1591-1592 - “…his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide…”

“... there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country…”

On his deathbed in 1592, the relatively young 32 year old, bitter and impoverished playwright Robert Greene, penned these words in his last pamphlet ‘Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance’. Robert Greene was a celebrity, a playwright, a poet and a prose writer. By the time he was on his deathbed, Greene had written over 50 pieces of prose and 5 plays. His swipe at the young Shakespeare is probably the first mention of Shakespeare as a playwright. Greene's complaint about the young Shakespeare as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers" is not unwarranted, but Shakespeare seems to have shown by the early 1590's how to use the feathers he had plucked from others to make wings to fly on the winds of his imagination.

Shakespeare had had a busy year in 1591.Following the success of the History play that became known as Henry VI Part 2, Shakespeare had written two more Henry VI plays Henry VI Part 3 then Henry VI Part 1. He took up the reigns on the pieces of a project that had probably stumped three or four playwrights before him – Titus Andronicus.

The winter at the beginning 1591 was very cold and grain was in short supply. With the profit from his Henry VI Part 2 play, Shakespeare had probably sent money through a middleman back to Henley Street in Stratford for his wife to invest in grain storage back in October 1590 and they were probably starting to reap the rewards. Grain hoarding was highly illegal but widespread in England at this time and Shakespeare’s wife Anne was starting to probably prove a shrewd and wise investor. So as winter set in in London, Shakespeare felt secure in his choice to come to London and he knew that writing plays could support him in London and his family back in Stratford.

So, Shakespeare knew that he had to write the Henry VI sequel and prequel. He probably had noted the success of Spenser’s narrative poem ‘The Faerie Queene’ and he knew that he could write narrative poetry as good as Spenser but he knew that that sort of writing would have to wait. He knew playwriting was competitive and dangerous. How could he ever match the verse of Marlowe whose Tamburlaine had been revived even in winter?

Shakespeare would have poured over Hall’s ‘Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York’ and Holingshed’s ‘Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland’ and he knew that the next challenge was how to stage the battles and horrors of the ‘War of the Roses’ on the stage. He knew he also had to be careful since many of the horrors of this war had been committed by Queen Margaret, a woman and a monarch.

How could he avoid the fate of a trip to The Tower that had befallen some playwrights and even some of his Catholic relatives? Shakespeare knew that he needed to tread a thin line. He knew he needed to also dramatically do more than to just display the horror and disunity of the times. He pillages from a number of sources including the enigmatic character of Joan of Arc (probably as tribute to Elizabeth I and her defeat of the Spanish Armada back in 1588. He moved quickly between real historical events and events which he invented to evoke a chivalry and patriotism which made the play popular in its time. 

In late April, when the plays were performed probably at polygon-shaped building called The Theatre.

The Theatre was located in the disreputable Shoreditch and had a thrust stage which extended from one side of the polygon shaped building. The two plays were a success and were perhaps performed with Henry VI Part 2 as a trilogy over three afternoons. The audience in the open yard stood for the play and had paid a penny. The people in the galleries probably paid two pennies except for those who sat on a stool who paid three pennies for the privilege. The Theatre could probably hold 1500 people at a time, so you can imagine the resentment which the success of Shakespeare’s plays caused more seasoned playwrights like Greene.

Some other seasoned playwrights saw collaboration as the key to keeping drama alive against other entertainments in Shoreditch like bear baiting, brothels, bowls and gambling games like cherry-pit and cards. After a great success with his play in the 1580’s entitled The Arraignment of Paris, George Peele unlike Robert Greene saw the future in collaboration. One story maintains that three or four playwrights had attempted to write a treatment of Titus Andronicus. Philip Henslowe had made his money and career through a range of interests including dyeing of fabrics, pawn-broking, money lending, the timber trade, brothels and property. 

In 1587, Henslowe built The Rose Theatre and in 1591 when the Admiral’s Men split with James Burbage and The Theatre, he ceased the opportunity to draw the best company of players in Elizabethan London. The story goes that in late May of 1591 when the Admiral’s Men came over to Henslowe’s Rose Theatre he had to have a play written and mounted in a couple of weeks and Henslowe wanted Titus Andronicus to be performed. Someone suggested Shakespeare was the man to pull this off successfully. Shakespeare was riding on the success of the Henry VI plays and he was given the task. Shakespeare consulted and collaborated with George Peele and by late in June 1591, Shakespeare had written his first tragedy Titus Andronicus. He and Peele were probably paid £2 each for the play and a share in the profits if it became a success. It did.

The play is set in the last days of the Roman Empire and it centres around a story of revenge and the conflict between a Roman General called Titus and Tamora, the Queen of the Goths. The play has graphic violence. It has at least five violent acts in each act, rape, mutilation and a death every 100 lines. Act One even ends with Tamora threatening to massacre all of Titus’ family. It must have been popular because even 3 years later it is still earning over three pounds a performance at every performance and it was still in the repertoire of plays performed.

It is after this, early in 1592, that Shakespeare writes his first great tragedy the Tragedy of King Richard the Third. Around this time, Shakespeare moved to lodgings in Bishopsgate. His rent was probably a little more here, perhaps 10p a week but this perhaps included a morning ale and bread and butter left on the sideboard each morning and he might even pay the extra 2p for a stew of mutton. 

Shakespeare probably then walked to The Rose Theatre located on Bankside, Southwark outside of the jurisdiction of the City of London in the ‘liberty’ area of Clink. The walk was about a mile and took about 30 minutes depending on whether Shakespeare walked across London Bridge with its shops and stalls or whether he decided to take a punt (1p one way) across the Thames River.

Rehearsals probably started about 10 am and it is likely only two hours of rehearsals were done each day before the 12 noon break for dinner (the major meal of the day). Time was tight since companies produced about 5 performances each week of three to six different plays. Minor parts would often be allocated the day of the performance. Main actors were paid about 20p a day for rehearsals of a play and a performance in the afternoon. Bit players and boy players who played female parts got paid about 8p a day. Players in Shakespeare’s day had a good memory for lines and even if they didn’t two techniques helped them to perform the lines from a play. Cue Scripting meant that actors were often only given their lines and the cues just before their lines on their scripts. Actors often then were not familiar with the whole of a scene and actors would often pin their Cue Scripts backstage so that when they came off stage they would look at the lines for their next scene. The other technique used was Cue Acting. This is where the actor on stage would receive a whispered prompt or cue from a person offstage or behind stage and the actor would say those lines before being cued the next lines just before uttering them ‘with feeling’.

At 12 noon, the actors would break for dinner of either fresh water or salt water fish, beef or a leg or neck of mutton. Shakespeare and his fellow theatre men would go to an inn for dinner. Three of their favorites in Southwark were the White Hart Inn (on the London Bridge road), The Tabard (mentioned in Chaucer) and the George Inn and coaching house (which was rebuilt on the same site after the Great London Fire). 

They would have probably had boiled ‘sallet’ greens like sorrel or spinach normally served with mustard. They would have had bread and butter with this. Normally the bread was made of a combination of grains including wheat, barley, oats and rye. This would be accompanied by a pint of ale, claret or Rhenish (German wine). The players would probably start to leave the inn at about 1pm ready for a 2pm show. Shakespeare would then have to make sure that he got back to his lodgings before the gates of the city were shut just after sunset (otherwise he would have to stay at a friend's lodgings until the next day). 

When rehearsals had finished sometime in April or May of 1592, Shakespeare’s much anticipated ‘The Tragedy of Richard the Third’ premiered. Shakespeare had probably read Machiavelli’s The Prince before finishing writing this play since besides blood and gore it has political intrigue and machinations. Shakespeare starts the play with the main character (and villain of the play) Richard III talking directly to the audience. So sometime in April or May of 1592, Edward Alleyn probably ambled out to the front of the stage at The Rose Theatre and in front of almost 1500 people, he uttered the famous first lines of ‘Richard III’:

“ Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

1589-1590 - “The play’s the thing…”

“The play’s the thing…” 1589 - 1590

Sometime late in the 1580’s, Shakespeare probably joined the Pembroke’s Men (sponsored by the Earl of Pembroke, Henry Herbert). He probably also did some acting also for the Lord Strange’s Men and the Lord Admiral’s Men. There were three categories of players and payments were organized accordingly. There were sharers (or shareholders), hired men and apprentices. As a hired man, Shakespeare was probably paid 5 shillings (60p a week) at a time when an ale cost 1-2p, lodging 6-8p a week, eggs 6 for 1p and beef 2p or one half groat.

In 1589, William Shakespeare wrote or collaborated to write his first play which was probably written for Pembroke’s men. He probably got paid about 10 Shillings to £1-as an untested playwright. The play was Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Shakespeare may have written the whole play or parts of the play with the comic actor Richard Tarlton in his mind as playing Launce since Tarlton was famous for his comic scenes with dogs. Tarlton’s death in 1588 would have put an end to that idea. Shakespeare probably read the Bartholomew Young translation of the Spanish Prose Romance Los Siete Libros de la Diana (‘The Seven Books of the Diana’) around this time because he draws strongly on this for Two Gentlemen of Verona. He also used John Lyly’s Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit and probably used ideas from Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Shakespeare probably knew that this narrative poem had greater potential and thought he would save using too many ideas from this narrative poem for a later, perhaps using them in one whole complete play.

When comic theatre started thriving again in London in 1589 and with the public liking Ancient Roman comedies and the new comedies of the Commedia dell Arte, Shakespeare probably knew that he should revisit the ideas he had for a comedy. Shakespeare would have first read or showed parts of the script to players in the Lord Strange’s Men and either William Kempe, Thomas Pope or George Bryan probably encouraged Will Shakespeare to submit them for some playwrighting payments. Probably Pembroke’s Men saw the opportunity and either through loyalty or the promise of payment in hand, Shakespeare gave the play over to Pembroke’s Men for copying the actor’s parts and their cues ready for the three or four days of morning rehearsals and then performances. Of course every morning of rehearsal was followed by afternoon performances of other plays, so any rewrites or additions were done by the young Shakespeare late at night under the midnight candle before the next morning’s rehearsal.

So sometime in 1590 or 1591, Shakespeare’s first play was performed probably at Cross Keys Inn outside London since the Lord Mayor of London had banned plays within the city in 1589 and 1590. In the cobbled courtyard of the Inn, about 300 people probably gathered (the courtyard held about 500 people for major plays and events) to witness Shakespeare’s debut as a playwright. It could have been one of any eight early Shakespeare plays including The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, KIng John, Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part II or Henry VI Part III. Shakespeare was probably paid about £2 for the play. A successful play would bring in £2 each performance for the owners of the company and the theatre. If the play was a success, then early in the winter of 1591 it was probably performed at Court and when the London theatres opened again in the summer of 1591, it would have been performed at the Curtain or The Theatre. The play was possibly performed by 10 actors and had only sixteen characters (and a dog). The actors (which probably included Shakespeare himself) were paid about six pence a week if they were a main actor and two pence for a non-main actor (no wonder Shakespeare went into playwrighting and buying shares in his own company of players). It was probably one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays at 2233 lines or 2 hours and 10 minutes of playing time. It was most probably a light comedy filled with humor, the themes of sex, violence and love, clever dialogue, witty banter, deception, mistaken identities, disguises, family drama, multiple plots with multiple twists and turns and a play where ultimately love triumphs with a marriages ending the play. The play was probably Two Gentlemen of Verona.

As the summer of 1591 came closer, Shakespeare the player was slowly becoming Shakespeare the playwright. With Two Gentlemen of Verona under his belt, Shakespeare probably prepared two plays for the summer season - another comedy and a history play.

The comedy he prepared was The Taming of the Shrew. It is essentially a play within a play, a frame play. Shakespeare probably talked through the ideas for this play with other players. Probably stories from ‘Arabian Nights’ were floating around the actor circuit and Marlowe and other playwrights talked about Commedia troupes in Europe using some of the ideas from these stories. Shakespeare would have also been familiar with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and elements of ‘The Miller’s Tale’ were perhaps commonly used in plays around that time. Shakespeare may have even appropriated the main plot from a poem of the period sometimes known as ‘The Merry Jest’. Shakespeare also used elements of tales from Ancient Greek times and Socrates as well as Gascoigne’s 1573 version of a story based on the 1551 Ariosto’s version entitled ‘Suppositi’. The Induction scene which starts the play within the play or frame play technique was probably a common stylistic device which started to become popular again in the early 1590’s. ‘The Taming of the Shrew probably opened at The Theatre in May of 1591.

To add to this success, Shakespeare had written a history play, a smaller part of a potential sequence of plays. History plays were becoming popular after England and Queen Elizabeth's defeat of the great Spanish Armada in 1588. England seem to revel in and become proud of its own history and its war exploits. In 1591, with the plague abating and the theatres were open again, it seems that longer entertainments of a more serious nature were again fashionable, popular and profitable. While also working on The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare was probably pouring over Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York and Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles. In fact Holinshed’s Chronicles was a source that Shakespeare used for much of his life and he even uses parts of this text verbatim for his history plays. He probably was first introduced to the bookstalls surrounding and attached to St Paul’s Cathedral in 1590 but in early 1591, he probably had enough money to purchase a number of texts and pamphlets including his beloved Holinshed’s Chronicles. He probably also discovered that around the bookstalls were watering holes and inns that were great places to meet other writers and intellectuals and pick up ideas and the latest gossip. It is undoubtedly here that he met Christopher Marlowe for the first time early in 1591.

Shakespeare knew that certain types of history plays were popular but tricky to pull off since any element of political undertone might be seen as libelous by the authorities. He would have carefully crafted the ideas from Holinshed and for the summer season had the history play which was to become known as Henry VI Part 2. Shakespeare may have even got £4 for this play and an advance of another £4 for the promise of two sequels. Henry VI Part 2 is a play of the political machinations which inevitably lead up to the War of the Roses and it focuses on the damage caused by nobles fighting and bickering amongst themselves. The play had everything Elizabethan audiences wanted intrigue, strong characters, the rise of a man of royal blood and the play ends with the first battle of the War of Roses. It was a success and Shakespeare’s name as a playwright was finally on the map. So by 1590, with a number of plays to his name and still acting during the season, William Shakespeare was now a player and a playwright making £22 a year (£11,000 a year in today's money).

1587-1589 - “… the young prince be fet hither to London, to be crowned our King.”

“… the young prince be fet hither to London, to be crowned our King.” 1587 - 1589

So exactly how does the poor 23 year old William Shakespeare of Stratford with a wife and three children go from poverty to wealth, fame and notoriety in London in the space of eight to ten years?

One story goes that the Queen's Men, the leading players in England, visited Stratford-upon-Avon in 1587 and being short a player (due to the recent death of their actor William Knell in a fight in Oxfordshire) the 23 year old Shakespeare was paid to stand in and he did such a good job that they invited him to look them up in London.

This fits in with the theory that William Shakespeare in late April 1588 (straight after his 24^th birthday), acquired a license to travel and took to the road for the seven day walk or three day (220 km) horse ride to London. Shakespeare probably went to London by horse. If he took a horse, he would have walked up the road from his cottage or the Tudor house we now call ‘The Birthplace’ (the Henley Street house Shakespeare was born in and where he may have lived if he and Anne did not live in a cottage) for about 400 metres to get the horse from a local stables. He then probably travelled in a group of four to ten riders since highwaymen still roamed the roads and tracks.  

Shakespeare would have crossed the River Avon over one of Stratford’s two bridges and dropped down into the emerald green of the Warwickshire countryside. He then probably got off his horse as they ambled up the winding dirt track near the Cotswold’s escarpment. On the way he would have passed his mother’s birthplace and the birthplace of his wife Anne Hathaway in Shottery. He then would have gone onto Chipping Campden and Moreton-in-Marsh and probably would have stopped at Woodstock for the evening or if the weather was good, they have made it all the way to Oxford.

The next day, they would have started with a hard climb up the trail through the Chiltern Hills. Shakespeare would have seen the chairmakers along this route and probably made a note that when he made his fortune, this would be the place to acquire chairs and furniture. The reward after the hard hills would have been Dorney Lake and they would have stopped somewhere around here for the night and probably dabbled travel sore feet in Dorney Lake.

 

Then Shakespeare would have seen London for the first time. It was a city of over 180,000 in 1588 and it was a city where he would spend half of his life (26 years of his 52 year life). As Shakespeare entered London and came to a junction of Watling Street, he would see an area known as Tyburn. He would have heard of it. The gallows would probably have had the naked body of a thief still swinging in the gentle April breeze. Shakespeare knew this place well from family stories of what had happened to some of the more forthright Catholics in his family. The warning would have served as a reminder of what could happen to those who clung to the old religious ways. He then went down what is now Oxford Street before dismounting his horse, paying the horseman and entering the Bell Inn just south of St Paul’s Cathedral for his first of many nights in London.

Other stories suggests that Shakespeare left for and arrived in London a little later. Shakespeare’s name does appear in a ‘compaints bill’ in a law case dated 1588 and then a subsequent mention is made of this bill on October 9, 1589. Later biographers allude to Shakespeare escaping Stratford to avoid prosecution on deer poaching charges by Thomas Lucy. Some claim that he worked as a schoolmaster for Alexander Hoghton in Lancashire. Still others believe that he worked in Titchfield as a tutor and perhaps even a schoolmaster for the third Earl of Southhampton, Henry Wriothesley (whom Shakespeare later dedicated his poem Venus and Adonis to).

One story suggests that Shakespeare was brought down to London to tend horses for theatre patrons. Whatever the truth, we know that in the early 1590's that Shakespeare probably lived at Shoreditch (near to The Theatre which was built in 1576), that he had acted in a number of plays and was probably paid three shillings a week or £10 a year (£5,000 a year in today's money) as an inexperienced actor.

(N.B. 1 pound = 20 shillings, 1 shilling = 12 pence. It is difficult to say exactly what money in Shakespeare's day would be worth today. One way to calculate it approximately is to times every figure by 500. Thus £10 a year becomes £5,000 a year in today's money.)

Shakespeare: Prologues and Epilogues - “The Whining Schoolboy” 1564-1586

"The Whining Schoolboy" 1564-1586

Gulielmus (old spelling of William) Shakspere (spelling was not standardized of surnames in English at this time) was born probably on April 22^nd or 23^rd in 1564 to Mary Arden (daughter of a wealthy farmer and landowner) and Johannes (John) Shakspere (glovemaker and whitawer or soft white leather maker). He was one of seven siblings and William was definitely baptized on April 26^th 1564 in Stratford. Stratford was in 1564, a market town of 1,450 people which mainly dealt with haymaking, barley and hop growing and beer brewing.

William Shakespeare’s early days were probably spent at John and Mary Shakespeare's Henley Street house in Stratford upon Avon (this may be the house in Henley Street which is still standing and signposted as Shakespeare's birthplace). William probably started his education at the local Grammar school King’s New School in Guild Hall in Church Street in Stratford upon Avon, soon after his father became a town councilor in 1572 and probably studied at the school from the age of 8 or 9 until he was 14 or 15 in 1578 or 1579. The school day normally went from 6 in the morning until 6 in the evening for 6 days a week. There were only two short breaks in the school day. The curriculum centered around reading, writing, reciting and doing grammar all in Latin.

Above is a horn book similar to the one Shakespeare would have used.

In the Folger Library in Washington D.C. in the United States of America, there is a 1568 law textbook entitled ‘Apxaionomia’ with the name ’Wm. Shakspere’ written inside the book. It is probable that William worked for his father (who was a glover working with tanning leather and making gloves out of leather) or that he got an apprenticeship or worked as a tutor from 1580 onwards. But by 1580, William Shakespeare's father had huge financial problems and he and his family were struggling.

Sometime in July or August 1582, eighteen year old William Shakespeare probably started to court or write poetry to Anne Hathaway. On or around August 19, 1582, William Shakespeare slept with Anne Hathaway. On November 27^th, 1582, when he was eighteen, “Wm Shaxpere” of Stratford took out a license to marry “Annum Whateley de Temple Grafton” but then this is struck from the record. Some believe that Annum Whateley was the first love of William Shakespeare. However the most likely solution is that this initial record was a mistake or a wrongly copied entry. On November 28^th, 1582, a new entry was logged and a bond was recorded for the marriage of “William Shagspere” to “Anne Hathwey of Shottery, Warwickshire (a small town just to the west of Stratford-upon-Avon. Anne Hathaway's father, Richard Hathaway, was a yeoman farmer who died in 1581 and left his daughter Anne the sum of six pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence in his will to be paid upon her marriage. In this sense Anne Hathaway was a good catch for any man especially the poor eighteen year old verse writing Shakespeare whose father seemed to have an every growing debt. In the absence of Anne's father, it was probably Fulke Sandell's and John Richardson (the witnesses and executors of Richard Hathaway's will) who visited William Shakespeare and his father John Shakespeare to force the issue of William Shakespeare marrying Anne Hathaway. Six months later the baptism of their first child, Susanna, is recorded on May 26^th 1583. You do the Math on that one. On February 2^nd 1585, the baptism of Shakespeare’s twins Hamnet and Judith was recorded.

The period of 1585 until 1592 are referred to as Shakespeare’s ‘lost years’ since little is known about his life and whereabouts during this period. Some believe that William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway lived in John Shakespeare's Henley Street house. However it is more likely that William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway set up house in a cottage or uninhabited building near to the Henley Street house. In any case in 1585, we have the image of a poor young couple with three children living in Stratford upon Avon where the young husband William Shakespeare seems to have very few prospects and five mouths to feed.