"All Is True" Isn't; Shakespeare at Home

I couldn't sleep one night last week, so I left my bed and sat down to watch TV. There I stumbled onto All Is True, Kenneth Branagh's 2018 film about Shakespeare going home after the Globe burns down, staying at home, reconciling with family, and dying there on his birthday. Of course, all in the movie is not true, but the screenwriter Ben Elton offers some theories to explain the mysteries of Shakespeare's life. The Folger Library describes some of those mysteries:

Despite new insights being revealed every year about his work and the early modern world he inhabited, the things we still don’t know about William Shakespeare would fill several internets. Though we talk a lot about Shakespeare’s genius — the richness of his language, the timelessness of his characters, the universality of his stories, and the beauty of his poetry — for my money, we don’t talk enough about his greatest achievement of all: The mystery surrounding the man himself.

We know only the barest facts of Shakespeare’s biography: Where he was born and when he died, when he was baptized, the date of his marriage, the birthdays of his children, a number of his court appearances, and a handful of real estate dealings. There are huge gaps where we know practically nothing about him (most of his first 18 years) and don’t know where he was or what he was doing (particularly the seven-year gap between 1585 and 1592). And after 400 years of searching, scholars still haven’t uncovered any of Shakespeare’s workbooks, diaries, rough drafts, or love letters written to his wife (and/or mistress) — anything that would reveal something of the man’s politics, personality, or personal feelings.

In All is True, Shakespeare is not particularly welcome at home; he's been away too long for his wife to allow him to share her bed, so he sleeps in the "second-best bed" which is prepared for visitors (and Elton uses that designation to offer some explanation for why Shakespeare wills that second-best bed to his wife Anne). He mourns his son Hamnet to the disappointment of Hamnet's surviving twin, Judith, who has a secret, while Anne and Judith share a secret about the boy's death at age 11. When Shakespeare learns their secrets, he changes and some of the wounds of the family are healed.

He doesn't seem to fit in very well in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon either, and has some conflict with Sir Thomas Lucy, which may date from an earlier accusation of poaching. For the most part, Elton ignores the issue of religion in sixteenth century England, although Anne does remind her husband that on Sunday in their town, you'll be fined if you don't attend Church of England services. And Sir Thomas Lucy would be one of those noting whether or not you attended on Sunday at Holy Trinity Church. As William and Anne take their place in church, Lucy alludes to the fact that Shakespeare's father John had not been regular in his attendance, but Branagh's Shakespeare provides the explanation in another scene that John did not attend because of the debts he owed in town, not because he was a recusant Catholic. The main religious conflict in town is between Anglicans and Puritans, and the vicar of the church is trying to keep the peace.

But Sir Thomas Lucy was an earnest Protestant, and as the old Dictionary of National Biography explains: "He often appeared at Stratford-on-Avon as justice of the peace and as commissioner of musters for the county. As justice of the peace he showed great zeal against the Catholics, and took his share in the arrest of Edward Arden in 1583." Edward Arden was a relative of William Shakespeare (Mary, his mother, was an Arden). He was implicated in one of the plots against Queen Elizabeth I and as Robert Harrison in the old Dictionary of National Biography judges, he:

was a probably innocent victim of the rigorous severity adopted by the ministers of Queen Elizabeth in order to defeat the numerous Roman Catholic conspiracies in favour of Mary Queen of Scots and against the protestant sovereign. He was the head of a family that had held land in Warwickshire for six centuries from the days of Edward the Confessor downwards. His father, William, having died in 1545, Edward succeeded his grandfather Thomas Arden in 1563. He kept to the old faith and maintained in his home, Park Hall, near Warwick, a priest named Hall, in the disguise of a gardener. This man, animated with the fierce zeal of his order, inflamed the minds of the Arden household against the heretical queen, and especially influenced John Somerville, Edward Arden's son-in-law. This weak-minded young man had been greatly excited by the woes of the Scottish queen, who had given to a friend of his a small present for some service rendered her when at Coventry in 1569. He talked of shooting the Queen of England, whom he vituperated as a serpent and a viper, and set out for London on this deadly errand. Betraying himself, however, by over-confident speech, he was arrested, put to the rack, and confessed, implicating his father-in-law in his treason, and naming the priest as the instigator of his crime. All three were tried and sentenced to death. Somerville strangled himself in his cell. Arden was hanged at Tyburn (October 1583), but the priest was spared. Arden's head and Somerville's were set on London Bridge beside the skull of the Earl of Desmond. 

Interesting that the priest was spared . . . 

I enjoyed watching All is True; it's a film trying to answer some of the questions we have about Shakespeare: some things may be plausible, others not. 

One funny note: Branagh as Shakespeare never wears a hat, even when in town. I think that's so he looks like Shakespeare in the Chandos portrait!

John Shakespeare, RIP

John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's father, died in Stratford-upon-Avon on September 7, 1601. Whether or not John Shakespeare was a Catholic and a Recusant Catholic at that is a great matter of contention. Some of the discussion relies upon the authenticity of a "Spiritual Testament" of John Shakespeare found during the eighteenth century in the rafters of William Shakespeare's birthplace. Shakespeare's father was certainly involved in the changes brought about by the Elizabethan religious settlements, as the British Library recounts:

In January 1564, three months before the birth of his son William, John Shakespeare noted in his accounts as chamberlain of the town of Stratford-upon-Avon that two shillings had been ‘paid for defacing images in the Chapel of the Holy Cross’. It may seem strange for us now living in the 21st century for someone to be paid by the town council to damage a church. However, the Protestant Reformation, like similar movements within Judaism and Islam at different periods, banned the use of religious imagery, often violently. In 1559, the new government of Queen Elizabeth I passed a Royal Injunction demanding the removal of ‘all signs of superstition and idolatry’ from places of worship, ‘so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glasses, windows or elsewhere within their churches and houses’.

More detail about religion in Stratford:

In Stratford itself, at the level of town government, conformity was naturally the rule. Because of this, it reflected the way that the monarch and Parliament in London kept reversing religious policy, so that what was orthodox one year became illegal the next. Thus in 1553, the town corporation was granted ownership of the Holy Cross Chapel and became responsible for caring for the almshouse poor, and for paying and housing the vicar and his assistant chaplain, as well as the schoolmaster. But not all Reformation proclamations were carried out to the letter. The images in the church were merely whitewashed over in 1564, allowing them to be recovered later, and the rood loft (the ornate partition between the nave and the choir of the church) was only taken down four years late. The ‘Dance of Death’ on the north wall was allowed to remain. While Stratford after 1558 was outwardly Protestant, many townsmen and women remained Catholic at heart. Some of them would become what are known as ‘recusants’: those who refused to go to the established Church out of commitment to another faith; others, known as ‘Church papists’, hid their religion behind conformity. After the Jesuit Mission of 1580–81 to reconvert England to Rome, there is evidence of Warwickshire being a prominent centre of recusancy, including militant recusancy, from the Throckmorton Plot of 1584 to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Writing for the British Library, Brian Cummings accepts the claim that John Shakespeare was a Recusant: "Evidence exists that his father John was a recusant, and his mother’s family, the Ardens, had visibly Catholic relatives."

He was buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity (image credit). May he rest in peace.

"A Morbid, Fantasising England"

The Daily Mail has a great photographic story on the murals that John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's father, had to paint over in the Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1563. The paintings depict, according to the Stratford Town Trust, "the legend of St George and the Dragon, the Martyrdom of St Thomas Beckett and the Dance of Death."(Note that there are various problems with the text of the story. Henry VIII was dead by 1563; one of the restorers does not know the meaning of "iconoclastic", etc--but the pictures of the "Dance of Death", the first mural to be restored are great.)

In The Guardian, Jonathan Jones comments on what he sees as a morbid fascination with death and the devil in medieval England:

The paintings restored in the Guild Chapel reveal the powerful dream-world that was visible to ordinary townspeople 500 years ago. Devils and death loomed up on painted walls. Whether they were painted simply, as in Stratford, or done with the genius of a Bosch, these were collective fantasies of spectacular power.

The project that has saved Stratford’s murals deserves to be imitated wherever there are traces of medieval art still surviving in Britain. It does not matter if these images are fine art. They are something more important: a reminder of what it is to be human in a world shadowed by death and the devil.

He must fantasizing today if he does not think the world is not shadowed by death--we all will die--and the devil--there is evil in the world today--and that neither should be acknowledged or feared. But he forgets that those medieval people also had Faith in their Redeemer, Hope for salvation, and Love for God and neighbor. Only one of the three murals has been restored. St. George and the Dragon would have reminded them that God conquers the Devil and St. Thomas a Becket would have reminded them that they had great intercessors in Heaven. Jones has overemphasized one aspect of medieval piety.

The Guild of the Holy Cross (their seal is pictured above) was essential to Stratford, according to this site:

Established in the 13th century, it became the heart of Stratford's commercial, civic, social and religious life. The Guild helped its members to network, strike business deals, and even (so it was claimed) get into heaven faster.

Both men and women could become Guild members by paying a small fee. Joining was a good idea if you wanted to meet influential people and widen your network of contacts. Most members were prosperous local tradesmen, craftsmen and their families. But local clergy, gentry and even nobility joined too. Some members came from other towns like Coventry, London and Bristol.

The Guild provided 'social services' in medieval Stratford. It helped its members when they were ill, and supported their families if they died. It also gave 'alms' (charity) to poor and vulnerable local people, building a range of almshouses (sheltered accommodation) next to the Guildhall in about 1500.

It also looked after local infrastructure like bridges, and founded the first school in Stratford. In 1295 it appointed a schoolmaster called Richard as 'rector scholarum' to teach members' sons Latin, music and the principles of Christian faith. 

The Guild survived the reign of Henry VIII but not that of Edward VI (and there might not have been time for its restoration under Mary I). The lay members of the Guild had wealth and power, the site comments, and "this wealth and power was its undoing". What was its undoing was prayer for the dead as Edward VI's Protectors destroyed the last vestiges of remembering the Poor Souls in Purgatory in England. 

A Freeman in Warwickshire

Blessed William Freeman was executed in Warwick on August 13, 1595.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

A priest and martyr, b. at Manthorp near York, c. 1558; d. at Warwick, 13 August, 1595. His parents were recusants, though he conformed outwardly for some time to the religion of the country. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, he took his degree as B.A. in 1581, then lived for some years in London, where he witnessed the martyrdom of Edward Stransham in 1586. Strongly impressed with this example, he left England and was ordained priest in 1587 at Reims. Returning to England in 1589, he worked for six years on the borders of Warwickshire, and in his interesting life many persons are mentioned who were contemporaries or friends of Shakespeare. In January, 1595, a special commission was sent down to Stratford-on-Avon to search the house of Mrs. Heaths who had engaged his services as tutor to her son. William Freeman was arrested, and spent seven months in prison. He denied his priesthood, but also refused all friendly offers to escape, not wishing to lose his opportunity of martyrdom. Owing to the treachery of a fellow-prisoner, William Gregory, he was at last sentenced as a seminary priest and in spite of a touching protest of loyalty, suffered the death of a traitor at Warwick.