1613-1616 - “Be to yourself as you would to your friend.”

1613-1616 - “Be to yourself as you would to your friend.”

Having probably all but retired to Stratford, it may seem strange that Shakespeare continues to be active in playwrighting and the concerns of the King’s Men.  ‘Henry VIII’ was written and performed in 1613 and is one of the few Shakespeare plays that we are pretty sure of the year it was written and performed due to a number of a events. But I will come to those events later. Let’s first go back to the 1612 and look at the context in which Shakespeare collaborated on this play with John Fletcher.

When Shakespeare and Fletcher sat down in September of 1612 to think about a new play for the 1613 season, the concept of a play based on the life of Henry VIII probably raised its head again. This project had probably been thought about and discarded a number of times over the years by Shakespeare and at each point the royal subject matter and more specifically the fact that Henry VIII was the father of Queen Elizabeth I (and Queen Elizabeth I was a cousin to Mary Queen of Scots who was James I of England’s mother) made the subject matter too contentious. But Shakespeare probably thought that the histrionic nature of some of the masque balls and plays at court meant that this is a project that had finally reached its time. He may have even seen masques portraying King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I without repercussions. So Shakespeare went back to re-read and consult Holinshed's ‘Chronicles’ and decided that a history play that spanned about 20 years of Henry VIII’s reign was probably timely. He would avoid the trial and beheading of Anne Boleyn but he decided that plenty of less sensitive political intrigue (like the charges of treason against the Duke of Buckingham) could be included.

When William Shakespeare came back from Stratford in early 1613, he probably had a plot outline and a number of speeches drafted. When Shakespeare and John Fletcher met again in March, they would both start working in earnest throughout March and April of 1613 to complete a draft of ‘The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight’. Sometime in May, the last salt was added to the pages of the 'King Henry' master script and copy writers would have set to copying out the pages they were designated (no one copy writer was normally given more than a dozen scenes or two or three character parts to write out for fear of theft).

At the beginning of June 1613, the actors were given their parts and worked their way through the play. On Friday 28^th, ‘Henry VIII’ probably premiered to audiences to a rousing reception with its grand pageantry, well-known characters and even a live canon which was used in the performance.

As the sun rose on the hexagonal shadow of the Globe on Saturday June 29^th, ‘Henry VIII’ was to have its most memorable performance and its last at the original Globe (although a performance would take place of the play on June 29^th 1628 in the new rebuilt Globe Theatre).

From an hour or two after sunrise at 5am, stalls of all sorts would have started to set up outside the Globe and beside where the punts crossed the river to arrive on the south bank of the Thames. Around 9am the red flag would have been raised above the towers of the Globe Theatre to tell people that a History play was to be performed later that day and soon after, boys would have been sent out with flyers telling audiences that today’s play would indeed be another performance of ‘The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight’. Around 12 noon, when they heard the church bells chime from Southwark Cathedral, the actors, musicians and stage helpers would wander over to the theatre and start climbing the stairs to the third storey of the tiring house where the dressing rooms, costume store and props room were housed.

John Lowin, Richard Burbage and Robert Gough probably arrived latest at about 2pm after drinking most of the night celebrating John Lowin’s triumph as Henry VIII the previous day. They would check the sundial near the back entrance and because it was a sunny day, they would have a fair idea that they had an hour to go until their performance.

At around 2.30pm the groundlings would have started to drift into the theatre, each dropping their penny in the box as they moved into the Globe Theatre. A stage hand boy would check the sundial one more time just after this before climbing the stairs to start to get the actors down ready for the play’s opening. A final visit was probably made up the stairs to get Richard Burbage who probably started the play with his Prologue speech. Little did they all know that about 15-25 minutes into this performance, at either the beginning of Act I Scene ii (when John Lowin entered as Henry VIII for the first time in this performance) or during the masque scene at Cardinal Wolsey's house in Act 1 Scene iv when King Henry VIII arrives, that the canon set off to herald his arrival as King Henry VIII, would set fire to the thatch roof and send them all running for their lives as the Globe Theatre, built in 1599 and the centrepiece for over 1000 performances of some 120 plays, would burn to the ground.

An eye-witness account of the Globe Theatre fire on June 29^th, 1613 written by Sir Henry Wotton in a letter dated July 2, 1613 describes the fire in the following words:

"... I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Banks side. The King's players had a new play called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within awhile to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with a bottle of ale."

When the Globe Theatre burnt down on June 29^th 1613, it was the end of an era. Shakespeare already was probably spending more time at Stratford upon Avon than in London and his investments in the country and in London were reaping him rewards so the burning of the Globe was not so much a financial blow (it was rebuilt and re-opened the next year in 1614) but a psychological one. It probably felt like the end of an era for Shakespeare. With the belief (at least amongst the actor's of the company) that the play ‘Henry VIII’ might be a bit jinxed, the actors of the King’s Men moved back over to the Blackfriars Theatre to probably do reruns of ‘The Tempest’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale’ while Shakespeare parked himself in the lodgings he owned in the Blackfriars’ Priory and started work with John Fletcher on what was to become his last play, ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’.

After seeing Richard Edwarde's adaptation of ‘The Knight’s Tale’ from Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’, Shakespeare probably thought that he and Fletcher could whip up a better version with some original twists in no time at all. With the weather heating up, Shakespeare and Fletcher probably set themselves the task of writing the play by the end of July so that they could have the play premiere on the Blackfriars Theatre stage in mid-August. Even for Shakespeare and Jacobean playwrights, this was a cracking pace.

It would seem that many of the first scenes of each Act of ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ have Shakespeare’s touch all over them, so it is not unlikely that Shakespeare would have burnt the candle late at night and have one or two scenes written for Fletcher in the morning. Fletcher probably then took these scenes back to his lodgings and would take a few days to write up the rest of the scenes for the Act before he would bring them back to Shakespeare for revision and pick up Shakespeare’s opening scenes for the next Act. After about three weeks of this process, the play was virtually complete and handwritten copies of individual actor’s parts were probably copied off the originals (locked in Shakespeare’s lodgings) by Shakespeare and Fletcher themselves and one or two trusted copy-writers. Around the first week in August, the actors would have started to rehearse their parts in the mornings (since many would be playing in afternoon performances) and by mid-August 1613, ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ would have premiered at the Blackfriars Theatre.

The Prologue of ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’, informs the audience that the play is based on a story from Chaucer. The play opens with a scene where three queens come to petition King Theseus and Queen Hippolyta of Athens to take revenge for the deaths of their husbands by King Creon of Thebes, who will also not allow the proper burial of the three queens husbands.
“We are three, Queenes, whose Soveraignes fell before
The wrath of cruell Creon; who endured
The Beakes of Ravens, Talents of the Knights,
And pecks of Crowes, in the fowle fields of Thebs.
He will not suffer us to burne their bones,
To urne their ashes, nor to take th' offence
Of mortall loathsomenes from the blest eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the windes
With stench of our slaine Lords.  O pity, Duke:
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy feard Sword
That does good turnes to'th world; give us the Bones
Of our dead Kings, that we may Chappell them;
And of thy boundles goodnes take some note
That for our crowned heades we have no roofe,
Save this which is the Lyons, and the Beares,

And vault to every thing.”

After the summer of 1613, Shakespeare perhaps only visited London a couple of times over the next two and a half years. From the “poor player” who made about £35 for the year, he ended his life in comfortable retirement with probably a healthy income from houses, land, tithes (rents on fields and common land), grain storage, the family wool businesses and storage and also some money would come from his share in the King’s Men and some money would come in from his plays. All of this would add up to about £2000 a year when the average wage was about £75.

English playwright Edward Bond’s image in his 1973 play ‘Bingo – Scenes of Money and Death’ of Shakespeare spending his last days getting money from the new land enclosures in Warwickshire and drinking with visitors from London like his fellow playwrights Ben Jonson and John Fletcher, his poet friend Michael Drayton and his acting buddies John Heminges and Henry Condell, is probably not too far from the truth. He had blown away much of this before his death, since he seemed to have only about £500 on his death bed (including 40 pounds to buy rings for his friends and about 5 pounds for funeral expenses including a stone covering for his grave which was engraved), 3 houses, 3 tenements, plates, crockery, two beds and a sword. That is unless Shakespeare’s riches were hidden from the taxman and had already been shared between family and friends by then.

We know that he visited his son-in-law John Hall (who was married to William Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna) from October until November 1614 in London. This probably related to an accusation which John Lane made of adultery against Susanna and the subsequent defamation case brought against John Lane that saw him found guilty of defamation and excommunicated from the local church and the local Stratford community.

Sometime late in January 1616, Shakespeare called to his house his lawyer Francis Collins, to dictate to him an important document. This draft was not completed and so on March 25^th, 1616, Shakespeare summoned Francis Collins again to his house, along with Julyus Shawe, John Robinson, Hamnet Sadler and Robert Whattcott. Shakespeare’s last piece of writing was dictated to Francis Collins, witnessed by Shawe, Robinson, Sadler and Whattcott and signed by Will’s now shaky hand. It was not a sonnet, nor a long narrative poem nor a play. It was neither comedy or history or tragedy. It had no profound and poetic thoughts, no characterization, metaphors and imagery. It had very little punctuation and no paragraphing. It was Will Shakespeare’s last will and testament which read as follows:

“In the name of god Amen I William Shackspeare, of Stratford upon Avon in the countrie of Warr., gent., in perfect health and memorie, God be praysed, doe make and ordayne this my last will and testament in manner and forme followeing, that ys to saye, ffirst, I comend my soule into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredlie beleeving, through thonelie merites, of Jesus Christe my Saviour, to be made partaker of lyfe everlastinge, and my bodye to the earth whereof yt ys made. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto my [sonne and] daughter Judyth one hundred and fyftie poundes of lawfull English money, to be paid unto her in the manner and forme foloweng, that ys to saye, one hundred poundes in discharge of her marriage porcion within one yeare after my deceas, with consideracion after the rate of twoe shillings in the pound for soe long tyme as the same shalbe unpaied unto her after my deceas, and the fyftie poundes residwe thereof upon her surrendring of, or gyving of such sufficient securitie as the overseers of this my will shall like of, to surrender or graunte all her estate and right that shall discend or come unto her after my deceas, or that shee nowe hath, of, in, or to, one copiehold tenemente, with thappurtenaunces, lyeing and being in Stratford upon Avon aforesaied in the saied countrye of Warr., being parcell or holden of the mannour of Rowington, unto my daughter Susanna Hall and her heires for ever. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto my saied daughter Judith one hundred and fyftie poundes more, if shee or anie issue of her bodie by lyvinge att thend of three yeares next ensueing the daie of the date of this my will, during which tyme my executours are to paie her consideracion from my deceas according to the rate aforesaied; and if she dye within the saied tearme without issue of her bodye, then my will us, and I doe gyve and bequeath one hundred poundes thereof to my neece Elizabeth Hall, and the fiftie poundes to be sett fourth by my executours during the lief of my sister Johane Harte, and the use and proffitt thereof cominge shalbe payed to my saied sister Jone, and after her deceas the saied l.li.12 shall remaine amongst the children of my saied sister, equallie to be divided amongst them; but if my saied daughter Judith be lyving att thend of the saied three yeares, or anie yssue of her bodye, then my will ys, and soe I devise and bequeath the saied hundred and fyftie poundes to be sett our by my executours and overseers for the best benefitt of her and her issue, and the stock not to be paied unto her soe long as she shalbe marryed and covert baron [by my executours and overseers]; but my will ys, that she shall have the consideracion yearelie paied unto her during her lief, and, after her ceceas, the saied stocke and consideracion to be paied to her children, if she have anie, and if not, to her executours or assignes, she lyving the saied terme after my deceas. Provided that yf suche husbond as she shall att thend of the saied three years be marryed unto, or att anie after, doe sufficientlie assure unto her and thissue of her bodie landes awnswereable to the porcion by this my will gyven unto her, and to be adjudged soe by my executours and overseers, then my will ys, that the said cl.li.13 shalbe paied to such husbond as shall make such assurance, to his owne use. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto my saied sister Jone xx.li. and all my wearing apparrell, to be paied and delivered within one yeare after my deceas; and I doe will and devise unto her the house with thappurtenaunces in Stratford, wherein she dwelleth, for her naturall lief, under the yearlie rent of xij.d. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto her three sonnes, William Harte, ---- Hart, and Michaell Harte, fyve pounds a peece, to be paied within one yeare after my deceas [to be sett out for her within one yeare after my deceas by my executours, with thadvise and direccions of my overseers, for her best frofitt, untill her mariage, and then the same with the increase thereof to be paied unto her]. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto [her] the saied Elizabeth Hall, all my plate, except my brod silver and gilt bole, that I now have att the date of this my will. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto the poore of Stratford aforesaied tenn poundes; to Mr. Thomas Combe my sword; to Thomas Russell esquier fyve poundes; and to Frauncis Collins, of the borough of Warr. in the countie of Warr. gentleman, thirteene poundes, sixe shillinges, and eight pence, to be paied within one yeare after my deceas. Item, I gyve and bequeath to [Mr. Richard Tyler thelder] Hamlett Sadler xxvj.8. viij.d. to buy him a ringe; to William Raynoldes gent., xxvj.8. viij.d. to buy him a ringe; to my dogson William Walker xx8. in gold; to Anthonye Nashe gent. xxvj.8. viij.d. [in gold]; and to my fellowes John Hemynges, Richard Brubage, and Henry Cundell, xxvj.8. viij.d. a peece to buy them ringes, Item, I gyve, will, bequeath, and devise, unto my daughter Susanna Hall, for better enabling of her to performe this my will, and towards the performans thereof, all that capitall messuage or tenemente with thappurtenaunces, in Stratford aforesaid, called the New Place, wherein I nowe dwell, and two messuages or tenementes with thappurtenaunces, scituat, lyeing, and being in Henley streete, within the borough of Stratford aforesaied; and all my barnes, stables, orchardes, gardens, landes, tenementes, and hereditamentes, whatsoever, scituat, lyeing, and being, or to be had, receyved, perceyved, or taken, within the townes, hamletes, villages, fieldes, and groundes, of Stratford upon Avon, Oldstratford, Bushopton, and Welcombe, or in anie of them in the saied countie of Warr. And alsoe all that messuage or tenemente with thappurtenaunces, wherein one John Robinson dwelleth, scituat, lyeing and being, in the Balckfriers in London, nere the Wardrobe; and all my other landes, tenementes, and hereditamentes whatsoever, To have and to hold all and singuler the saied premisses, with theire appurtenaunces, unto the saied Susanna Hall, for and during the terme of her naturall lief, and after her deceas, to the first sonne of her bodie lawfullie yssueing, and to the heires males of the bodie of the saied first sonne lawfullie yssueinge; and for defalt of such issue, to the second sonne of her bodie, lawfullie issueing, and to the heires males of the bodie of the saied second sonne lawfullie yssueinge; and for defalt of such heires, to the third sonne of the bodie of the saied Susanna lawfullie yssueing, and of the heires males of the bodie of the saied third sonne lawfullie yssueing; and for defalt of such issue, the same soe to be and remaine to the ffourth [sonne], ffyfth, sixte, and seaventh sonnes of her bodie lawfullie issueing, one after another, and to the heires males of the bodies of the bodies of the saied fourth, fifth, sixte, and seaventh sonnes lawfullie yssueing, in such manner as yt ys before lymitted to be and remaine to the first, second, and third sonns of her bodie, and to theire heires males; and for defalt of such issue, the said premisses to be and remaine to my sayed neece Hall, and the heires males of her bodie lawfullie yssueinge; and for defalt of such issue, to my daughter Judith, and the heires males of her bodie lawfullie issueinge; and for defalt of such issue, to the right heires of me the saied William Shackspeare for ever. Item, I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture, Item, I gyve and bequeath to my saied daughter Judith my broad silver gilt bole. All the rest of my goodes, chattel, leases, plate, jewels, and household stuffe whatsoever, after my dettes and legasies paied, and my funerall expenses dischardged, I give, devise, and bequeath to my sonne in lawe, John Hall gent., and my daughter Susanna, his wief, whom I ordaine and make executours of this my last will and testament. And I doe intreat and appoint the saied Thomas Russell esquier and Frauncis Collins gent. to be overseers hereof, and doe revoke all former wills, and publishe this to be my last will and testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto put my [seale] hand, the daie and yeare first abovewritten.”

On either Friday April 22^nd or Saturday April 23^rd 1616, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson arrived from London and either took William Shakespeare out to celebrate his 52^nd birthday or had considerable alcohol delivered by cart from the local tavern to Will's house. Then as the Vicar of the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford relates in his diary:

"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted."
Another possible cause of Shakespeare’s death could have been Typhus, since a new outbreak seemed to happen in Stratford around this time. C. Martin Mitchell, uses the death mask made of Shakespeare, his will and last signatures to conclude that Shakespeare died of cerebral hemorrhage or apoplexy.
William Shakespeare probably died in his own bed on his 52^nd birthday on Saturday April 23^rd 1616 late in the evening. His own son-in-law John Hall, who was a doctor, probably pronounced him officially dead. I do not know exactly why Shakespeare left his “second best bed" to his wife but I would like to think that this was their matrimonial bed and rich in sentimental significance. On Monday April 25^th, probably around 11 am since this was the custom at this time of year, William Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. A stone slab with engraving covering was probably added a few days later when the carving was completed. It is Shakespeare’s final epitaph and it includes a final curse to those who wish to disturb the remains of William Shakespeare:
“Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare,

To digg the dvst encloased heare.

Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,

And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.”

The final words should rest with William Shakespeare himself who once gave the character of the melancholic Jacques in ‘As You Like It’, the following now famous ‘seven ages of man’ speech:
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

1611-1612 “My library was dukedom large enough…”

1611-1612 “My library was dukedom large enough…”

In August 1610, another Italian Commedia del’ arte troupe appeared at the request of James I at Hampden Court Palace. Shakespeare was probably invited to this performance and even though he was familiar with Commedia plots and characters, he probably was influenced by this specific performance as he developed a plot involving an overprotective father and his daughter, comic servants and a hunchback beast. He maybe got the name Prospero (meaning prosperous or wealthy in Spanish) from this Commedia play since the name sometimes was used by Italian troupes when Pantalone was made into a Spanish character to add to the sense of derision. As the summer months hit, and Shakespeare basked in the glory of the staging of his previous creations, he, as always, probably stored up these Commedia characters and relationships. As the hot summer of 1610 drew on, Shakespeare probably travelled back and forth to Stratford upon Avon a couple of times and started to think through ideas for his next play for early in 1611 for either the Globe or at the Blackfriars Theatres.

Later, in September of 1610, news started to filter through to London about the fate of the ship the Sea Venture which disappeared (presumed sunk) in July 1609 on its way to Jamestown, Virginia. The survival of the ship and its passengers seemed stranger than fiction. Shakespeare would have heard about how the ship battled a huge storm off Bermuda for three days and how 150 people and one dog survived the storm and landed safely on Bermuda. He would have become increasingly interested (perhaps with his ideas for a play already brewing). He may have even obtained and read a copy of letter which circulated around London in late September 1610, which contained an account of the storm, the shipwreck and the survival. He may have even been a little bit obsessed with the circumstances surrounding the shipwreck of the Sea Venture when the accounts of two survivors also appeared in pamphlet form in October of 1610. As winter started to hit London and Shakespeare knew he had to burn the midnight candle to thrash out another play, he did not turn to his beloved Plutarch or his Holinshed but he turned to his own rich mind and the medieval romances he loved in his childhood and youth, and the rich characters of the Commedia del arte and the bizarre events of the shipwreck of the Sea Venture and he wove a magical tapestry with a artistry as rich as the magic of Prospero himself. Little did he know that this was probably the last play he was to write on his own. So sometime in 1611, some date it as early in 1611, some date it as July 1611 and some cite November 1611 as the month of its premiere.  So sometime in 1611, ‘The Tempest', one of Shakespeare's most magical and rich comedies premiered.

‘The Tempest' starts “On a ship at sea” with the sound of the “tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning”. A Master and a Boatswain enter in distress. The play moves onto an island where Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, have just seen this shipwreck and Miranda asks her father, who seems to have some magical power, to make sure that no-one on the ship has come to harm. Prospero assures her no-one has been harmed. Prospero tells her that there is a reason he created this storm and he tells her the story of how he and her came to the island.

Sometime in 1611, Shakespeare probably returned to live permanently in Stratford-upon-Avon. Some people argue that this happened in middle or late May of 1611, because on May 11, 1611, Shakespeare appeared in court in London giving evidence in a lawsuit but he did not re-appear in court in London on June 19^th when he was required to be further questioned. Probably around this time, Shakespeare started to mix with some of the rich elite in Stratford such as Anthony and John Nash.

Later in 1611, Shakespeare may have returned to London to see ‘The Winter’s Tale, ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Cymbeline’ which Dr. Simon Forman, an English astrologer and doctor gave detailed account of performances of these plays in his diary.

We know that 'Cardenio' as a play existed. We know that it was written as a collaboration between William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. We know that it was probably written about 1612 and it appeared in the performance list in 1613.

When the plague hit London badly in 1608, the King’s Men had to tour the provinces for almost 6 months. On top this, the Burbage family had started to suffer huge loses in London particularly with their theatres including the Blackfriars Theatre. Late in 1608, the ownership of the Blackfriars Theatre was re-organised into a new partnership arrangement between the Burbage family and the King’s Men. The new ownership arrangement for the Blackfriars Theatre included the financial partners of Richard Burbage, Cuthbert Burbage (non-acting partner), Thomas Evans (theatre manager agent), John Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly, and William Shakespeare. When Sly died early in 1609, his shares were split among the other partners. When the all of the theatres re-opened in May of 1609, this saw substantial money coming into the King’s Men from both the Globe and Blackfriars. This meant that by 1612, Shakespeare had substantial shares in two theatres along with receiving the income coming in from his many land holdings in Stratford upon Avon. It is likely at this point that Shakespeare, started arranging for a smooth transition into retirement. The problem was that a substantial part of the success of the King’s Men lay with Shakespeare himself and the company having a house playwright who could write good and sometimes great plays quickly and prolifically. Enter John Fletcher.

Shakespeare probably hadn’t got on well with John Fletcher initially. Firstly, Fletcher was a Cambridge man and Shakespeare had had an acrimonious relationship with some ‘University Wits’ like Marlowe, Greene and Nashe. Secondly, Fletcher’s work with Beaumont on plays using companies of boys around 1605 had also not enamoured him to Shakespeare. When Fletcher started to collaborate with Ben Jonson, Shakespeare probably started to take Fletcher more seriously and when in late 1611, Richard Burbage suggested John Fletcher be contracted as a second playwright to the King's Men, Shakespeare’s only probable only condition was that John Fletcher not be made a partner in the King’s Men.

Sometime around the beginning of 1612, William Shakespeare and John Fletcher started to collaborate on a play which was to become known as ‘Cardenio’. No copy of this play exists but it is known to have been performed a number of times including in August of 1613 by the King’s Men at Blackfriars Theatre and is listed in the Stationer’s Register in 1653 as being attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. They probably based the play around the character of Cardenio in Miguel Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’ which portrays Cardenio as a young male who lives in Morena and is being driven slowly to madness.

The style of the piece was probably ultimately a comedy (in the Shakespearean sense). The story of the play probably involved showing the wealthy Cardenio who lives in Andalucia. He is in love with Lucinda, a girl he grew up with and who comes from another rich family of nobility. Lucinda’s father is not eager for them to marry and Cardenio’s father also is not keen on the marriage. The Duke summons Cardenio to court and Cardenio asks Lucinda to wait until he returns so that they can marry.

This section of the play may have involved Cardenio going away to a war or wars for the Duke and probably this accounts for why the play is sometimes referred to by the title of 'The History of Cardenio'. When he returns to court after fighting in wars for the Duke, Cardenio befriends the Duke’s son, Fernando, who reveals that he is in love with a girl not of nobility. Cardenio tries to help Fernando and perhaps arranged some meeting between Fernando and his love. Cardenio is well received at the court and the Duke's son and him become good companions but Cardenio does not know how to advise Fernando on what to do about his love.

The piece then probably involved, Cardenio and Fernando wooing their respective girls. This involved writing love poetry in secret maybe like in 'Love's Labour's Lost'. Some of Cardenio’s poetry is found by the Duke and Cardenio is embarrassed and requests that the Duke release him from service. ‘Cardenio’ was apparently well received and apparently many performances were done. 


After handing over the mantle of House Playwright of the King’s Men over to John Fletcher around 1611, Shakespeare probably had progressively split his time between London and Stratford upon Avon. From around 1611, his year had started to fall into a routine. He would normally spend his Christmas and New Year in Stratford upon Avon with his wife Ann and would probably have his daughter Susanna and her husband John Hall around and enjoyed the company of his granddaughter Elizabeth. 

Shakespeare then probably returned to London in January 1612 to help with the end of the seven month winter season of plays at the Blackfriars Theatre. The Blackfriars Theatre (really the second Blackfriars Theatre) was a 1,000 seater indoor theatre built in the reconstructed frater or dining room of the Blackfriars Dominican priory. With an entry of six pence for a cheap seat, ten pence for other audience seats (and twenty pence for a seat on stage), Blackfriars attracted a different clientele from the Globe and other theatres over in Shoreditch. This meant that Shakespeare himself could rake in about £8-£13 for a single performance at the Blackfriars Theatre. For the 60 to 100 performances done over the seven months of the winter season of 1612 (October 1611- March 1612), Shakespeare probably got somewhere from £300-£900. This was huge sum for the winter months. On top of this Shakespeare would have got rental income from his properties in London and Stratford upon Avon along with income from his grain storage outside Stratford. Around this time in 1612 also, Shakespeare started negotiations to buy part of the Blackfriars Priory so he could have a room near the theatre and also rent out a room or two on the side. This arrangement was not finalized until 1613.

1607- 1610 “’Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.”

1607- 1610  “’Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.”

By 1607, the honeymoon was well and truly over for James I's reign. England faced growing financial pressures and creeping inflation. Around 1607, Shakespeare started an association, which turned into a loose friendship which turned into a collaboration with George Wilkins. Wilkins was an inn-keeper (his inn was the notorious Cow-Cross Inn in London), pamphleteer and eventually a dramatist but we know most of what we know about Wilkins from his regular appearances in court. Wilkins certainly involved in a range of criminal activities. Shakespeare was probably asked by Wilkins to collaborate on producing ‘Pericles’ and he would have probably read John Gower’s Confessio Amantis and Lawrence Twine’s version of the same story contained in Twine’s The Pattern of Painful Adventures. Perhaps Wilkin’s had shown Shakespeare a draft of his The Painful Adventures of Pericles or maybe he started this after starting work with Shakespeare on ‘Pericles’. 

In April of 1607, riots against the enclosure of common land took over much of the Midlands of England. Starting in Haselbech and Pytchley it eventually spread to Shakespeare’s home county of Warwickshire. At the height of the riots, Captain Pouchh (John Reynolds) said to his protesters that he had the authority of the King of England and of God to destroy the enclosures and he said that he would protect them with the contents of his pouch. In Shakespeare’s own county of Warwickshire, almost 5,000 protesters destroyed enclosures. The law came in with an iron hand. Curfews were imposed and eventually the protesters were subdued.

Shakespeare seemed to like order and rule and seemed genuinely frightened of mob rule and the loss of order. He had fought hard to get a coat of arms for his family name. He had bought up considerable property around Stratford upon Avon. For all his adventurous, innovativeness and creativeness as a writer, Shakespeare was in many ways a conservative in his private life. The riots pf 1607 would have scared Shakespeare and his writing of ‘Coriolanus’ can be seen as an exploration of Shakespeare exploring notions of power, mob rule, public discontent and opposition to government and peasant revolt.

We know Shakespeare was familiar with and perhaps even had a copy of the 1579 Thomas North English translation of Plutarch’s ‘The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans’. There are significant references to and even parts of speeches in the text from Camden’s ‘Remains of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine’ so we know that Shakespeare also used this for perhaps his most complex verse drama ‘Coriolanus’.  This play shows that while straight-talinking politicians and people may have some appeal, an official who clings too tightly to the truth or to their own vision opens themselves up to inflexibility and change. 

Shakespeare would have most certainly traveled back to Stratford upon Avon in June of 1607 for the marriage of his daughter Susanna (who was 24 at the time) to Dr John Hall (who was 32). He had been involved in dowry negotiations for much of early 1607 and probably the most substantial part of this dowry was 104 acres in Old Stratford. This would leave no dowry for Shakespeare's younger daughter Judith. Susanna and John Hall had one daughter called Elizabeth who was born in 1608 and she became the last surviving direct relative of William Shakespeare when she died in 1670.

In December of 1607, William Shakespeare helped to bury his brother Edmund Shakespeare in Southwark in London. Edmund had followed William to London and he had become a small time actor. Edmund died in poverty and William Shakespeare probably paid for the burial with a "forenoone knell of the great bell".

In February of 1608, Shakespeare was probably not in Stratford for the baptism of his granddaughter Elizabeth. By June the plague had hit London again and by August 1608, the theatres were closed again and Shakespeare had to think how to maintain himself and his family. Shakespeare and his fellow players had been 'elevated in 1603 to the status of the King's men and although this meant that they played private performances at Hampton Court, the big money maker The Globe stood idol during this period. As the epidemic spread, provincial tours were not the solution that they had been before. This plague would continue on and off until December 1610. Shakespeare probably didn't travel much in 1608. He probably did not return to Stratford for the burial of his mother Mary Shakespeare in September. The purchase by the King's Men of Blackfriars Theatre in late 1608, even if bought at a bargain basement price, would have been an extra expense William Shakespeare did not need. But Shakespeare was probably not idol during this period.

Early in 1609, Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets were published in a quarto edition by publisher Thomas Thorpe. We do not know whether this edition was an authorized or unauthorized edition but the inclusion of the narrative poem ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ (which is dubiously attributed to Shakespeare) at the end in an appendix to ‘The Sonnets’ probably suggests that it was unauthorised. Although Thorpe’s edition says on the cover “SHAKE-SPEARE’S SONNETS: Never before imprinted” some had been printed before such as Sonnet 138 and Sonnet 144 which had appeared in the poetry collection entitled ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’.

The sonnets are assumed to have been written from 1592 until about 1607, although some place the writing of the earliest sonnet to as early as 1588 and some believe that the last sonnet was written in 1599. Shakespeare’s sonnets are based on the Italian Renaissance sonnet form invented by the poet Petrarch often known as the Petrarchan sonnet form. This form can normally be separated into two segments – the octave (normally with the rhyming pattern of ABBAABBA or even ABBACDDC) and the sestet (normally CDCDCD or even CDECDE). In Elizabethean England, the sonnet form was rejuvenated by lyric poets like Sir Philip Sydney. Shakespeare became the master of the new Elizabethean form sometimes even known to us now as the Shakespearean sonnet. Shakespeare’s sonnets are of the 14 line sonnet form comprising three four line (un-separated) stanzas and ending with a final rhyming couplet. The dominant poetic rhythm of his sonnets particularly in the final rhyming couplet is an iambic pentameter (a line comprising five feet or beats or stressed beats which alternate unstressed then stressed beats which some describe as the rhythm of a heartbeat). At least one of his sonnets breaks with this pattern and has an iambic tetrameter. The rhyming scheme of Shakespeare’s sonnets is normally ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The three quatrains often build the sequence to the volta (also known as the twist or turn) at the end of the third quatrain and then the final rhyming couplet gives us the crux, the twist or a revelation to end the sonnet.

If you don't have the patience or time to sit read and contemplate due to distractions then I would suggest the Top Ten of Shakespeare's sonnets to read would be:

10. Sonnet 104 - "To me, fair friend, you never can be old" 

9. Sonnet 30 - "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"

8. Sonnet 33 - "Full many a glorious morning have I seen"

7. Sonnet 73 - "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"

6. Sonnet 129 - "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame"

5. Sonnet 130 - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" 

4. Sonnet 1 - "From fairest creatures we desire increase"

3. Sonnet 29 - "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"

2. Sonnet 116 - "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"

1. Sonnet 18 - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day"

The central questions which surround Shakespeare's sonnets for many people are:

·      Are Shakespeare’s sonnets autobiographical?

·      Are they poetical exercises which deal with imagined people, circumstances and experiences?

·      Who is the Fair Youth in the sonnets?

·      Who is the Dark Lady in the sonnets?

·      Who is the Rival Poet in the sonnets?

Poets over the years have certainly thought that Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical. Wordsworth said that the sonnets “…express Shakespeare’s own feelings in his own person…” and even in one of Wordsworth's own sonnets, he poetically claims that he like Shakespeare was revealing himself because “…with this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart…” People over the years have wanted so much to know more about Shakespeare that the sonnets have, for many, become an unofficial autobiography which seems to reveal Shakespeare's inner and outer life through an intimate love life that the sonnets could reveal to go something like this:

Shakespeare, under the commission of some rich figurehead urges a young man, “…the only begetter of these ensuring sonnets”, to marry and have children to pass on his good looks to another generation. Many believe the young man to be the Henry Wriothesley (Earl of Southhampton) or William Herbert (Earl of Pembroke). Then the autobiographical approach would see Shakespeare falling in love with the young man himself. This leads him onto revealing a host of emotions and contemplations on love, loneliness, mortality, immortality through writing, the transience of life and the fear of death. Then the sonnets reveal jealousy of another poet who the young man seems to prefer, at least as a poet. The rival poet could be seen to be Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, John Davies or even Francis Davison. Then Shakespeare seems to become sexually involved with the Dark Lady and he gets involved in a love triangle which involves him, the Young Man and the Dark Lady where he is forced to contemplate the difference between the spiritual love he feels for the “fair youth” and the sexual love he feels for the “dark lady”. The Dark Lady is suitably mysterious but speculation has identified her as everyone from the London prostitute of African descent known as Lucy Negro or Black Luce to Mary Fitton to Emilia Lanier to Queen Elizabeth II herself. Back to the love triangle. Shakespeare then, in this narrative, blames The Dark Lady’ for the love triangle and shifting of affections and forgives the Young Man.

I tend to see ‘The Sonnets’ as ultimately an amazing sequence of narrative fiction, an exercise in poetic gymnastics which also seeks to play with (and even at points mock) the sonnet form itself. I believe that the intimacy of the tone of the sonnets plays with the reader to make them think that the poems give them an insight into the inner would of the poet (or the speaker). Obviously, Shakespeare uses much as his own voice and his own experiences to infuse authenticity into ‘The Sonnets’ but I believe the ultimate beauty of ‘The Sonnets’ lies in their ability to paint a clear and focused landscape of the inner world of an emotional life, while letting the reader transport these emotions and feelings wherever they like from connections to their own life, to judgments about the universal nature of these feelings to even a imaginary biography of a great playwright and poet who died almost 400 years ago about whom very little is known.

By autumn of 1610, the numbers of deaths due to the Plague seemed to be falling. The King Men seemed to have performed a couple of times at Hampton Court and around this time Shakespeare finally wrote another play. Cymbeline, also known as ‘Cymbeline, King of Britain’ and ‘The Tragedy of Cymbeline’, has had a strange life as a play. It was probably written at the end of 1610 and had its first performance probably in one of the London law colleges in the Christmas of 1610. Curiously, it was listed in the First Folio as a tragedy but today is listed as a Comedy and it certainly has many aspects of comedies like ‘The Winter’s Tale’ and even ‘Much ado About Nothing’.

Shakespeare seems to have been based Cymberline on the ancient Welsh King Cunobelinus (20BC-40AD approximately) although some characters and subplots seem to be hark back to Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’. It is interesting to note that at the age of 47, Shakespeare is interested in themes like fidelity and infidelity, redemption and the relationship between appearance and reality. Perhaps after years of fooling around in London, Shakespeare himself was examining these themes in his own life. Perhaps it is also pertinent that around this period in his life, many of his plays deal with father/daughter relationships. At the end of 1610, his daughter Susanna was 27 and had married a local doctor in Stratford upon Avon, and his younger daughter Judith (whose twin brother Hamnet had died in 1596 at the age of 11) was 25 and still unmarried and living at home in Stratford upon Avon. Judith eventually had a strange and unhappy marriage to a vintner named Thomas Quiney and some argue that plays like ‘Cymbeline’ express the general anxiety that Will Shakespeare had with some of Judith’s suitors like the rascal Quiney who she eventually married.

Cymberline starts in Britain at Cymberline's castle where two gentlemen recount to the audience recent goings on in the court of King Cymbeline.

“You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods

No more obey the heavens than our courtiers

Still seem as does the king…

As 1610 came to a close, so did another chapter in William Shakespeare's life. Some believe that he retired to Stratford as early as 1610. Whatever the truth, the period after 1610 marks the final period of Shakespeare's life as a playwright and includes some of his final greatest plays.

1606 -“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

1606 -“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

While 1605 seemed to start as a good year for James I and he had to a certain extent succeeded in furthering the notion of a United Kingdom or ‘Great Britain’ through building the relations between England, Scotland and Wales, he had also forged an end to the Anglo-Spanish conflicts reignited in August 1604. Little did James know that even as early as May 1604, Guy Fawkes and a group of Catholic conspirators had started to plan for November 1605 for what would become the Gunpowder Plot. But for the moment, all seemed quiet at the palace.

On the writing front Shakespeare had seemed fairly quiet in late 1604 and early 1605 but he had good reason. He was trying to ensure that he could create financial security for himself in Stratford-Upon-Avon so that he could write full time in London and eventually retire back to Stratford and even do some more writing in retirement. In 1601, he had bought 107 acres of arable land with twenty acres of pasturage for 20 pounds and this seemed to now be bringing in, in rent, almost that much every year. But that was nothing, for, in April of 1605, he purchased even more land and hoped that the income from these land purchases could eventually rake in more than 50 pounds a year. This along with the 10-20 pounds a year he made through what many would label 'grain hoarding', would bring him a substantial income that would lift him into an affluent class.

It is alleged that Shakespeare spent his 41st birthday in Stratford, probably dealing with his investments. But in late April as he took the 140 mile, three or four day horse and cart or carriage journey back to London, his mind must have turned to what his next play could be. When he stopped at Chipping Norton or at an inn near Woodstock (if he was lucky with the road and the rain), he probably took out the books he had carried but not read that day due to the ruts and bumps in the path. Perhaps it was the sense of England reconnecting to its Scottish and Welsh heritage with James I that prompted Shakespeare to take out his beloved Holinshed’s ‘The Chronicles of England, Scotlande and Ireland’. He probably thought of writing another History play on the second day and perhaps even made notes as he travelled to Oxford and stayed overnight there. He may have even lashed out and got a seat on a carriage to travel to Burnham Beaches and he may have even got some reading done on the journey had he done so. As he travelled into London, he probably thought he would stick to some familiar poetry reading as he took out and reread Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ concentrating on a character in it named Cordelia. By the time he reached London proper, he thinking of writing another tragedy using a historical figure and his mind kept coming back to the Celtic figure of King Leir of Britain.
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head…
By the time Shakespeare had finished Anthony and Cleopatra in about July of 1606, the plague numbers had risen again in London and the theatres were closed. Because the next time the theatres were reopened was for a brief time in April 1607 and because many plays from early 1607 onwards are influenced by this play, it is likely that Anthony and Cleopatra had its premiere by the King's men at a court performance sometime in October or November of 1606 when entertainments were vetted for court season for the holiday season.
So with the potential with one more play before the Winter set in, Shakespeare turned to William Painter’s ‘Palace of Pleasure’ which was a rough translation of Boccaccio’s ‘The Decameron’ to tell a black and cynical tale about human relations, sex and love filled with pleasant and unpleasant characters and even rogues and cads where true love takes second place to manipulation and exploitation. Shakespeare probably never penned a truer set of words when he wrote in late 1606 in ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ - “My friends were poor, but honest.” For both Shakespeare and James I, it was friends and honesty that was needed at the end of a tumultuous but momentous year.

As he unpacked his stuff, the story started to form for King Lear. Shakespeare was probably visited by the chief actor of his company Richard Burbage, who, having recently turned 38 was keen for Shakespeare to write him an older tragic character for him to be tested by. Shakespeare may have shown him a speech or two he had written, none of which was probably new or intended for his new project and he may have even pitched some of the plot to Richard to keep him happy. Burbage probably had told Shakespeare that he had heard rumours that Robert Armin, the comic of their company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was thinking of returning to the Chandos Company. On top of this Burbage had probably just hired another couple of young male actors and probably suggested to Shakespeare that a few more female characters in his next play would be a good idea. Shakespeare knew that he had quite a task ahead of him as he ushered Richard Burbage out of the door. But by the end of the week he had started to finally bring together all the elements for the play he initially titled ‘The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters’. The play probably proved very popular in that season along with revivals of 'Measure for Measure' and 'Troilus and Cressida' but Shakespeare would have kept adding some bits as he went along and perhaps Gloucester's reference to "...these late eclipses of the sun and moon..." and the whole opening of Edmund and Edgar's in Act One Scene Two was added by Shakespeare after the October 12th 1605 solar eclipse to make the play topical enough for its provincial touring and/or private performances in manor houses or at the law colleges in London. Perhaps he was also thinking of making it topical enough to get invited for a performance for Christmas for King James I at the palace. And why not. James I was very interested in astronomy, witchcraft and other 'magic' arts and almost everyone else seemed to be invited to the palace since James I seemed very open in his policies.


All that was to change when on November 5th, 1605, Guy Fawkes walked out of a gunpowder filled and decorated cellars of Parliament and into the arms of Sir Thomas Knyvet and the history books. It was obvious after that King James I would not be welcoming all and sundry to Christmas this year. Shakespeare would have to wait to flatter and impress the new king. Perhaps he added the lines of King Lear raging against the storm after the Gunpowder Plot or perhaps they act as a foreshadowing of the Gunpowder Plot:

"You sulphurous and thought-executing fire...,"


“So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

Late on the night of November 4th, 1605, as the wind picked up outside his window, Shakespeare probably put down his 1599 copy the ‘Discovery of Witchcraft, and Daemonologie’ wriiten by the new king James I. The weather outside was foul and well suited to a bit of reading on witches. He then probably downed the last of the mulled wine in the goblet beside his bed before he lifted the brass candle snuffer and put out the candle.

Early the next morning, Shakespeare was probably awoken by a loud knock on the door of his large room at his Silver Street lodgings which he rented from Christopher Mountjoy (a French Huguenot and a wigmaker by trade). The news had started to spread that a plot to blow up the houses of parliament had been foiled the night before and a certain Guy Fawkes had been arrested. The early visitor was probably one of Mountjoy’s apprentices, a young provincial boy from Shakespeare’s home county of Warwickshire. News that people from Warwickshire were involved in the plot probably came as warning to Shakespeare to lay low for a while. Shakespeare could see that his family’s Catholic sympathies might come to haunt him again. He probably then got dressed and went down the local inn where he could get a hearty breakfast of porridge and a pint of ale.

As he walked back to his lodgings he probably pondered on how some of the good men of Warwickshire could let their private ambitions drive them to acts like the attempt to blow up parliament. He thoughts may have drifted momentarily to his own ambitions and as he avoided the inevitable horse manure in the streets and slopsbuckets being emptied out of windows and doors, he may have worried that this new plot could stop his dreams of having a new play and a dozen odd performances at the court this winter. At £10 a performance and sometimes £12 for a new play that King James I liked, Shakespeare knew how lucrative a few court performances could be, so he thought of what of the ideas he had and what stories he could make into plays to make a good impression on James I.

As walked back along Muggle Street, Shakespeare could have thought back to one of his first projects for Ferdinando (the Lord Strange) back in the early 90’s when he was commissioned to write the Henry VI trilogy for the company known as the Lord Strange’s Men. They were a good set of plays but ultimately a piece of flattery, a rewriting of royal history but with the exploits and loyalty of the Lord Strange’s ancestors the Stanleys made to sound pivotal to the English crown. Perhaps he could do the same with James’ Scottish ancestors.

In earnest, Shakespeare walked up the stairs of his Silver Street lodgings, unlocked and walked into his room, fully opened the curtains and took out his ‘Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland’. It was a 1587 Second Edition which he either had picked up in London in 1590 or it had been given by the Earl of Southhampton if he had worked for him in 1588 at Titchfield. He scanned through the pages until he found the story he wanted and then took down his copy of George Buchanan’s account of the same story in ‘Rerum Scoticarum Historia’. He then took out a leaf of new parchment and the good goose quill that he had purchased a week before and he wrote the title on the parchment ‘The Tragedie of Macbeth’.

Then his imagination traveled and meandered almost as much as the quill on the page. A Scottish moor, a desolate place. Thunder and lightning crash. Enter three witches.

First Witch: “When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

This time Shakespeare would not flinch from the new king’s paranoia: James I was obsessed with witchcraft and equivocation. James I had survived numerous assassination attempts, Shakespeare chose to build a headlong descent into regal paranoia round the bloody murder of old King Duncan. King Duncan did not nor would not survive assassination.

Storms seems to lash England for most of the first half of 1606. Floods and storm surges made it impossible to travel much out of London and food prices rose. Shakespeare was lucky with the extra land he had bought in Stratford-upon-Avon and the extra grain he had stored (hoarded more like) meant that he was able to make a pretty profit by waiting for April to offload much of his grain. He knew in the lead up to the summer season, he would need more than ‘Macbeth’ in the mix of plays. Some of his company, the King’s Men, probably thought a revival of the history plays might work or ‘Julius Caesar’ but Shakespeare knew that with the heads of the traitors of the Gunpowder Plot which were bound in metal not yet fully decomposed that a tale of treachery might not prove tasteful.

As the rain continued to fall hard, Shakespeare probably took out his copy of Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ and toyed with the idea a play using Virgil’s Dido and Aeneas. At some point he opened his copy of his Thomas North 1579 translation Plutarch’s ‘Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together’ and he turned specifically to ‘The Life of Marcus Antonius’ and was probably struck by the poetry and the potential of a play about Antony and Cleopatra. He could see that it could be a wonderful story about love and loss but also a story about moral and ethical ambiguity, egos, governance, waste and stupidity. A story that resonates even more strongly today.

‘Antony and Cleopatra’ opens in the court of Cleopatra in Alexandria in Egypt around 40BC. Antony's men talk loosely about how Antony seems to have lost his zest for leadership now that he dotes on Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra enter. Cleopatra teases Antony teases him about his marriage and demands to know how much he loves her. He declares his love and shows he is distracted from his duties:

“Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch

Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space."

All’s Well That Ends Well Act One – “My friends were poor, but honest.”

Shakespeare knew that he had to whip up another play to accompany ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and ‘King Lear’ in the new season for The Globe. These two plays had already proved a success in winter venues like the palace and the law colleges but he knew that he had to add a comedy to the mix if he wanted the summer Globe season to be a success.

The Plague looked as if it would not hit too hard that year since only about 500 had died in the lead up months. So with care it looked as if there would be a normal death toll of about 1500 people dead in London for July and August (although reports from Wales were coming in that the Plague was bad there this year). James I and the royals would, of course, leave the city. ‘Measure for Measure’ had played up to King James well and he had paid for a couple of performances but its transfer to The Globe had had a mixed reaction. It was becoming clear to Shakespeare that a different darker sort of comedy was coming into vogue – a comedy of moral disillusionment. Ben Jonson jumped on the bandwagon quickly with his ‘Every Man and His Humour’ and Middleton with his ‘Family of Love’ and ‘The Phoenix’. If it was moral disillusionment they wanted, then Shakespeare could deliver with 'All's Well That Ends Well'.

1604-1605 - "O, Beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on..."

1604-1605 - "O, Beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on..."

When Shakespeare returned to London from Stratford after Easter, he probably looked at London with new eyes. The plague of 1603 seemed to be abating by April, and the theatres looked like they would reopen in May or June of 1604. With more leisure time to write because of the Plague but no compelling reason to write, the pace of Shakespeare’s life would have changed through the end of 1603 and the beginning of 1604. Shakespeare probably started lodging at the Mountjoy's residence on the corner of Silver and Muggle Streets in East London around this time. It is possible that he paid the £25 a year rent in advance. This was a step up from other accommodation he had rented prior but Shakespeare probably was making around £200 a year by this point with his tenanted farmland, his investments in moiety, his shares in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Globe and the money paid to him for writing plays.

London city was busy in the spring and the ports were busy with boats and traders from Europe, Africa and the East. Shakespeare was a great observer of people and places and it was probably while observing people and ships at the port that he turned a tale by Cinthio called Hecatommithi, which dealt with jealousy and the unfaithfulness of husbands and wives and he adapted it to an English context.

Although the play may have been performed in July 1604, the first mention of the play is in the Revels Office 1604 records which states that on "Hallamas Day, being the first of Nouembar... the King's Maiesties plaiers" performed "A Play in the Banketinghouse at Whit Hall Called The Moor of Venis."  

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure was probably performed also in July 1604 at The Globe Theatre although the Revels Office records it being performed at King James I court on December 26^th 1604 (St Stephen’s Day). After some success with ‘Othello’, time Shakespeare's Measure for Measure was probably performed in July 1604 at the Globe Theatre although the Revel's Office records a performance at King James I's court on December 26, 1604 (St Stephen's Day).  Shakespeare experimented with this play stylistically and probably started to pull together the tragic and comic elements of Cinthio’s ‘Hecatommithi’ and Whetstone’s ‘Promos and Cassandra’ into the tragic-comedy or comi-tragedy which eventually became ‘Measure for Measure’. The starts with a ruler (The Duke) appointing his trusted subordinate Lord Angelo while he goes away on a long trip. The play looks at the nature of power and hypocrisy and looks at the pitfalls of imposing an overly strict moral code. Although the play is a difficult one, it was probably a success since it was performed before King James I. 

In October of 1604, Shakespeare was involved in a real life domestic incident of high drama and intrigue. Shakespeare's landlady asked for his help with a personal family matter. Her husband's apprentice Stephen Belott had promised to marry the Mountjoy's only daughter Mary, but Belott had started to get cold feet because Christopher Mountjoy would not pay the dowry. Marie Mountjoy asked Shakespeare to talk to Belott. Shakespeare successfuly intervened and gave the young lovers the assurance that "...they should have a sum of money for a portion from the father..." Shakespeare then united them in a handfast (like that done between Rosalind and Orlando in As You Like It). Eventually the lovers married and eventually in 1612, Belott belatedly took his father-in-law to court to claim a fair dowry.

Early in 1605, Shakespeare probably worked quickly to produce ‘Timon of Athens’. He hadn't produced many plays over the last year and now that he was settled back in London with his properties in the country making a fair sum for him, he probably started in earnest. Once again, he looked around him to see what aspects of contemporary life struck him. His company were desperate to get the opportunity to perform more before the new king but the queues outside St James's Palace seemed to stretch for hours with sycophants of all sorts from nobles to painters and poets. This probably gave him the idea behind 'Timon of Athens'. 

Shakespeare probably went back to his lodgings on the corner of Silver and Muggle Streets in East London and took out his Plutarch and probably happened upon Timon of Athens. The real Timon was a philosopher and misanthrope who lived around 445-400BC in Athens during the time of the Peloponnesian War. Shakespeare then probably took out a copy of ‘The Misanthrope’ which was written around 165AD by Lucian but which he had an 1580 translation of. The idea of a misanthrope (a person who dislikes humans) would have caught his fancy. The allusions in 'Lysistrata' to Timon hating men but being liked by women probably interested him too. He then looked through the verse of Brooke's 'The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet' (1562) again as well as looking at the prose of William Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure' (1567) to give a sense of some characters and stories. It is alleged that Shakespeare worked closely with someone else on 'Timon of Athens' since some of the language is more like that of Thomas Middleton. Maybe the Jacobean era meant that Shakespeare and other playwrights started to develop their plays in a more collaborative manner. Nevertheless, 'Timon of Athens' is an interesting play that takes us on the journey of a wealthy fool who loses everything and shuns human society and curses humanity only to find honesty in the friendship of a single man.

The play starts with a Poet, a Painter, a Jeweler, and a Merchant entering  Timon's house in Athens. The Jeweler is trying to sell a jewel to Timon while the Painter and Poet talk about works they created for Timon. Then Timon enters and being told his friend Ventidius is now in prison, Timon says he will his friends debt to free him. An old Athenian enters and when Timon hears his servant Lucilius is after the old Athenian’s daughter, Timon gets an agreement of a marriage between Lucilius and the girl. Lucilius feels he is forever in Timon’s debt. Timon then takes the gem from the jeweler, the poem from the poet and the painting from the painter.

We have no idea what audiences at The Globe in 1605 thought of Timon of Athens at the time. Perhaps the play’s investigation of Asceticism would have sat well with the new world of James I’s court. Its unexplained plot points, combination of verse and prose makes it a strange play for modern audiences. Some people see the play as both satire and tragedy. The great writer Herman Melville saw the play as one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays and stated in an article about Shakespeare that he is not "…a mere man of Richard-the-Third humps, and Macbeth daggers," but rather "it is those deep far-away things in him; those occasional flashings-forth of the intuitive Truth in him; those short, quick probings at the very axis of reality:–these are the things that make Shakespeare, Shakespeare. Through the mouths of the dark characters of Hamlet, Timon, Lear, and Iago, he craftily says, or sometimes insinuates the things, which we feel to be so terrifically true, that it were all but madness for any good man, in his own proper character, to utter, or even hint of them."