Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (review)

The earl of Oxford's biography warrants a review in Shakespeare Quarterly only in part because the authorship controversy so ardently pursued by "Oxfordians" poses a challenge to Shakespeare studies equivalent to that leveled at the biological sciences by creationism. That debate aside, Edward de Vere's life was so dramatic, so atypical of Elizabethan aristocratic careers, as to make this book welcome to the merely curious as well as to serious students of English Renaissance culture. Nelson's narrative is filled with violence, foreign adventure, piracy, sexual intrigue (homo and hetero), deceit, betrayal, and panoramic views of the personal lives of dozens of Elizabethans from all walks of life. The author readily acknowledges that B. M. Ward's 1928 biography, The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550–1604, From Contemporary Documents, adequately covers the earl's life. But where Ward studies de Vere through a magnifying glass, Nelson puts him under a microscope, adding details, new dimensions, and whole new episodes to Oxford's life story.

Monstrous Adversary begins, for example, with background information about the earldom not found in Ward's account. We learn that the office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England, described as hereditary by the seventeenth earl and most of his biographers, was not even claimed by Edward's father at the coronation of Edward VI. The Court of Claims usually granted the chamberlainship to the earls of Oxford, but not always and not as a hereditary right. We learn further that the sixteenth earl engaged thugs to break into the house of his estranged second wife and disfigure her face. While Ward overlooked or declined to deal with Oxford's adulterous affair with Anne Vavasor, Nelson covers the scandal fully, including its bloody aftermath as Anne's kinsmen sought revenge for Oxford's desertion of her and their illegitimate son. Oxford's final disgrace has likewise gone entirely unnoticed by any of his previous biographers. As Elizabeth lay dying in March of 1603, Oxford tried unsuccessfully to involve the earl of Lincoln in a plot to put Lincoln's nephew, Lord Hastings, on the throne.

Monstrous Adversary is to some degree a "do-it-yourself" biography. Nelson concentrates on supplying readers with all the evidence. The norm here is to present whole documents, not just excerpts embedded in the narrative. The book assumes that its readers are familiar with the general contours of late-Tudor national and international affairs, very few of which are provided as background to Oxford's career. Life records are set forth in old spelling and with a minimum of editorial apparatus. The organization is chronological for the most part, often with little or no transition between topics and documents, and with minimal analysis of their content. We survey the entirety of the earl's correspondence, most of it verbatim, along with references to him in the correspondence of others, court depositions, state papers, wills, and Lord Burghley's notes on his son-in-law's behavior. Nelson has even traced the testimony before the Inquisition in Venice of Orazio Coquo, the choirboy whom Oxford invited into his service and brought back to England with him at the end of his Continental travels in 1576. Nelson clarifies and deWnes, yet most of his conclusions about all this evidence are succinct; evaluation of Oxford's life is left up to the reader.

One broad pattern in this narrative stands out. Oxford's career unfolds as the story of a teflon earl, a supreme egotist whose self-indulgence caused misery and even death to those who got in his way. It is a fascinating account, yet de Vere suffered no serious consequences for a lifetime of irresponsible and illegal behavior. His biography stands as a striking example of Elizabethan deference to noble birth without regard for the ignoble life that followed. Ward covers most of these unbecoming episodes—for example, Oxford...