God's Spies - Spenser and Marlowe

Act 4 - Achilles and Essex

God’s Spies – Spenser and Marlowe

“Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies …” [from King Lear, Act V, scene iii]

This is a story about ‘William Shakespeare’. While some scholars assert that a different writer was the actual author of Shakespeare’s plays, like Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford, there’s not much evidence for these two. However, one other theory that gathers much evidence is that Christopher Marlowe was the actual playwright. Much has been written about Marlowe and much has been written about Shakespeare, and while some of it is very interesting, some of it is merely hearsay or gossip or imagined. Trying to unravel what is myth and what is possible, and what we should believe about their lives, is often a painstaking and thought-provoking exercise, but one that however might bring us a little closer to seeing the real ‘William Shakespeare’ and the real Christopher Marlowe, and to glimpse a story of what might have been.

Act 4 – Achilles and Essex

Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex

In April of 1598, George Chapman would register and publish the first installment of his translations of Homer – books 1,2 and 7-11 of the ‘Iliad’ – the tales about Achilles, and he would dedicate them: “to the most honored now living instance of the Achilleian vertues eternized by divine Homere, the Earle of Essexe, Earl Marshall etc”.

In the dedication, like in Marlowe’s sonnets, Chapman talks of immortality – the eternity on earth for the soul.

“… So is poore Learning the inseparable Genius of the Homericall writing I intend; wherein notwithstanding the soules of al the recorded worthies that ever lived become eternally embodied even upon earth and, our understanding parts making transition in that we understand, the lyves of worthilie-termed Poets are their earthlie Elisummes; wherein we walke with survival of all the deceased worthies we reade of, everie conceipt, sentence, figure and word being a most bewtiful lineament of their soules’ infinite bodies, and, could a beautie be objected to sence, composed of as many divine member, and that we had sences responsible for their full apprehension, they should impress no more pleasure to such a bodie than is sweetly enjoyed in this true manner of communication and combination of soules …”

Perhaps, with the lessons of the Trojan war, he was trying to influence Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, and the step-son of Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. I suspect that there must have been a reason why Chapman would want to publish a book of these few chapters, instead of waiting until he had finished his translations and could publish a complete version of Homer’s Iliad. There must have been an urgency for this first installment.

Marlowe also seems to have been a part of this study of Achilles, and perhaps, to try to influence the Earl of Essex in the question of leadership.

[This also hints that at this time, in 1598, Marlowe had somehow returned to London.]

Marlowe’s play, ‘Troilus and Cressida’, is set in Troy, near the end of the Trojan war, and shows us the tragedy of Helen and Paris, of Troilus and Cressida, and of Achilles and Ajax and Hector – was this war worth all the fighting and hazards and losses? Marlowe starts the play with a ‘Prologue’, dressed in armor:

‘… To tell you, fair beholders, that our play

Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,

Beginning in the middle, starting thence away

To what may be digested in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are.

Now, good or bad, ‘tis but the chance of war.’

and he tells us, the audience, that we must decide the merits or faults of the flaws of both Troilus and of Achilles.

In March 1599, Essex would be made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by Queen Elizabeth. Since the time when Henry VIII had become the King of Ireland in 1542, the English policy toward Ireland had been what was called ‘surrender and regrant’ – the chiefs of the Gaelic clans would surrender their lands to the king, and after swearing loyalty, those lands would be returned to them but with a rent-charge, and with the English appointment of ‘Earl’.

This would place Ireland under the English feudal legal system, that often clashed with the former Gaelic system, and this conflict resulted in both clashes against the English, but also clashes between the Gaelic clans, that was often exploited by the English officials.

Essex arrived in Dublin in April, to put down the rebellion in Ulster, in northern Ireland, led by Hugh O’Neill, who was being aided by Spain and Scotland (and encouraged by the Pope). But with rumors of a Spanish armada being sent to attack England, the necessary supplies and ships, that were needed by Essex to launch his attack, were not sent, and with the added loss of many men due to disease, Essex instead negotiated a cease-fire with O’Neill, and O’Neill would send a document to Elizabeth, accepting English rule but also with his terms for peace.

But the actions of Essex in Ireland did not find support in the Privy Council, and on his return he was placed in solitary confinement while plots were designed to end his power at Elizabeth’s court. During this confinement, his household was dispersed, and Essex grew sick and depressed, and wished to be left to live a quiet country life. After 8 months of confinement, Essex was brought before an 18-member special commission to hear the charges that were presented by four lawyers – one of whom was a vindictive Francis Bacon!!!

[Note: The political slime-mold Francis Bacon had become an advisor to the Earl of Essex in 1591, but on Essex’s return from Ireland, and seeing the way the wind was blowing against him, Bacon abandoned Essex and joined Sir Robert Cecil and those plotting against Essex.]

Although Essex would finally be released from custody, he was banned from Court but was now bankrupt. Rumors were sent to Essex that Robert Cecil was secretly negotiating to have the Infanta of Spain succeed to the throne of England, and that the surest way to stop all this was for Essex to ally with King James of Scotland. Meanwhile, Cecil was himself secretly corresponding with James to assure him of his support in the succession! And so, Essex and supporters were drawn into a rebellion – to seize the Court, to topple Cecil and restore Essex to favour. The hastily ill-organized rebellion failed, and Essex and his supporters were arrested and charged with treason. Bacon was tasked with gathering evidence, from confessions of the prisoners, to use in the prosecution to prove the guilt of Essex, who was executed in February 1601.

Late in 1598, during that Irish rebellion, Edmund Spenser was forced to flee from his home in Kilcolman. Spenser had just finished writing ‘A View of the present State of Ireland’ in the form of a dialogue between Eudoxus and Irenius. Within three weeks of arriving back in London, Spenser would pass away in January 1599!!!

It was ‘claimed’ that Spenser died of poverty or ‘died for lack of bread’, but this does not seem very likely since he was receiving a yearly pension from the Queen. Perhaps his death is more mysterious than we are led to believe. Perhaps.

He was buried, at what came to be called ‘Poet’s Corner’, in Westminster Abbey – where he would always be remembered as one of the great English poets -

“… near to Chaucer, at the charge of the Earl of Essex; his hearse being attended by poets, and mournful elegies and poems with the pens that wrote them thrown into his tomb”

By ‘at the charge of Essex’ seems to imply that Essex arranged and paid for the funeral of Spenser. Was Spenser also a part of the ‘Achilles’ project and Essex?

Perhaps, Marlowe was thinking of Spenser when he wrote :

“Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ?...” (sonnet 86)

And perhaps, remembering his friend Spenser and his ‘Faerie Queen’ about the hero Prince Arthur, and also with Essex in mind, Marlowe wrote his greatest history play, ‘Henry V’, where he introduces the Chorus as a prologue to start the play:

“… For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,

Turning th’ accomplishment of many years

Into an hourglass; for the which supply,

Admit me chorus to this history,

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray

Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play.”

We, the audience, must now ‘judge’ the events of this play, where we discover Marlowe’s idea of a ‘hero’ – Harry the King, with all his warts and scars, who wasn’t a typical genius or great warrior, but was an individual who nonetheless realized that, for whatever reason, by whatever accident, it had become his responsibility to lead!

Marlowe hints at this idea of immortality in Henry’s speech before the battle of Agincourt :

“… By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive …

This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered –
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers …”

[Although in this play we hear of the death of Falstaff, earlier in ‘Henry IV’ we saw Prince Hal’s rejection of Falstaff, and in the epilogue we’re promised that ‘… our humble author will continue the story with Sir John in it’. So perhaps, because of this promise and because of the popularity of Falstaff, Marlowe may have quickly written ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ to bring back Falstaff one last time for his English audience.]

With the execution of Essex, and with Cecil’s secret plans for James of Scotland to become king, what would the future of England be? To answer that question, Marlowe looks to the past.

Marlowe’s play, ‘King Lear’, recalls a story that is found in Edmund Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’ in book 2, and that is also is found in the ‘History of the Kings of Briton’ by Geoffrey of Monmouth - about Leir, the last of the legendary Celtic kings of Briton before the great ‘Civil War of the Five Kings’.

Perhaps we can imagine England, as like Lear, who listens to flattery instead of the truth, and becomes mad in the uncertainty of the succession. And perhaps we can imagine what would happen if we were like Cordelia, who, though in the right, fails to act to change Lear – ‘love and be silent’.

Although Cordelia marries the King of France, when England descends into civil war, she returns to her father to try to restore peace. When they both end up prisoners and are reunited, Lear, seeing his foolishness and seeking his daughter’s forgiveness, does not want to see his other two daughters, but says:

“Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies …”

[To be ‘God’s spy’, would be becoming someone that seeks out, among the mysteries of life, and finds the good in people, in order to report this back to God.]

Should Elizabeth die, the crown would be passed to James of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Perhaps, Marlowe had James in mind when he wrote the play ‘Hamlet’.

James’s father was Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley), and like Hamlet, his father was murdered, and a short 6 months later, his mother then married James Hepburn (Earl of Bothwell) - who was rumored to have murdered Darnley. And James was married to Anne of Denmark! If James became king of England, would the ‘rotten’ intrigues surrounding Mary be brought back into England?

Perhaps, we’re also reminded of Essex and his indecisiveness, to be able to rise above the intrigues, as the question is asked, “To be, or not to be, that is the question …”

And when further on, Marlowe again hints again at this idea of immortality :

“But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.”

“Hamlet, the killer swordsman, is not frightened by dying, but by what might come after his death. So, he dies as a pathetic fool, taking his kingdom to disaster with him, not for fear of death, but fear of immortality.” [taken from ‘On the Subject of Tariffs and Trade’, by Lyndon LaRouche]

Marlowe’s play ‘Macbeth’ may also refer to James Stuart, king of Scotland and heir to the English throne, and of the fight that had occurred over the Scottish succession – with Henry Stuart, Mary Stuart and the Earl of Bothwell.

The story is taken from ‘Holinshed’s Chronicles’ about Duncan, the King of Scotland, who was killed in battle by Macbeth, who then became king, but would later be killed in battle by Duncan’s son, Malcolm.

However, in the play, the witches prophecy that Banquo’s descendants will become kings – at the time it was thought that James was a descendent of Banquo! And James is directly connected to the three witches in the play, in a certain ‘unusual’ way.

When James’s wife-to-be, Anne, was unable to sail from her home in Denmark to join him in Scotland because of constant bad weather, the Danes decided that it was the fault of witches !!! And so women, accused of being witches, were burnt at the stake for being behind the ‘unusual’ winds.

When in his play ‘Hamlet’, Marlowe had Marcellus say ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’, perhaps he was talking of that horror show of the Danish witch hunt!

James thought that this must be happening in Scotland too, and the ‘witch trials’ were held in Scotland, where women were accused of conjuring the terrible storms, were tortured for confessions, and some were put to death by being burnt at the stake.

This was the same fate that Marlowe once faced, when he was accused of being an atheist! Was Marlowe also warning people about James and his belief in witchcraft?

Perhaps, Marlowe also had in mind Macbeth’s problem, his denial of immortality :

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

In ‘King Lear’, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Macbeth’, Marlowe is trying to show, that in thinking about the future of our lives, we should look at what we leave behind.

[ next week - Act 5 - Republic or Empire ]