1596 - “Grief fills the room up of my absent child…”

1596  - “Grief fills the room up of my absent child…”

After the success of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'A Midsummer's Night's Dream', and the relative absence of the plague in 1595, William Shakespeare could start to enjoy the relative quietness of his lodgings in Bishopsgate and get down to writing for the 1596 season. Although there were probably murmurings in the streets about the rebuilding of the Spanish Fleet and potential attacks to France and England and the wars in Ireland were looking to have no end, 1596 probably started well for Shakespeare as he put plume to paper to write The Life and Death of King John.

It was written sometime around 1596 and on one level it could be seen as a rather staid and relatively historically accurate play set in the 13^th century. It is much less dramatic and more histrionic than some of Shakespeare’s previous Histories. But on another level, for an Elizabethan audience, this could be seen as a radical examination of who has a legitimate claim to inheritance and the throne. We can see John or even Philip the Bastard as representative of either Elizabeth or even her father Henry VIII and Arthur as representative of Mary Queen of Scots. In this context, the play and events take on a whole new meaning.  In 1596, Queen Elizabeth I was 66 years old. Her beauty was fading and most of her hair had fallen out. To exacerbate her situation, Elizabeth I had started to grant monopolies as a simple and relatively cost free way of assuring patronage. This started to lead to price fixing and this soon became worse when the spring 1596 harvests started to fail. This environment makes King John an interesting choice of subject matter for Shakespeare.

In the context of 1596, the continuation of the Henry plays with Henry IV Part 1 is also an interesting choice for Shakespeare.

“I'll so offend, to make offence a skill; redeeming time when men think least I will,”

Queen Elizabeth I had no children or direct descendants in the wings. Speculation was rife, particularly with the rebuilt Spanish Armada and Spanish troops having captured Calais. James VI of Scotland (the son of Mary Queen of Scots) seemed like the major contender and this is known as the Stuart claim. The Suffolk claims had the Grey family and the Seymour and Beauchamp families at the centre of ascendency claims and the Yorkist claims had not disappeared. Having just turned thirty and having reigned for almost as many years in Scotland, James VI was starting to look like a true contender but just like Henry V in Henry IV, he did not start that way. Although seemingly initially virtuous and conservative, by 1596 rumours of James VI mixing with all unsavoury sorts in his interest (or some would say obsession) with witches and whisky. His troubles with Highlanders also started to create a schism in Scottish unity. In some senses, ‘Henry IV Part 1’ can be seen as a ‘coming of age’ drama where we see the making the boy Hal into the king, King Henry V. Oh, just to remind you (and myself) ‘Henry IV Part 1’ is set around 1403 and it is the second play in the Henry Tetralogy by Shakespeare (his great mini-series) which started with ‘Richard II’ and will eventually end with ‘Henry V’. The play could have been seen in its time as a plea for James VI to change his ways or a play advocating that young men can become great kings despite their pasts. Nevertheless, the continuing turmoil in London with food shortages, failed crops and an escalation of the conflicts in Ireland and Calais created a sense of uncertainty about the present and speculation about the future.

This environment of growing resentment also started to extend to the money lenders and merchants in London, many of whom were Jewish. It is in this environment that Shakespeare’s second new offering for the start of the 1596 season in May is The Merchant of Venice.

It is strange to think that in Shakespeare’s time a performance of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ would have been heralded with the raising of a white flag above The Rose or The Curtain to indicate that a comedy was to be performed that day in May of 1596. It certainly has some romantic comedy threads but stylistically it is eclectic and complex by any times definition and tastes.

Many modern critics and audiences see the greatest barrier for modern audiences for this play is that see it as anti-Semitic. I think that two things must be kept strongly in mind when contemplating such a question. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ was first staged in about 1596 and also it was listed as viewed as a comedy at the time.

Comedy is a wonderful form. Humour is a master of many styles and purposes and one of its essential purposes is that it allows through imitation, mockery and even satire the criticism of prejudices, attitudes and conceptions. It is also a fickle mistress to fashion and form and what seems hilarious or even astutely poignant in a piece one year can be embarrassing, not humorous and misunderstood a year hence. My point is that perhaps Shakespeare’s audience saw that even though it was dramatic in much of its form, that ‘The Merchant of Venice’ was mocking their prejudices. The way the play ends with Shylock’s punishment and conversion is stylistically a little overdone even for Shakespeare’s time and perhaps we miss the subtle social and cultural commentary that some or many of Shakespeare’s audiences would have picked up.

Jewish people had lived in England for centuries but from about 1300, the expulsion of and confiscation of Jewish property was continuous (or at least it kept coming in waves). There simply weren’t that many around in England anymore so ignorance abounded. Also, just as we go through waves of using ethic and religious groups as villains (remember when ever villain was a Russian or a South African, ah, those were the days), writers and audiences have always done this. Will we cringe in years to come at the way that nearly every second villain in our movies seems to be a Muslim or someone from a dis-enfranchised ex-Soviet state, or both? I certainly hope we do, because that will mean that we meeting our prejudices in the face. And let’s face it, villains are not meant to painted with the simple delicate brush strokes and hues of sympathy but with the broad emotionally charged slaps and dashes of a bright pallet that challenges our values, perceptions and prejudices. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ also begins with such beautiful simplicity. It begins at the end of a conversation about Antonio’s, a merchant of Venice, melancholy:

“In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.”

The Elizabethans used the Julian Calendar rather than the Gregorian Calendar. They also tended to date their years from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth the 1st. So sometime on the morning of prabably August 4 in Anno 38 Reginae Elizabethae (August 4, 1596 AD in our system), an urgent message would have been dispatched from Stratford upon Avon for William Shakespeare resident of Bishopgate in London. The message probably was delivered by a family friend or by urgent dispatch and the message probably reached London in about 30-40 hours. So while Shakespeare was just leaving The Swan theatre or the White Hart or George Inn, he received the dispatch. It would have told him that his 11 year old son Hamnet was extremely sick and dying. William Shakespeare would have probably left on the evening coach for Stratford and hopefully managed to see his son before he died on August 10 Anno 38 Reginae Elizabethae. Then on August 11, William Shakespeare buried his only son Hamnet.

Before Shakespeare left Stratford to return to London after the tragic loss of his son, he probably spent some evenings drinking and thinking with his father John Shakespeare and together, they probably decided that John Shakespeare’s 1569 claim to acquire a family coat of arms should be taken up again and pursued. So William Shakespeare left Stratford near the end of August 1596 with a heavy heart and a heavy bag filled with documents to back up the application to the College of Arms. So as Shakespeare left on a coach for London, he probably thought of a new speech for his King John  play which was still new and still running in London. He probably thought of his son's death and the desperate feeling of permanent separation when he wrote an extra very touching speech for the character of Constance. The speech resonates even more when we think that Shakespeare had just lost his only son Hamnet.
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts...
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!" (King John III iii 93-108)