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| William Camden. |
The copy was a presentation copy. It was presented to a young friend of William
Camden, the great English antiquarian and author of Britannia, sive
florentissimorvm regnorvm, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, etc.[2] The provenance of the relationship is well
worth investigating. Especially for the
misconceptions it has encouraged for well over 100 years.
Camden — the premiere English antiquarian of his time —
published a fifth and much expanded edition of his Britannia in 1594. It was published in Latin as was expected of
a true intellectual. The first English
translation would be published in 1610.[3]
In respect of his great accomplishment, he was appointed Clarenceux
King of Arms in 1597. Longtime officer
of the College of Heralds, Ralph Brooke, who had been appointed York Herald in
1593, was much offended by an outsider being appointed to what amounted to the
vice-presidency of the College south of the river Trent. As York Herald, he felt much better
qualified. He had much more seniority
and might have expected to receive the appointment himself.
Brooke had probably already noted a number of errors in the Britannia
prior to Camden’s appointment. After his
appointment, the York Herald, wrote a long open letter enumerating those errors. Camden replied in a long Latin letter
conceding some of the errors.
Brooke quickly published a long pamphlet containing the
letters and a much more public reply: A Discoverie of Certaine Errours
Published in Print in the Much Commended 'Britannia' To which are added the
Learned Mr. Camden's Answer... AND Mr. BROOKE's REPLY (1597). Camden remained silent until the 1600 sixth
edition of his Britannia. Another
Latin letter was appended to the end of that edition which replied to Brooke’s
1597 volume. These Latin replies
infuriated Brooke both because it kept the matter from being tried in the court
of public opinion, where he felt he had the advantage, and likely because he
was not able to write pamphlet-length works in Latin. Camden, he felt, was unfairly managing to keep
the upper hand. He angrily responded with
A SECOND DISCOVERIE OF ERROURS Published in the Much-Commended Britannia, I594.
(1600), in which Camden’s Latin was translated into English, so all could
understand, interleaved with Brooke’s refutations.
There was a pause at this point as Brooke filed an official complaint,
in 1602, against longtime member of the College of Heralds, William Dethick. Dethick had been the Garter King of Arms
since 1586 (the equivalent of the president of all the College of Heralds
throughout England, Ireland and Wales).
Brooke was on stronger ground here. While Dethick knew the business well, he was
not averse to taking or offering bribes in the various affairs of his life. This had resulted in irregularities.
It is here that the Stratford man John Shaksper comes in.
While in London, John’s son William managed to revive an old application his
father had made for a Coat of Arms. A wily
presence in the capitol city did the trick and Dethick issued the now famous
Shaksper family Coat of Arms. Those arms
were among the 23 cited as faulty by Brooke.[4]
In the words of Sidney Lee, whose Cornhill Magazine article
gives a version of these events, “he insisted that a grave error had been committed.
Shakespeare's heraldic shield, he said, did not of right belong to him because
it was identical with one already borne by a noble family— that of Lord Mauley.”[5]
Brooke had not complained about the family receiving the
arms in itself. He complained that the
design broke the rules of the College.
Dethick replied effectively.
While the official outcome of the dispute has not survived, it has long
been believed that Dethick’s defense was successful and the design of the arms approved.
[1] Lee, Sidney. “The
Shakespeare First Folio.” Cornhill
Magazine, New Series VI. January to June 1899.
449-458 @ 454.
[2] Britannia,
sive florentissimorvm regnorvm, Angliæ, Scotiæ, Hiberniæ, etc. (1580)
[4] “Shakespeare's
arms challenged by Ralph Brooke, as presented to Queen Elizabeth.” Citing: Tucker, Stephen. The Assignment of
Arms to Shakespeare and Arden, 1596-99 (1884), p. 13 http://www.shakespearedocumented.org/exhibition/document/shakespeares-arms-challenged-ralph-brooke-presented-queen-elizabeth.
Shakespeare Documented. “Dethick
defended Shakespeare’s coat of arms by pointing out their unique features and
John Shakespeare’s civic career and marriage into the Arden family. The outcome
is not recorded, but the dispute appears to have been resolved in favor of
Dethick.”
[5] Lee,
456.
- Thomas Churchyard in The Merry Wives of Windsor. June 04, 2018. “The idea of this stratagem, &c. might have been adopted from part of the entertainment prepared by Thomas Churchyard for Queen Elizabeth at Norwich:…”
- Dating Edward de Vere's Sonnet 110. May 21, 2018. “Shake-speare the poet was now Shake-speare writer for the common stage. Those who knew he was The Bard, but only knew him as the poet, now knew that he was the person who had written the plays,…”
- Let the sky rain potatoes! December 16, 2017. "In fact, the sweet potato had only just begun to be a delicacy within the reach of splurging poets and playwrights and members of the middle classes at the time that The Merry Wives of Windsor (the play from which Falstaff is quoted) was written. The old soldier liked to keep abreast of the new fads."
- Shakespeare's Apricocks. February 21, 2017. "While he may never have been a gardener, he does seem more than superficially knowledgeable about the gardens of his day. One detail of such matters that he got wrong, however, is as much to the point as any."
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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