Shakespeare and Chester

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'''The year 1580 saw a spectacular show in a series of the same: the portentous earthquake and blazing comet that marked the year. Published shortly afterwards, Francis Shakelton’s "Blazing Star" warns of "dissolution of the Engine of this World". Shakelton warned of "the Decay of Nature", a concept that became widespread in the 17th century, sanctioning the use of art and science to amend, improve, or replace natural processes. There was a spectacular nova in 1572, another comet in 1577 and another Supernova in 1604. In the ninth episode of James Joyce's Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus associates the appearance of the 1572 supernova with the youthful William Shakespeare, and it has been argued that this supernova is described in Shakespeare's Hamlet, specifically by Bernardo in Act I, Scene i. It was a time of portents and marvels.'''

The Chester Mystery Plays are filled with portents and prophecy. These follow a standard religious pattern: a prophecy is made, which later comes "true" and this is then used to justify the truth of as-yet unfulfilled prophecies relating to the future. Two possible connections have been proposed between the Mystery Plays and Shakespeare:


 * the first is that Shakespeare was at least aware of the Mystery Plays, either at Chester or elasewhere and may have been influenced by them;


 * the second is that the author of the "Shakespeare plays" was not the historic Shakespeare but someone associated with Chester;

This article reviews the history of events in and around Chester during the period of the Shakespeare history plays, then explores the evidence for linkage between the Shakespeare plays and Chester.

Shakespeare's History Plays
These plays may be summarised as follows:


 * King John receives an ambassador from France who demands (with a threat of war) that he renounce his throne in favour of his nephew, Arthur, whom the French King Philip believes to be the rightful heir to the throne. John argues with the Pope and is excommunicated. John orders Hubert to kill Arthur, but Hubert cannot. John attempts to extract gold from monasteries. Arthur dies (possibly murdered). John is poisoned by a monk. The English swear allegiance to Henry who becomes a boy king in 1216. The play was written c. 1596 and is set 1200-1216. Popular representations of John first began to emerge during the Tudor period, mirroring the revisionist histories of the time. The anonymous play "The Troublesome Reign of King John" portrayed the king as a "proto-Protestant martyr", similar to that shown in John Bale's morality play "Kynge Johan", in which John attempts to save England from the "evil agents of the Roman Church". Shakespeare follows previous depictions and creates a quite anti-Catholic work.


 * Edward III (written c compresses a very long reign and telescopes history to achieve this, leaving out actual historical characters and creating many anachronisms. It seems that around 40% of the play was written by Shakespeare, the rest possibly by Thomas Kyd, John Jowett and others. It is particularly anti-Scots, for which it was censured at the time of its first performance. It was not included in the first publication of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603.


 * Richard II (written c 1592) spans only the last two years of the king's life, from 1398 to 1400. A dispute between Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt, and Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk is to be resolved by a tournament. At the last minute, Richard stops the contest: he banishes Mowbray for life, and giving in to pleas on behalf of Bolingbroke, commutes his son's banishment to six years. Bolingbroke, resenting the confiscation of his inheritance, returns to England where his army is enthusiastically welcomed by the English, led by Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. The play ends with the rise of Bolingbroke to the throne, marking the start of a new era in England. Is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V.


 * Henry IV (written c 1597) has usurped his cousin, Richard II, to become King of England. News comes of a rebellion in Wales, where his cousin, Edmund Mortimer, has been taken prisoner by Owen Glendower, and in the North, where Harry Hotspur, the young son of the Earl of Northumberland, is fighting the Earl of Douglas. Prince Hal spends all his time in the London taverns with disreputable companions, particularly one dissolute old knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal is reconciled with the king. The King’s army triumphs over the rebels. The king dies and Hal becomes Henry V.


 * Henry V’s father Bolingbroke (Henry IV) was never able to rule comfortably because he had usurped Richard II. On his succession King Henry V is determined to prove his right to rule, including over France. The French are defeated, with heavy losses, whereas the English losses are light. Henry returns to London in triumph before making peace with the French king. The play was written c 1599.


 * Henry VI (written c 1590) opens in the aftermath of the death of King Henry V. The lords select red or white roses, depending on whether they favour the House of Lancaster or that of York. The country descends into Civil War. Richard of Gloucester begins his campaign to remove all obstacles in his path to the throne by murdering King Henry VI who is a captive in the Tower of London. Henry prophesies Richard’s career of villainy and his future notoriety.


 * Richard III (written c 1583) starts as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, determined to gain the crown from his brother, the ill Yorkist King Edward IV. He organises the murder of his brother George, Duke of Clarence, whom he has had imprisoned in the Tower of London. Richard places the young sons of Edward in the Tower and consolidates his power. The king dies and Richard is proclaimed king. The young princes are murdered in the Tower. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the heir to the Lancastrian claim to the throne, makes war on Richard and defeats him becoming Henry VII.


 * Henry VIII married to Katherine for twenty years, decides that the marriage is not legal because she is the widow of his brother, and it is therefore incest. The new Archbishop of Canterbury has a plot hatched against him by Wolsey’s secretary, Gardiner, who is tried and executed for treason. Henry has a daughter, Elizabeth, by Anne Bullen. Cranmer christens her and makes a speech foretelling a noble rule for Elizabeth and a glorious period of history during her reign. The play was written c 1613 - one of the last plays.

Richard II, Henry IV and Chester
Shakespeare was living in the reign of Elizabeth I, the last monarch of the house of Tudor, and his history plays are often regarded as Tudor propaganda because they show the dangers of civil war and celebrate the founders of the Tudor dynasty. In particular, Richard III depicts the last member of the rival house of York as an evil monster ("that bottled spider, that foul bunchback'd toad"), a depiction disputed by many modern historians, while portraying his successor, Henry VII in glowing terms. Shakespeare made use of the Lancaster and York myths, as he found them in the chronicles, as well as the Tudor myth. The 'Lancaster myth' regarded Richard II's overthrow and Henry IV's reign as providentially sanctioned, and Henry V's achievements as a divine favour. The 'York myth' saw Edward IV's deposing of the ineffectual Henry VI as a providential restoration of the usurped throne to the lawful heirs of Richard II.

The first possible reference to the Corpus Christi procession in Chester is an inauspicious one - a record of 1399 describes a terrible brawl which broke out between the members of the guilds of the Weavers, Shearmen, Challoners (blanket-makers) and the Walkers (fullers) against their apprentices, outside of the guild church of St Peter. 1399 was the last year of [http://chester.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Timeline#Richard_II_.2822_June_1377_.28age_10.29_-_29_September_1399.29._Son_of_Edward.2C_the_Black_Prince_.28previously_Earl_of_Chester.29. Richard II]'s reign, who had taken the title of "Prince of Chester" for himself in 1398 and was known for his "Chester Guard" - he was soon to be deposed and imprisoned briefly at Chester Castle. In 1424 a further Corpus Christi riot came just after a supposed "royal visit" by Henry VI (then still a child) - it was a time of great political instability: Henry was the youngest person ever to succeed to the English throne, at the age of nine months on 1 September 1422, the day after his father's death.

William Shakespeare
The "official" version is that William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married 26 year old Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.

Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who did not want or could not accept public credit.

Shakespeare and Mystery Plays
Links can be found between the wording of the Chester Mystery Plays and the works of Shakespeare. Some of the links are relatively clear and others are admittedly quite strained:

King John
The parallel between the Abraham and Isaac play and Hubert's preparations to blind the young Arthur in King John has been noted by several scholars. Hubert is given direct orders by his "Lord" to maim a boy he has in some ways treated as a son. The historic Arthur is of course connected with Chester, being the adopted son of Earl of Chester Ranulf de Blondeville, and named as heir by Richard I. The strange mixture of childish terror and quiet obedience which is found most strikingly in the Chester and Brome plays is certainly there in Shakespeare. One difference between the Shakespeare play and the actual history is the circumstance of the death of Arthur - Shakespeare has Arthur die jumping from the castle walls, whereas many historians believe that Arthur was actually killed, possibly by John himself. The play takes as it's subject a previous dispute between Rome and the English ruler: the only English monarchs to be excommunicated were Harold II, John, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

MacBeth
Shakespeare's porter from MacBeth says: "Knock, knock, knock!" - pretending he’s the gatekeeper in hell - "who’s there, in the devil’s name"? This is straight from the Harrowing of Hell in the Mystery Plays. In Macbeth Shakespeare portrays the sibylline figures from his source texts into the demonic figures - making them a parody of the Sibyll who advises Octavian in the Nativity play. Shakespeare acknowledges the power of prophecy to influence dynastic change, but shares the growing anxiety about prophesy in English culture. It is noted the Chester Plays contain significant references to prophecy. "By the pricking of my thumbs" occurs in the speech of the second witch, while the fourth boy in the "Shepherds" hands over a crozier-like "nut-hook" so that "Joseph shall not need to hurte his thumbs".

Hamlet
“Art thou there, truepenny?” is Hamlet’s question, directed at the “old mole” of a ghost in the understage cellarage of the Globe Theater, raises a question of the play: what is there, under the stage — Purgatory or Hell? This may have been based on the two-level wagons of the mystery plays. The portrayal of Herod was so "over-the-top" that it may have been referenced by Shakespeare in Hamlet (act 3, scene 2) where he mockingly coins the phrase "to out-Herod Herod" as an admonition to the players in the "play within the play":


 * O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

A Midsummer Nights Dream
The rude mechanicals of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" may be a comic rendition of the artisan actors of the provincial mystery plays, including the talking ass of Balaam in the Chester Mystery Plays.

Related Pages

 * Stanley Palace;
 * Chester Mystery Plays;

Sources and Links

 * The Sky in Early Modern English Literature: A Study of Allusions to Celestial Events in Elizabethan and Jacobean Writing, 1572-1620;
 * The Starlight Night: The Sky in the Writings of Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Hopkins;