[Betts] marry the removing of the straingers which cannot choose but much [helpe] advauntage the poor handycraftes of the Cytty
[More] graunt them remoued and graunt that this yor noyce hath Chidd downe all the majestie of Ingland ymagin that you see the wretched straingers their babyes at their backs, and their poor lugage plodding tooth ports and costs for transportacion and that you sytt as kings in your desyres aucthoryty quyte sylenct by yor braule and you in ruff of yor opynions clothd what had you gott, I'le tell you, you had taught how insolenc[e] and strong hand shoold prevayle how ordere shoold be quelld, and by this patterne not on of you shoold lyve an aged man for other ruffians as their fancies wrought with self same hand self reasons and self right woold shark on you and men lyke ravenous fishes woold feed on on[e] another
[Doll] before god thats as trewe as the gospell
[Betts] nay this a sound fellowe I tell you lets mark him1
The London mob is furious that “strangers” (foreigners) were taking their jobs. The author of Hand-D does not reject them but understands their plight. More to the credit of his empathy for the lower classes, he understands the plight of the strangers as well.
Thomas More (direct representative of the royal authority of Henry VIII) has chosen not to trample them into the ground, like a Peterborough mob, like the authorities were even more prone to do in Tudor times, but rather to address them as intelligent, inherently peace-loving peasant folk.
Actually, the Hand-D More, here, sounds like nothing so much as the work of an early 19th century Clapton Evangelical. Whoever wrote this compassionate, patient More, respecter of all social classes, most assuredly understood what modern readers would credit as compassion toward the humbly-born as only a fellow could likely do. No Coriolanus or Measure for Measure finds place in these three pages: no arrogant elites or buffoonish commoners. The author of Hand-D just wants to be perceived as a man of the people. But, if he is Shakespeare, he will eschew these things for just this once.
As for whoever did write this Hand-D Sir Thomas More, well, for two centuries it used to be considered a tantalizing manuscript too sadly lacking sufficient evidence to justify an attribution. There was a great desire in some quarters to find further argument and/or evidence to declare the secretary hand to be that of Shakespeare. What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!
But it was thought in those days that scholarship had to have standards. Especially the discipline of Shakespeare scholarship which had been the victim of so many frauds virtually since its inception.
So then imagine the possibilities Shakespeare scholars perceived when statistics and computer analysis massively expanded the definitions of evidence. Especially given the utterly excruciating blaring headlines regularly appearing to declare alternative authors for the works of Shakespeare. Credentialed scholars were sitting in boring little offices falling asleep over studies of minutiae in the sonnets while Authorship crazies were doing media interviews and drinking mid-range wines stop after stop on book tours. Those Authorship fiends might claim to have as good or better scholarly chops as the pros but now Shakespeare Studies was safely abstruse again. It was a field with its own department of mathematics and computer science! Understand that!
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the computers began to “discover” that plays were most definitely written by Shakespeare after 1604, the year of Edward de Vere's, death. All based upon irrefutable and inscrutable computer analysis, the Shakespeare departments announced. Now they were the exciting ones!
Handwriting analysis also began to be “enhanced” by computer. The tiny handwriting sample size provided by Sogliardo of Stratford's six extant signatures was no longer a problem. Improved methods and the use of specialized computer programs discovered that the examples were a match with Hand-D.
Still, I submit that the history of Hand-D scholarship also offers it's own compelling data. When John Payne Collier announced his discovery of the manuscript of the Sir Thomas More, among the Harleian Collection, in his 1831 History of English Dramatic Poetry,2 for example, he had already had months of unsupervised access to it, yet he did not announce he'd made a Shakespeare discovery.
Over the years between then and the 1844 Shakespeare Society publication of the manuscript by Alexander Dyce3 that unsupervised access continued. Still not a word about this Hand-D absolutely chunked full of telling references to Shakespeare's works that simply could not be missed. No other single scene by an Elizabethan playwright had ever contained so many connections to the Bard's works.
As luck would have it, by the time the Shakespeare Society (over which Collier presided as President) chose to publish Sir Thomas More, Collier had discovered many times more major Shakespeare discoveries than any other scholar ever. Such incredible luck could only provoke jealousy and murmurs grew ever louder among the community. And then there was the misfortune that a number of his discoveries were pronounced to be forgeries. A number of others had fallen into question. It was most certainly not the time for Collier to edit the More and make the biggest discovery ever. The task was assigned to one of the murmurers, Alexander Dyce.
John Payne Collier was a great a psychologist as he was a scholar, however, and he continued to be revered as the greatest Shakespeare scholar of his time. His advantages were many. Many of his purported discoveries were too dear to the heart of the community to be rejected regardless of all. His further work went on as if his earlier troubled work had never occurred.
That silence about anything but present matters worked. Even in the heat of the Hand-D controversy he maintained an absolute and uncharacteristic silence. No one ever thought to mention that the manuscript of Sir Thomas More was discovered by Collier who studied it in private for many years surely employing his (in)famous expertise in the secretary hand (in particular of Shakespeare) and “reverse engineering” period formulas for ink (for which he was particularly famous) in his analyses.
His persistence, perhaps, was known more than even those talents. Give him time alone with an Elizabethan document or book and he simply would not quit until he made a major Shakespeare discovery.
There's a name for that kind of expertise.
1Greg, W. W. The Book of Sir Thomas More. 76. Somewhat modernized.
2Collier, John Payne. The History Of English Dramatic Poetry To The Time Of Shakespeare; And Annals Of The Stage To The Restoration. Vol. I. 94. “The author of the MS. historical play of Sir Thomas More in the Harleian Collection (No. 7368), which was probably written before the year 1590,...” The manuscript play is mentioned throughout all three volumes of The History.
3Munday, Anthony & Various Anonymous. Sir Thomas More, a Play; Now First Printed (1844). Alexander Dyce, ed.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
The Viscount Dungarvan's “Epitaph on Shakespeare” Cookbook. April 1, 2023. “It is excruciating to be that boring (for soon you resemble what you do).”
An Introduction to William Basse's “Epitaph on Shakespeare” (1616-1623). March 26, 2023. “Poems passed from hand to hand tend to show a range of variations major and minor.”
Edward de Vere in the Lives of his Daughters. February 27, 2023. "At least they take some comfort from their belief that De Vere had no demonstrable relationship with his daughter, the Countess of Montgomery, Susan de Vere."
- Shakespeare’s Character Names: Shylock, Ophelia, etc. July 13, 2021. “The name Ophelia was, by all indications, quite rare in the 16th century.”
A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
- Shakespeare’s Funeral Meats. May 13, 2020. “Famous as this has been since its discovery, it has been willfully misread more often than not. No mainstream scholar had any use for a reference to Hamlet years before it was supposed to have been written.”
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
1 comment:
Don't let Stratfordians get wind of this, they might just miss your sarcasm.
Collier + "Fraudier"?
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