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

Cicatrice and Shakespeare: The Paradigm Rules

"Cicatrice" was technical medical term borrowed from French. It means a scar. Here is a search on EEBO, but don't be misled. Almost all of those biggish numbers are multiple uses in a single medical treatise translated from French. This was a very uncommon English word in 1600 and not in general use outside of the medical field:

Shakespeare never uses the word until As You Like It, 3.5, probably written in 1599:

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps;

Once the word entered the working vocabulary, though, it got used plenty:

As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe (Hamlet, 4.3)

you shall
find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain
Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here
on his sinister cheek (All's Well That Ends Well, 2.1)

I' the shoulder and i' the left arm there will be
large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall
stand for his place. He received in the repulse of
Tarquin seven hurts i' the body. (Coriolanus, 2.1)

Kuhn, Anomalies, Normal Science, and Shakespeare

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn describes the crisis that precedes a paradigm shit:

The awareness of anomaly had lasted so long and penetrated so deep that one can appropriately describe the fields affected by it as in a state of growing crisis. (Kuhn: 67)

            A scientific crisis can last centuries. Kuhn describes how Ptolemaic astronomy remained current even as anomalies were discovered over time. The anomalies became so pronounced that eventually that paradigm gave way to the Copernican revolution. However, that paradigm shift took over a century to complete. Copernicus’ model was first published in 1543 and it was 90 years later, in 1633, that Galileo was sentenced by the Inquistion.

Shakespeare studies are currently in such a state of crisis. The great anomaly is simply this: research into the life of William Shakespeare provides little or no insights into the motivations, contexts, or circumstances surrounding the writing of the plays and poems attributed to him. Recognition of this anomaly is nothing new; it has been a major challenge to Shakespeare scholarship over the last 200 years.

“Normal Science” and a Strong, Productive Research Program

In what Kuhn calls “normal science,” the current “paradigm” generates a research program which gives scientists small, achievable puzzles to solve. The current paradigm of Shakespeare scholarship is that the actor William Shakespeare wrote most of the Shakespeare canon himself, sometimes collaborating with other playwrights.

This paradigm offers a clear cut, intertwined research program. The details of Shakespeare’s life are studied to provide insight into the plays and poems. At the same time, the plays and poems are studied to provide new insights into Shakespeare’s life. With a healthy paradigm, these strands should be constantly reinforcing each other, suggesting further areas of productive research.

In some areas, this research has been very productive. Researchers have tracked down sources for many of the plays, and new sources are still being discovered. That catalog of source works provides a very clear picture of the material the author of the works must have had access to and been able to read. It paints an authentic picture of the author’s intellectual life.

            For example, careful study of sources reveals that the author of Othello must have been able to read Italian. Othello is derived, in part, from  Cinthio's Gli Hecatommithi. Whoever wrote Othello must have had access to this book and been able to read it in Italian, since no English translation existed at the time. Similarly, careful study of the plays and poems shows that whoever wrote them must have been able to read Latin well enough to study Ovid in the original.

There is no evidence that William Shakespeare himself could do either of these things, so research has focused instead on possible scenarios where he might have learned those skills and had access to those works. However, these possible scenarios are never verified by further research; they simply remain dead ends. This is an example of an “anomaly.”

In addition, research into Shakespeare’s life and background provides no insight into the content of the plays or poems. If the author is reflected in the work, we have little or no evidence of that. "Shakespeare" under the current paradigm is simply what we project onto him. The plays stand alone, independent of the man.

This is not how a productive research program should look. In a productive paradigm, different research strands within the overall paradigm should reinforce each other. One area of research should provide direction for further productive research in other areas. However, the current Shakespeare paradigm produces anomalies that cannot be resolved within the paradigm. This has created the current crisis.

Small Latine Lesse Greeke and the Stratford Free School

Baldwin’s William Shakespeares Small Latine Lesse Greeke, published in 1944, is a case in point. This meticulously researched book provides detailed information about Latin grammar school education in 16^th century England. It offers details about the Stratford Free School, its founding and funding, its instructors, and Shakespeare’s contemporaries who did attend there.

In a productive, healthy research program, meticulous research such as this should have provided other researchers with clues for further research into Shakespeare’s life. However, 75 years later, no progress has been made at all. No evidence has been uncovered that Shakespeare even attended the Stratford Free School, and no further evidence has been shown of his Latin attainment. The only evidence for his knowledge of Latin are the plays and poems themselves.

The same is true for the obvious shift in tone in Shakespeare’s plays. The difference between Henry V, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night on the one hand, and Hamlet on the other, is remarkable, even though they were written two or three years apart. Any theoretical framework that cannot account for that shift does not have the necessary explanatory power to be a viable paradigm.

Most recent, serious Shakespeare scholarship simply ignores William Shakespeare. Obligatory references may be made to him or potential connections to his life suggested, but the core research is completely separate from the supposed playwright. This, perhaps most of all, is indicative of a paradigm in crisis.

Requirements for a New Paradigm

Of course, it is not enough to identify an anomalous situation. If a new theory cannot be proposed that both accounts for current data and provides a new and productive research program, there is no possibility of progress. Shakespeare studies have been stuck in this limbo for over a century.

Recent advances in technology have not improved the situation or enabled researchers to make progress. The digitization of almost every English book published in Shakespeare’s time, the digital distribution of facsimiles of Quartos, and searchable databases of contemporaneous plays are all available now to anyone anywhere. But this explosion in knowledge and access has just made the situation worse. It increases understanding of the context of the plays and poems themselves without helping us at all to connect them to William Shakespeare, the supposed playwright.

To precipitate a paradigm shift, however, the new theory must not only account for all current empirical findings. It must provide a research program that generates new avenues of inquiry that produce new insights and new findings. The new paradigm must be productive in order to gather adherents. After all, researchers want to spend time on fruitful avenues. They want to produce new scholarship that is recognized by others as valuable.

Kuhn explains how the process of adoption of a new paradigm is both constructive and destructive. The new paradigm will maintain many aspects of the old one while offering a re-interpretation of the discoveries made under the old paradigm. Much is thrown out while much is re-interpreted and retained.

Very often, two paradigms co-exist simultaneously until one wins out. Also, very often it is a new generation of scientists who bring about the paradigm shift. The old generation is never actually converted to the new paradigm. The younger scientists find the new paradigm more conducive to productive research, so it wins adherents and eventual becomes the standard paradigm.

Henry Neville

            The crisis is real, but without a credible alternative, no paradigm shift is possible. Fortunately, research into the life of Sir Henry Neville of Billingbear (1562-1615) does provide the explanatory power and research potential to greatly expand the field of Shakespeare studies. It not only accounts for current research, it opens up completely new ways of interpreting the plays and poems.

            This new research program will completely transform how we read and understand the Shakespeare canon. Commentary such as “Shakespeare is remarkably alert to woodland facts and terminology” (Barton, The Shakespearean Forest, 7) will be replaced by detailed analyses of Neville’s personal and family history as wardens of Windsor forest. The political motivations underlying the plays will be compared with Neville’s parliamentary and diplomatic record, not to mention his family history and personal interests.

            We are, quite frankly, living in the most exciting time ever for Shakespeare scholarship. The paradigm shift will not come easily. Crises are rarely resolved cleanly. But the resulting expansion of our understanding and appreciation for the works themselves will make all of it worth it.

           

Cannons, Arden of Faversham, Troublesome Reign of King John, and King John

This is a topic I'll be exploring in-depth,  but I thought I'd share some initial thoughts here.

"Mayfield manor and park had come into Neville hands through Neville’s mother, Elizabeth Gresham, and included a furnace used for casting iron ordnance." (History of Parliament)

So through most of the 1580s and 1597, Sir Henry Neville was intimately involved in the manufacture of ordinance (cannons). I'll be arguing that cannon imagery is a hallmark of Shakespeare's works, and this imagery is multi-faceted; it extends even to the manufacturing process. It spans the entire canon, from the first published poems to the last plays. This emphasis has been noted by others, but the Neville connection explains it.

Cannons and Plays of Unknown Authorship

When trying to determine whether a certain apocryphal work was actually written by Shakespeare/Neville, my first check is always for cannon imagery.

John Casson suggests that the Troublesome Reign of King John was written by Neville/Shakespeare. A quarto of this play was published in 1591, so this would make it one of the earliest plays. The idea would be that the later King John, written 5-10 years later, was a revision of this play. Attributing The Troublesome Reign to Shakespeare is nothing new; the 1611 Quarto lists "W. Sh" as the author, etc.

So here is a passage from that 1591 Quarto extended gorgeous evocative metaphor involving cannons:

The troublesome Raigne
Curse, ban, and breath out damned orisons,
As thick as hailestones fore the springs approach:
But yet as harmles and without effect,
As is the eccho of a Cannons crack
Dischargd against the battlements of heauen.
But what newes els befell there Philip?

(Note that "orisons" appears four times in the play and appears in several Shakespeare plays including Henry VI, Part III and Romeo and Juliet. A search on EEBO shows it to be a relatively uncommon word.)

Conventional wisdom is that George Peele wrote the play. (Please read his Wikipedia entry and note the great detail they offer on this playwright's educational background and family life.) In his other works, George Peele mentions cannons A LOT, but always in the same simple manner:

Miscellaneous Poems
The roaring cannon, and the brazen trump, 
To hear the rattling cannons roar, and the hilts on helmets ring
Flies like a bullet from a cannon's mouth

Battle of Alcazar
With men and ships, courage and cannon-shot
The Christians with great noise of cannon-shot
With cannon-shot and shouts of young and old

And here is Shakespeare's canonical King John, note the specific reference to iron, the use of the technical term "ordinance", etc.:

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls:
All preparation for a bloody siege
All merciless proceeding by these French
Confronts your city's eyes, your winking gates;
And but for our approach those sleeping stones,
That as a waist doth girdle you about,
By the compulsion of their ordinance
By this time from their fixed beds of lime
Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
But on the sight of us your lawful king,
Who painfully with much expedient march
Have brought a countercheque before your gates,
To save unscratch'd your city's threatened cheeks,
Behold, the French amazed vouchsafe a parle;
And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,
To make a shaking fever in your walls,
They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,
To make a faithless error in your ears:
Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
And let us in, your king, whose labour'd spirits,
Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
Crave harbourage within your city walls.

Both examples from King John plays are very Neville/Shakespearean. They are creatively evocative. The second example from the canonical Shakespeare work refers to "iron" and uses the technical term "ordinance," very in-line with the experiences and vocabulary of Henry Neville. The George Peele examples are decidely not.

It is important to note that the references to cannons in any play about King John is completely anachronistic. No cannons were used in Europe at that time. The repetition of this anachronism in both plays increases the likelihood that they were written by the same author (though the use in the first play might not be quite technically anachronistic).

Another play thought perhaps to be written by Shakespeare, Arden of Faversham, also has a striking cannon metaphor that includes "forge". Note the similarities with the passage from Troublesome Reign of King John above.

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.

Edward III is another play that has been thought to be apocryphal though is largely accepted now as part of the canon. Here we have "ordinance" as well as some so-so cannon imagery. Note the parallel with Hamlet's "brazen cannon" and "brazen ordinance" below:

And every Barricado's open front
Was thick embossed with brazen ordinance;

Anon the death procuring knell begins:
Off go the Cannons, that with trembling noise
Did shake the very Mountain where they stood;
Then sound the Trumpets' clangor in the air,
The battles join: and, when we could no more
Discern the difference twixt the friend and foe,
So intricate the dark confusion was,
Away we turned our watery eyes with sighs,
As black as powder fuming into smoke.

From The Theory of the Leisure Class

As relevant today as ever:

The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law; and some good repute accrues to him from his increased wealth and from his spending the irregularly acquired possessions in a seemly manner.

- Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)