Shakespeare and the Nobility: The Negotiation of Lineage (review)

This is a rather frustrating book. The author begins, quite rightly, by noting that many of the aristocratic characters portrayed in Shakespeare’s history plays had descendants who were socially and politically important in Elizabethan England and that the immense cultural premium placed upon ancient lineage meant that these powerful descendants were likely to be sensitive about the dramatic representation of their illustrious ancestors. Famously, the anger of Lord Cobham is supposed to have forced Shakespeare to change the name of the character in his Henry IV plays from Oldcastle (an ancestor of Cobham) to the less politically loaded name of Falstaff. Although this notorious intervention in Shakespeare’s dramatis personae seems unique, there is plenty of evidence that Elizabethan aristocrats were intensely interested in public portrayals of their forebears, albeit usually in print. Taking this as her point of departure, Canino seeks to examine how Shakespeare shaped the characterization of key aristocrats in his early history plays who had descendants living in the playwright’s own time. This is an interesting and potentially important subject.

Canino’s methodology is straightforward. In essence, she compares the portrayal of various aristocrats in Shakespeare’s Henry VI and Richard III plays (together with the related quarto versions of 2 and 3 Henry VI, The Contention between the Two Famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke) with earlier depictions of these same aristocrats in printed histories (such as Hall and Holinshed). Canino’s sample group—each of which receives a separate chapter—consists of the Stafford dukes of Buckingham, the de la Pole dukes of Suffolk, the Neville earls of Warwick, the Talbots, the Cliffords, and the Stanleys. The final substantive chapter turns to Lord Saye and Sele, whose Elizabethan descendant was merely an aspirant to the peerage, and (more awkwardly) Sir William Lucy, who was not a peer and whose Elizabethan descendant was also a mere gentleman.

The basic question which Canino seeks to pursue across these chapters is whether Shakespeare consciously shaped his dramatic portrayals of these fifteenth-century noblemen with an eye to their contemporary descendants. Unfortunately, this is a question which the book cannot really answer. Canino certainly identifies a number of intriguing differences between Shakespeare’s dramatic portrayals and characterizations in earlier printed histories, but it is impossible (as she herself recognizes) to prove that these changes reflect political or social calculations by Shakespeare about their descendants rather than decisions simply based upon artistic motives. Some of the chapters (such as chapter 4 on the Talbots) are ultimately very speculative. Even in the discussion of the dukes of Suffolk, which is one of the better chapters, some important connections seem to be missed. The explanation of the arrest of the earl of Hertford and his sons in late 1595, for example, misses the coincidence of the arrival at court of copies of A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland (misleadingly dated here to 1594) and the arrest of Sir Michael Blount for preparing to hold the Tower of London in the name of Hertford and his sons (mentioned later in another context but never connected to Hertford).

Sometimes, intriguing suggestions are insufficiently explored. If Canino argues that Shakespeare’s character of the Neville Earl of Warwick in 3 Henry VI should be seen in the context of the Elizabethan Catholic exile Charles Neville, Earl of Westmorland, what about the character of Montague, Warwick’s brother? Although Canino makes no mention of it and the virtually useless genealogical charts at the back of the book fail to show it, there was a very prominent Elizabethan holder of this title, Anthony Browne, who had been created Viscount Montague by Queen Mary in celebration of his descent from the same John Neville, Marquess of Montague, represented in 3 Henry VI. This descent made Viscount Montague a blood relative of Westmorland. Montague was also the most famous Catholic peer...