The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0213 Thursday, 10 April 2008
From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
Subject: Study Day in Stratford
Last week, Dr. Robert Bearman, recently retired as Senior Archivist at
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-on-Avon, announced a study day
that would be held at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon on
26 June 2008. The subject of this study day will be to examine the
historical evidence on which the claims that young William Shakespeare
was reared in a staunchly Catholic environment are based.
Interestingly, Dr. Bearman just published a short piece in _Shakespeare
at the centre_ (VOL 7 ISSUE 02 / 2007) on the subject.
"Shakespeare and Catholicism"
There is a long tradition that, despite the upheavals of the
Reformation, Shakespeare and his family remained loyal to the Catholic
faith. But for Shakespeare himself this was still a difficult case to
make: in default of historical evidence, resort was made to possible
Catholic inferences in his plays, such as the ghost in Hamlet. And so
for many years - whilst historians generally continued to regard the
Reformation as a 'good thing' - the 'Catholic connection' remained a
decidedly minority interest and made little impact on Shakespearian
biography. However, historians no longer see the establishment of
Protestantism as part of an inevitable process or one that commanded
enthusiastic popular support. Eamon Duffy, Christopher Haigh and others
have done enough to convince most of us that the Reformation was really
a 'top-down' process, the effects of which remained alien to large
sections of the population well into Elizabeth's reign.
In the wake of this new interpretation, the likelihood that the
Shakespeares were reluctant converts to, if not determined opponents of,
the new regime could now be promoted as more likely. More than that, in
fact, for in the space of ten years, we have been told that
Shakespeare's father, John, was kept firm in the old faith through a
meeting with the Jesuit, Edmund Campion, that he was certainly the
possessor of a copy of a Catholic 'spiritual testament' which he hid in
the roof of his house, that he sent his son William to spend some time
in the household of a noted Lancashire Catholic, and that his financial
difficulties were the result of his adherence to Catholicism. Not every
recent Shakespearian biographer has championed all these theories
simultaneously but, to a greater or lesser degree, they have found their
way into the writings of Richard Wilson, Anthony Holden, Park Honan,
Peter Ackroyd, Stephen Greenblatt, Michael Wood and, most recently, Rene
Weis.
However, not only does this edifice rest on evidence which does not bear
scrutiny, it is also bolstered up by statements which are at best
misleading or at worst fabrication. A group of historians is therefore
now working to clear the ground so that issues of Shakespearian
biography can be re-assessed, this time more soberly. I tried to set
the ball rolling in articles which questioned the Lancashire connection,
the genuineness of the 'Spiritual Testament', and the theory that John
Shakespeare's difficulties stemmed from his religious beliefs. In a
major contribution to the new edition of The Reckoned Expense, Peter
Davidson and Thomas McCoog have established that the argument in favour
of alleged links between John Shakespeare and Edmund Campion is
completely without foundation and has cast a formidable blanket of doubt
over the idea that Campion was in any case pedalling copies of the
'Spiritual Testament'. Glyn Parry, in the latest issue of the
Shakespeare Yearbook, has convincingly questioned the evidence for John
Shakespeare's recusancy and has uncovered further material, to be
published shortly, which deals a further blow to the Lancashire
connection. Finally, Michael Winstanley, who has undertaken detailed
research into the Stratford schoolmaster and Lancashire man, John
Cottam, challenges the view that he was a closet Catholic and that he
arranged for Shakespeare's transfer to a sympathetic Lancashire
household. This too is shortly to be published.
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook,
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