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
Upon thy promising fortune.

What's interesting is how the context lines up. Neville is using this word in a diplomatic context, describing a letter he needs to prove his credentials to the King of France as ambassador. Then later in a play, the word pops up during an audience with the King of France. It's a fancy, French-sounding word. At the time, in French, this letter was called a "lettre de credence". Here is an example from 1576:

And one from 1609:

Under the William Shakespeare paradigm, identifying words and phrases like this would be unthinkable. Under the Neville paradigm, explanations for words, phrases, and scenes become possible. They can be traced to Henry Neville's personal experiences.

Cannons in the Canon (Part 2) - Blast Furnaces

I'm going to do a whole series on "Cannons in the Canon." To remind you about Part 1, Sir Henry Neville inherited Mayfield Manor in Sussex which included an ironworks used for casting iron ordnance (cannons). He was very involved in this business from the mid 1580s to the mid 1590s. Related imagery suffuses the entire Shakespeare canon.

Here the complete series of posts: Cannon in the Canon

Obviously, the main component of an iron foundry is the furnace. Not just any furnace; at the time they were using blast furnaces with giant bellows which blew air into the furnace. Here is a photo of the types of bellows that were used around that time:

And here is a video of a half-scale working model of such a furnace.

So we should expect lots of metaphorical references to these furnaces from Shakespeare's earliest works onward, demonstrating a personal knowledge of these fiery, smokey monstrosities. Idea being, we write what we know. Neville knew about furnaces so it would be natural for him to write about them.

Venus and Adonis, the earliest Shakespeare-attributed work, published in 1593, offers a metaphor of a fiery furnace, with the air being drawn in and blown out:

His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.

The second earliest work, Rape of Lucrece describes the smoke that rises from a furnace:

'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous Day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak

One of the earliest plays, King Henry VI, Part III, 2.1,  has a particularly interesting passage, Richard III explains that he cannot speak to unload his burden because the breath would kindle the furnace of his heart. Note the reference to "coal" here is "charcoal"; coal-fired furnaces came later. This reference to the heart as a furnace mirrors Sidney's Astrophel and Stella "Through that darke Furnace of my heart opprest":

I cannot weep; for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:
Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burthen;
For selfsame wind that I should speak withal
Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,
And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.

Later, around 1599, As You Like It, 2.7, suggests that a furnace "sighs", perhaps a reference to the sound of the air coming into and out of the bellows:

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Most of these metaphors incorporate the "blast" aspect of the furnace. That's indicative of a familiarity with how furnaces in the 1590s functioned. A further research project would be to compare how often other poets and playwrights in the period used furnaces in metaphors. There are also some biblical references from translations of the Bible available to Shakespeare, so that would be an interesting study as well.

In my earlier post on cannons I discussed the potential authorship of The Troublesome Reign of King John. That play does, in fact, include a furnace reference:

To tumble on and cool this inward heat
That rageth as the furnace sevenfold hot
To burn the holy three in Babylon.
Power after power forsake their proper power

Not the most evocative metaphor, but in-line with what one would expect from an early Neville/Shakespeare play.

Here the complete series of posts: Cannon in the Canon