William Shakespere, of Stratford-on-Avon Part 2

I know that my friends the public have a strong idea that this subject has been thoroughly threshed out, and are apt to say and think-

Shakespere and Bacon are vexation, Donnelly is as bad, His Cryptogram it puzzles me, His Cipher drives me mad.

Nevertheless, I have an opinion that I have been able to fling a few novel hints upon the question, and so cast it upon the waters to sink or swim.

SCOTT SURTEES.

DINSDALE-ON-TEES, _May_ 14, 1888.

APPENDIX.

Banns.

Cripp's Laws of the Church, p. 634.-"Before the time of Pope Innocent III. there was no solemnization of marriage in the Church: but the man came to the woman's house and led her home to his own house, which was all the ceremony then used. By the customs of the Anglo-Saxons the marriage ceremony was commonly performed at the house of the bridegroom, to which the bride had been previously taken." (p. 638) "It was formerly the law of this country that marriages celebrated by licence, when either of the parties was under the age of twenty-one years (not being a widow or widower), without the consent of the father, or if he were not living, of the mother or guardians, should be absolutely void." They must proceed either by publication of banns or by license. The word banns is of Saxon origin, and signifies publication or proclamation (Rogers, E. L.

509). This publication for three several Sundays or holidays, unless a license or faculty had been obtained, was enjoined by Canon Law and by the rubric "in the time of divine service" (p. 650)... . For the avoiding of all fraud and collusion, before such license shall be granted it shall appear to the judge by the oaths of two sufficient witnesses . .

. that the express consent of the parents or parent is thereunto had and obtained (Canon 103)." It is singular we find in Francis Bacon's life, that he tried to break off the match with Sir John Villiers and Lady Hatton's only daughter and heiress, because the mother opposed it, "he strongly advises that the match be not proceeded in without the consent of both parents required by religion and the law of G.o.d" (Campbell's Life of Lord Bacon, p. 138).

"Spurrings" they are still called in the North of England, where old customs and our fore-elders' language linger long. I myself in a parish in Wensleydale, where they until recently "raced for the garter," heard the Clerk, to my astonishment, after I had finished the "spurring" for the last time of asking, stand up and in broad accent and loud voice sing out, "G.o.d speed them well!" and all the people answered, Amen! It was not any way ludicrous, but really sounded solemn and a beautiful benediction from their fellow-paris.h.i.+oners.-(See Atkinson's Glossary of Cleveland Dialect, "Spurrings, sb. The publication of banns of marriage: the being 'asked' at Church, an immediate derivative from speer, speir, even if not directly from Old Norse spyria.")

The name of Shakespeare, Laborer, in the neighbourhood of Stratford is spelt as above in George I.

"Walter Shakespeare, of Tachbrooke, in the county of Warwicke, laborer, aged forty yeares or thereabouts, being sworne and examined, deposeth as follows:

"To the fourth interrogatory this deponent saith that the cure of the parish has been neglected by the complainant, and in particular this deponent's wife was put by being churched, there being no Divine Service at Tachbrooke one Sunday since the complainant's inst.i.tucion and induction; and this deponent further says that notice was given that his wife was to be churched that Sunday, and that this deponent was then and now is an inhabitant of the parish of Tachbrooke."-Record Office, 41st Report, p. 555, 7 George I. Warwick and Stafford Exchequer.

SUPPLEMENT.

See p. 22.-Ante "Anthony Sherley and no other was he who wrote these plays."

Since I wrote the first portion of this pamphlet so much matter has turned up, showing beyond reasonable doubt that I am right in my conjecture as to Anthony Sherley, that I am encouraged to bring it also before the public. "Magna est veritas," and in due time the leaven will work its way.

I had called attention (p. 20) to the Sonnets 135, 136, 105.

SONNET CV.

Let not my love be called idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idle show, Since all alike my songs and praises be To _one_, of _one_, still such and ever so.

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous excellence; Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd, _One_ thing expressing, leaves out difference.

Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words; And in this change is my invention spent, Three themes in _one_, which wondrous scope affords.

Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone Which three, till now, never kept seat in _one_.

Cx.x.xV.

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy _will_, And _will_ to boot, and _will_ in over-plus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet _will_ making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose _will_ is large and s.p.a.cious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my _will_ in thine?

Shall _will_ in others seem right gracious, And in my _will_ no fair acceptance s.h.i.+ne?

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, And in abundance addeth to his store; So thou, being rich in _will_, add to thy _will_ One _will_ of mine, to make thy large _will_ more!

Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill.

Think all but _one_, and me in that _one Will_.

and the enigmatical allusions in them to Sherley's motto "only one." He could not write "only one," as it would have betrayed the author of the plays, but he shaves as near the wind as he dare, and as he says, Sonnet lxxvi., which I mentioned (p. 19):

Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth and where they did proceed?

And so it does, when we look behind the scenes. They were written in the hope that some one like myself would arise, a light in a dark place, to give honour to whom honour was due, and pluck the jay's false feathers from off the crow. The instant you begin to look for it, you will observe how strangely any-how and oft, in all times and places, in season and out of season, this word "_one_" is wrought into the text of the plays, sometimes in connection with "_all's one_"; (he would not write "only one" straight off, else it would have led, as I said before, to detection, and so he uses the plural "all" instead of singular "only,"

see Sonnet lxxvi.), and in a much more important position boldly puts it forward (in Quarto 1608, with the name of Shakespeare) "_All's one_ or _one_ of the four plaies in _one_," called "A Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy." Now this play with Anthony Sherley's motto is nothing more nor less than the story of the ruin of his house; it is hardly disguised under the flimsy t.i.tle of "A Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy." It is important to note that of all the plays this has no _stage names_ to it, simply "Husband and wife."

Strange! pa.s.sing strange! Why should Shakespeare care to represent on the stage the history of the Sherley family and ruin? This same company, mark, had played it under the name openly of "The Three English Brothers," prologue, "Clothing our truth within an argument, fitting the stage and your attention, yet not so hid but that she may appear to be herself, even Truth." This would also fit the "Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy." What is the substance of the play? It tells the story in blank verse, which we have almost word for word in prose in "The Sherley Brothers," viz.

that of Sir Thomas Sherley the elder gambling away his extensive property. "Elizabeth had seized and sold everything belonging to him except (Wiston), his wife's dowry." "_Wife_: If you suspect a plot in me to keep my dowry ... you are a gentleman of many bloods; think on the state of these _three_ lovely boys (the leash of brothers old Fuller calls them) ... Your lands mortgaged, yourself wound into debts."-"_Wife_: I see how ruin with a palsy hand begins to shake this ancient seat to dust ... beggary of the soul and of the body, as if some vexed spirit had got his form upon him." His wife had interest enough to get him the offer of a place at Court, etc.

But the writer of Shakespeare's plays was not content with this, an exact account, even to _minute_ particulars, of the history of the three Sherley brothers; just compare that history and this "Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy"

play, and then read the same story (Richard II. Act 2, scene 3).

KING RICHARD II. ACT 2, SCENE 3.

"O, then, my father, Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd, A wand'ring vagabond; my rights and royalties Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?

I am deny'd to sue my livery here, And yet my letters-patent give me leave: My father's goods are _all distrained_ and sold; And these, and _all_, are _all_ amiss employ'd.

What would you have me do? I am a subject And challenge law: Attornies are deny'd me, And therefore personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent.

ACT 3, SCENE 1.

_Boling_. "Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth; Near to the king in blood; and near in love, Till you did make him misinterpret me, Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries, And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds, Eating the bitter bread of banishment: Whilst you have fed upon my signories, Dis_park'd_ my parks, and fell'd my forest woods; From my own windows torn my household coat, Raz'd out my _impress_, {32} leaving me no sign, Save men's opinions and my living blood, To shew the world I am a gentleman.

This, and much more, much more than twice all this, Condemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over To execution and the hand of death."

ACT 1, SCENE 3.

_Boling_. Your will be done: this must my comfort be, That sun, that warms you here, shall s.h.i.+ne on me; And those his golden beams, to you here lent, Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

_North_. A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air, Have I deserved at your highness' hand.

The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forego, etc., etc.

What is my sentence then, but speechless death, Which robs my native tongue from breathing native breath?

Does not every thoughtful reader pause over it and say to himself, why does he bring forward Busby and Green and rate them and sentence them to death? What for? treason? rebellion? murder? sedition? some rash crime?

No; but for having "disparked" his parks and pulled down "his impress"

(_only one_!), and his "household coat," and tells us what he would like to have done to his enemies at Court if he had had the chance, as they had done when they cut off his patron and his kinsman Ess.e.x's head. Now to return to the reason why he should have written a play to unfold the reasons of his family decay. To Cecil from Anthony Sherley, "The worst sort of the world have taken advantage to lay upon _me_ all sorts of defamation" (p. 37), and again, and therefore to clear himself, he shows how it came to pa.s.s, and that his father was not in his right senses who incurred "this great debt" (p. 37, Sherley Brothers). Elizabeth had actually "_distrained_" upon his father's goods, had carried off even his blankets and sheets, chairs and arras hangings, feather beds, and silver spoons, and left his mother scanty and beggarly supply for her dowry house, not sufficient for the necessities of everyday life. She had seized and sold the vast lands and possessions of his ancestors.

(Stemmata s.h.i.+rleana, Roxburgh Club, p. 251.) "A description of the Manors sold, all save Wiston dowry." "In 1578 Sir T. Sherley served the office of Sheriff for the counties of Surrey and Suss.e.x. He afterwards became Treasurer at War in the Low Countries, and having fallen under the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth, and become indebted to the Crown, his estates and personal effects, with the exception of the Manor of Wiston, settled on his wife, were seized." See Lansdowne MSS. Goods seized at Wiston by Sheriff, 1588. Here again I earnestly request comparison with the story in the "Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy." Rowland Whyte, "he owed the Queen more than he was worth; his own doings have undone him."

SCENE IV.-HUSBAND-YORKs.h.i.+RE TRAGEDY.