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Duke Orsino, Flavia Paretti, Lewes Lewkenor, Maall Fitton, shakespeare, Shakespeare authorship, Twelfth Night, Who wrote Shakespeare?, William Herbert, William Shakespeare
During the Christmas season of 1601/2 Lewes was assigned to accompany the gallant nephew of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Don Virginio Orsino, Duke of Brachiano, during his visit to the English court. The Orsini ranked among the great Roman families of Borgia and Colonna, with whom they had maintained a bitter feud over control of Rome. Virginio had been dispatched to seek military assistance from the Dukes of Florence and Mantua against Spain, a plot that he had hatched with Antonio Perez as far back as 1596. Orsino had also offered aid to the Earl of Essex and his visit may have been scheduled to coincide with the success of his rebellion, but events had overtaken him and Essex was awaiting execution in the Tower.
It was the real story of Don Virginio’s youth that had captivated all Europe. Virginio was the son of Paolo Giordano Orsino, Duke of Bracciano and Isabella de’ Medici, but his parents marriage was riven with jealousy and violence, for when he was just four years old his father, like Othello, strangled his mother in a fit of jealousy. Seven years later the Duke became infatuated with the beautiful Vittoria Accorambona, wife of Cardinal Montalto’s nephew, and this being no object to dissuade the Duke’s passion, he promptly had him murdered to clear the way for the marriage. Doubts about the marriage’s validity may have continued to hound him, as he appears to have married Vittoria three times. Cardinal Montalto was elected Pope Sixtus V, and Paolo and Vittoria fled to Venice to seek safety, but unfortunately Paolo died within weeks of his arrival in Venice and an Orsini cousin who claimed to be protecting the young Virginio’s inheritance soon murdered Vittoria. So at the tender age of thirteen Virginio was sent to Florence to live with his uncle, Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, where he was educated alongside the Duke’s niece, Maria de’ Medici and Virginio’s visit to England had followed on from her marriage to King Henry IV, which had taken place initially by proxy in Florence, with Virginio escorting Maria to meet the King for the first time at Lyon. Virginio demonstrated considerable courage when he vied with the Duke of Guise for the hand of Pope Sixtus great-niece, Flavia Peretti, and had come out the winner, but he had earned his reputation as a soldier in 1595 by fighting against the Turks. Lewkenor’s friend, Camillo del Monte, had served under Don Virginio’s father in Tuscany. Don Virginio’s visit caused a stir amongst the Spanish, as Giovanni Mocenigo, Venetian Ambassador in Rome, wrote to the Doge and Senate; ‘We are informed from a very sure quarter that all these recent tumults in England which have cost the Earl of Essex his head, are the result of Spanish intrigues. The Spanish are doing all they can to foment discords in that Kingdom, in order to assist the execution of some other schemes. I am also told that their object was by means of these discords to counteract the negotiations against them undertaken by Don Virginio Orsini on behalf of the Grand Duke; for that and not mere curiosity is supposed to have been the motive of Don Virginio’s visit. The queen is profoundly annoyed at these intrigues and all hope of peace is at an end.’
Duke Orsino was invited to the Twelfth Night celebrations at the palace of Whitehall, which fell on 6th January – coinciding with the Roman feast of Saturnalia – a day on which everything was turned on its head, master became servant and the husband swapped places with his wife. A Lord of Misrule was appointed to oversee the festivities, music and plays were commissioned, and the queen stipulated to her Lord Chamberlain ‘to Confer with my Lord Admiral and the Master of the Revels for taking order generally with the players to make choice of the play that shalbe best furnished with rich apparel, have great variety and change of music and dances, and of a subject that may be most pleasing to her Majesty.’[1]
The author had just twelve days in which to write a play to entertain the Duke. He had to choose from sources he knew well and start straight away – those twelve days would also include rehearsal time. The Lord Chamberlain instructed that ‘the Lord Darcy be warned to fetch the Duke of Brachiana, accompanied with Mr. Wm. Cecil, Mr. Lewkner, Mr. Edward Gorge, and Mr. Buc, to bring him to the court presently after 11 of the clock. That he be met at the gate by my Lord of Rutland and his two brothers my Lord Darcy Mr. Cotton and Mr. Savadge. And all these required to accompany him during his abode in the Court and those that brought him to carry him back that night appoint music severally for the queen, and some for the play in the Hall. And Hales to have one place expressly to show his own voice, send for the Musicians of the City to be ready to attend. The Children of the Chapel are to come before the queen at dinner with a Carol. (A handwritten note at the end of the manuscript states) In the Hall, which was richly hanged and Degrees placed round about it, was the play after supper.’[2] These orders for lavish costumes, music and the express request for Mr. Hales to have a place to sing explains the plays title Twelfth Night, Or what you will: the playwright was merely carrying out the queen’s wishes, and delivering the play she had willed.
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, cheque at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man’s art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit.
Twelfth Night: III, i
On the day of the performance Lewes accompanied Don Virginio to the palace of Whitehall where he was to be entertained in the great chamber by The Chamberlain’s Men, led by Burbage and Shakespeare, the play they were performing was the debut of Twelfth Night, Or what you will. The entertainment was not just layed on for Don Virginio, the Muscovite Ambassador was also present, but whether it was the fault of his interpreter or the biased subject matter, he decided to call it an early night and left. The play opens with the Duke Orsino and his famous speech:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Leslie Hotson examined the circumstances of this performance in his book The First Night of Twelfth Night, but further research by John H. Astington[3] has uncovered a drawing of the Great Chamber as it was laid out for the banquet and play on 6th January, 1601. The Great Chamber was a more intimate space than the main hall or the successive Banqueting Houses. ‘It stood on an upper storey, to the south and west of the Hall, and had a large bay window that looked out westwards into the Pebble Court, the Preaching Place, and across to the Banqueting House. It was frequently used for the presentation of plays: most recently before the date of the dinner on St Stephen’s Night (26th December 1600), when the Chamberlain’s men had acted there, and it was to be used again for plays at the following Shrovetide.’
The musicians, who provided continuous music, were seated in the bay window and a note in the instructions confirms the supposition that Twelfth Night was a musical play: ‘this window with music all the time’.
The League between the Muscovites and the English (by eating Bread and Salt with the Queen) was confirmed. At the Court at Whitehall 6th January 1601 being Twelfe-day it was ordained that the Ambassador for the merchants of Muscovia should in confirming the League dine or eat Bread and Salt with the Queens Majesty. It also then happened that the Duke of Braciano Virginio Orsino cousin germane to the Duke of Florence and the now Queen of France, arrived in England to see her Majesty and was appointed at that time to come to the Court. Sir Hierome Bowes knight and other gents with coaches were sent to conduct the Embassador, and at the Court the Earl of Bedford, Doctor Perkins and others received him, and brought him up to the Presence chamber, where the Councel sit usually. And for the Duke of Braciano Seignor Virginio Orsino, were sent the Earl of Rutland and his brethren the Lo: Darcy the Lord Sandes and others who met him at the Court gate; he being thether brought by Mr. William Cecil and others. The Queens Majesty came forth to the closet and after a while proceeded to the Chapel; and then the Duke was placed to see the Offering at the window in the Closet on the Queens side, and the Muskovite on the other side at the other window. And after the Creed song, her Majesty went to the Offering down to the Chapel and offered the Gold, Frankinsence and Myrrh and returned and so departed to her Chamber accompanied with the Duke by her, and the Muskovite went by Garter before the Sword. In the interim the great Chamber on the otherside towards the Terrace was prepared with an Estate and two cupbords of plate therein, where her Majesty dined.[4]
When Duke Orsino first sees the twins, Viola and Sebastian, at the end of Twelfth Night, he is overwhelmed, ‘One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, A natural perspective that is and is not!’ he exclaims. This is an allusion to anamorphic paintings like Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors, which depend on the position of the viewer to create two separate but coexisting realities, designed to startle and challenge the conventions of perceived reality, a full three hundred years before the surrealists. The idea of such paradoxically opposed, and unresolved, co-existence, seemed quite evil to some at the time. The ghost of Holbein’s Henry VIII portrait still flickered in the public’s imagination but the sense of unreality it engendered was certainly a thrill to others. This notion of duplicity is prevalent throughout the works of Shakespeare and Lewkenor.
Twelfth Night is by far the most musical of the plays containing seven songs which are used to break up the dramatic action, all sung by the fool, Feste, which we can now confidently ascribe to the queen’s favourite singer, Robert Hales. Hales was a servant of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, from 1576, receiving an annuity of £20 and from 1582 he worked as a composer and ‘Lutenist in the queens Musick’. At the Accession Day tilts in 1590 Hales sang His golden locks Time hath to silver turned as part of Henry Lea’s presentation to Elizabeth when he retired as Queen’s Champion (until 1603, when he moved into the service of the new Queen, Anne of Denmark). Unfortunately only one of Hales songs O Eyes, leave off your weeping has survived, appearing in 1610 in Robert Dowland’s A Musical Banquet, unless, of course, we ascribe the seven songs found in Twelfth Night to Robert Hales. Hales became a Groom of the Privy Chamber in 1615 and died the following year. The inclusion of the songs suggests that the Musicians of the City had a repertoire of popular seasonal ditties that were easy to insert into the play, including the song from which the title is taken (and one which has echoes of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, ‘Shall I bid him go’). The plot of the play takes its lead from similar tales by Cinthio and Belleforest, using as its starting point the story of Apollonius and Silla which had appeared in Barnabe Riche’s Farewell to Military Profession (1581).
We find the author returning to the old theme of twins whose mistaken identity is the cause for much of the comedy, as he had done in The Comedy of Errors, the story is again taken from Plautus Menaechmi and the Italian story Gl’Ingannati, but this time round the twins are of either sex, separated by a tempest, they arrive separately at the court of the Duke Orsino in Illyria. The author’s use of a familiar template for his story, peopled with his favourite characters reprised from his other comedies and padded out with songs performed (and quite probably written by) Robert Hales, seems to confirm that Twelfth Night had been hurriedly cobbled together to entertain Duke Orsino. This tongue-in-cheek self-parody of the playwright’s previous comedies takes his audience down a familiar path, only to subvert their expectations while delighting them at the same time. Familiar characters are rolled out; the actor who excelled as Falstaff no doubt represented Sir Toby Belch, (who, like Falstaff before him, exhibits a familiarity with Spanish insults when he declares ‘Castiliano Vulgo!’ or ‘Vulgar Castilian!’). Falstaff’s female foil Mistress Quickly was reprised as Maria, while Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a more rambunctious version of old Justice Shallow.
Certainly the playwright commissioned to write the entertainment had enough information to pen a play that combined Duke Orsino with English courtly puns aimed at Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby and the recently deceased Lord Burghley. Leslie Hotson saw a clear parody of Sir William Knollys in the puritan character of Malvolio.
SIR TOBY BELCH: Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.
MARIA: Marry, Sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.
The Puritan Knollys was Comptroller of the queen’s household who hailed from Banbury, famous for its ‘cakes and ale’ and in a dire attempt to woo one of the queen’s Maids of Honour he had made a botched attempt to dye his beard, earning him the nickname of ‘party beard’ which Hotson cites as the meaning of Maria’s reference in Act II, sc. ii, to ‘the colour of his beard’. Knollys had been the center of Court gossip for his ham-fisted attempt to woo Mary ‘Mall’ Fitton; in a story that would make the plot for a romantic farce, he was truly ‘gulled’ and ridiculed, and Sir Toby’s ‘are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture?’ in Act I, sc. iii, as a reference to this episode.[5]
Mall Fitton was at the centre of a lot of attention around this time; young William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, had also fallen for her dark charms, a relationship which is immortalized within the collection of Sonnets dedicated to ‘Mr. W.H. The only begetter of these ensuing sonnets’ and detailing the love triangle between ‘The Dark Lady’ whom both the writer and William Herbert were both in love with. William managed to get Mary pregnant and the couple were barred from court, while he was detained in the Fleet where he scribbled poetry in his dark cell, Mary disappeared from court for some time suffering from ‘the mother’ – an Elizabethan form of Hysteria. Unfortunately when Mall gave birth the child died immediately, resonating with the line in Sonnet 33;
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
Another puritan, Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby, a cousin to the Bacon brothers, may also have been part of the make-up of Malvolio, as he had recently been involved in a court case after his Yorkshire neighbours had turned up at his house uninvited and proceeded to get drunk, play cards and, when he protested, they threatened to rape his wife. We are given a few religious hints in the scene that would have caught the ear, rather than the eye, of the audience, when Sir Toby Belch calls out ‘Marian, I say! A stoop of wine!’ the connotation of a Marian or Catholic and the association of communion wine would have been obvious, and thence we have the scene of the puritan master entering his house to find his neighbours making merry;
MALVOLIO: My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have ye
no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like
tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an
alehouse of my lady’s house, that ye squeak out your
coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse
of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor
time in you?
SIR TOBY BELCH: We did keep time, Sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
MALVOLIO: Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me
tell you, that, though she harbours you as her
kinsman, she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If
you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you
are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please
you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid
you farewell.
Act. II. Sc. iii
Don Virginio wrote to Flavia to tell her of his reception at the English court and the entertainment that was laid on for him, unfortunately for history he promised to save the details until he could tell her in person; ‘on the Tuesday morning, she [the queen] sent her coaches and two great ones [Darcy and Cecil] to take me and carry me to court. Arrived there, I found at the gate the Earl of Rutland, one of the first nobles of the realm, who assisted me to alight. He received me in her Majesty’s name, and led me to a lodging appointed for me. I stayed there very little, and then went above stairs, where I found a hall all filled with waiting gentlewomen; another within, full of ladies and gentlemen; in the third were all the officers of the Crown, and the knights of the Garter, all dressed in white –– as was the whole Court that day ––but with so much jewels, that it was a marvelous thing. These all came to greet me, the most part speaking Italian, many, French, and some, Spanish. I answered as well as I knew how, in the tongue which I heard spoken; and I am sure that at the least I made myself understood. I found no more than two gentlemen who knew no other tongue than the English; and with these I employed other gentlemen as interpreters. All these brought me near the door where the queen was to enter. Over against me was the Muscovite Ambassador, who had come as an Extraordinary, to ‘compliment with’ her Majesty. The queen came to the door, and I presently approached with all humility to do her reverence; and she drew near me with most gracious cheer, speaking Italian so well, uttering withal such fine conceits, that I can maintain that I might have been taking lessons from Boccaccio or the Academy. Her Majesty was dressed all in white, with so many pearls, broideries, and diamonds, that I am amazed how she could carry them. When I had done her reverence, Signore Giulio and Signore Grazia did the like; and then all the court set forward in order toward the chapel. The order is such that I am having the whole noted in writing; nor do I believe I shall ever see a court which, for order, surpasses this one. I attended her Majesty to a room next the chapel, where I stayed, in company with many gentlemen, and as we stood in excellent conversation, we heard a wondrous music. At the end of half an hour her Majesty returned, with all the court two by two according to their quality and degrees before her, and all the Countesses and ladies after; and while I accompanied her she was ever discoursing with me, as she had also done before. When her Majesty had entered her chamber, I was conducted into the hall where her Majesty was to dine: the which hall, together with many other rooms, was hanged with tapestries of gold. On a dais at the head was her Majesty’s table; at the opposite end, a great court cupboard all of vessels of gold; on the right hand, a great cupboard of vessels of with gold and jewels; and on the left, a low table with three little services for the Muscovite ambassador and two who were with him: it being the custom of Muscovy that if he had not been seen eating in the queen’s presence, his Great Duke would have him beheaded. Meanwhile came the viands of her Majesty, borne by knights, and the Sewer was of the great Order [of the Garter]. These did the same honour to her Majesty’s chair of state as they would have done had she been present; and as soon as the table was prepared came the queen. I reserve for telling by word of mouth the manner of the many cloths, and of her hand washing, for this description alone would fill four sheets. Presently after her Majesty had sat down to table, the Muscovite Ambassador (of whose ridiculous manners I shall give an account) fell to dining; and I was conducted…into a hall where there was prepared for me a most noble banquet, at the end of which appeared good music. As soon as the banquet was ended I rose from the table and went to her Majesty; who was already on her feet; and talking now with me and now with the Muscovite Ambassador, she tarried for a while, and then was attended by me to her room. Those gentlemen who were appointed to wait upon me, with many others whose acquaintance I had made, conducted me to my lodging so that I might rest myself; but after a little while the chief [of the acquaintances he had made] began coming to visit me, and then there was music, of some instruments to my belief never heard in Italy, but miraculous ones; so that with good entertainment we came to the hour of supper, which was made ready in a hall in my own lodging. To sup with me came the Master of the Horse (Lord Worcester, in whose apartments the Duke was lodged), and also the Earl of Cumberland; and with him I had some speech which will be to the taste of his Highness, since that man is the greatest corsair in the world. Presently I was taken to the lodgings of her Majesty, where in a hall the Secretary of State [Robert Cecil] caused me to salute all the ladies of title after the French fashion (with a kiss to the fingers, followed by a kiss on the lips and embrace of the waist). With one I spoke Italian, with divers French; and with the rest he himself played the interpreter for me. Hereupon the queen came in, and commanded me to go along discoursing with her. Her Majesty mounted the stairs, with such sounding of trumpets that methought I was on the field of war, and entered a public hall, where all round about were rising steps with ladies, and diverse consorts of music. As soon as her Majesty was set at her place, many ladies and knights began a grand ball. When this came to an end, there was acted a mingled comedy, with pieces of music and dances, and this too I am keeping to tell by word of mouth. The Muscovite Ambassador was not present. I stood ever near her Majesty, who bade me be covered, and withal caused a stool to be fetched for me; and although she willed me a thousand times to sit, I would never obey her. She conversed continually with me; and when the comedy was finished I waited upon her to her lodgings, where there was made ready for her Majesty and for the ladies a most fair collation, all of confections. The queen, having first taken two morsels, gave order that it should all be put to the spoil; which was done amid a graceful confusion. After the queen had gone into her chamber, those ladies who could speak Italian and French fell into conversation with me, and at the end of half an hour we took our leave of one another, and I went away home, it being already two hours after midnight.’
Don Virginio was invited to another party on 9th January at which he danced with the queen, reporting to his wife that he had heard her Majesty had not danced in fifteen years, but this was untrue. The following day after lunch Orsino was escorted by two ‘gentlemen of the court’ to her presence and admitted to an audience with the queen in a private garden. The Duke departed from London attended by the Earl of Rutland and a flotilla of Royal skiffs which escorted him to Gravesend where he reviewed the queen’s navy before departing the realm.
Unfortunately, Don Virginio’s visit was to have serious repercussions when he returned home. Having viewed the queen at prayer it was deemed that he too had become a heretic and an attempt was made to excommunicate him, but Orsino’s powerful connections helped him gain absolution for himself and his travelling companions. Lewkenor’s attendance in the company of the play’s intended recipient, Orsino, is scant proof of his authorship of Twelfth Night, but it is a solid case for him having been at the play’s premiere, alongside George Buc who would later become Master of the Revels. Buc had recently sought William Shakespeare’s help to identify the play George-a-Greene, the pinner of Wakefield, which had been registered with the Stationers’ Register on 1st April, 1599, as Buc added a note to his copy ‘written by…a minister, who ac(ted) the pinners part in it himself. Teste (witnessed by) Wm. Shakespea(re).’
On the 2nd of February 1601/2, a young Barrister, John Manningham, attended a play at the Candlemass revels held at the New Hall of Middle Temple, the play took his fancy and he made some notes, ‘At our feast we had a play called Twelve Night, or What You Will, much like the Comedy of Errors, or Menechmi of Plautus, but most like and near to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it to make the steward believe his Lady widow was in love with him, by counterfeiting a letter as from his Lady in general terms, telling him what she liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparel, etc., and then when he came to practise making him believe they took him for mad.’
[1] The First Night of Twelfth Night by Leslie Hotson, p. 15. 1954. See also the Historical Mss. Comm. Third Report, App.,51b.
[2] Alnwick Castle Archives; Letters and Papers Vol 7,19v-22r; early seventeenth century; English; paper; narrative and directions for a court ceremony at 12th Day, 6th January 1601.
[3] A Drawing of the Great Chamber at Whitehall in 1601. John H. Astington. The drawing is found in The College of Arms archives of Augustine Vincent and is preserved in his Vincents Presidents.
[4] Vincent’s Presidents p. 155-7
[5] An Improbable Fiction: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in Sources and Performance by Joseph L. Lockett for Dr. Meredith Skura. A final paper for “Shakespeare’s Sources” 12th Sept. 1991.