Do they seriously believe that a capricious aristo such as the Earl of Oxford or a legalistic scholar like Francis Bacon could have written The Merry Wives of Windsor?
The point, for Mr. Billington is that the play “could only have been written by someone who understood the intricacies of a close knit, provincial community.” For his money, neither Oxford nor Bacon could possibly have had this knowledge.
Like many Stratfordian acolytes, Billington has been encouraged to be insulting and dismissive and he has dutifully called out two celebrities who frustrate the faithful by gaining media coverage for alternative authors. Like the vast majority of such acolytes the sum of his knowledge vis-a-vis Shakespeare and Shakespeare authorship comes to little or nothing more than the memory of one or another Stratfordian sermon once heard.
All of that said, the journalist's point comes close to raising a legitimate question. Shakespeare was indeed in the habit of portraying the Englishmen of his purported class dismissively pretty much across the board, though he did highly honor them when they were good and trusty servants of their masters. His plays portrayed the life of the upper classes — and, in particular, noblemen and women — with obvious appreciation and shared their perspective entirely. So how, then, asks our author, did he portray the life of a small town so aptly?
Billington would seem to crow that one play out of some 37 had a lower class setting and lower-class characters suggesting that the noble perspective of the other 37 is outnumbered by it? The suggestion is that an Earl could not write knowledgeably about the common life but a commoner could write from the perspective of the nobility 36 or so times more with thorough knowledge and no worthy conclusions be drawn.
It only gets worse for him from there, I'm afraid. Shakespeare has chosen, of all places, the town of Windsor: a town that serves one of Queen Elizabeth I's favorite palaces. The economy of the town relied upon it.
But why did Shakespeare choose a royal town? There were only a tiny number of such towns. Why not a town like Stratford? There were vast numbers of such.
Perhaps Mr. Billington (or the likes) will claim that the name was Windsor, in the play, but the town was Stratford (or the like). But no. Thanks to Misters Tighe and Davis we have the exceptionally well researched Annals Of Windsor.1 In it, we walk the streets that Shakespeare walked.
Queen Elizabeth traveled with a large court. There were hundreds of courtiers. Not all could fit inside most of her palaces. Inside the grounds garbage rapidly piled up and made quite a smell. Latrines in constant use added to the pungent atmosphere. More than a few chose (or were required) to take rooms in the towns that had sprung up around them. Almost everyone walked out into the Little Park when the court was at Windsor castle in order to get a bit of air, many issuing out of the outer gate and into the town via Datchet Mead where laundry was serviced (including their own).2
From Datchet observant courtiers would surely notice the locals proceeding along the road to the nearby collection of common fields and rural houses known by the name of Frogmore. Spirited young courtiers would well know the lay of the land outside the park gate and would turn south instead to the Garter Inn where Falstaff alone of the court resides during the play for reasons we will explore another time.
All are there in the records of the town: Datchet, Frogmore and the Garter Inn watched over by “mine host of the Garter”. Also there in the town records and in the play is the Ford family (by name) which held a prominent place in town society.
These records show us that the author of The Merry Wives of Windsor was intimately familiar with specific details of the daily life of the royal town of Windsor. In particular, of the part between the outer gate of the Little Park of Windsor castle and the Garter Inn.
The rest of the details seem to be generic except for one important category. Falstaff, Bardolf, Pistol, Nym, Justice Swallow and Mistress Quickly are brought over from the Henry IV and V plays. Every indication is that this is due to the practical necessities of play-writing. These are possibly the most popular characters Shakespeare ever created. The play was written very possibly at the behest of their greatest fan, the Queen. But she was by no means the only fan.
All of this leaves our Mr. Billington with a difficult problem. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was a continuous attendée at court for many years. He wrote much admired plays for it according to a number of accounts. In the years that followed (which would include the years around 1600) he attended periodically while the court resided primarily between the palaces at White Hall, Richmond and Windsor. Francis Bacon is also likely to have attended at Windsor at one time or another.
On the other hand, one person who we have no record ever attended at Windsor is William Shakspere of Stratford.
1 Tighe, Robert and Davis, James. Annals Of Windsor, Being A History Of The Castle And Town (1858).
2 Annals, I.679. “Datchet Mead was the tract of land occupying the low ground lying between Windsor Little Park...”
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
On Shakespeare's lameness and historical-fiction biography, etc. August 5, 2023. “Those who support Sogliardo of Stratford and other authorship candidates generally stop by from time to time to remark...”
- Shakespeare CSI: Sir Thomas More, Hand-D. April 22, 2023. “What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!”
- Robert Greene and the Construction Shakespeare Never Used. August 9, 2022. 'Our first foray “staring intently into” the texts of Robert Greene has noted that his work utilized far fewer feminine endings than Shakespeare’s.'
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?”
- 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.
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