SHAXSPER

 

Cecil House,

September, 1581

 

Sitting in his chair, shuffling papers from his various secretaries and correspondents, William Cecil – now visibly older, grayer, fatter, and hunchbacked – looks up when there is a knock at the door.

 

“Come.”

 

The door opens slowly and his daughter, Anne de Vere, enters this sanctum with all due reverence. She rarely visits her father when he wi engaged with his “paperwork”.

 

The old man smils and extends his hands, which his daughter clasps and kisses. He looks down on her, bidding her to rise.

 

“Now, Tannikyn, what can your old dad do for his favourite daughter ?”

 

This brought a giggle from Anne,

 

“Daddy, you always say that.”

 

“It’s true.”

 

“Yes, but it’s also true that I’m your only daughter.”

 

“That, my dear, is a meaningless detail. If I had a thousand thousand daughters you would be my favourite.”

 

His momentary joy in seeing Anne giggle is soon overshadowed by a sense of foreboding.

 

“Why have you come to see me ? Is it serious ?”

 

“Yes, daddy, it’s very serious.” With that said, she started to cry.

 

“There, there, Tannikyn; I’m sure that we can sort out whatever is your problem.”

 

“You’ve told me that for years now, Daddy. But I’m still a married widow-woman. When will my Edward come back to me ?”

 

‘I see. I see.”

 

The old man strokes her auburn hair as she clings to his chest.

 

After her sobbing subsides , Anne regains her composure. She then stands apart from her father.

 

“Daddy, when will this end ? You told me that it wouldn’t go on forever. But it has. It’s been going on forever and forever and forever – when will it end ? Edward is my husband in name only. I have hardly seen him for years and years and years. He doesn’t even know his own daughter. Why is this happening to me ?”

 

“Edward is involved in secret matters of the greatest importance to Her Majesty and England. You must never believe the rumours about him. To be sure, Edward has behaved intolerably since returning from his trip on the Continent. But it has most assuredly not been because he is a bad man – or a bad husband. Sometimes appearances and reality are askew. And, sometimes that dis-conjuncture is the result of design. That is the case with Edward. He has sacrificed his personal happiness for a greater purpose.”

 

“Daddy, I’m not following what you are saying. Are you telling me that Edward’s rejection of me and little Elizabeth has been part of a plan ? Who could devise such wickedness ?”

 

A silence ensues and, slowly, Anne begins to grasp the depths of her predicament. “Are you telling me that you were behind his dis-affection ? How could you do this to me ?”

 

“Anne, it’s like I told you. Edward has been involved in matters of state security.”

 

“But what has that got to do with me, or with little Elizabeth who doesn’t even know her own father ?”

 

“My dear girl, this affair has been so hard for you. You have borne your disgrace with fortune in a calm, stoical way, steadfast in your loyalty and devotion to your husband despite his distancing himself from you in all men’s eyes.”

 

“But, Daddy, I don’t care about those other men’s opinions. I only want this nightmare to end.”

 

“I know that. Dear God, I know that only too well. And to think that I have brought this disgrace on my own daughter !”

 

“Why ? Why ? Why did you do this to me ?”

 

“I had to do it. It’s like I said before, there are times when our personal needs and wants have to be subordinated to a higher purpose. And, this has been one of those times but, it has been harrowing for me to watch as you have been caught in a cross-fire.”

 

“Why me ? Why Edward ? What could he do that no one else could have done it in his stead ?”

 

“Anne, the reasons why Edward was chosen to be your husband were exactly the same reasons why he has the qualities that were necessary for this affair.”

 

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. I think that you have to tell me the full story of this “affair” (as you call it).”

 

William Cecil sighs deeply and slowly sinks into his chair, bowing his head into his left hand, looking down at his feet. Anne says nothing, she is now waiting for her father to speak. She looks at him expectantly. He is lost in thought. But, after a short while, William Cecil raises himself.

 

:”I think it is time for me to make a clean breast of this affair as far as it concerns you, Anne. This is going to be a painful discovery for you so we should first pray to God to give us strength.”

 

With that, father and daughter drop to their knees, clasp their hands in front of their chests, and mumble to themselves. This goes on for a couple of minutes and then William asks Anne, “My darling girl, have you fortified yourself ?”

 

She nods.

 

“This is a long and complex business and because it touches on the Queen’s Majesty at several points, you have to swear yourself to absolute secrecy. You can tell no living person – not even your mother. Am I making myself clear ?”

 

At this point, there is a knock at the door. William Cecil looks towards the door and is visibly upset to have been interrupted. Uncharacteristically, he growls: “I don’t know who’s there but just go away. And don’t come back until I make it known that I want to receive anyone in my study. I want to be alone”

 

Now it was time for William Cecil to be brutally honest with his daughter. To tell her, frankly, how her private life has been a party to public politics and how she (and Edward de Vere) have been made a fable of the world. He has long known that this would have to be done, but he is deeply trepidatious. When he starts to speak, he betrays that anxiety.

 

“I think that this whole story can be told only if I start at the beginning. It is a long and winding road that leads us to this juncture so you must be patient. Listen carefully, and don’t interrupt me because I don’t want to lose my train of thought.”

 

Anne nods again.

 

“To begin with, when Edward came here in 1562, after his father died, you were a little girl, just six years old. From the start, the two of you got on well together but he was required to study and soon was off to Cambridge. Still, you were closer to him that to your own half-brother. Tom was just too much older than you – and although Robert was born just three years after you, he was a sickly child who was largely confined to his nursery. Edward‘s introduction into our house, therefore, was exciting for you.

 

But, as I just said, Edward might have been my ward, but he was only sometimes at Cecil House, or our other residences, for any extended periods during your years of girlhood. Perhaps those absences made you fonder of him. When we arranged for you to marry him, I know that you were thrilled but, really, you were also very naïve and hardly more than a child. For you, this was a girlhood romance, made real. But for everyone else, it was a diplomatic alliance.

 

This brings us to the first complication that I have to explain to you. Edward was not only a courtier but in his first years at court he was Her Majesty’s joint-favourite. She played him off against Robert Dudley and their relationship was very intense in those first years of your marriage. It went so far as to produce a baby, Henry, who was passed on to be raised by the Earl and Countess of Southampton.”

 

Anne can’t hold herself back, “Henry ? You mean Henry Wriothesley ?”

 

“That’s right. The Queen would not allow for this to be made public. She was very jealous of keeping her independence and this meant that she would never allow any English-man (or foreigner, for that matter) to be her lord and master. So there was never any idea that she would keep the baby after she gave birth.

 

These personal, private matters were complicated by the terrible news from France. On St Bartholomew’s Day, the Catholic, Guise faction butchered ten thousand Hugenots. . These slaughters confirmed the worst fears we had had a few years previously, during the Northern Rising of 1569. Our religious freedoms as well as English peace and prosperity were poised on Her Majesty’s life. August 24^th, 1572 was a day of infamy. No English Protestant afterwards believed we could rest safely with so many Catholics in our midst   It was in this context that Edward wrote to me a few days later offering his services to me in whatever way would be most beneficial to national security – and to the protection of the lives of Her Majesty and myself. His letter expressed his deep concern but I did not immediately take up his offer.

 

It was only some time later, after Sir Francis Walsingham had returned from Paris to give us a full account of his personal experiences that we began to devise a system of spying within England. It was in this regard that Edward’s offer was invaluable. He was, of course, possessed of the senior noble title in the realm, which reached back longer than any other. His youth, his glamour, and his lack of promotion within the court all counted in his favour in this regard. Inadvertently, he had become an outsider in the eyes of the political nation who knew nothing about his affair with Her Majesty. This public perception counted strongly in his favour when we began to plan our counter-insurgency measures.

 

Edward was given a very important brief – he was to act like a mole, burrowing into the bosom of the remnants of the old Catholic nobility with whom he was already on familiar terms. Neither Walsingham nor I believed that he would produce immediate results. We had more long-term goals in mind as far as Edward’s under-cover activities were concerned. That’s why we encouraged him in his “waywardness” and his feigned separation from our family.

 

A year after plan was put in motion, you became pregnant. This was wonderful news for all of us. Edward was overjoyed, too. But we could barely enjoy this happiness because the safety and security of the realm was threatened on all sides by foreigners, Catholics, and spies who wanted to overthrow Her Majesty, reinstate the old superstitions, and render England subservient to a foreign power as had been the case in Queen Mary’s time. This could not be allowed to happen. We were in mortal danger. If Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, was deposed then I would be led to the block not soon afterwards.

 

These external pressures intruded on our private happiness. They were unavoidable. And Edward had a heroic role to play in the coming struggles. We had hoped that the baby would be a boy – although, in the event, we all love Elizabeth. Since it seemed that Edward had made arrangements for his succession, so to speak, his attendance on you was now superseded by the political crisis. Edward had already shown himself to be an accomplished courtier – he was the foremost poet among the noblemen, a winning duellist at the tiltyard, a marvellous dancer, and a bosom companion of Her Majesty yet she would not let him rise above his station. He was thwarted in that way by Robert Dudley. It was apparent that Edward had to find another outlet for his manifest abilities.

 

The scheme we thus concocted, as I just mentioned, was to be very tricky and dangerous – Edward was to pretend to join forces with the oppositional Catholics. So, Edward was sent off to Italy where he would indulge himself in his favoured theatrical pursuits and other cultural endeavours. News of his activities in Italy would filter back to England through his letters and be spread by gossip and rumour. This was one-half of the cover, the other half concerned his so-called conversion to Catholicism. The idea was that he would return to England with new loyalties. In order to sell this story, we had to create a diversion. But to do so, he needed to be alienated from his ties to our family – you, in particular. The creation of this diversion is how these affairs involved you and your marriage.

 

When our little Elizabeth was born in 1576, you will remember that we did not have her baptized her immediately as is the custom. We waited for three months to do so. This wait was purposefully done; it was engineered to create a situation about which Edward could express doubts about the paternity of the child upon his return to England. His man, Rowlande Yorke, was employed to act as a seeming trouble-maker. You remember that when Edward arrived back in England in the spring of 1576, you went to Gravesend to meet him, but Yorke brushed you aside and Edward went directly to London.with him ?”

 

“How could I not remember that day. It was a humiliating day of shame for me. I was made into a public laughing-stock.”

 

“That’s right, the point was that his rebuff was to be done in full public view so that tongues would wag and the story of his supposed cuckoldry would spread like wildfire. Edward could then be seen to be in a state of high dudgeon. He could accuse you of unfaithfulness and he could accuse me of making him “the fable of the world”. Thus it would appear to all onlookers – and to you, too – that there was an irrevocable breach between the Earl of Oxford and our family, which made him suspect politically. The implication of this apparent breach was that Edward’s loyalties to our family were seemingly sundered.

 

This split then provided the cover behind which he could inveigle himself into the trust of the Catholic Howards and their cousin Charles Arundell, who we suspected were already plotting with Mary Stuart to restore a Catholic monarchy and Church government. As I said, Edward became a mole who had burrowed inside their conspiracy. To complete his disguise, Edward would throw himself into dis-reputable theatrical activities and conduct himself in a way unbecoming to a married man and a peer of the realm.”

 

“Daddy, do you mean to tell me that it was all a fake, a sham ? Do you mean that Edward did those things without ever having stopped loving me ?”

 

“Yes, Tannikyn, that’s exactly how it was. He was in torment because the call of duty forced him to create a distance between himself and his loved ones. Without knowing it, your mother’s outrage, which she had made very public to anyone who cared to listen to her, proved to be another way of dissembling on our part. It substantiated the impression that all ties between the Cecil family and Edward de Vere were sullied. In my job as the master of espionage – spying – we have to create illusions. I suppose that for Edward the creation of illusions – indeed, living the life of an illusionist – must have been very exciting because it meshed with his literary and theatrical passions.”

 

“But what about his affair with that bitch, Annie Vavasour ? Are you telling me that it was play-acting, too ? I don’t believe that.”

 

“Sadly, you’re right. Edward’s pursuit of Vavasour started out as another ploy. She is a cousin of Charles Arundell, don’t you know ? But, she is a raven-haired beauty and Edward was unable to resist her temptations. Yet, again, it proved to be a rather fortuitous twist to the cover-story since it entangled him more deeply in that world of Catholic treason plotting. But, Anne, I would never insult your intelligence by telling you that his affair with Anne Vavasour was not passionate. But, quite inadvertently, it was a brilliant deception. By this ruse, Edward had seemingly broken the last links he could have been seen to have had with our family. And, that’s the important point here, he had to be seen to be deceitful. He had to be seen to be distanced from us. Public perception of his falseness had to be seen to be believable.”

 

“Daddy, I don’t like what I’m hearing. Is there more ?”

 

“Yes, but let me first tell you that we are now closer to the end than to the beginning of it. Let me get back to Edward’s dalliance with Anne Vavasour.”

 

“Do I have to hear about this ?”

 

“You most certainly do because you need to fully understand the trickery that ensnares players in the shadowy game of spying. Espionage.is rather like those games at a country fair where the card-sharp uses the motion of his right hand to draw your attention away from the actions of his left hand. The instant that attention is diverted, deception takes place. So it was with Edward and Missy Vavasour. I think that the Catholics tried to test Edward’s loyalty to our cause by using her as a lure and a snare. But the captors got themselves caught.”

 

“How ? I’m not following you.”

 

“When Edward surrendered to Annie Vavasour’s charms, he disarmed the watchfulness of his prey. They formed the mistaken impression that your Edward thought so little of our family that he would openly betray us, as he had betrayed his marriage vows with you. When they took that bait, the hook went down their gullets. It was then, in December 1580, that Edward confessed to the Queen, in front of the court, that he had been involved in unpatriotic relations with the Catholic peers. Edward publicly shamed himself. The noose was being fitted for Henry Howard and Charles Arunell but it was still too soon to pull the rope. Instead, we had decided to let them hang themselves.

 

The Vavasour affair came to a head a few months later. Her Majesty flew into a rage when she learned that Vavasour had given birth to Edward’s bastard son. Her Majesty acted like the injured party when one of her favourites had taken up with one of her maids of honour. Years earlier, she had rusticated Robert Dudley for doing this same thing with another one of the vestal virgins with whom she surrounded herself.

 

But let me take you back to the main narrative. Edward inadvertently caught his prey on that hook they had swallowed. They were hooked when Her Majesty sent Edward to The Tower, along with Vavasour who had given birth to their bastard child. It seemed to our opponents that Edward had completely gone over to their side but, much more significantly, that I had done nothing to protect him from the royal wrath. That was in the spring of this year.

 

Edward was imprisoned for a while as a result of the Vavasour affair and then, just when it looked like his reputation could be blackened no further, Henry Howard and Charles Arundell hit back with their libellous screed. These were the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Edward had to bear these insults. He could not be protected or else his years of undercover espionage would be unmasked.”

 

“What you are telling me is that all his behaviour – his bad, horrible behaviour – has been in the service of our Queen ? and that you were directing him in this service ?”

 

“Yes, Tannikyn, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. My old man’s heart has been broken a thousand times over to have had to sacrifice your happiness for this project but, like I said before, we are threatened and endangered so that we have all had to bear horrible burdens. If there was another way to have entrapped those Catholic nobles, I would gladly have spared Edward – and, of course, you – from these years of shame and infamy, rumour and innuendo. But I knew that he was a willing soldier in these affairs and I also knew that, whatever his failing or perceived failings, you would stand by your man.”

 

“Oh, Daddy, this is all so unsettling. I think it might even be worse knowing what you have told me.”

 

“Chin up, dear. It’s almost over. As I said, our plan is to let Howard and Arundell hang themselves. That might not be for a year or maybe two or even three years but I am fully expecting that they will misuse the false liberty that they have been granted. They have been led to believe that their “Libels” have convinced us of Edward’s treachery and depravity and their maligned innocence. Soon, they will start conspiring with other Papist spies and Jesuits being sent from Rome to kill Her Majesty; in that way, they will lead us to the Scottish Queen who has been the lightening rod for all the Catholics’ plots, conspiracies, and evil strategems

 

This is still a deadly-serious matter. You cannot betray what I have told you to anyone – not even to your mother. Loose lips are dangerous to each and every one of us. If the Catholics kill Her Majesty then all the Cecils will be like cattle being led to Smithfields for slaughter. Secrecy is all. You now understand what I’m telling you ?”

 

“I do, I do Daddy. But when will my Edward come back to me ?”

 

“Soon, Tannikyn. Very soon.”

 

“But when ? When ? When will “soon” be ? I’ve waited so long and had to face those ugly smirks and knowing looks. I want it to be over. I want to be with my Edward again.”

 

“Believe me, child, you will be.”

 

Willy’s AfterLife

 

“Is that true ? Did things happen just as William Cecil said ?”

 

“Yes and no. Keep in mind that he is talking with Anne. She was always an innocent. She was kept at home, chaperoned in public, and taught to always be submissive. Both of her parents were domineering egoists who bullied her relentlessly. Even after our marriage, she was utterly dominated by William Cecil and Mildred Cooke. Anne was, first, their daughter and then, second, my wife. Coming from that background, she had no real knowledge of what we might call the real world. So, the slimey underbelly of political matters was utterly unknown to an innocent like her. In that conversation with her father, Anne was well beyond her depth. She was at sea, in deep water, without bank or bottom.”

 

“I understand that but my question relates more to the veracity of William Cecil’s account of your activities.”

 

“You know, Henry, William Cecil had so many irons in the fire that he did not always keep me apprised of his activities.” Turning to Bess, he goes on, “Many of these underhanded dealings were so complicated – and so changeable from day to day – that it was difficult to keep track of who was on our side.”

 

“That’s right. It was one of the features of his espionage netherworld that nothing was what it appeared to be. You were never completely sure who anyone was, who – or, indeed, what – they represented. In fact, you could never really trust anyone. Our agents could be – and often were – double agents or even re-doubled agents. All these projectors and intelligencers knew that they were disposable assets whose lives could be cashed in at any moment. Therefore, they would all – like Dr Lopez – construct exit-strategies but most – again like Dr Lopez – found that these exit-strategies were mere fantasies when confronted by the brutal realities.

 

No one got out alive. It was a deadly game. A lot of men just disappeared or were simply disposed of – that’s what I was told had happened to your friend, Marlowe – but some others (like Dr Lopez) were sacrificed on the altar of murderous ceremony which acted to terrorize the general population, satisfying a primal blood lust for revenge against supposed enemies in their midst. These ceremonial murders were frequent and were staged in such a way that all who witnessed them were in fear of being caught in the toils of authority. Hangings and disembowellings were, however, only the highly-visible tip of the subterrranean mountains of repression. Topcliffe’s thumb-screws and the rack were much more frequently employed to squeeze information out of suspects.

 

I didn’t really pay much attention to that business because it was just too terrible to think about. I enjoyed the theatre of majesty and ignored the rest. We ruled by fear as much as by theatricality. I left the nasty business to William Cecil and Francis Walsingham and their underlings.”

 

Will’s interest was piqued and he became agitated, “Do you think it’s fair to say that your dominion was a nothing more than a reign of terror ?”

 

Even before Bess could answer, Henry interjected. “Absolutely. Defiance was not allowed and the punishments were severe. Actually, they were much worse than that – the punishments were barbaric.”

 

Bess felt cornered and somewhat aggrieved, “Boys, please remember that we were under constant attack and threat of invasion.”

 

“Bess, that’s what William Cecil told you. You never kept your focus on what he was doing – and he habitually spoke out of both sides of his mouth. He wrapped you up in that pretty theatre of virginal majesty while his other hand was directing a symphony of terror against any who dared to stand in his way.”

 

“Willy, you’re being fantastic – this all sounds like a conspiracy theory in which William was the deus ex machina of all evil-doing.”

 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

 

“But what about the threats orchestrated by Spain ?”

 

“Lets be brutally frank about these matters, Bess. Most of the so-called plots were actually engineered by Cecil and Walsingham. The plotters were entrapped after being led on by their spies or operatives.”

 

“But what about the Spanish ?”

 

“Well, let’s stand back for a minute and consider what was happening in Anglo-Spanish relations after your sister, Mary, died. Phillip was left on the outside, looking in with regard to English matters. But no sooner was Mary buried than William Cecil began to re-orient traditional relationships between England and our neighboure.”

 

“Yes, let’s hear this. It’s certainly a different story to the one I was provided with.”

 

“Me, too.”

 

“Well, that’s because you – Henry – were really too young to know anything other than the anti-Spanish hysteria that had been whipped into a frenzy – before, during, and after the summer of the Armada. And you –Will – were just an outsider to these machinations, isn’t that so ?”

 

“Without a doubt. People like me only knew what they were told. There were no alternative sources of explanation other than those with recusant sympathies with whom it was extremely dangerous to mingle.”

 

“Exactly. At the outset, Cecil had continued the longstanding anti-French tilt of English policy in order to neutralize the Scots. But within a few years Queen Mary had been captured and she was incarcerated in an English prison. The English Catholic nobles had been entrapped in their hopeless resistance to central authority in the late 1560s, Cecil worked day-and-night to create a climate of fear that was focussed on their axis of hatred. The evil trio – Spain, the Papacy, and recusants – were portrayed as the devil incarnate. Not even the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre frustrated William Cecil’s program. You will remember that that slaughter hardly derailed the phony negotiations about a “French Match” with Bess supposedly being courted by the Duke of Alencon. That was all for show. Right, Bess ?”

 

“Indeed, yes. I never had the slightest intention of marrying anyone – let alone that nasty little shitehouse. But Froggy Alencon was useful to us. He was himself in armed opposition to his brother and his mother and so we had to do whatever was necessary to keep on good terms with his ambassador, M. Simier. For both of us, it was a matter of having a hole-card to play against the French regime which was dominated by the Guise faction of Catholic hardliners. For us – me and Cecil – it was a way of also keeping the Spanish at arm’s length while our privateers harried their treasure ships.”

 

“Are you talking about Raleigh, Drake, Hawkins and those fellows ?”

 

“Oh yes. Those three you’ve named but perhaps another ten-score more captains were annually harrassing the Spanish fleet. They brought home untold treasures, too. The money that was supplied from these piratical adventurers was always shared with the Crown – William Cecil saw to that. It was a very clever way of keeping Parliament as far away from our business as was possible under the circumstances.”

 

“That’s right. The funds which were flowing into the royal treasury were needed because my own fortune was not enough to fund an army and/or a navy, let alone both.. But, equally, the demonization of the axis of hatred was carried out in an atmosphere of heightened patriotism. For two decades before the Armada, the Spanish put up with not just piracy on the high seas but also persistent English meddling in their affairs in the Low Countries. I would imagine that the Spanish viewed the English as aggressors – which is diametrically opposite to the official story that was peddled by Bess’ regime here in England.

 

But that was only one prong in William Cecil’s strategic design. The anti-Spanish fire was fed by the bellows he operated to make the hysteria frenzied. The key scheme was simple – Cecil and his henchmen created a series of plots – some were real conspiracies but others were just theatrical affairs. These plots were supposedly designed to overthrow the Tudor government, kill its adherents, return the country to the old religion, and burn all precisionists or puritans. The memory of “Bloody Mary” was constantly reiterated – John Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” was obligatory reading for the tiny minority of literates while the plebeians were fed terrifying stories about Catholic bloodthirstiness from the pulpit every Sunday.

 

Foxe was an interesting case-in-point. He had himself risen in the ranks of the Protestant clique which had formed around Protector Somerset in the reign of Edward VI. It was then that Foxe came into the orbit of William Cecil. Foxe had fled from England during Mary’s reign but was already working on a book of Protestant propaganda, he was encouraged in this enterprise by that eminence grise, William Cecil. This book, properly called Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church, was published in 1563 and dedicated to none other than Good Queen Bess.

 

Intriguingly, Foxe had been patronized by the ill-fated Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and had lived under Norfolk’s roof for many years. One has to wonder if his removal from the Norfolk household in 1569 and the concurrent timing of the Northern Rebellion was “just a coincidence” or whether Foxe had been put in place in Norfolk’s household to keep a watchful eye on the most powerful Catholic nobleman in the land. In the event, Norfolk escaped involvement in the Northern Rebellion but within two years he had been ensnared in the Ridolfi Plot and was then led to the block.

 

So, from a jaundiced perspective like mine, the first dozen years of Bess’ reign had seen William Cecil rise to the pinnacle of power – he was the man in charge of both finances and surveillance. He became the fountain of patronage. William Cecil was the power behind the throne. Bess was kept single – I could never determine if this was from her choice or because Cecil worked to thwart her marriage with Robert Dudley for his own reasons. What’s your opinion about that now ?”

 

“Willy, you are asking me some hard questions.”

 

“Well, you can’t say that the issue of your marriage was simple or straightforward. I can understand that you believed that it was in your interest to be the master of your own house. But, surely, William Cecil’s antagonism towards Robin Dudley in those early years of your reign must have come into play.”

 

“Oh, it did. Indeed, it did. William was always giving me “one the one hand this, on the other hand that” advice. And, of course, there were good arguments on both sides of the question. And, well, you know me – I never decided anything that could not be put off for another day. I suppose that that predilection of mine played into his hands.”

 

“I’ll say ! He was used to playing you like a violin. He plucked your strings.”

 

“Come on, you two – stop these digressions ! Please, get back on subject – what about this Ridolfi Plot ? I’ve heard a lot about it but it has never been clear to me what actually transpired.”

 

“Henry, that’s because the whole affair was murky. Ridolfi was an Italian banker, one of those usurers who battened onto the desperation of spendthrifts like me and sucked us dry. He had been involved in some kind of hanky-panky with both Norfolk and the Queen of Scots in 1569 which came to naught. But, what do you know, second time lucky ! He kept up his finagling even after that close call. But, a few years later his luck ran out. Ridolfi’s involvement was seen to be the link between Thomas Howard and Mary Stuart, who had been kept in “protective custody” in remote castles in northern England for several years after she had been deposed by a faction of Scottish Lords.

 

Initially, the terms of Mary’s custody were generous but she took advantage of this leniency to fish in dangerous waters. Norfolk, rather foolishly, was gullible enough to accept her advances at face value. He seemed to believe that a match with Mary would clinch his case for succession to the throne. But, of course, it did nothing of the sort – it merely put poor, silly Thomas Howard in harm’s way. William Cecil kept him there.

 

One of Cecil’s “intelligencers” called William Herle trapped a middleman called Charles Bailly who was supposedly transmitting coded letters from Ridolfi that seemed to suggest that the Pope, the King of Spain, Mary Queen of Scots, and the Duke of Norfolk were all entwined in a “project” which would result in the dethronement of Bess, her replacement with Mary and Norfolk, and the return of the old religion. In the event, two obscure men of minimal importance – Kenelm Berney and Edmund Mather – were caught and tortured. Their evidence – if you could call it that – seemed to tie up all the loose ends in Cecil’s machinations, thereby signing Thomas Howard’s death warrant.

 

Under torture a man will say anything and these two parrotted back the stories they were being questioned about as if to affirm their torturers’ claims. And, that was considered evidence enough to haul my cousin, Thomas Howard, in front of the House of Lords to answer trumped-up charges. The Lords’ trial – like all state trials – was a foregone conclusion   The flimsiness of the case brought before the Lords by Cecil and Walsingham notwithstanding, Norfolk was found guilty and sentenced to be executed. His execution might have been indefinitely delayed but for an accident.

 

Bess was still prevaricating when she suddenly took sick – a colic fever and seizure that came from eating bad fish, we were told. Cecil’s master-stroke was to get the Parliament involved because these commoners were like bulls raging at a red rag since they were led to believe that the Spanish were trying to fit up a Catholic for England’s monarchy. They demanded Norfolk’s execution and so it happened that the only Duke in England got his come-uppance from the grandson of a Lincolnshire tavern keeper.

 

Now, to answer Henry’s question: “what happened ?” When the affair was concluded, Mary was imprisoned, Norfolk was beheaded, and the Spanish had been demonized. William Cecil had played his cards brilliantly – and once the dominoes fell, the agent provocateur, William Herle was re-assigned to be Cecil’s link-man with William of Orange, who was the leader of the Dutch Revolt.

 

So, there you have it – Cecil’s internal and external projecting are seamlessly joined in the person of Herle. The upshot is that the Dutch brought themselves – of their own accord, so we’re told – into the gravitational field of Cecil’s strategy to demonize the Spanish and attack both his enemies among the old aristocracy and the recusants in the process. The persistence of the Dutch wars throughout the rest of Bess’ reign seemed to confirm the Spanish, Catholic conspirary. This belief hardened into the cornerstone of policy in the following years.

 

By the early middle 1570s, England had become a regnum Cecilianum. It was to remain under the control of William Cecil and his son for another thirty-five years. Bess was kept single and in thrall to the Cecils, father-and-son, for the rest of her life. William Cecil had been raised to the peerage so that his daughter could be married off to me – the senior nobleman in the realm, with the longest lineage. And, of course, William Cecil became fabulously rich. Opposition to the Cecils was tantamount to treason – and treason was punishable by the most horrible disembowellment.

 

England was a land ruled by terror. But why should anyone be surprised by that ? A hundred years previously, England was a land bloodily-divided in civil war. The first Tudor ended that fiasco. In its stead, he and his son brought forth a reign of terror that looked like destroying the old aristorcracy and the old religion. The traditional system, based on Catholicism and bastard feudalism, was replaced by Protestantism and a new class of men led by the grandson of a Lincolnshire tavern keeper.”

 

“Willy, this sounds quite incredible.”

 

“Well, of course, you might believe otherwise but how do you explain the succession of “plots” that accompanied the installation of the Cecils behind the throne ? The same ingredients – anti-aristocratic, anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish frenzy – were common to the Lennox and Babington Plots in the 1580s. After the Armada, there was no further need for entrapment. The opposition was so desperate that they usually trapped themselves in the web of intrigue and surveillance which the Cecils masterminded.”
St John’s College,

Thursday afternoon (continued)

 

 

Professor Brooksby has now finished his presentation and a general murmur of approval fills the seminar room. Once again, Professor Sir Peter tskes over the seminar.

 

“Thank you so much, Tim, for drawing together those diverse strands and leaving us to contemplate the exact nature of the interaction between the Earl of Oxford and Christopher Marlowe. I think we can now better see how the whole cloth was woven. Our two commentators will, as it were, set that loom in motion. First up is Dr Harold T. Roper of the University of Toronto.   He will be followed by Professor Juliette Lewes of The London New School of The Arts. So, let me pass the speaker’s role to them.”

 

A balding man, dressed casually in denims and a rich purple polo shirt, Dr Roper – called HarryT by everyone who knows him – is the first to speak.

 

“Thank you, Professor Sir Peter. It is a pleasure for me to once again be among so many friends and colleagues who share my discomfort with the Orthodox Stratfordian discourse. My comments on The Timmer’s paper will be concerned with the murky relationship between Edward de Vere and his Catholic circle. The key event, the event which triggers a new dynamic, was, of course, the Earl of Oxford’s “confession” before the Queen and her Privy Council in December, 1580. What did he confess ?

 

Edward de Vere is reported to have said that since he had returned from Italy in 1576 – four years previously – he had been engaged with his fellows (Charles Arundell, their mutual cousin Henry Howard (the Earl of Northampton, who was the younger brother of the executed Duke of Norfolk), and their sidekick, the lesser-known Sir Francis Southwell) in reconciling with the Roman Catholic Church. The agent of their reconciliation was a Jesuit, attached to the company of the French ambassador. In the context of the time, de Vere’s confession – and his accusations – was lit-dynamite.

 

In response to Oxford’s confession, Arundell and Howard ran away to the protection of the Spanish ambassador’s residence. They came out of hiding after a short while when it was learned that they were merely going to be put into protective custody under the watch of Sir Christopher Hatton. The official response to these very serious charges is mysterious – why were Arundell and Howard not imprisoned ? why were they not interrogated ? why was Hatton given charge over them ? And why were they later freed ? And what conditions were attached to their release ? There seems to me to be three possible explanations to these questions: first, Oxford was not believed; second, by “outing” his former best friends, Oxford had put the authorities on the alert but, without corroboration, all of the participants were kept under surveillance, waiting for their nefarious activities to blossom into full-blown treason; or, third, Oxford’s “confession” and its subsequent slighting might have been part of a deeper entrapment strategy.   Perhaps, it was thought by the really-powerful members of the Privy Council – Cecil, Leicester, and Walsingham – that the time was not ripe for a messy treason trial. After all, the nature of the evidence was “he said/he said”.

 

If we probe a little deeper, it would seem that in dealing with aristocratic malfeasance there was a different standard of proof required to separate the traitor’s head from his body. Noblemen were not forced to endure the rack or Topcliffe’s thumb-screws. Nobility had its privileges. Or, perhaps, it was believed that – despite their high status – these men were actually peripheral figures whose gullible innocence was being manipulated by deeper, darker forces which were aiming to overthrow the government. And, following on from this possiblity, it might have been thought that a hugely-publicized treason-trial would require evidence from a number of underground operatives whose secret identity had to be protected.

 

The contemporary evidence, then, is both confusing and contradictory. There are, however, serious grounds for regarding Oxford as a “failed favourite”, a man whose star was in the descendant at this time. Sir Christopher Hatton’s involvement is especially puzzling. He was a second-tier “favourite” whose rise seems to have been accomplished by de Vere’s descent in Elizabeth’s affection.   So, the machinations surrounding the charge/counter-charge were infinitely complicated since they were cross-cut with inter-personal rivalries among the various contenders for royal favour. But, are these enigmatic puzzles sufficient grounds for accepting the Arundell-Howard Libels at face value ? Alan H. Nelson believes so; most Oxfordians beg to differ with him.

 

Despite Oxford’s great celebrity in winning the honours for his third triumph at the tiltyard in the spring of 1581 – a few months after his “confession” – he had become an increasingly-isolated figure at court. His opposition to the Alencon match was another irritant held against him. Added to that, his misbehaviour towards his wife, Anne Cecil, de Vere’s reputation was hardly that of a shrinking violet – or a gentleman. The two, cornered cousins – Arundell and Howard – responded by charging the earl of Oxford of atheism, treason, murder, lechery, and sexual perversity (i.e., sodomy). This was something of a grab-bag and, for all intents and purposes, these charges seem to have been inventions of their fevered and frightened imaginations. As we shall see, hitting out at an opponent with this grab-bag of charges was a tactic that was used on several occasions in late Elizabethan times.

 

Arundell called Oxford his “monstrous adversary” but we have to consider the source of this accusation. In particular, we need to look carefully at the way that this tempest unravelled into something far more sinister in the following years. So, let’s fast-forward to 1584, to the appearance of an anonymous pamphlet, known as “Leicester’s Commonwealth”. There are two remarkable things about this vitriolic screed: first, it largely reproduces the charges of the “Arundell-Howard Libell” but directs them against another target, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; and, second, the likely author was the same Charles Arundell who had also co-authored the attack on Edward de Vere.

 

Charles Arundell, we will recall, was initially put under house arrest under the watch of Sir Christopher Hatton but, when released, he had most probably been put under close surveillance. In 1583, even before the publication of “Leicester’s Commonwealth”, Arundell had fled to France. In Paris he immediately involved himself in anti-Tudor, pro-Catholic plotting in league with anyone who would think he might have been a useful asset. In 1586, for example, we learn from Spanish archival documents that Arundell was coordinating the links between the Guise faction and English recusants while simultaneously receiving a pension from the Spanish King, Phillip II.

 

Arundell’s colleague, Henry Howard, was, by this time, once again imprisoned along with his brother, Philip Howard, who was the Earl of Arundel   Henry Howard had penned a treasonous pamphlet of his own: “A Defensative Against the Poison of Supposed Prophecies”, which continued the earlier attacks of the “Arundell-Howard Libell” directed against the Earl of Oxford.

 

To be sure, this is confusing – not the least confusing part of it being keeping the various Howards separate and not mixing up the Earl of Arundel with Charles Arundell. But, let’s keep our eye on the ball – the reverberations following Oxford’s submission to the Queen and her Privy Council in December, 1580. We must link up several discrete – yet interconnected – actions which took place in the years following;

 

First, of course, Oxford’s reputation was further sullied. Then it was blackened even more by the birth of his illegitimate son with Anne Vavasour. Elizabeth reacted to this news with fury and imprisoned them both. Oxford was released after ten weeks in The Tower. Soon thereafter, he and his retinue were engaged in a series of street fights with the rival faction led by Thomas Knyvet, who was not only Anne Vavasour’s uncle but also a relative of the Howards. Wheels within wheels were at work here. Oxford was seriously wounded in one of these sword-fights – which find an echo in the street-fight between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet – and never recovered his former athletic prowess.   Indeed, in the Sonnet 37, he complains: that he has been “made lame by Fortunes dearest spight”. In Sonnet 89, he writes, “speake of my lamenesse, and I straight will halt.”. These lines were later testimony to Oxford’s decline from his role as a serious “favourite”. His place, opposed to Leicester and Hatton, had now been taken by Sir Walter Raleigh. In the early 1580s, Edward de Vere seemed to be “in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes.”

 

But his fall from grace seems to me to be more apparent than real because,

 

Second, in 1586, Oxford is granted an annuity from the Queen. Not just any annuity but an annual stipend of one thousand pounds which, if one can make a rough-and-ready calculation, was worth upwards of five million quid in today’s purchasing power. What is particularly striking about Oxford’s pension, even more stiking than its gigantic size, was the fact that the money did not come from Queen Elizabeth’s usual method of rewarding servants by granting them “monopolies”, land, or some other commodity but, rather, it was paid in cash from the same treasury accounts which provided secret-service funds to Burghley and Walsingham. The grant also stipulated that the annuity came with no strings attached.

 

Most commentators follow B.M. Ward in believing that the annuity was granted to Oxford to subsidize his play-writing and stage-managing activities. Yet, one wonders, could it not also have been provided in recognition of de Vere’s role in exposing the pro-Catholic members of the nobility who had conspired against the Tudor government and whose activities had been exposed and kept under surveillance in the wake of Oxford’s submission ?

 

This second point, I believe, becomes the more likely when we connect Oxford’s costs with Elizabeth’s benefits, so to speak. This line of thinking gains traction with regard to the security afforded by de Vere’s exposure of Howard, Arundell, and their various cronies.   In the wake of the Oxford submission, a number of conspiracies involving disaffected aristocrats were discovered.

 

The Lennox Plot of 1581/2 involved French attempts to dislodge King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) from his ties with the Protestant nobility through the agency of James’ French cousin Esme Stuart, Seigneur d’Aubigny [who later became the Scottish Duke of Lennox] acting in league with the usual suspects tied to the Guise faction. If successful, the Lennox Plot would have side-stepped the capture and imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots by replacing her with her son at the head of all conspiratorial actions against the English monarchy.

 

Next came the relatively minor 1583 affair in which Francis Throckmorton again implicated the Guise facton and the Spanish Ambassador, Mendoza, in plans to stir up rebellion in England. Uncovering the Throckmorton Plot was coincident with Charles Arundell’s flight from England.

 

The culmination of this counter-intelligence activity was the disclosure of the 1586 Babington Plot which caught Mary, Queen of Scots, red-handed and led directly to her execution the following year

 

We can never plumb the depths of the murky world of plots, counter-plots, and secret secrets but we must, I think, give some credit where it’s due. I think that what is germane to my larger argument is the fact that these three conspiracies were all sussed out in the wake of the Earl of Oxford’s accusations against Charles Arundell, Henry Howard, and Francis Southwell. And, even more significantly, these plots failed because they were unable to make the requisite connections between the foreign conspirators, underground agents, and highly-placed Englishmen, residing on English soil. In a sense, therefore, it would seem that the Earl of Oxford had led the Burghley/Walsingham intelligence operations to cut off the head of their opponents.

 

There was also what we might call collateral benefits from this heightened state of surveillance. The 1583 Somerville plot was largely the self-organized delusion of a lone assassin whose plans were derailed. The Parry Plot of 1584/5 involved a hanger-on at court, William Parry. He was said to be have been one of Burghley’s Paris-based agents who had been turned by the French. Parry had been captured when he tried to lure Edward Neville, a cadet-member of the prominent northern family, into his plan to assassinate the Queen. Neville, fearful of his life because he was cognizant of his family’s dubious standing with the Burghley brigade, straight away went to the authorities with this information. Parry was immediately jailed, interrogated and tortured, then hanged and disembowelled while still alive, before being quartered in one of those public ceremonies-of-state-violence which kept men and women in fear of the law. Neville seems to have escaped from any further retribution. He was safe from – rather than being sorry for – his family’s Catholic leanings.   In addition to these freelance affairs, there were a multitude of “speech acts” that landed indiscreet men and women in The Tower of London, where they were introduced to Mr Topcliffe.

 

Exposing these subversive plans – regardless of what danger they posed to the ruling regime – was largely the job of Burghley and his faithful assistant, Walsingham. It was said that Walsingham knew the movements and locations of all the Jesuits who came upon England’s shores. Between April, 1585, and December, 1589, there are recorded expenditures of 9,100 pounds for secret service work directed by Walsingham. This espionage was almost wholly devoted to exposing the linkages between die-hard English recusants, Anglo-Catholic exiles on the Continent, and the Jesuit spies in their midst. Oxford’s “confession” looks rather different when seen from this perspective, doesn’t it ? The breadth of Walsingham’s network is quite astonishing: he was said to have had twelve agents in France, five in Spain, four in the Dutch Provinces, seven in the Low Countries, ten in Germany, five in Italy, and three more as far afield as Turkey, in addition to others in Denmark and Barbarie.

 

Finally, it is arguable that the knock-on effect of the failure of these anti-Tudor, anti-Protestant intrigues were responsible for the momentous decision made in Madrid to switch from conspiracies to a full-frontal assault, the Armada of 1588.”
Willy’s AfterLife

 

“My goodness gracious ! This fellow, HarryT, is making you out to be a hero in your own life. What do you say about that, Willy ?”

 

“Well, it’s gratifying to learn that there is finally some appreciation for my service to my Queen and my country.

 

During those dozen or so years, from the early 1570s to the middle 1580s, I sacrificed myself, my literary reputation, my personal good name, and my estate in order to serve you in ways that William Cecil devised. I was lonely, sometimes I was desperate, and often I questioned my motives. I wondered, too, if the harm caused to Anne was justified. I was in the thick of the action, so to speak, but Anne was left outside, ignorant of all that was happening and she, much more than me, was made the butt of rumour, innuendo, and gossip. She didn’t understand why I behaved as I did – I had been commanded by William Cecil to keep silent – and that hurt her deeply. Her pain was borne with quiet dignity but the look in her eyes cut me to the quick. If it hadn’t been her own father who was directing me in these activities, I think my resolve would have cracked even before I had trapped Arundell, Howard and the others in my scheming strategies.”

 

“You know what ? William Cecil hardly told me anything about your mission except that you were doing a service for your country and that, therefore, I should be tolerant of your wayward behaviour. After you had come to submit yourself to the Privy Council at Christmas, 1580, he did tell me to not accept the surface story but, nonetheless, I was not fully apprised of your actions until a good while later. He even let you stew in custody for ten weeks after Mistress Vavasour had given birth to your baby boy. It was afterwards – when we had released you from custody in The Tower in June, 1581 – that he filled me in on the details of your snare. But, even at that time, he told me that we had to give you the cold shoulder – to keep you away from our presence – for a while longer. To do that, we trumped up a story about my anger at your refusal to reconcile with Anne. She, of course, knew nothing about this cover-story – how William could do that to his own daughter brought back horrible memories of my childhood when my brother, Edward, and my sister, Mary, were used as pawns in men’s political games.”

 

“I think, Bess, that William’s experience of navigating his way to personal (and familial) safety during those years after your father’s death gave him courage, strength, and insight. He knew what power – and the perqs of power – would cost. He was a man who could keep his cards very well concealed. He could wait and wait and wait – smiling all the while – for a long, long time. When he considered the moment to be propitious, then – but only then – he would act and act decisively. He once told me that in politics, it was important to control events rather than letting events control oneself. More than anything, I think, that was his cardinal rule.”

 

“I think that’s why we got along so well – and worked together for so long – both of us were instinctively cautious. Both of us would play for time. And, in fact, an inability to exercise that same kind of self-control was Robert Dudley’s Achilles Heel. He was a man of many parts but Robin would be impetuous and his reckless abandon would lead him into making rash decisions. He was a man for the short game. William Cecil always played the long game. And, by God, he played it bloody well, for a very long time. He was absolutely detested by our enemies – they thought him to be the devil’s apprentice but in reality he was my secret weapon. He drove our Catholic enemies crazy with indignation because, of course, they thought that God was on their side. So, in their coded messages they called William, “the great Machiavel” and “the Atheist”. To them, William was the active agent of Satan, thwarting God’s will.”

 

“I’m sure that he infuriated them because they never seemed to get the best of him. He always seemed to come out on top. Especially in his later life, his powers seemed to be increasing, not declining.”

 

“For a fat little man, he had enormous energy and stamina. Unlike an athletic super-hero like you, William was every inch the pudding.”

 

“Bess, that’s a cruel thing to say. Cruel but accurate, in my remembrance.”

 

“Henry, you remember him well. He was not a man for sport. He was always working, planning, scheming, and worrying. Above all, he worried. William was terribly anxious – I think that it was his Calvinism that exacerbated that tendency to persistent anxiety. His wife, Mildred Cooke, could only have intensified his anxiety with her insistent self-examination and puritanical self-loathing. She gave him no peace or respite from his inner torments. He must have had a terrible inner life. It must have been just awful being William Cecil’s self.”

 

“But Willy, he was a man for the season.”

 

“There’s no question on that score. He always pissed me off with sanctimonious certainty but I was in awe of his powers. There was no one else like him. That’s for sure.”

 

“Excuse me, but I was so far outside the ruling circles that I had no idea about him.”

 

“Of course you didn’t Will. He was the power behind the throne. The operative word being “behind” the throne. Although one cannot completely forget his greed. He kept his fingers in all the various pots of money so that, like Jack Horner, he might have sat in the corner but when he pulled out his thumb it was always holding a plum !”

 

“Bess, I didn’t think that you watched him that carefully.”

 

“It was impossible not to notice his greed and his riches. Don’t forget, I first knew him when he was nearly impecunious, not much more than a clerk in my father’s administration. He was born in a cottage and died in a castle. He rose continuously and as he rose he became richer and richer and richer. He might have been the grandson of tavern-keeper in Lincolnshire, but he died as the richest man in England. Some people used to call him “Mister Ten Per Cent”. I heard that whispered often.”

 

Exasperated, Henry, cut into these bitter-sweet reminiscences,

 

“Will and I have heard this before. You two seem to always come back to William Cecil. But I want to change the subject a bit. I want to know more about the annuity that was granted to Willy.”

 

Bess and Willy looked at one another. A short silence ensued before Willy spoke.

 

“Well, Henry, we can’t talk about that grant without putting it into context – and that context has to revolve around William Cecil’s absolutely central role in patronage and spying. He had Bess’ full and absolute confidence from the beginning of her reign, isn’t that so ?”

 

“Absolutely true. He was an advisor like no other. His peculation was part of that arrogation of power which grew with his years of service. Like I was saying before, he was a man for the long game. And, for me, that was vitally important because to be a single woman in a man’s world was not just dangerous but also awkwardly difficult. They didn’t know how to deal with me – and I distrusted all of them. William was different because his personal agenda for familial prestige was so closely linked with my desire for stability and compromise.

 

Now, to answer your question – that annuity was an idea that was put to me by William and Francis Walsingham. I had had no idea about Edward’s activities – to be more precise, I had no idea about the scope, the scale, and the complications that were involved. I think that William kept me on a “need-to-know-basis”. And that was OK for me because what really concerned me was the theatre of majesty. The miraculous and the symbolic role I was to perform as the mediator between the divine and the mundane. Oddly, this role was made easier because of the split with Rome – I could present myself as a “divine virgin”, like Mother Mary had been for the Catholics. But to do that, I had to choreograph my image and never let down my guard. I also had to be perceived to be like Caesar’s wife – above suspicion of worldly faults.

 

It was my full-time job. As the years passed, I myself became rather confused by the boundaries between appearances and reality. Confused, yes – but how I enjoyed that confusion ! And that question of boundaries came to the fore in my choice of dramatic entertainment. I hugely enjoyed the escape which players could provide and I thought that while the Church might be one weapon in proselytising the people, there had to be less serious, earthier, and more direct ways of reaching them.

 

Anyone with ears to see or eyes to hear – as Edward had Bottom say when recounting his dream – could see that Edward had a rare ability. It was evident from his earliest years when his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses was published under his uncle’s name. People of real genius, true genius are rare. But when I met Edward for the first time, in Essex at his father’s house at Castle Hedingham, it was plainly evident that he was going to be a man for all times. He grew up to be a handsome, athletic, learned, witty, and charming young man but, perhaps, he was too good to be true. What I mean is that he had all the great and good characteristics of my father without the cruelty. But he was also a threat to my throne since his lineage was no less “royal” than my own. The dangers of this attraction I felt for him was driven home when I became pregnant. Our child – in the event, it was you, Henry – would immediately become my rival. I couldn’t have that. The personal could not become political.

 

All the while, Edward was being groomed by William Cecil who had no doubt planned to marry him to his daughter, Anne, thereby guaranteeing his own elevation to the nobility. Like so many aristocratic unions, it was an alliance of two households which were quite unlike in dignity. The individuals concerned were raised to understand that their personal preferences were to be subordinated to dynastic considerations. That gave us – Edward, especially – a kind of freedom from constraints because our private lives were not necessarily coincident with our familial roles or our emotional preferences.. Edward’s marriage, therefore, was a useful pretext for the continuation of our dalliance. But our union was hoist by its own petard. My pregnancy changed it irrevocably. I refused to acknowledge you as the fruit of our passion. That decision of mine established a boundary line between us. That boundary line quickly became a chasm. Edward was disconsolate and threw himself into his literary obsessions. He wanted to get away – far away from me and from the court and from the Cecils.

 

So, William Cecil engineered the schemes that these seminar-people have revealed in stumbling around in the documentary gaps in the archival record. Our plans for Edward’s new life were well-concealed from contemporaries and most later historians seem to have believed the cover story we concocted. I am actually amazed that it is only now – more than four hundred years later – that someone has begun to unravel our deceptions. Of course, I’m even more stunned that anyone cares about our lives so much as to devote theirs to studying ours !”

 

“You’re right there, Bess. I’ve been caught between a rock and a hard place in most of these discussions – here and now, as well as there and then. I was never really a party to any of the stories that took place in LifeOnEarth but I am truly flabberghasted that the details of my own life should be so obsessively fondled – and, seemingly, obsessively misunderstood – by so many of our successors. It’s almost as if these people – and, especially, their rivals in the “Orthodox Stratfordian” camp – want to live their lives through ours. No, that’s not quite what I mean. Let me try that last sentence again. It’s almost as if they want to create fanatsies about us into which they can escape their own lives.”

 

“You’re right about that, Will. I’ve been watching this spectacle with an increasing sense of incredulity. There really is something odd – very odd, indeed – in their investment in our past lives.”

 

“I feel the same way Willy but I’m less.invested in this. I want to get us back to the question of the annuity. How did it come about ?”

 

“Well, actually, the answer to that is really quite simple once you understand the situation in which Willy found himself in the mid-1580s. He was a broken man – physically, financially, and also in regard to his reputation. He was “vile esteemed”. But he was still a young man with enormous talents and while he could never perform any further espionage on our behalf, he was prodigiously gifted. His ability to do propaganda work in favour of our government was quite clearly a useful outlet for his energy and his talents. But he was broke. After his confession and the long day’s journey away from court, he was ever-so-slowly rehabilitated.

 

First, he had to be reattached to his wife and then he could be reintegrated into court society, although he was not very keen on doing that which was probably wise since he could hardly afford to show himself. So, a more circuitous return was fashioned – he had already bought that run-down mansion house outside the walls so that became his London residence and it was filled with all sorts of men of literary talent but not much else. He also spent large chunks of time at his Warwickshire estates – having sold off most of his other holdings.”

 

“That’s right, Henry. I first met him in Stratford-Upon-Avon around about that time; he was frequently in residence in either Billesley or Bilton. Whenever he came to his manor houses, the chins wagged in town. His residence meant lots of business for the various tradesmen who supplied the manor house with food, drink, and sundry other goods and services.”

 

“I don’t know anything about that. But, let’s get back to the point-at-issue. When the various plots against me were sussed and it became apparent from our intelligence reports that the Spanish were losing faith in these assassination missions, we learned that they decided that an invasion would be their best course of action – just what Professor Harry T. Roper surmised. Even before the Babington plotters were caught, our agents in Spain were beginning to report that there were new and unusual shipbuilding activities being carried out there. Then, we learned from these same sources that Phillip was planning to attack us directly with a sea-borne invasion force that would link up with additional Habsburg troops diverted from the Low Countries.

 

When we got confirmation of those reports from another, independent source it became apparent that we had to rally popular sentiment behind my life and my regime and our country. What we had to do was to create an imaginary English patriotic history. We had to tell the people that our history was worth protecting against foreign invaders. Some people would be mobilized by preaching but most people could only be reached through other means. And, it was Edward de Vere who supplied the key that would unlock those other means. It was as these people we’re observing sometimes say, “a win/win situation”. The annuity was quickly decided upon. In those conditions, cost was no object. We were quite literally in the fight of our lives. William Cecil was reluctant, at first, because he was so tight-fisted. But, quite surprisingly. it was the even–more puritanical Francis Walsingham who convinced him of the efficacy of this sort of popular pedagogy, as he called it.”
Whitehall, London

Privy Council Meeting,

June 29, 1587

 

William Cecil is at the head of the table in a small room, flanked by the most senior members of the Queen’s privy council. He looks around the table as his colleagues read through the script he has had prepared for them.

 

“So, gentlemen, what do we think about my message to the Vice-Chancellor ? Shall I read it aloud ?” When no one responds, he begins,

 

“Whereas it was reported that Christopher Morley was determined to have gone beyond the seas to Reames and there to remaine; their Lordships thought good to certifie that he had no such intent, but that in all his accions he had behaved him selfe orderlie and discreetlie, wherebie he had done her Majestie good service and deserved to be rewarded for his faithfull dealinge: their Lordships request was that the rumor thereof should be allaied by all possible meanes, and that he should be furthered in the degree he was to take this next Commencement. Because it was not her Majesties pleasure that anie one emploid as he had been in matters touching the benefitt of his Countrie shold be defamed by those that are ignorant in th’affaires he went about.”

 

Still, no one else talks so Cecil takes command. “Gentlemen, I assume from your silence that this letter will suffice for its purpose. And that it will put an end to it.”

 

“Please, your Lordship, can we move on to more important business ?”

 

“In just a moment, your grace. First, we need to have this letter to the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University signed.by those present. I’ll go first.”

 

Cecil quickly signs the letter and passes it on to Archbishop Whitgift. In less than a minute, Lord Chancellor Hatton, Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon, and Sir James Crofts have all affixed their signatures. When the letter is returned to Lord Burghley, he gives it a quick glance and then nods to his secretary who takes it and quietly leaves the room for a moment.

 

“Now, gentlemen, let’s turn our attention to our preparations for the Spanish invasion.”
Cecil House,

September, 1581 (continued)

 

“Daddy, I am so lucky to have the best daddy in all of England. You have told me why these terrible things have happened – and that’s it’s not God’s judgement on my sinful soul.”

 

“Goodness, no, Anne. Your soul must be spotless. I am sure that a just God would know that.”

 

“I am happy, so happy, so very, very happy. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel like I was a slave, but now I’ve been freed.”

 

“Anne, don’t get carried away or you’ll go overboard on the other side of the boat, I have told you these things because you have borne these challenges with great patience and dignity. It is important for you to know that you will soon emerge from that tunnel of darkness, onto sunlit plains. And when you do emerge from that tunnel, Edward will be with you.”

 

“Daddy, there’s nothing more I want. That’s what I’ve prayed for several times every day for years – since Edward left me to go to Italy.”

 

“I know that better than anyone on this earth. It has broken my heart into tiny pieces to see your pain and your steadfastness. Many a time I have wanted to tell you the truth about Edward’s activities and behaviour but the time was never right for having that conversation. Today, it was the right time.

 

I have to also tell you that in my estimation, your Edward has been a hero in his own life. Only time will tell if anyone else knows that. Even after he is rehabilitated to our family, significant parts of this story must remain secret, even from your dear mother with whom you discuss everything. In fact, I don’t even want you to discuss any of this with Edward. And if he raises these stories with you, you are to nod innocently and express surprise at his heroic patricotism. You should, of course, tell him that his exploits fill you with pride because you always knew, in your heart of hearts, that he was not the man people gossiped about. You can tell him that you always knew he was good so that whatever he was doing must have had a reason that others could not see.”

 

“Daddy, I can do that. I want to do that. I want to tell him, again and again, how much I love him and how proud he has made me.”

 

“Not so fast, Anne. I think it would be better for you to try to adopt a very circumspect attitude towards him in public. What you do in private is your own business. I won’t bring the affairs of the state into your bed-chamber.”

 

“I will really, really try to be like that, Daddy.”

 

“Anne, you must realize that you have to be like that – circumspect and somewhat distant. What you don’t want to do is to show your cards in public. That might endanger Edward’s life and ruin our espionage activities. He has not been the only “mole” we have deployed in gaining intelligence on the Papists. Those other men, too, have wives and fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children, too. We owe them all the same debt of gratitude that I would pay in tribute to Edward’s seven years of under-cover activities.

 

But, there’s more I have to tell you now. Edward, too, will be circumspect and diffident in his public dealings with the Cecils. So, don’t expect a reversion to the status quo ante. Walsingham and I have already arranged with Edward that he is going to throw hmself into the theatrical life. He will be consorting with some roaring boys and he will probably only be in attendance on you on occasion. This is the next stage in his career.”

 

“Daddy, I don’t understand why he has to do that. Why can’t Edward come home to me and Elizabeth. He hardly knows his own daughter, and she doesn’t know him at all.”

 

“Yes, Tannikyn, that has been a big heartache for him but he is, first and foremost, a patriot and a defender of Her Majesty. Personal relations have to take a back seat to that.”

 

“I’d understand if he was going to be involved in more spying or soldiering but I don’t understand why he has to keep us at arm’s length if he’s only going to be writing plays and things like that.”

 

“I see what you’re bothered about and it does seem excessive but you have to remember that his playwriting is going to be an extension of his cover story. He will largely be distanced from the court and obvious political activity. Remember, my dear Tannikyn, that he will still be “in disgrace” and therefore he must not be seen to be a man working on the inside. His theatre work will be another way of continuing his involvement with our running skirmishes with the papists. Players are generally considered to be not much better than vagabonds, it’s a form of roguery as was specified in the 1572 Act I had passed before Parliament. To be effective in this theatrical world, Edward must be seen to be one of them, not one of us.”

 

“Why can’t Edward be a part-time rogue ? Tell me that.”

 

“Tannikyn, now you’re just being both silly and desperate. He will have to maintain his outsider reputation for a while longer so it’s best that you just accept that that’s the way it’s going to be.”

 

“If you say so, then I will. But I’m not happy about that prospect even if it’s much better than what has gone before.”

 

“That’s better. This nasty business is not about your happiness or Edward’s public reputation. It’s much more important than that. Edward has practically bankrupted his estate in carrying out his duties towards Her Majesty. He has also sacrificed his good name while his honour has been badly impugned by both his enemies and also friends who don’t know the full extent of his involvement in these affairs. He’s been both brave and self-sacrificing, well beyond the call of duty. Those who know about this have been tremendously proud of his service. But, much more than that, his service has been invaluable in teasing out the treacheries of the Papists.

 

So, if your Edward continues to frustrate you, try and understand his predicament and know that you are the wife of a true patriot and loyal servant of the Crown of England.”
St John’s College

Thursday afternoon (continued)

 

Now that Professor Harry T. Roper has concluded his commentary on Professor Timothy Brooksby’s paper, it is the turn of Dr Juliette Lewes. This is her the first time she had taken part in one of these Oxfordian seminars so that, even before she begins to speak, it is evident she is very nervous.

 

Dr Lewis is a large, dark-haired woman. And, despite this being her coming-out, she is rather casually dressed in dark slacks and a white, pleated blouse. Before she begins to speak, she shuffles her papers and clears her throat quite audibly.

 

“I would like to thank the organizers of this meeting for inviting me to participate in this seminar. Having just completed my doctorate, I am somewhat new at this business but I’m going to give it my best shot.”

 

Then, like a whirlwind, she flings herself into her presentation.

 

“My comments on Professor Brooksby’s paper will be concerned with fleshing out the parallels between the sullied reputations of Edward de Vere and Kit Marlowe. Towards that end, I have entitled my presentation, “Boyz and Tobacco” which, as you all know, is an inversion the smear Edward Baines made on Marlowe’s reputation. Baines wrote that, among many other outrageous things Marlowe had said, “All they that love not tobacco or boys be fools”.

 

To begin my comments, I want to very briefly consider the parallels between the slanders aimed at Oxford by the Arundell-Howard Libels and those made by Baines in his infamous “note” of May, 1593, which might have been the reason for Marlowe’s execution or disappearance.

 

There is, perhaps, no better place for me to start than Sonnet 121:

 

“ ‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,

When not to be, receives reproach of being”

 

Here, Oxford would seem to commenting on his own shattered reputation. It had been sullied by Arundell-Howard scattershots aimed at him, in desperation, after de Vere had exposed their involvement in underground Catholic activities in the late 1570s. Matters came to a head in December, 1580, when Oxford confessed his waywardness to the Queen and her Privy Council. We now know a great deal more about the context of this climactic moment but what is little appreciated is the almost perfect overlap between the Arundell-Howard smears and the claims made against Christopher Marlowe a dozen years later by Richard Baines.

 

Oxford was accused of atheism, treason, murder, lechery, and sexual perversity (i.e., sodomy). And, while Edward de Vere was never formally accused nor was he ever brought to the bar of justice to defend himself against these charges, his reputation was permanently damaged. Indeed, there are still people like Professor Nelson who take the Arundell-Howard charges at face value without bothering to consider who uttered them and in what context. But I am not here to go over that territory again. Rather, I want to proceed by considering the parallels between this smear campaign and the one that was conducted against Christopher Marlowe which seems to have been closely linked with his disappearance and/or death

 

First, however, a few words about Richard Baines, Marlowe’s nemesis. It is important to keep in mind that the certain identification of Baines – or, indeed, even Shaksper or Marlowe – cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Given the vagaries of nomenclature and spelling – when taken in conjunction with the duplication, triplication, or even multiplication of men with the same or similar names, living at the same time, in the same and/or different places – identification is very much based on probabilities rather than certainties. Richard Baines’ identity is a case in point – it is not certain, beyond that reasonable doubt that the man who matriculated from Cambridge in the late 1560s was the same person who was a wayward member of a Catholic College in Reims in the early 1580s. Nor can we be sure that the man whose “Note” seems to have been the final nail in Christopher Marlowe’s coffin was, in fact, a clergyman living in deep obscurity in Lincolnshire, before and after that day in Deptford in 1593.

 

This uncertainty must be compounded by the lives such men led in the Elizabethan underworld. Their appearance in the historical archive is purely fortuitous – after all, such men were engaged in dirty tricks and espionage. They were also disposable assets. So, there is no obvious reason why – more than four hundred years after their lives ended – we should be able to trace them with any degree of certainty. Instead, what we have is a likely identi-kit portrait of the man whose “Note” not only crucially defamed Kit Marlowe in his lifetime but also serves as the touchstone for all subsequent biographical reconstructions of the playwright’s personality. Therefore, what we really have is an engima, wrapped in mystery, hidden by obfuscation. To argue otherwise, is to ignore the implication of Occam’s razor – if we don’t know something with a degree of certainty then it’s better to admit ignorance than to feign knowledge.

 

The state of knowledge about Richard Baines is, therefore, provisional. What we know is based on a balance of probabilities and guess-work. What does seem rather more certain is that Marlowe had been chosen, protected, and rewarded for some sort of undercover activity. There is, I think, no other way to interpret the 1587 Privy Council’s letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. There is no strong evidence before the 1592 coining-affair in Flushing that Marlowe and Baines worked together or even knew one another. In Flushing, they were arrested for counterfeiting English money. They were also said to be “chamber fellows”, or room-mates, with a shadowy person called Gifford Gilbert in the Dutch coastal town.

 

Marlowe, who had travelled to The Netherlands on a Privy Council passport, immediately claimed himself to be under the protection of the Earl of Northampton and Lord Strange. These two noblemen were under surveillance by William Cecil’s espionage network and so Marlowe’s claim alerted Governor Sir Robert Sidney that something was happening here but he didn’t know what it was. In the event, Baines’ charges were serious enough for the English Governor of Flushing to put all three men into custody and to send them back to London so that Burghley could sort out the confusion. What is striking to anyone looking at this matter without pre-judgement (or foreknowledge of Baines’ “Note” or the murky doings in Deptford which occurred some sixteen months later) is that Marlowe was never arraigned, never questioned, never tortured, never charged, and only briefly imprisoned for his involvement in what was a capital crime. In effect, the Flushing incident was swept under the rug – and the sweeper must have been William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

 

David Riggs, in his 2004 study, suggests that the Flushing affair was a failed attempt to insinuate Marlowe into the conspiratorial, Catholic network that seemed to be orchestrated by Sir William Stanley, who was the younger brother of Sir Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, the Fifth Earl of Derby. Parenthetically, it was Lord Strange’s death a few years later that enabled Sir William Stanley to become the Sixth Earl of Derby. The point of this digression being that Edward de Vere’s daughter, Elizabeth, who had earlier been thwarted in marrying Henry Wriothesley, became the wife of Sir William Stanley and, so, the Countess of Derby. A Midsummer’s Night Dream is often claimed to have been written by “Shakespeare” to celebrate their wedding in twenty-sixth of January, 1595. As I said before, these matters are both mysterious and enigmatic.

 

Why would William Cecil send a spy – i.e., Christopher Marlowe – to investigate Sir William Stanley in 1592 ? First and foremost, Lord Strange and his brother were great-great-grandchildren of King Henry VII.   The Stanley’s claim to the throne was exactly the same as James Stuart’s except for the relevant detail that James Stuart’s Tudor ancestor had been an older daughter of Henry VII. Second, at the time of the Flushing incident it was by no means clear that Elizabeth de Vere would have made such a remarkable match – one that would bring the Stamford innkeeper’s great-great-grand-daughter so near the throne in her new husband’s right. And, third, the Stanleys were connected with Raleigh faction which had taken over the role of principal favourite after the death of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the Armada year. Given the dynamics of the Elizabethan court, in which the Queen tried to create a highly-personalized system of checks-and-balances, the Raleigh faction was the principal rival to the Cecils, father and son, for the period between Leicester’s ascendancy and the meteoric rise of his step-son, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

 

Factions in the Elizabethan court were inherently unstable and usually situational so it should come as no surprise that the demise of Raleigh a while later, cast Sir Walter himself beyond the pale of royal favour when he had impregnated one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. So, with his replacement in the Queen’s favour by the young, dashing Earl of Essex, the faction around Raleigh melted away as a serious threat to the Regnum Cecilianum. But, when we turn back the clock to the winter of 1592, there was clear rivalry between Raleigh and the Cecils. When Marlowe was brought back to London, his cover was blown and his usefulness in spying on the Cecils’ rivals vanished. So, as I suggested earlier, Burghley quickly swept the whole matter under the rug. But William Cecil was persistent while Kit Marlowe was a disposable asset.

 

In the spring of 1593 the tensions between the Cecils and the Raleigh factions were heating up. Christopher Marlowe – the bad boy of the theatre world – could again be used as a stalking-horse against the Cecils’ rivals. This explains, I believe, the noise around Marlowe’s connections and his beliefs. By smearing Marlowe, Cecil could get at Raleigh and the Duke of Northumberland. As well, the various other members of that shadowy fraternity, the so-called “School of Night”, could be impugned – not with treason but with atheism.

 

Linking Marlowe’s final entanglement with the secret service was Thomas Kyd, who is best known today as the author of The Spanish Tragedy. Kyd was another one of the acolytes of Ferdinando, Lord Strange. In that way – and maybe even earlier – his life intersected Kit Marlowe’s. They were both immensely successful and shared chambers – i.e., they were room-mates. This is a key point because Kyd was brought in for questioning in the spring of 1593 by the Cecilian authorities who were then trawling for information to use against the Raleigh faction. Kyd sang his torturer’s song, implicating Marlowe in free-thinking and its close-comrade, atheism.

 

But let us take cognizance of the flimsiness of these claims which hinge on the discovery of a transcript in Kyd’s rooms. Kyd claimed that the copy of John Proctor’s Fall of the Late Arian belonged to his former room-mate.. Yet, by the spring of 1593 Marlowe was no longer Kyd’s room-mate and had moved on to the Kentish estate of his new best friend, Sir Thomas Walsingham, the nephew of the late Sir Francis Walsingham who had been, of course, Cecil’s right-hand man in espionage matters. So, it would be hard, if not impossible, to claim that Marlowe’s alliances were diametrically opposed to the Cecils.

 

No matter. Having found seemingly incriminating evidence, the thumb-screws were tightened. And, of course, Kit Marlowe was a disposable asset. He might have been a celebrity in the theatrical world but for the powers-that-be at that time, this was of no consequence whatsoever. Professors of English might be aghast but William Cecil didn’t give a tinker’s damn about the theatre or, for that matter, popular celebrity.

 

Let’s now take a closer look at the chronology of the weeks in May, 1593. First, Kyd was arrested and tortured, and then he “confesses”. Next, on May 18^th, a warrant for Christopher Marlowe’s arrest orders Henry Maunder, a Messenger of the Queen’s Chamber, to bring him to the court (i.e., the Privy Council acting in that fact-finding capacity). But Marlowe is not imprisoned. He is merely put under close surveillance, ”within the verge of the court”, and required to report to the Privy Council every day. The requirement that Marlowe is to keep himself “within the verge of the court” – i.e., within a twelve-mile radius of Greenwich – withdrew him from the common law courts’ protection and thereby sucked him into the special framework designed to provide extraordinary security for the monarch. Anywhere within a twelve-mile radius of the monarch’s presence was deemed to be “within the verge of the court”. So, Marlowe was caught in a no-man’s land where he was legally anonymous and out of sight.

 

Why was Marlowe not kept under wraps, in the Tower or some other prison ? The only explanation for this extraordinary treatment of a supposed capital criminal is that he was somehow being protected. But who was protecting him ? And why did he need that kind of protection ? No one can answer these questions with any degree of certainty. Rather, all who have considered this situation resort to surmise and what might be charitably called “educated guesswork.”

 

This confusion becomes even more impenetrable when we take into account that the case against him was buttressed by information supplied by an agent called Thomas Drury and the even more clandestine Richard Cholmeley. The identities of these two creatures are almost completely indeterminate. Indeed, both of them only surface in the historical record during this month of May, 1593. Their marginality should be kept in mind because when we learn of Kit Marlowe’s death at the end of the month, two other men from the shadowy netherworld are involved – Ingram Frizer and Nicholas Skeeres.

 

In fact, the only person of consequence involved in the month-long frame-up of Christopher Marlowe is Robert Poley. He can be well-and-truly identified as a result of his long-standing service to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. It was this same Robert Poley who had been a student at Cambridge in 1568 with a man known in the records as “Richard Baines”. Poley later comes to our attention about fifteen years later when he secures his release from the Marshalsea Prison on the promise of doing a service to Sir Francis Walsingham. At first, he had established his credentials by spying on recusant, fellow-prisoners in Marshalsea. But within a few years he had graduated to the big time because we learn of Poley again in relation to both the Throckmorton and Babington Plots. Indeed, it was Poley who egged on Anthony Babington to write to Mary, Queen of Scots. And it was Poley who told his handlers what, when, and where to look for the incriminating evidence that led to her execution – and Babington’s hanging, disembowellment, and quartering.

 

By the mid-1580s, then, Robert Poley had become a very useful man to Walsingham and Burghley. Poley’s involvement in Christopher Marlowe’s disappearance and/or death in Deptford must alert us to the ties that bound Kit’s destiny to the impulses exercising men who occupied the key power-positions in English government. And, since Sir Francis Walsingham had died in April, 1590, our attention must devolve on William Cecil. Lord Burghley was more than just a survivor – he was the main element of continuity directing espionage operations for almost the whole of Elizabeth’s long reign. So, it would seem to be at least possible – indeed, it was probably probable, one might say – that Lord Burghley, who had directed the Privy Council to write to the Cambridge University Vice-Chancellor on Marlowe’s behalf, was the same man who later directed Robert Poley’s actions on May 30, 1593. Most historians who have studied the coroner’s report on Marlowe’s supposed death in Deptford are in agreement that it was a flimsy cover-up of events that will forever remain obscure. One thing is certain, however – the event in Deptford followed on the “Baines Note”.

 

Enter Richard Baines. Was this the same man who was at Cambridge with Poley in 1568 ? Was this the same man who was spying at the English College Seminary in Rheims in the early 1580s ? Was this the same Richard Baines who had confessed to undercover actions and heretical ideas when caught by William (later Cardinal) Allen, in 1583 ? Was this the same man who confessed to spying for the English but was not subjected to any significant punishment by Cardinal Allen who would orchestrate recusant linkages with Jesuit-led conspirators ? Was this man – if, indeed, it was the same man – an English spy, a double-agent, or a re-doubled agent. We don’t know. What we do know is that Richard Baines is highly visible in the early 1580s and then goes missing for almost a decade. We will never know what he was doing, where he was doing it, or who he was doing it for during those lost years.

 

Roy Kendall argues that the Rheims-Baines confession/recantation is the proto-type for the “Baines Note” of May, 1593. However, as we have already argued, the charges in the “Baines Note” of 1593 also resonate with the “Arundell-Howard Libell” of 1581 and the notorious 1584 “Leicester’s Commonwealth”. Linking together these scandalous screeds is the likely agent provocateur, William Cecil.

 

This claim might seem like a reach, clutching-at-straws, but the similarities of the charges seems to me to be beyond coincidence. Marlowe’s supposed crimes – and the immoralities ascribed to the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of Leicester – seem to me to have been drawn from the same source. The accusations are essentially identical.   Marlowe – like de Vere and Dudley, before him – was accused of atheism, treason, murder, lechery, and sexual perversity. To be sure, these allegations were not worded identically but the grab-bag of charges seems to me to be the product of the same mind. My reading, then, is that the “Baines’ Note” needs to be appreciated in the wider context of factionalism, power struggles, and shifting alliances which were all orbiting around William Cecil, Lord Burghley. The disappearance and/or death of Christopher Marlowe is merely a footnote in this story.

 

To conclude, Cecil had long practised the shadowy arts of inventing conspiracy. Since the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign in 1558, Cecil accrued power and patronage by creating pseudo-plots to entrap his enemies and snare the unwary; William Cecil became rich. In the early 1570s, William Cecil’s daughter was married into the oldest baronial family in the land. William Cecil was elevated to the peerage. William Cecil became richer. William Cecil built three prodigy houses whose cost must have been astronomical.   William Cecil’s rivals died or were marginalized. William Cecil became richer still. During the 1570s, more rivals were sidetracked while tens of thousands of commoners were sacrificed in overseas adventures in Ireland and The Netherlands. William Cecil becomes even richer and monopolizes power after the earlier death of his great rival, Robert Dudley. After the death of Sir Francis Walsingham, William Cecil runs the spy network all by himself. In the 1590s, William Cecil’s grand-daughter is married to a man with as strong a claim to the throne as any other. William Cecil’s son becomes the effective successor to his father.   William Cecil dies as the richest man in England. In the path of this relentless ascent, commoners like Christopher Marlowe were used and then discarded. Noblemen like Edward de Vere and Robert Dudley were suborned. Independent thinkers like Sir Walter Raleigh were harried and harassed. The Queen of England was complicit in all his dealings. Whatever way the winds blew, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, kept control from his position behind the throne. William Cecil had firm control of the tiller of the ship of state. Finally, after William Cecil’s son had succeeded to the leadership of the Regnum Cecilianum, he personally arranged for the succession of James Stuart – the son of Mary, Queen of Scots – to the English monarchy.

 

You couldn’t make it up.”
Willy’s AfterLife

 

“Bess, what do you make of her conspiracy theory ?”

 

“Henry, just a short while ago you were getting agitated because Willy and I seemed to be talking too much about William Cecil, but now you want to know more about his underground activities. Am I wrong about that ?”

 

“Not wrong, but not right either.

 

What I objected to was that you two were yammering on about William Cecil-this and William Cecil-that . You sidetracked our discussion about Willy’s annuity. Now, I want to know more about these smear campaigns that Dr Lewes claims were orchestrated by William Cecil.

 

I don’t mind the discussion being about Cecil, what I do mind is the loss of focus and the drift into generalities. If we don’t keep our discussion on the points raised by these seminar-people, then what’s the reason for us to be watching their proceedings ?”

 

“That’s a fair point, Henry.”

 

“Thanks for that. I have two questions that were raised in that discussion among the seminar-people. First, Bess, I want to hear what you have to say about those smear campaigns that Dr Lewes talked about. And, second, Willy, what was the nature of your interaction with Kit Marlowe ?”

 

Bess and Willy look at one another; hoping that the other would be the first to answer. After a few awkward moments of silence, Bess takes over.

 

“OK. What I seem to remember about William Cecil’s advice is that it was rather straightforward. Wait, smile, and then strike when your opponent is either comfortable and over-confident. That way, he would say, we can gain the initiative. This prevarication was really his way of playing-for-time. He would also advise me that the front story – or, if you will, the cover story – had to speak sense to our audience. So, he was careful to frame his moment of attack when he had created the conditions for its explanation – or as these seminar-people would say, its reception.

 

Thus, for example, in the case of Duke of Norfolk, he counselled a long, long period of delay, postponing our strike on several occasions before he judged the time to be ripe. He said to me that it was most important was for us to be able to deny our opponents “deniability”, by which he meant that it was not enough for them to be caught red-handed but their defences should be breached so that their attempts to defend themselves would be thwarted. It was the same in the 1580s with Charles Arundell, Thomas Howard, and, above all, Mary, the Scots’ Queen. In each and every case, William counselled patience. He was a great believer in playing out the long game. He believed that when we finally struck it should be seen to be perfectly reasonable by the English political nation which was, after all, the prime consumer of our political rhetoric.”

 

“Is that why my confession in 1580 did not lead to my immediate vindication ?”

 

“Exactly so. William Cecil let you bear the brunt of opprobrium until the moment was right to strike at them. Now, with regard to those smear campaigns which Professor Lewes has just described, I think that she is highlighting a few pamphlets or speeches out of a much larger political discourse. But she is right in drawing the seminar’s attention to the structures of disgrace by which it would be believed that an opponents’ reputation would be discredited. When a man was called an “atheist” or a “sexual pervert”, self-defence was practically impossible. That man was already disgraced by the simple fact of being so identified. So, when Willy was traduced by Arundell and Thomas Howard in the early 1580s, he could not properly defend himself from their smears – he had to accept disgrace in men’s eyes and try to keep his dignity intact. It was, perhaps, easy to do this if one was also a party to Cecil’s “long game” – as was the case with Willy, who had been conspiring with William for many, many years in his attempts to entrap the younger generation of unpatriotic Catholics.

 

For nearly a decade, Willy, so I learned only later, had been Cecil’s accomplice in springing this trap. His junior role in this partnership had cost him dear – his reputation, his fortune and very nearly his family but Willy proved himself to be not just a real patriot but also a real professional in the game of espionage. From the early 1570s when they hatched their plan, until the mid-1580s, when we finally were able to gain definitive proof of Mary’s involvement with the Jesuiti conspiracies against the throne and government of England, Willy had kept to his task. And, he had to do so by tacking against prevailing winds. He had bankrupted himself in my service – and been severely crippled, too.

 

When it came time to reward Willy for his service, it had to be done surreptitiously. Willy could not be seen to have been rewarded for his clandestine services. That’s why the funds for his annuity came from secret, discretionary accounts which Burghley and Walsingham controlled. When he was pursued by creditors – and there were a great many of them ! – the Solictor General was charged with bogging down such actions, delaying decisions, and then defraying his costs. When his financial stabilization was accomplished, it only seemed right to re-deploy Willy’s talents into another field of endeavour. By the middle years of the 1580s, he was too lame to be of any service whatsoever in the military and he had no relevant experience. When we tried that out during the Netherlands and Armada campaigns, he was an abject failure. Isn’t that right ?”

 

“Quite so ! My cousins Francis and Horace became known as “The Fighting Veres” for their exploits in the Netherlands while my uncle, Thomas Radcliffe, Lord Sussex, had been the commander for Her Majesty’s forces in the Northern Rising in 1569, but I had never really experienced battle or the soldier’s life. By the time I was in my mid-thirties, I had developed a kind of self-indulgence that made military discipline quite foreign to me. I couldn’t adapt. When the great test of the Armada arrived, I was quite simply past it. I proved myself to be a nuisance to those in active service.”

 

“That concurs with what I was told by my commanders in the field. You just got in their way. But we all knew that you had other talents and that those talents were rare and equally valuable in a different way.”

 

“That’s kind and generous of you to say so. It was difficult for me to accept that I could never follow in the footsteps of my predecessors who had served our rulers in the field of battle. I had to accept that in our time – a time of ideological warfare – there were other battlefields on which to serve.”

 

“So, Willy, you were rewarded for your service in espionage and shifted to play-writing for the public theatre ?”

 

“That’s right, Will. As you well know, we met in Stratford-Upon-Avon when I was beginning to put together my theatrical career. Long before the mid-1580s, I had been dabbling in courtly entertainments but these were most often light comedies. These early masques were deeply influenced by classical model and themes. They were mostly concerned with shepherds, lovesick swains, and, of course, fair damsels in distress.

 

It was when I began to work with Christopher Marlowe that we both shifted away from mimicking models from antiquity, transforming our story-lines into something more like magical realism and much more relevant to the public audience in a time of intense struggle. I was then beginning to work on my History plays and Kit was shifting from older allegories to what were, at that time, modern-day issues. He was especially exercised by his hatred (and fear) of censorship which was exercised by narrow-minded prudes and stiff-necked clerics. Marlowe’s contemporary themes hit a chord with the audience which had been over-excited by the exposure of the Babington Plot, the execution of Mary Stuart, and the coming sea-war with Spain. The success of his Tamburlaine plays spurred him on – and he hardly needed much encouragement because he was always a reckless kind of guy.

 

So, in regard to Henry’s second question concerning the interaction between myself and Kit Marlowe, my answer would be that what you might call “influence” was indirect. By that I mean we thought alike and we could see that new subjects and new modes of presentation would be wildly popular. Kit’s fantastic success in reaching out to a popular audience was instructive – it encouraged me to break with the straitjacket imposed on playwriters by rhyming couplets and traditional subjects. Kit’s truimph was confirmed by the ecstatic reception given to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

 

Kyd had been one of the young men who was found at Fisher’s Folly in the mid-1580s. He was then working as a scrivener, like his father before him. But Thomas had been educated at Merchant Taylor’s School and was a school chum of Edmund Spenser and Thomas Lodge, who introduced him to the scene at Fisher’s Folly. It is one of those curious historical ironies that it was through my offices that Kit met Kyd because it was Thomas whose manufactured evidence was used to frame Marlowe in 1593. But in the years before, Thomas Kyd – who never seems to have gone to university like the others I’ve just mentioned – took to experimenting with theatrical writing. He, too, was buoyed by Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. Every one of us was just stunned by its success. Kyd wanted to be like Kit. Everyone wanted Kit’s celebrity and fortune.

 

I was already embarked on my cycle of History plays, which was part of the bargain that had been struck when I was granted that annuity. My plays were supposed to be supportive of Bess’ regime in its testing-time whereas Kit’s scripts were seen as being subversive of good order. My themes were theatrical reconstructions designed to give a sense of reasonableness to the Tudor claims to be the contemporary holders of our national destiny. It was my brief to legitimate the Tudors’ claims by showing them to be the successors of the Plantagenets, the Lancastrians, and the Yorkists before them. All of these great houses had been invested with responsibility but some of them had done a poor job and England had suffered for their failings. This was the overarching lesson that I was to transmit – solidarity behind the reigning monarch was essential to national safety.

 

At the time of great danger of invasion from without, and subversion from within, it was deemed essential to provide a series of lessons of triumph and tragedy that could be drawn from our common past. A strong monarch and a loyal people could overcome all odds – like Henry V at Agincourt – whereas a weak monarch and disloyal subjects would lead to chaos and civil war. Everyone was terrified of civil war because it would culminate in the dispossession of the rightful monarch and the assumption of the crown by a moral monster like Richard III (or Mary Stuart who was, quite obviously, Gloucester in women’s clothing).

 

I think that it’s not unreasonable to say that what I learned from Kit Marlowe only really came into play at a later stage in my play-writing career, after the History cycle was completed. In my earliest completed scripts, the History plays, the Marlovian themes were necessarily not fully expressed whereas later his themes of intrigue, duplicity, wanton violence, reversals of fortune, and social upheaval came more to the fore. My earliest post-History play, Titus Andronicus, is all about the atrocities of unbridled revenge inspired by competing factions. Its horrors carry on from Kit’s vision of ideological warfare – replete with cruelty, terror, and appalling acts of shedding blood.

 

The central victim is Titus’ daughter, Lavinia, whose rape and grotesque mutilation – having her tongue cut out and her hands severed from her arms – suggests what will become of our motherland if the conspirators succeed on overthrowing our constituted authority. Lavinia, like Bess, was wooed by a duplicitous man. But Bess, unlike Lavinia, had the strength to deny them their way with her. And, for that, we were all united in gratitude.

 

Writing Titus so close on the heels of the History plays, it is not surprising that when the duplicitous Demetrius woos Lavinia, luring her to horrifying atrocities he does so in words that echo the scene in which Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is able to win over the grieving widow of his Yorkist adversary. Adding to the horror of that scene is our knowledge that Lady Anne’s husband had recently been killed by Glouceter himself. In Titus, I wrote:

 

“She is a woman, therefore may be woo’d,

She is a woman, therefore may be won;

She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov’d”            (II, 1, 82-84)

 

There is more than just a foretaste of Demetrius’ studied nastiness in Richard III: when the then-Duke of Gloucester is made to say:

 

“Was even woman in this humour woo’d ?

Was ever woman in this humour won ?

I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long”            (I, 2, 229-231).

 

The point of this digression is that as a result of the exchanges between Marlowe and me it is hard to disentangle his imagination from mine and so it is nearly impossible to suggest who was the master and who was the man. We learned from each other in those heady days of the middle 1580s.”

 

“Willy, you’re being extraordinarily generous.”

 

“I don’t see any reason not to be truthful before you and Bess and Will. It’s not as if I have anything to gain from hewing to the line advanced by the Oxfordians who want to see me as the fount of all literary excellence in our lifetime. My own vision then – and now – is that one learned and grew from intellectual exchange and sharing ideas. I became increasingly distanced from what we might call “the hero in history’s private property in ideas” as I grew older.

 

I suppose that the arrangement I struck with William Cecil which required me to disassociate myself – my reputation – from my early poetical works gave me a kind of disinterested sense of proportion with regard to the theory of individual genius. I saw that a man’s vision was not just a part of all he experienced but also a reflection of those with whom he had experienced ideas.”

 

“So, what you’re saying is that as you grew older, less respectable, and less reputable in the public’s standing, you came to increasingly devalue public reputation.”

 

“Exactly.”
St John’s College,

Thursday late afternoon

 

As the afternoon seminar participants begin to form into little groups. Neddy Shorts makes his way towards Juliette Lewes. When they are together, he gleefully reaches out his hand to her.

 

“Damn ! That was great stuff although I’m not sure I agree with all of what you claimed.”

 

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure about all of the claims myself. But the point of historical reasoning is that we learn through argument. At least, that’s always been my modus operandi. It only makes sense to me to push hard against the boundaries of what we know.”

 

“Absolutely. That’s what I’ve always thought and it’s because the Orthodox Stratfordians take too much for granted that their arguments are just flaccid.

 

How are you fixed for dinner tonight ? I’ve made plans with Cyril Hubert, Joy Crayle, and Harry T. Roper. Are you free to join us ?”

 

“Yes and no. I’ve discussed having dinner tonight with Brianna di Palma and I’m sure that she would be keen to be part of that group but I really should check with her first. Where are you planning to eat ?”

 

“I was told by one of my colleagues who spent his sabbatical here last year that there’s a tremendous tandoori place called Divan-I-Am. It’s just off Castle Hill, at the beginning of the Huntingdon Road. Do you know where that is ?”

 

“No. I’ve only ever been inside the loop here in Cambridge; anything that’s more than a block or two away from St John’s or King’s Parade is terra incognito to me.”

 

“We’re going to meet up at the Porter’s Lodge at 7:00. From there, it’s not much more than a short walk along Magdalene Street, over the bridge, and then about half-way up the Hill. So, why don’t we plan to meet up then and if you are not going to join us then perhaps another time would be fun but otherwise I’m very much looking forward to seeing the two of you later for dinner and some spirited chat.”

 

“That sounds like a plan. I’ll talk with Brianna and we’ll take it from there.”

 

[Thursday, 7:00 – Porter’s Lodge, St John’s College]

 

Where is Cyril Hubert ? The other members of Neddy Shorts’ group had already assembled and were talking volubly amongst themselves. No one seems especially bothered about Cyril’s tardiness – it is legendary.

 

A few more minutes went by and then Cyril Hubert bounds out the main gate to meet up with his colleagues.

 

“Sorry to keep you-all waiting but I fell asleep in my room. I must still be jet-lagged.”

 

“We’re glad you’re now here. Shall we be off ?”

 

“Neddy, you’d better lead us on because no one else knows about this place.”

 

“It’s this way.”

 

Neddy swings to his left and then he turns the corner, across from the Round Church. As the group ambles along St John’s Street, it breaks up into two groups – men leading and women following. No one seems to notice this gendered-division, although twenty years previously it would have been a cause for some comment. But now, in 2014, the social frictions that had accompanied the first wave of strident feminism in the academy were long-since past. Indeed, at the Oxford conference the participants are almost equally divided, although the men are generally older and, therefore, more senior in their academic rank. Age has its privileges.

 

Walking along Magdalene Street’s narrow pavement, the groups again break up as they march along single-file. When they get to the intersection, where Magdalene Street would turn into Castle Hill, Neddy announces, “Jerry Sinclair told me that we keep on the left side of the Hill and the restaurant is on the second street, to the left. The college porter made us a reservation for six so I imagine that we’re expected and that a table will be waiting for us.”

 

“I sure hope so, I’m famished”. Cyril Hubert’s appetite is even more legendary than his tardiness.

 

Turning the corner, they see the Diwan-I-Am’s flickering neon sign down the street. Neddy Shorts gets there first and, not standing on ceremony, he goes inside and tells the proprietor that he is the leader of the group of six who had had a table reserved by the St John’s College porter.

 

“Welcome to our restaurant. It will be my pleasure to see that we treat you well and that you leave here happy but no longer hungry.”

 

The table that had been reserved for them is in a corner of the room, away from the door. There are a couple of windows beside the table so that it is not unduly hot on this August evening. A fan on the ceiling also creates a soft breeze.

 

Neddy announces that he is going to do his best Professor Sir Peter impersonation by taking matters into his own hands. No one objects. There are muffled mutters of agreement but Brianna di Palma wants to make sure that Neddy takes her food issues into consideration when ordering.

 

“Neddy, I’m a vegetarian – but not a vegan. So, I can eat cottage cheese – I really like saag paneer – and, in fact, any of the dishes that they call “vegetables” on the menu.”

 

Not to be outdone, Cyril Hubert chimes in, “I’m a carnivorian but even though I’m now a Texan, I would still be satisfied with lamb – or even chicken. It doesn’t have to be beef. However, as long as you can figure out how to keep me and Brianna happy with what you order, I’ll leave that to you and start to drink.”

 

While Neddy Shorts fusses over the menu, the waiter takes everyone’s drinks orders. Soon a cacophony of voices arises from the corner table, filling the room even though they are the only people at the restaurant at such an early dinner-time.

 

With the drinks served and the dinner menu ordered, Neddy once again assumed control.

 

“Before we lower the level of our conversation to mere gossip, I would like to talk a bit about William Cecil’s role in orchestrating smear campaigns.”

 

There is a brief, awkward silence – as if schoolchildren have been called to order. Academics are, by nature, talkative and abhor a vacuum. The silence doesn’t last for long. Not surprisingly, Cyril Hubert is the first to speak.

 

“I’m not sure that William Cecil’s role in those smear campaigns is as interesting – or puzzling – as his rise to power. Did it result from his dominance over the Queen which was evident from the first day of Elizabeth’s reign ? Or was it less hegemonic and, therefore, the accumulation of office and patronage as he inexorably pushed his rivals to the sidelines – or to the block ? My own view is that William Cecil held some sort of extraordinary influence over her that must be dated back to the years before she succeeded her brother and sister.

 

I think that what we are dealing with is something like one of those film noir story-lines because we have to go back to the distant past to see how and why he could exercise control and, seemingly, manipulate her so that she saw that what was good for Elizabeth Tudor was good for William Cecil. Now, quite obviously, he couldn’t have successfully promoted that identity of interests if he wasn’t a consummate machiavellian but to insist on the primacy of his skills as her councillor is to put the cart before the horse. Or, maybe, it’s to confuse necessary with sufficient causes. So, the question that I always come back to is: what kind of influence could he bring to bear on her ?

 

“Cyril, I know what you mean by the confusion of necessary and sufficient causes in relation to Cecil’s magnetic hold over Elizabeth. I think that we have to go back to the rumours of his involvement in disentangling Elizabeth from the Seymour scandal, yeah ? If we go back to the first months of Edward’s reign then we have a vulnerable, teen-aged girl who is being treated like a sex-toy by a powerful, older man. The evidence for that relationship seems pretty solid to me

 

His brother, Somerset, didn’t trust Thomas Seymour, yeah ? He suspected his unbridled ambition. There were rumours that Thomas Seymour was scheming to marry the then-Princess Elizabeth. In the event, Thomas Seymour had reached too far, yeah ? A bill of attainder was pushed through Parliament and the younger brother was executed because he stood in the way of Somerset’s own ambitions. But that evidence is sketchy but tantalizing in regard to William Cecil’s role in these affairs.”

 

“Tell us more about what you mean, Brianna ?”

 

“It’s a subject that I have spent some time trying to research but the documentary evidence is rather thin. What I have learned is that even before Henry VIII was dead Cecil had attached himself to Edward Seymour. He seems to have been one of a number of bright young men from Cambridge to have done so, yeah ? The joke at the time was that Luther had laid an egg and Erasmus had hatched it in Cambridge. It’s a pretty lame joke, isn’t it ? This cohort was committed to religious reform and they seem to have identified Edward Seymour as their most likely aristocratic patron. For the first three years of Seymour’s ascendancy, William Cecil was something of a behind-the-scenes fixer. He only gained office in 1550 in September, 1550, yeah ? Before that appointment, he had been a member of Edward’s Parliament for the borough of Stamford in Lincolnshire. This was a position he had held since before Henry VIII’s death.

 

When Somerset fell from power, he was replaced by John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland. William Cecil had successfully trimmed his old allegiance and began to sail with the new man. But not for long because during the latter period of Edward’s reign, Cecil worked assiduously to shed the skin of his Protestant connections, yeah ? By the time Edward died, Cecil had distanced himself from Northumberland and his foolish adventures. He would claim to have been completely uninvolved in Dudley’s attempt to marry his son, Lord Guildford, to Lady Jane Grey and thereby give himself the crown in all but name.

 

When Northumberland’s nine-day adventure failed, Mary’s claim succeeded. William Cecil supposedly even switched from Protestantism to Catholicism although he was always suspected of disaffection by Mary’s Spanish Catholic advisers. During Mary’s reign, the best one could say about Cecil’s actions is that he was always loyal to the reigning Tudor sovreign. More exactly, yeah ?, we could say that he was expert in shifting his course with the prevailing winds. When it became obvious that Mary would die childless, it was equally obvious that Elizabeth – her half-sister – had the best claim to the throne. Elizabeth Boleyn-Tudor was the last of Henry VIII’s surviving children, yeah ?

 

As early as 1548, there is a tidbit of information that suggests Cecil had already gained the confidence of Elizabeth Tudor, sister of the sickly young king, and third-in-line for the throne. By 1550, Cecil was firmly entrenched in her household as the Surveyor of Elizabeth’s estates. He seems to have maintained that connection throughout the twists and turns of the next eight years, yeah ? In November, 1558, Mary died and Elizabeth was acclaimed as her successor. Among her first acts as Queen Elizabeth, she made William Cecil her Secretary which meant that the tavern-keeper’s grandson had become the principal link between the monarch and her Privy Council, yeah / At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, he was principally rivaled by Robert Dudley but William Cecil quickly saw off his challenge as Dudley was relegated to the lesser role of “favourite”. Thereafter, Dudley was her boy-toy, yeah ?, while Cecil had become the power behind the throne.

 

This potted biography is revealing – we see William Cecil slowly – almost inexorably – accruing power. We also see him severing ties with old allies when they were no longer useful to his career, yeah ? If we were to look a little more closely, we also see William Cecil becoming rich, yeah ? But, at this early stage in his career, there is no evidence of the manufactured plots that become one of the hallmarks of the way in which he set up his victims. That comes later.”

 

“What about his ties with Elizabeth ? Was he involved in Robert Dudley’s demotion to “favourite ? “ ”

 

“Well, Joy, that’s rather obscure. It’s absolutely unlikely that William Cecil was romantically involved with Elizabeth at any stage in her life. She kept her favourites at arm’s length from real power. Cecil was more like an avuncular figure. If we go back the monkey business with Thomas Seymour we have to ask ourselves two questions: first, why have any documents survived ? and, second, who was in charge of maintaining archival materials for Elizabeth’s reign ? Asking these questions, I think, leads us back to William Cecil. His fingerprints are all over our answers. The key evidence – if you can call my educated guess “evidence” – concerns his role played in preserving the documents of Elizabeth’s reign. The man in charge of that task was William Camden, who was one of the functionaries in the Regnum Cecilianum. It’s the documents that Camden kept and had archived that form the main sources for the history of the period. Actually, the whole matter is rather like a Mobius Circle.”

 

“What’s that ?” A couple of voices chime in, in unison.

 

“I see, you’ve forgotten your elementary geometry ! Shame on you, HarryT.! and Shame on you, Brianna ! But, you’re forgiven since I only know about a Mobius Circle because my husband is a mathematician. What is a Mobius Circle ? Well, imagine a strip of paper which has two sides. Now, in joining the paper, end to end, twist it. Now, somehow – I never really understood Bernard’s explanation for this – when you run your finger along one side and get to the join, you end up on the other side. It’s as if there’s only one side to the paper-strip.”

 

No one really understands what she has just described but, nonetheless, Juliette is urged to continue by HarryT and Neddy Shorts.

 

“It seems to me that this is a most apposite image for the role played by William Cecil in our recreation of Elizabethan history. He plays both sides, against the middle ! It’s Camden, Cecil’s man, whose documentary archive is referenced when traditional histories are written. So, is it really any surprise that “The William Cecil of History” is shown in such a favourable light ? [Juliette emphasized this title by making “italics” signs with her hands.] I think not ! Now, if we carry this line of skepticism along to its logical conclusion – by turning it over and looking at the other side, as we might do with a Mobius Circle – then we cannot avoid having our attention drawn to the longstanding connection by which William Cecil served Elizabeth Tudor.

 

Traditional historians are happy with that image – William Cecil, loyal and trusted servant to the Crown. But what if we look at the official story from the other side, what if we ask why it was that William Cecil was able to exercise power not only in the Elizabeth’s name but also over the Queen. Or, to go back again to the metaphor of film noir, what did William Cecil have on Elizabeth that kept her under his thumb ? To close this circle, as it were, I think that we cannot avoid going back to her early liaison with Thomas Seymour. As in a good film noir script, that liaison becomes the key that unlocks the mysteries of the narrative.”

 

“You know, I’ve heard these stories before but I’ve never really given them much credence. I guess that’s because I’ve been much more focussed on the later years of the century when all the players were in place.”

 

“Cyril, that seems to be the common misapprehension. It’s like a carny’s shell game. In fact, as far as most Oxfordians are concerned, there’s a lot about the Elizabethan period that’s like that. But, since Oxfordians – and Stratfordians, too, of course – are mostly concerned with the later years of Elizabeth’s reign when Edward de Vere was an adult – the earlier period gets short shrift from them.”

 

“Well, we certainly believe that that’s the way to explain how Willy becomes Will, and vice versa. But what I don’t completely understand in this story you’re reconstructing is, if you’re correct, how William Cecil was able to maintain his dominance.”

 

“Of course, we have to start by acknowledging that William Cecil was a most extraordinary man – he was not just a blathering blow-hard like Polonius. He was not only unscrupulous and devious but he was also a step ahead of his opponents at all times. If we can sever the Polonius/Cecil image, we have to give him more credit for his ruthlessness and his perspicacity. He was not only a man-of-secrets but he was also the keeper of other’s secrets. This, I think, gets us much closer to understanding the likely sway he exerted over Elizabeth. He made himself indispensable to her because he knew her deepest secrets.”

 

“I follow this so far, yeah ? But what could Cecil have known that would have given him this forty-year-long hold over Elizabeth Tudor ? That’s the sticking-point for me. She wasn’t a virgin ? Well, that wouldn’t really be so damaging, would it ? I mean that there were lots of rumours that she carried on a passionate physical affair with Robert Dudley and later with Edward de Vere, among others. So, her sexuality wouldn’t have been a secret, yeah ? – or, rather, it would have been an open secret, known by those who were in the inner circle of the court. So, I can’t really credit Cecil’s knowledge – and cover-up – of the teen-aged Elizabeth’s adventures with Thomas Seymour with having been the reason which would explain how William Cecil could exercise that kind of domineering influence for such a long, long time, yeah ? There’s got to be more to the story than that.”

 

“I agree with Brianna on that score. Let’s assume that William Cecil was blackmailing Elizabeth and that that explains why the documents for the Elizabeth/Seymour affair have survived, we still don’t have enough leverage to explain why she remained under his thumb. There’s got to be more to the story – even if she was willingly accepting of his domination and blackmail. What else could it be ?”

 

“Harry, some people would argue that the key – unconnected – piece of the puzzle relates this back to Edward de Vere. Paul Streitz’s book – which no academic publisher would touch and so was published by the “Oxford Institute Press” – claims that Elizabeth was actually de Vere’s mother. He suggests that the baby, who was born in secrecy in the summer of 1548 – was then passed on to be raised by the Earl of Oxford as his own child.”

 

“I’ve heard that before and I’ve read Streitz’s book and Beauclerk’s, too. I’m not sure that I can accept this argument although if one couples it with the on-going rumours about Elizabeth’s subsequent child-bearing experiences then it’s not completely fanciful. I would think that most of us believe that Elizabeth and Edward de Vere had a child together and that that child was raised as Henry Wriothesley. So, there’s a pattern here – Elizabeth’s sons are given over to be raised as aristocrats but they are cold-shouldered. This seems to fit the story for both Oxford and Southampton.”

 

“I’ve heard these stories, too. It does seem farfetched – Elizabeth being not only de Vere’s mother but also the mother of his child. It sounds a lot like the plot from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.”

 

“I know that film noir angle, HarryT. It does seem farfetched but not so unbelievable when you re-imagine Renaissance England in its own, contemporary framework. Both Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine de Medici were accused of roughly-similar, incestuous behaviour. And, of course, Elizabeth’s own family history was – to say the least – not exactly the stuff of domesticity and family values. Henry VIII’s behaviour needs to be understood as an element in what Freud would call her “Family romance”. Still, my first response would be to reject these claims as migogynistic calumnies but….”

 

Even before Jo Clayre could continue, Neddy Shorts interjects himself into this discussion.

 

“Now, we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. This is where I hoped this discussoin would lead us. What we’re saying is that the whole veneer of post-Victorian respectability which shrouds the historiography of the Elizabethan period is a sham. That’s what I’ve thought for a while. Neale, Read, Rowse, and those other “founding fathers” of Elizabethan historiography recreated the period they imagined – or wanted – it to be like. It’s always seemed like a mythology to me and I’m really happy to see that I’m not alone in this unease with it.”

 

“You know, Neddy, you’re pushing Juliette’s suggestions to a conclusion that I’m not sure they can support.”

 

“Well, of course, those conclusions are not going to be supported by evidence if that archive was doctored and evidence was manufactured ! Not to mention, other evidence that was most probably destroyed.”

 

“Oh, my ! I’m getting a bit giddy about this.”

 

“Why do you say that, Juliette ?”

 

“Because I’m not sure that I’m willing to buy the Streitz/Beauclerk argument – lock, stock, and barrel.”

 

“I don’t disagree. It is the work of amateurs. But, aren’t almost all the major works of the Oxfordians categorized that way by the Orthodox Stratfordians ? Don’t they occupy all the positions of influence in Shakespeare Studies ? Don’t they refuse to publish anything that challenges the status quo in their journals ? Don’t they keep Oxfordians away from their conferences by refusing to let them appear on the program ? Wasn’t it a major breakthrough for Oxfordian Studies when, first, Peter Schofield became Professor Sir Peter Schofield at Cambridge and then, next, when Timothy Brooksby got a chair in Oxfordian Studies at the other one of the ancient universities ? Don’t forget the incredible battles that were waged against them – it was like appointing an agnostic to the Chair of Islamic Studies in Teheran or Riyadh. To mix metaphors, the Orthodox Stratfordians squealed like stuck pigs.”

 

“I know all about that, Juliette. That’s why I left England and found myself a job in Canada. Even there, however, I was treated with contempt by the older faculty who were suspicious of anything that challenged the iconography of Shakespeare Studies. One of the older codgers told me that I should go to “America” because they were more tolerant of radical ideas “down there”. He was an expatriate Brit for whom the sun never set on the Empire. But Professor Crayton was not alone in his sentiments.

 

Getting tenure in Toronto was made into a nightmare for me even though I had actually published more than all the members of the faculty review committee combined. They believed that they were the guardians of civilization and that I was a barbarian at the gate. One of them told me that what I was doing was not worthy of academic merit.   If they let down their defences and tolerated me, well, another one told me, that that was the beginning of the end for English literature. He didn’t know how right he was ! At the end of the day, I only received tenure because the Grievance Office of the Faculty Association took up my case in relation to their denial of my academic freedom.”

 

“I remember that time very well. There was an international campaign mounted in your defence, wasn’t there ?”

 

“That’s right, Neddy. I was supported by all the big-wigs in Oxfordian Studies – Professor Sir Peter, Sefton Lewis, and The Timmer were especially active in my defence. I think that they saw my situation as a test-case for legitimating the field of studies. And, though my concerns were rather more personal than that, I think that they were right in that assessment. Since the early 1990s, Oxfordian Studies have blossomed in the universities and provided a small counter-weight to the neo-soviet domination exercised by the Orthodox Stratfordians. It’s a cold war that’s by no means over but at least there’s a recognition on their part that Oxfordian arguments cannot simply be dismissed out of hand.”

 

“Well, that’s only partly true and very optimistic. Very few universities have Chairs of Oxfordian Studies and most graduate students are counselled away from the field. University presses still refuse to publish any work by a recognized Oxfordian. They regularly send Oxfordians manuscripts to Orthodox Stratfordians who always play the same tune in their letters of rejection. I think that HarryT’s metaphor – “neo-soviet domination” – is very apposite. If you look at the major publications they are still largely the work of amateurs from outside the academy, people like Paul Streitz, Joseph Sobran, Mark Anderson, Charles Beauclerk, Hank Whittemore, Richard Whalen, William Farina, Diane Price, and, before them, the earlier generation of Oxfordians who were non-academics like Charlton Ogburn and J. Thomas Looney. In fact, just look at our seminar’s participants, how many of us have had to fight uphill battles to get our work recognized ? It’s better now but there’s still a very distinct chill on the field.”

 

“I agree with Neddy; I’ve had a terribly difficult time with some of my colleagues, too. Now, however, they’re no longer openly abusive but rather I sense a kind of genteel distaste, rather like the anti-Semitism of the T.S. Eliots of the world.”

 

“That’s a very apposite comparison, Jo. They’re feeling embattled and the thought of diversity threatens them. And because they still occupy positions of power and influence, they can still block those threats.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“So, the question of William Cecil is still a matter of political discord, perhaps as much as the identity of William Shake-speare.”

 

“Actually, HarryT, I think that William Cecil’s defenders are even more entrenched than those who still defend Will Shaksper of Stratford. The Orthodox Stratfordians could – if they had to, if push-came-to-shove – support a new consensus in which Edward de Vere received his due recognition because, for most people who teach literature, the historical Shakespeare is much less important than their imagined contemporary.   How often do they say to you, “Who cares who wrote the plays ? Let’s just celebrate them.” For most of them, above all, the play’s the thing with which to catch their kingly consciences.”

 

This last statement by Cyril Hubert creates a chuckle around the table; it is very much the point of the Oxfordians’ play within the play.
Willy’s AfterLife

 

 

“Mummy ?”

 

“Boys, give it a break. These seminar-people have very vivid imaginations. But much of what they are claiming is conjectural non-sense.”

 

“Bess, are you claiming that you were remained a virgin until the day of your death ? I know for a fact that that’s not true.”

 

“OK, Willy, both you and I very knew that that business about “The Virgin Queen” was part of an elaborate parody which was devised to connect worship of the incumbent monarch with the people’s deeply-held beliefs in the powers of the Virgin Mary. The people, you know, are governed by magic and mystery just as much as they are governed by authority. In fact, I think I would say that authority is likely to be a hollow reed unless it is buttressed by magic and mystery. It’s the symbolism of majesty that provides the legitimacy for the actions of powerful authorities.”

 

“Let’s keep our eye on the main question here. What about the suggestions – conjectures – we’ve just heard about your sexual behaviour ? Surely, the claims that are being voiced go beyond the simple question of “was she or wasn’t she ?” to much more significant issues relating to the way in which you and William Cecil consolidated power. And, if those issues are given primacy then the suggestions about your sexuality take on an interesting – but secondary – importance.”

 

“Why do you say that Henry ?”

 

“Because I think that your sexuality was subsidiary to the realpolitique of the time. These issues of sex and childbearing would, of course, be insistently and urgently important to me and to Willy but they are merely a sideshow which could distract our attention from the way in which power was exercised in our LifeOnEarth. And, if that’s true, then the suggestion that the reverence accorded to the self-sacrificing loyalty of William Cecil becomes much more significant for us in comprehending what happened.

 

It seems to me that while we experienced our lives in what we might call real time, it was not really possible for us to fully comprehend what was happening. I mean, isn’t that one of the key arguments about historical understanding – that eye-witnesses are not capable of appreciating the multiple influences and variables at play in their own life-times ? Isn’t that why Willy’s Hamlet talks about “the abstract and brief chronicles of time”. That’s a phrase that bears real consideration because, to me, the key word is “abstract” which gives us pause to reflect on the incompleteness of our knowledge.”

 

“Henry has grasped the nettle about what Hamlet is saying. Too few people pay heed to the following line – “after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live” – and don’t catch that Hamlet is telling us that it is in the invention of reputation – “ill report” – that your epitaph will subsequently be created. I suppose that this is a somewhat roundabout way of saying that controlling the flow of information is perhaps even more important than the actual truth of the matter because the actual truth of the matter can only be determined by conjectural thinking which refuses to be gulled by those “abtract and brief chronicles”. The point being, that insofar as William Cecil has been the architect of those chronicles, only those who would read them against the grain of accepted understanding can burrow into the actual truth of the matter.”

 

“Willy, what are you trying to say ? Are you telling us that William Cecil was so omniscient that he could predict how our LifeOnEarth would be understood by later generations ?”

 

“No, Bess, I’m not saying that. Well, I’m not exactly saying that. What I’m getting at is the way in which the manipulation of the archive – the documents describing our LifeOnEarth – are not an accurate reflection of the truth of the matter. Rather, they are the product of one man’s desire to construct his place in history. I think that William Cecil’s puritanical beliefs were crucial in this because he wanted to justify his actions before his God of History. He wanted to present his best-case scenario. He no doubt believed in what he had done and so he could therefore believe that his abstracted chronicles were accurate renditions of the times in which he lived. I don’t think he was being duplicitous – or, perhaps I might better say that he didn’t think of his actions in that way. Rather, he thought that his actions had to be justified.”

 

“Do you mean to say that he believed – I mean, imagined – that more than four hundred years later there would be meetings like the seminar we’re watching, in which serious people would think and worry and conjecture about our times, our LifeOnEarth ?”

 

“No, Will, I don’t think that that ever entered his mind. To understand his mind, his mental processes, you have to understand that he was a Calvinist whose foundational ideas were drawn from St Augustine, the fourth-century giant of Christendom. It was Augustine whose strain of piety was instrumental in crushing opposition to the early Church. He did so not only because he believed in hierarchy and order but also because he believed that his model of hierarchical order was ordained by God. And, God’s absolute knowledge of all LifeOnEarth meant that it was crucial for any man who considered himself to be a Christian to be able to square his actions with what he imagined to be God’s intentions. Augustine believed this and for over a thousand years this notion of predestination was at the heart of Christianity. John Calvin gave it renewed prominence during our LifeOnEarth. Puritans like William Cecil were all followers of John Calvin. So, if we locate William Cecil in his proper intellectual milieu then we can see that he did not believe he was doing wrong in his archival interventions. He believed that he was explaining how it was that his actions were in accordance with God’s plan.”

 

“That’s incredible. He really believed that ?”

 

“I think so. What do you remember about that, Bess ?”

 

“Absolutely. No question about it. William Cecil’s steely determination came from his religious certainty. He never questioned that what he was doing was right. It was useless to talk with him about such issues. He was not a particularly self-reflecting man. He knew what he believed and he loved what he knew. That simple faith gave him tremendous focus and served him very well. He didn’t question his own actions. Once he had decided on his path, he was uttterly convinced that it was the right one. I wouldn’t talk with him about these beliefs because I found out very early on that that would be like talking to a wall.”

 

“Bess is right.  That certainty was his great strength. In another man, we might have considered this certainty to be vanity but in William Cecil it was based on his faith in his predetermined mission. And that faith was unyielding and quite obdurate.”
Thursday evening,

Cambridge

 

Dinner is over, the bill is paid, and the gang-of-six are toddling back down Castle Hill. They divide into two groups – HarryT, Cyril, and Brianna lead the way; Neddy, Joy, and Juliette follow a short way behind.

 

“Juliette, what else you’re writing about ?”

 

“Well, Neddy, I’ve been fascinated by the connections that The Timmer was discussing in relation to Fisher’s Folly.”

 

“Which ones ?”

 

“My interest concerns a somewhat different chronology to his. The Timmer mostly looks at the period when Edward de Vere owned the house. I am immersed in studying records about the post-Oxford ownership of that property.”

 

“Juliette, I never knew that. Why is that of interest to you ?”

 

“I think you know that Oxford sold the property – or, rather, the lease of the property – to a family called Cornwallis. And we all know that the daughter of that family, Anne Cornwallis, kept a commonplace book in which she copied contemporary poetry, including verses by Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Edward Dyer, as well as four poems written by Edward de Vere. Intriguingly, there are also anonymous poems in her commonplace book which later appeared in the 1599 anthology known as The Passionate Pilgrime by W. Shakespeare. It’s famous because Anne Cornwallis’ transcription is the only extant sixteenth-century work by Shakespeare but its true importance has been overlooked.”

 

“What can you mean by that ? Every graduate student knows about it.”

 

“That’s quite true but not every graduate student knows that the manuscript of Anne Cornwallis’ commonplace book in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington has gold lettering on its spine – “MSS. POEMS BY VERE EARL OF OXFORD, &C.”.”

 

“Dammit, she’s right, I never considered that even though I’ve been to the Folger Library on more than a few occasions.”

 

“Me, neither.”

 

“Well, the Orthodox Stratfordians certainly aren’t going to publicize that are they ? But that was just the tip of the ice-berg, as it were.

 

What really interested me is the familial connection between Anne Cornwallis and the essayist William Cornwallis who has been sometimes called “The English Montaigne” on account of his highly personal essays which he published a few years after he had gone with the Earl of Essex to fight in Ireland before his twenty-first birthday. William, who is forgotten today – there’s just a three line mention of him in Wikipedia ! – was Anne’s brother. Thomas Watson, de Vere’s pal, was Anne’s tutor and, one supposes, also William’s.

 

This dense undergrowth of inter-connections was intriguing but nothing was more exciting to me than William Cornwallis’ knowledge – and imitation – of Montaigne, whose 1580 Essais only became available in English in 1603. What really set my mind to lateral wanderings, so to speak, was a throwaway line in Colin McGinn’s Shakespeare’s Philosophy. McGinn suggests that Hamlet, the Wittenberg student of philosophy, is likely to have been reading Montaigne’s Essays when Polonius confronts him.

McGinn’s book is, at least in part, an extended commentary on the influence of Montaigne on Shakespeare. And, of course, we have no knowledge that Will Shaksper of Stratford-Upon-Avon knew any French, let alone that he was fluent enough to read a writer as cryptic as Michel de Montaigne. But Edward de Vere was – as we know, when he was just thirteen de Vere was able to write a letter to William Cecil in fluent French.

 

So, it seems to me that from an Oxfordian postion one is able to square the circle since the various pieces of this little puzzle do interlock.”

 

Neddy is now beside himself. “Dammit, that’s just incredible. When are you going to let the wider world in on this ?”

 

“Soon. I still need to tie some of the genealogical loose ends together.”

 

“Which ones ?”

 

“My connection between Anne and William Cornwallis is still purely suppositious. I’ve not been able to discover documents which definitely tie them together. But it’s a back-burner topic for me. I still have to get my doctoral research published in a book. That’s my main priority. I’m still in jeopardy of perishing if I don’t publish a book.”

 

Willy’s AfterLife

 

“I don’t quite understand how we got away from the subject of my parentage – and Willy’s, too ! – but I’m not satisfied with Bess’ answer.”

 

“Henry, that’s because you’re too focussed on the personal and not paying enough heed to the political dimensions of LifeOnEarth. If you read between the lines of these conversations, I think that Bess is telling us that she was no virgin but that such personal matters were subordinated to the primacy of political considerations. So, if she was my mother – or my lover and your mother – was not as important for her as it is for you. Just like the political theorists argued, Bess – the queen – had two bodies: her personal body was kept in subjection to her public one. In other words, her sexuality was subordinated to her political position.”

 

“Willy, you’ve got it. It was a lonely life at the top. I could not be myself. In fact, I didn’t have a “self” in the same way that any of you did. It was a luxury that wasn’t afforded to me. My LifeOnEarth was not my own – I couldn’t do what I wanted, I had to do what I had to do because of my position. And, in my case, there was no room for compromise because I was a woman in a man’s world, an English woman in a fraught situation, and a non-Catholic in a time of frenzy. Indulging in my own passions was not feasible – or, rather, I could indulge my passions without acknowledging their consequences.”

 

“So, that’s what we were to you – mere “consequences” ?”

 

“That’s right, Henry. As I just tried to explain to you, the constraints on my actions were severe. But my acceptance of those constraints was imperative. That meant that my whole LifeOnEarth was one of frustrated emotional development. I could never be anything other than what my job-description demanded. And since I had to be everybody’s “Virgin Queen”, I could hardly be your particular mother.”

 

“But you were sexually active and, I suppose, that you did become pregnant and bear children, why didn’t you try to create another invented mythology to explain yourself ?”

 

“Don’t be foolish, Henry. I could hardly be everybody’s Virgin Queen – and your mother or Willy’s mother, let alone Willy’s lover ! There were, after all, rules of decorum and Biblical injunctions that even I had to be seen to be obeying – even if I wasn’t. You might say that that was the price I had to pay. I was emotionally stunted by this game.”

 

“Didn’t you resent it ?”

 

“Of course I resented being different from other people but the fact was that I really was different from other people. My LifeOnEarth was freighted with burdens that other people could not have imagined. Of course, I was rich and famous but I had no time to be myself; or, to be more accurate about this, I could not fully enjoy myself or express myself in my own life. I was a hostage to my own destiny. And that was the sum of it.”

 

“OK, I’m still having a hard time with this but, as you said, my difficulty comes from not being able to put myself in your shoes. I can’t separate myself from the conditions of my LifeOnEarth. My emotions get in the way of thinking about it.”

 

“Really, Henry, that shouldn’t be so hard for you because you were always an aristocrat. You always had a position of privilege but for plebs like me, those luxuries were unimaginable. However, if someone like me was given the chance to live a life like the one Bess has described, we would be dumbfounded. We never had the same constraints on our actions and our roles – at home, in the family, at work, among friends – was never problematic. We could do what we wanted. And, by God, I did just that !”

 

“Yeah, Henry, look at Bess’ predicament – if you can call it that – from Will’s perspective then I think you will get a much clearer understanding of the extraordinary peculiarity of her situation.”

 

“I’ve tried to do that but I am having difficulty with the dis-engagement between her sexual actions and her lack of maternal feelings. I know that this shouldn’t be so difficult for me to understand but it is.”

 

“That’s because you’re over-invested in your emotions. I can understand that very well. I had to learn to separate myself from my emotions when I was sexually involved with – and then rejected by – Bess. But I learned to accommodate myself to what was a situation that was beyond my control – and beyond hers, too. I suppose that that’s why the seminar-people’s suggestion that I was her son as well as her lover is less shocking to me now, learning about that for the first time in AfterLife.

 

For me, it’s not matter-of-fact but it’s not emotionally destabilizing because I was hardened by the enforced rejection of your paternity that she commanded. To learn that I might have been my own mother’s lover smacks of Oedipal realities but not ones that I sought out. It was never on account of our prior relation that she caught me in her web. It was otherwise – she was charismatic and she was The Queen and The Virgin Queen, at that. Like those seminar-people said about Marlowe, the relationship was exciting because it was transgressive and it was transgressive because it was exciting. But, it had limits and I only learned about those limits after the fact.”