False Trials in Shakespeare, Massinger, and Ford

Scenes of trial abound in Renaissance drama, and they have almost received the critical attention they deserve. Not so the curious phenomenon of the 'false trial'. Dramatic plots presented as trials often call into question the ostensible certainty of the knowledge arrived at through legal means. In Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, Helena uses producible tokens such as rings to prove that her marriage to Bertram has been made indissoluble by the fact that although he thought he was sleeping with Diana he was in fact tricked into bed with her. The play shares with many others an insight into the fragile relation between truths of intention and demonstrable proofs which in legal contexts often take the form of Aristotle's inartificial signs rather than the artificial or inherently probable proofs that he thought were superior.¹ But this perspective coexists with an understanding of probability not as a failure of certainty but as a pragmatic, contingent alternative; a necessarily provisional but hopeful step towards knowledge, and a ground for trust. Amidst the precarious provisionalities that haunt the end of All's Well, we are reminded of the king's tentative acceptance of Helena's improbable promise of medical cure:

More could I question thee, and more I must, Though more to know could not be more to trust: From whence thou cam'st, how tended on – but rest Unquestioned welcome, and undoubted blessed.

(II. i. 205-9)²

Like a promise, marriage, happy endings, and happiness itself are all absolute and ignorant, a leap of faith. In this period, although civil law and legal philosophy were still invested in the idea of demonstrable certainty, the common law of England was moving towards a precedent-based procedure based on probable application of case law. Such plays as All's Well suggest that questioning itself, though laudable and rational, has its limits. Indeed, the epistemological uncertainty at the end of the legal plots in drama can even provide, at times, a human refuge from the knowledge that characters resist, and struggle to bury or undo. Shakespeare's Helena or Portia, or indeed Duke Vincentio, are desperately in need of uncertainty, and their plays need it, too, to stay precariously, poignantly, poised on the brink between comic resolution and the abyss of terrible cognitions.³ Isabella in Measure for Measure hovers between genuine ignorance and blasting knowledge as she acts as the Duke's agent, occupying the elusive space of confusion, which is distinct from the knowing resistance of truths, and allows for comedic indeterminacy. Emilia in Othello also tries to fend off the cost of knowledge, but fails into tragedy. The handkerchief, that petty, 'inartificial', low-level proof, comes back to haunt her intuitive knowledge and establish the case. But what she knew, before she spoke, is the zone of mystery – a zone where knowledge is available, but declined – 'I thought so then' (V. ii. 191). What Gertrude knew, in Hamlet, may just be such another zone. Such avoidance allows what A. D. Nuttall calls 'a willingness to enter the proffered dream'.⁴

However, if trial scenes in Shakespeare and his successors are primarily interested in the nature of the knowledge gained, it is the role of the false trial to examine what has led to it. A false trial is a test that one person puts another through beyond necessity or the facts of the case, sometimes even as a pretence. A peculiar pain often attends it. A familiar example is the scene in Macbeth (IV. iii) where Malcolm slanders himself to test Macduff's integrity. When Macduff is finally reduced to despair, Malcolm reveals that he was only trying him, and that Macduff's response has wiped all 'black scruples' (l. 116) from his mind. As far as we know, however, Malcolm has had no reason to doubt Macduff's integrity in the first place. The justification of the genuine anguish that the patriotic Macduff is dragged through is questionable. As Malcolm explains his 'false speaking', he registers Macduff's stunned silence: 'Why are you silent?' Macduff answers soberly that 'Such...