Shakespeare and the Catholic network

Contemporary Review, April, 2005 by Ralph Berry

I think it is. The nominal setting for the base court scene in Richard II is Flint Castle in Flintshire. There is however no evidence that Shakespeare ever travelled that far west; it was not on the touring companies' map. But there is a strong case that Shakespeare as a young man travelled round the North of England, through his noble connections. If one accepts E.A.J. Honigmann's argument, as I do, then Shakespeare started his career at Hoghton Hall before moving on to patrons who included Lord Strange, later Earl of Derby. There is an obvious suggestion that 'Ferdinand', King of Navarre in Love's Labour's Lost, is a good-humoured nod to Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange. Honigmann puts forward persuasive dramatic evidence that Shakespeare wrote parts of Love's Labour's Lost and Richard III to flatter, or appeal to, Ferdinando Stanley. It is no great leap to suppose that Shakespeare travelled beyond Lancashire and visited Haddon Hall in the county of Derbyshire during this period.

This means a relationship with the Vernon and Rutland families, great Catholic names, linked by marriage since 1563. In the garden of Haddon is a topiary hedge, clipped to display a boar's head and a peacock, emblems of Vernon and Manners. Haddon Hall is still owned by the Manners family, Dukes of Rutland. Such evidence as the plays afford suggests that Shakespeare was on good terms with them. The many references to young Rutland in Henry VI, Part Three, are compassionate and sympathetic. Aumerle, Earl of Rutland, is a favourable role in Richard II. Sir Richard Vernon comes well out of Henry IV, Part One. He is given a magnificent speech in Act IV, scene 1, well beyond the needs of the scene. A recent editor notes that Vernon's part has been 'substantially augmented' from Holinshed. May it not be true that 'Vernon' in Henry IV is Shakespeare's way of saying 'thank you' to his host?

It is certain that Shakespeare was on excellent terms with the sixth Earl of Rutland in 1613, for the Earl's steward recorded payment of 44s. 'to Mr Shakespeare in gold about my lord's impresa'. The impresa was an allegorical device, made to be borne by the Earl at a tournament on the King's Accession Day, 24 March 1613. It is reasonable to infer a long-term relationship between Shakespeare, the Rutlands and the Vernons.

This does not, of course, imply tolerance of an outer anti-Stratfordian heresy. The thesis that the Earl of Rutland wrote Shakespeare's plays was argued by Peter Porovshikov (Shakespeare Unmasked) and Claude W. Sykes (Alias William Shakespeare). They were barking up a tree next to the right one. I see no difficulty with the proposition that Shakespeare was acquainted with Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland (1576-1612). The Earl had travelled on the Continent in 1595-96, and had studied for a while in Padua. He was briefly imprisoned in the Tower over the Essex plot. Another conspirator, the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's patron, had married Elizabeth Vernon, the daughter of Sir John Vernon of Hodnet. Again we see linkages that are not decisive but cumulatively are highly suggestive.