Athens, Ohio:
Ohio University Press: 1985. ISBN: 978-0821408001. [Reprinted in PDF format, 2006] 227 pp.
It is particularly important to read well researched books
on matters of Oxfordian interest written by scholars unaware or unconcerned
about the Authorship Question. Alternative
perspectives challenge popular conceptions that can too easily turn out, in the
end, to be misconceptions.
Dwight Clark Peck’s edition of The Copy of a Letter Written by
a Master of Art of Cambridge (a.k.a. Leicester’s Commonwealth) is such a
study.
The present edition is a collation of nine copies of the 1584
text; Appendix A lists these nine and cites the only three variants found. In
order to assist smooth reading and emphasize the book’s content rather than its
typographical idiosyncrasies, I have elected to regularize the spelling in both
the text and the other quoted documents, with abbreviations silently expanded.
The scholarly Introduction is separately and thoroughly
annotated. The endnotes to the text are
even more extensive. The observations
throughout are thoughtful and informed.
The position, held by some, that Edward de Vere might have
written Leicester’s Commonwealth, for one example of a misconception,
while always questionable, is revealed to be untenable by Peck’s
exceptional analysis. Four closely
reasoned pages on this other authorship question make clear the likely authors:
To summarize the much-vexed authorship problem, then, our
reflections suggest that Leicester’s Commonwealth was written chiefly by
Charles Arundell, probably with the assistance of all or some of the group
comprising Lord Paget, Thomas Fitzherbert, William Tresham, Thomas Throgmorton,
and possibly still others; so far this conclusion confirms the assertion of
Father Parsons and the opinions of the scholars Pollen and Hicks.
No attempt is made to exclude De Vere. He simply does not come into view when the
history is impartially considered.
By the same token, the purblindness of mainstream scholars
deprived of legitimate facts that they are required to ignore or deny, can be
highly informative. The “old play” that
has long been understood, by mainstream scholars, to have provided the text of
the Ulysses and Agamemnon portion (a.k.a. “the Camp Portion”) of Shakespeare’s Troilus
and Cressida, proves to be an impenetrable mystery that “may never be solved”.
They are positively are not allowed to
connect it to the Ulysses and Agamemnon play performed by “Oxenford’s
Boys” in 1584[1].
The Earl of Leicester portrayed in Leicester’s
Commonwealth is not allowed to be compared to the Achilles described by Ulysses
in the opening speech of Ulysses and Agamemnon[2] though both
are described in identical language.
Moreover, the old play is not allowed to be the play we find
embedded in Troilus and Cressida.
The fact that the play was performed less than a year after the
existence of Leicester’s Commonwealth
had been reported by Walsingham’s spies — that is to say, at a time that the
scandal was the subject of every courtier’s whispered gossip — is not
allowed into evidence.
The powerful relationship between the works is either
coincidence or the “old play” was written by another. On this occasion, another who was neither
Shakespeare or the Earl of Oxford and certainly not both at once.
All of this said, it is essential that an edition of the Commonwealth
be absolutely rigorous. The facts must
be perfectly analysed (inasmuch as they can be known). This is what Peck has accomplished with
his edition. It is difficult to believe
that it could have been better done. Anything
that can be added can only be added because Peck created the essential
foundation for further study, further debate.
All of this said, the author does have the habit of
referring to the two dominant parties at Court as “Catholic” and
“Protestant”. Although this is common practice
now for centuries, it is misleading in important ways.
Leicester was not a religious man for all that he was the
leader of the Puritan religious faction in England. Their alliance was one of necessity. The Puritans stood at the brink of being
interdicted for their rejection of the Queen as the head of the church and of
her bishops as her lieutenants.
Leicester made their excuses for them in the council room in exchange
for intelligence on the country’s Catholic sympathizers and the utility they
provided via their various offices.
His opponents at Court are more properly referred to as the “Howard-Vere
faction” for all that many of them were indeed practicing Catholics. Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, second in
command, as it were, until the execution of Norfolk robbed the faction of its
only natural leader, was also not at all a religious man. If fact he was reckless at times, per
reports, in his pursuit of forbidden books and his declarations, among his
private friends, against many articles of faith.
Both factions existed mainly for reasons surrounding
Leicester’s outsized influence with the Queen. Of particular concern was the matter of her
marriage. Leicester wielded his forces
in order to keep himself the only viable marriage partner for the Queen. The Howard-Vere factions used theirs (far
less effectively) to attempt to arrange a marriage to two successive Dukes of
Anjou. While the Dukes’ Catholic faith
was not insignificant in their calculations, the overriding point was that
there be no marriage to Leicester.
Howard, Arundell, and Southwell received word of their
imminent arrest from an unnamed friend on the Privy Council, and the former two
took refuge in the Spanish ambassador’s house in the middle of the night.
Although he had never spoken with them before, Mendoza saw in his hospitality a
chance to win valuable contacts;…
The last of their power was ended through trials, executions
and escape into exile. Mendoza was
dismissed and transferred into France.
He and numerous French Catholics provided resources to the Howard-Vere
exiles, and, soon afterwards, numerous pamphlets calling for the overthrow of Leicester
and the Queen began to appear. Among
them was Leicester’s Commonwealth.
With this, Elizabeth’s tolerance of the Catholics in her
realm came to an end. Her Secretary
Walsingham — a vicious anti-Catholic — immediately rose to be her foremost
councilor in the matter. Slights real
and imagined resulted in imprisonment, torture and drawing-and-quartering for English
printers and publishers. For noblemen
such slights resulted in the destruction of their power and fortunes, if not
execution. The council, led by
Walsingham, called repeatedly for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Censorship laws were strengthened and
vigorously enforced.
Apart from his tendency to see his subject too much through
the perspective of a religious conflict, Dwight Clark Peck’s work verges on perfection.
[1]
Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Ulysses and
Agamemnon (1584). “In actuality, according to the minimal records of the time, the
play was performed on St. John’s Day, December 27, by “Earl of Oxenford his
boys,” a name briefly given to the Boys of St. Pauls.” Introduction, 243.
[2]
Purdy. “The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre observe
degree, priority, and place, insisture, course, proportion, season, form, office,
and custom, in all line of order; and therefore is the glorious planet Sol in
noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd amidst the other, whose medicinable eye corrects
the influence of evil planets, and posts, like the commandment of a king, sans
check to good and bad. But when the planets in evil mixture to disorder wander,
what plagues and what portents, what mutiny!
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth, commotion of the winds,
frights, changes, horrors, divert and crack, rend and deracinate the unity and
married calm of states quite from their fixure!...” 350 ff.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Shakespeare as Burleigh's Guest at Castle Hedingham? February 4, 2019. “Like the once popular game in which a large circle of people is formed and a message whispered in the ear of the first person, who whispers it in the ear of the next, and so on, around the entire group, we do not know what exactly was the original message but only that the message we hear from the last person is strangely suggestive.”
- Why Shakespeare Appears on Title Pages from 1598. November 20, 2018. ‘These he finds unconvincing. The author’s name having appeared in a number of title pages after 1598, he continues, “it would seem foolish for publishers not to attach the Shakespeare brand to his previously unattributed plays—unless they had other reasons not to do so.”’
- The Nymphs of Doctor Foreman’s Macbeth. October 21, 2018. “How did Foreman make the mistake of describing them precisely as Holinshed? But differently from the text we have of Macbeth? To consider Foreman’s account a simple mistake would require an astronomically improbable coincidence.”
- The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
- 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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