Dying in 1587, just as Shakespeare probably got going, Mary Queen of Scots has been a peripheral figure in my reading, writing and teaching over the past few years. Perhaps unjustly. In her book, ‘Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens’, Jane Dunn fascinatingly posits that one queen can only be defined by contrast to her rival.
It’s easy to forget that Shakespeare pre-dates social media …
‘We’re sitting here like a couple regular fellas. You do what you do. I do what I gotta do. And now that we have been face-to-face, if I am there and I got to put you away?
(pause)
I won’t like it. But, if it’s you, or some poor bastard whose wife you’re going to turn into a widow, brother, you are gonna go down.’ [a]
What if Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots had met … ?
Our victim was brash, talented, and stabbed just above the eye before his 30th birthday …
Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (Vintage: London, 2002)
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‘I am not trying to argue that Marlowe’s death has to have a meaning. My reading tends only to a more complex kind of meaninglessness than that of a ‘tavern brawl’.
Sometimes we need to be reminded that our historical figures are human beings.
This week’s quotation is taken from Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (ed. J.H. Elliott), (The Folio Society: London, 2002)
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This is just a humble tavern, and we’ve no real pretensions to royal patronage. Prince Hal, of course is a regular, but he doesn’t behave very … ahem … regally, when he’s here, Lor’ bless and keep him.
But like every good English ale-house, we do have a portrait of Good Queen Bess behind the bar, and it’s this one. This week, I’ve been thinking about Elizabeth I …
Should we pay more attention to James I before he became King of England?
Thomas Cogswell, James 1: The Phoenix King (Penguin Monarchs series), (Allen Lane: London, 2017)
Studying or teaching Shakespeare’s plays, the figure of Elizabeth looms in the background, like the spectre at the feast.
We see it in the ever-present censorship, in the light of the Treasons Acts in 1571 and 1581, outlawing public discussion of the succession. Or, more positively, in the ‘Gloriana’ cult that produced works like Spenser‘s The Faerie Queen, and flattering nods to Elizabeth wherever you look – like links between her and Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We see it in her discomfort with comparisons to Richard II, and the propagandic lionization of Henry VII.
Reading Cogswell‘s short, sympathetic biography has made me reassess the extent to which we / I ignore James until the succession question becomes absolutely critical.
Continue reading “Quote of the Week: 12 February 2018 (#28)”
Where is the ‘son-in-law’ material in LLL?
Love’s Labour’s Lost: Act IV
My life has been filled with obsessions, and for reasons too complex to go into here, about twenty-five years ago, one of them was Scottish history. With no knowledge ever completely wasted, it’s contributed to where and who I am today, struggling with this play, and especially to find any kind of empathy with its male characters.
Put simply, if I had a daughter, none of these men would be son-in-law material …
Continue reading “PTS 09/055: The Rough Wooing of the Monstrous Regiment”
The more things change, the more they stay the same …
Neale, JE: Queen Elizabeth I (Pimlico: London, 1998)
Once again, I’m minded to say that we continue to study EMP Literature because whilst times and technology have undoubtedly moved on, human attitudes and the situations we face remain broadly the same.
Endemic Xenophobia? Check.
Effemination of rival men who dress too well? Check.
Aristocratic disdain for ‘upstarts’? Check.
‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (another foreigner*, dammit!) might say …
(Ponytail Shakespeare read-through) Titus Andronicus: Act I
My experience of Shakespeare’s Rome is the city where Cinna the Poet is torn apart by the mob for his ‘bad verses’ (Julius Caesar, III.iii), and the antagonistic opening to Coriolanus. So, what first struck me as the play opened was just how thin the veneer of civilisation proved to be.
Continue reading “PTS06/033: Thou Shalt not Suffer A Queen To Live”
Alison Weir, The Princes In The Tower (London: The Folio Society, 1992)
A slight rearrangement of this section. Instead of one huge sticky post, it’s easier to post as and when I come across something worth sharing. You can see the previous mega-post by clicking here.
This week’s quotation is attributed to Elizabeth Wydville, widow of Edward IV. She was, at this stage, in sanctuary with her youngest son, and determined to preserve their lives – and hers – by keeping the two boys separated.
the man might take as long as a quarter of an hour to expire
Currently reading the wonderfully cheery Hangmen of England, by Brian Bailey (WH Allen, 1989). Whilst reflecting on what fun dinner-time conversation with ‘Uncle Bill’ must have been as he researched the book, I chanced upon this little gem about Tudor executions:
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 