The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice.

In this series:

• A Few Character Names in the Early Versions of Hamlet
• The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice.

So then, in our recent essay “A Few Character Names in the Early Versions of Hamlet” we left the question hanging as to whether Shakespeare chose the character name Montano, in the 1st Quarto of Hamlet,  not only from a name in Jacopo Sanazzaro’s Arcadia, but did double-duty with it by referring to Queen Elizabeth’s European agent, Christopher Mundt.

While Mundt had his primary residence in Strasburg he had been given official status as a “denizen” of England and a standing passport. He is infrequently referred to as having been in London and the Royal Court. Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary Cecil would, on those infrequent occasions, have had face-to-face meetings with the man. One such occasion saw him in England much or all of March and April 1561.

Nevertheless, the agent lived in Strasburg. His ambit was generally defined by the German states.  

The reader may recall that Polonius calls upon Reynaldo to suggest to Laertes’ friends that he is privy to minor misbehaviors, at which he winks, in order to draw out conversation from them about more serious infractions.

Polonius. At 'closes in the consequence,' ay, marry;

He closes with you thus: 'I know the gentleman;

I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,

Or then, or then, with such, or such, and, as you say,

There was he gaming, there o'ertook in's rouse,

There falling out at tennis;' or perchance,

‘I saw him enter such a house of sale,'

Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.[1]

In the 1^st Quarto the conversation follows the same line but is between Corambis and Montano and is much shorter.

Laertes is generally considered to represent Cecil’s son Robert. This because the advice Polonius gives to Laertes, for his wisest behavior, is supposed to parallel a list of precepts attributed to Cecil, when he was Baron Burghley, first published in the mid-17^th century. The list as it appeared then is addressed to Robert.

But Robert was his darling for the fact that he was famously well behaved from a young age. And Burghley’s precepts, as saved for posterity, bear no particular relationship to those Polonius presses upon Laertes. The advice to Laertes is much more immediately practical for a spirited young man going to France. It is brief and to the point. The advice to Robert is rhetorical. It is advice at the threshold of manhood.

Cecil’s first son, Thomas, however, drove him to distraction. Among the many exasperated letters William sent to his son’s tutor, Thomas Windebank, during their tour of the continent, during 1560-2, we find the following.

I know not what to judg, but I have had a watche worde sent me out of France that my Sonne's being there shall serve hym to litle purpose; for that he spendeth hys tyme in idleness, and not in proffityng hymself in lerning.[2]

Some two weeks later, he again writes the tutor. This time reciting Thomas’s faults so that his correspondent will know more precisely what to look for.

I know some of his old faults wer, to be slowthfull in keping his bedd; negligent and rash in expencees; uncarefull or careless of his apparrell; an unordynat lover of unmete playes, as dyce and cards; in study, sone weary,—in game, never.[3]

The list could almost be derived directly out of Polonius’ instructions to Reynaldo. Should Laertes be Thomas, rather than Robert, Polonius knew what to fear.

After further letters describing every kind of behavior warned against by Polonius in the instructions to Laertes, Cecil writes to Windebank again.

I pray you lett Tho. Cecill put my Instructions which I gave, into French, and send me them.[4]

He had given Thomas instructions prior to his departure. He hopes to fix them in his memory by having him translate them into French. Sort of like writing them on the chalkboard a hundred times. At the same time they will serve as an exercise in the language.

The “watchword,” it bears saying, was much more likely to have come from the English ambassador to France, at the time, Nicholas Throckmorton, rather than Mundt. Cecil did mention, in one of his letters, however, that he would be greatly relieved once young Thomas was in Strasbourg, the city in which Mundt resided and received instructions from the Principal Secretary upon which he always acquitted exceptionally well.

After a continuous exchange of letters, over nearly two years, Windebank finally gives up. In his letter from Paris, of April 26 of 1562, all pretense is dropped. The personality of young “Mister” Thomas leaps off the page having broken free from all restraint.

Sir, I do see that Mr. Thomas has utterly no mind nor disposition in him to apply [to] any learning, according to your expectation and according to the end you sent him for hither, being carried away by other affections that rule him, so as it maketh him forget his duty in all things…. Sir, I must needs let you know (as my duty constraineth me) that I am not able to persuade him to spend his time better or to do any other thing than he liketh himself, and so he hath told me plainly, and so indeed do I find it.[5]

Mr. Thomas’s tour of the continent, in all its glory, was likely to have been infamous in the Cecil household and beyond.

It seems worth asking whether Shakespeare didn’t get double-duty out of the name Montano in the early Hamlet. That said, it is also worth noting that Mundt died in 1572. No version of Shakespeare seems likely to have seen he and Cecil in conference. Most certainly not in April of 1561. Or when Robert left for three months in Paris in 1584.

 

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[1] The Tragedy of Hamlet, II.i.

[2] Burgon, John William. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham. I.427. Sir William Cecil to Thomas Windebank. August 27, 1561.

[3] Gresham, I.428. Cecil to Windebank. September 10, 1561.

[4] Ibid. I.430.

[5] Calendar of State Papers: Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth..., Volume 4. 632. Windebank to Cecil. April 26, 1562.

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