About this book and its author.
This is not a book by a Shakespeare specialist. Perhaps I would apologize for being a lawyer but for the fact that the earliest and arguably the greatest Shakespeare scholar was an Irishman who began as a lawyer, Edmond Malone (1741 –1812). From my high school English classes that introduced me to Julius Caesar and Macbeth I had a passing interest in Shakespeare but no passion. It was only when I was fifty years old that I chanced upon a man named William Sterrell. His discovery grew out of a work of history that I had begun as the result of my teaching a course in legal philosophy.
In 1994 I became co-author of a book of readings on jurisprudence. Thomas Hobbes had captured my attention when I encountered his vehemence against Edward Coke in The Leviathan. What was the source of this spleen? It was the fact that Hobbes had been a secretary to Francis Bacon after Coke had led to Bacon’s impeachment. Looking further into their hostility to one another, I discovered that it extended back to the time that they were rivals in c. 1592-93 for the post of Attorney General of England. They seemed to have competed to become anti-Catholic prosecutors for the Crown. This seemed worth a book to me, so I began my research into the Calendar of State Papers. Once enmeshed in them, I encountered spy letters from a man working for the Earl of Essex and Francis Bacon through Thomas Phelippes, notorious for having deciphered the secret letters of Mary Queen of Scots. A number of Sterrell’s letters were paraphrased at length in the Domestic Calendars for the 1590s. Who was he and what he was doing as some sort of government agent? Scouring the books produced only one historian who had ever written more than a few lines about him, and that was about Sterrell’s very late period as an intelligencer. As I began collecting Sterrell’s letters from the microfilms of the State Papers Domestic, I was quite surprised at just how many there were. How did they get there? This seemed to be a story in itself and became an obsession once I learned this spy had been a praelector (professor) at Magdalen College Oxford.
Shortly before the discovery of Sterrell, I had made the acquaintance of John Finnis, a professor at Oxford University who stayed with us briefly when he gave a paper at Louisiana State University. Once I had identified William Sterrell as an Oxford professor, I called upon John to assist me in obtaining access to materials that might be available when I planned a trip to the University. He was most gracious. And after my first visit to Oxford, he joined in the quest to track the activities and life of William Sterrell. We became co-authors on a number of essays growing out of our research.
Archives of Magdalen College, Oxford - The earliest records of William Sterrell are in the archives of Magdalen College. When I first learned of Sterrell’s Magdalen background from a letter of his contemporary Ralph Winwood, I asked an LSU colleague to put me in touch with his daughter, Drew Lamonica, who was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. She made inquiry of the Magdalen Archivist, Dr. Robin Darwell-Smith, who promptly provided her with an introductory summary of information on William Sterrell. I resolved then to go to Oxford to examine the originals of the documents and see what would turn up. John Finnis made the necessary introductions to the President of Magdalen College, Anthony Smith. President Smith greeted the controversial subject matter with interest and respect and provided ample support to the investigations.
Bodleian Library - Other Sterrell materials have been gathered from the Bodleian Library, the principal library of Oxford University. The Library celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2002. Its name derives from the grant of Sir Thomas Bodley, a passionate Protestant who served in Parliament and as a diplomat, to restore and restock the library. Even today, the Bodleian is not a lending library. No books may be checked out, only read on the premises. Nor is it open to the public. A reader must obtain a sponsor and agree to abide by the regulations of the Library. The holdings of the Library are enormous and include many manuscripts as well as printed works.
One of the most memorable events in researching Sterrell was working in the Duke Humphrey Room on a suit against Sterrell brought by Richard Coxe in Chancellor’s Court. The manuscripts were in a bound volume of parchment, brought to me by a member of the library staff. It took several days to transcribe the proceedings. The handwritings were small and difficult, and some of the portions were in Latin. The news throughout England for the week had prepared for the solar eclipse that was to take place. As the time approached, near noon, I left the alcove where I was working and stood overlooking the quadrangle from an upper story. On schedule, darkness came over the area as 95 % of the sunlight was blocked by the moon. Literary allusions came to mind, first Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, then the eclipse in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and finally the moon’s depiction in A Midsummer Night Dream.
In addition to the Sterrell-Coxe proceedings, I reviewed and transcribed at the Bodleian a contemporary copy of an entry on the Court of Exchequer’s memorandum roll for Easter Term 1597. The document was a deposition of Thomas Thorpe, identified as a stationer of St Faith’s parish London, aged about 25. Father Loomie, a Jesuit historian, had noted this document some years before but had failed to realize that this Thorpe was the publisher of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 1609. In it, Thorpe describes his stay in Madrid for a period of perhaps a couple of months in the fall of 1596 in the company of Fr Robert Persons and Sir Francis Englefield. This was quite exciting for it suggested a close link between Sterrell and Thorpe, for just as Thorpe was in Madrid with Persons, Persons was taking part in the establishment of an intelligence network with Sterrell and Sterrell’s associates. Finnis and I wrote this up for an essay that appeared in a scholarly journal, English Literary Renaissance.
Kew Gardens - A researcher can use the Calendar summary to identify a document of interest and then go to the original document or a copy of it. Since 1977 most of the documents of the PRO (National Archives) have been located at a large, modern facility in Kew Gardens, south-west London. It’s not very practical for many researchers to go to England to look up a few items; however, I did visit Kew Gardens in 1999. It was there that I confirmed that a certain Sterrell letter showed that he was working for Worcester rather than Francis Bacon. I also engaged a researcher, R. W. O’Hara, who provided me with other documents from the archives. For many years scholars have had access to microfilms to view copies of the Calendar documents. Photocopy attachments to microfilm readers made it possible for researchers to print copies of documents and take them home. Now one can compare handwriting in documents side by side -- something that couldn’t be done when looking at the originals one at a time in London. The quality of the microfilms has been limited, and recent technology has improved to the point that from anywhere in the world you can order up digital or photographic copies of PRO documents over the Internet.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D. C. - Among the world’s great libraries and repositories for Shakespeare-related manuscripts is the Folger Library in Washington, D. C. It is directly behind the Library of Congress, diagonally across the street from the Supreme Court building and one block from the Capitol. Founded by Henry Clay Folger and his wife in 1932, the Folger is well-run, with a courteous staff who will quickly assist the scholar doing research. A portable computer with a wireless modem can readily access within the reading room the Folger’s internet services, including databases such as EEBO (Early English Books Online) and Hamnet, the Folger’s own library catalog. Particularly useful has been the Folger’s microfilm collection, which includes the State Papers Domestic and the Hatfield House papers. The Folger houses the world’s most extensive collection of first editions of the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623. The Folger Library has published the Shakespeare Quarterly since 1972 (it was founded in 1950).
Jesuit Archives, London - The Jesuit Archives in London are located in the Mount Street Church. The library and reading room are of old wood and provide an atmosphere congenial to the historian much like the Duke Humphries Room of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The guest book shows that many non-Jesuit scholars have worked in these rooms, but a fascinating part of research in the Jesuit Archives are the meticulous notations in the books of the library made by the Jesuit historians over the years. These handwritten annotations, nearly always anonymous, are a valuable resource in themselves. They are part of a continuing dialogue among the scholars who have resided in and cared for the Archives. The notes stand in contrast to the books of the Bodleian, where all users of the library are pledged not to make any mark in any material used.
In charge of the Jesuit Archives while I was doing much of the initial work on Sterrell was Fr Thomas McCoog, an American Jesuit priest who is a respected scholar of the Elizabethan period. Our first contact with him was to obtain copies of the letters written in the name of “Anthony Rivers” (an alias of Sterrell), a few of which were intercepted by the Elizabethan government and are now at the PRO—National Archives. He very quickly sent us transcripts of many “Rivers” letters that had been prepared by another priest some years earlier. Fr McCoog provided much personal attention and assistance when using of the resources of the Jesuit Archives and also in response to email inquiries relating to the Jesuits with whom Sterrell was active.
Vienna Archives - Undoubtedly more Sterrell letters and Sterrell-related materials will be found in other libraries and archives I’ve not been able to visit. Through the assistance of Ruth Jaeneke-Elyas, a graduate researcher in Vienna, I was able to obtain copies of more than 150 letters of Sterrell as well as drafts of letters to Sterrell from the Austrian Archives in Vienna. There are other letters related to Sterrell or Thomas Phelippes in Vienna that I was unable to examine. Probably more Sterrell materials will be found in Brussels, Paris, the British Museum and the British Library in London, and in church archives in Rome.
Future Sterrell Books
Shakespeare’s Invention by W.S. Gent is a strategic gambit to get the Sterrell proposition to the public in a comprehensible but relatively short work by focusing on one poem and one play. Far more links between Sterrell, the Earl of Worcester, and the Shakespeare plays are to be demonstrated in a longer book, The Occasional Plays of Shakespeare, the Earl and His Playwright. A much fuller account of Sterrell and his decades as Catholic correspondent of English intelligence will be given in two books: a biography, Sterrell – English Man of Letters, and The Letters of William Sterrell, 1591-1626.
The Occasional Plays of Shakespeare, the Earl and His Playwright
An “occasional play” is just what the name says – a play written for a special occasion such as a wedding, a festive celebration, or a command performance for a special guest. This book explores the Shakespeare plays of the First Folio (1623) that were written and performed for such occasions. Most “occasional” works, whether taking the form of play, masque or poetry, are conceived and commissioned by a patron who employs a writer. The patron or producer is paramount in the work’s formulation for the occasion, rather than the author. The writer fashions a design that fits the person and the event, much as a tailor or seamstress makes a suit or dress according to the direction of a customer. Guests at a wedding do not attend to view the work of a named tailor no matter how pleasing the work. The audience at a performance of an occasional work will admire the cleverness of their host and the skill of the actors, not the creativity of the author.
For the playwright, an occasional play had special characteristics that set it apart from one intended for the common theater-goer. The audiences for the plays to be considered were generally people well-known to the playwright and his patron. Members of the English nobility and gentry, they were well-educated. Many already had bonds of friendship or common identity. The plays for lawyers were performed for annual festivities of a legal fraternity.
The purpose of an occasional play was to entertain or celebrate. Because the audience was known in advance, the writing could be tailored to amuse members by allusions to persons or topics and events with which they were familiar. Nothing was more delightful to a member of an audience than the impression, even if an illusion, that the author was speaking to them. The writer could draw upon knowledge and language shared by the audience. Contemporary events and public figures could be alluded to, knowing that that a responsive chord could be struck among the viewers. Such allusions made members of the audience feel that they were participants. A play written for the occasion of a great wedding could bring a wedding scene with bride and groom into the performance. For an event of a fraternity of lawyers, the play could build upon in legal anecdotes, terminology, and controversies. When the audience were royalty, royal characters and themes were often foremost. At a masque, members of the audience were themselves the principal performers.
William Sterrell – English Man of Letters:
Few historians have heard of William Sterrell. Yet he was one of the most gifted and interesting men of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. He was the son of a Lincolnshire lawyer whose wife was of the landed gentry. Oxford, from which he received two degrees, was his primary home for years. He became a university professor who taught “natural philosophy.” Under threat, coupled with promise of reward, he undertook a spying mission among Catholic exiles overseas for the Earl of Essex in 1591-92. It was a failure. After publishing Venus and Adonis under the assumed identity of Shakespeare, he returned to the patronage of the Earl of Worcester, whom he served until the death of the latter in 1628. From his position as confidante to a wealthy and powerful courtier, Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, he witnessed and participated in the most significant political and religious developments of his era. Worcester was well-known in his time as a sponsor of plays and ceremonies, having his own acting company, and he was put in charge (with the Earl of Suffolk) of royal entertainments by King James. Prior to 1612, no courtier or official was closer in confidence to King James than Worcester and his immediate family.
For Worcester, Sterrell served two functions: 1) playwright and overseer of entertainments; 2) correspondent with Catholic exiles in an effort to gain toleration of English Catholicism. Sterrell was caught and interrogated by the Secretary of State just before the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. There was an apparent hiatus in his correspondence abroad until 1616 when it resumed with the Archdukes in Brussels. From his many letters, often under aliases 1591-1604, together with other records, we can obtain a more complete biography than most other people of his time. And that biography, correlated with his letters, reveals that William Sterrell was certainly the author whom we know as Shakespeare.
The Letters of William Sterrell, 1591-1626.
This will be an annotated collection of Sterrell’s letters (250+). Sterrell was active as a letter writer of English intelligence or news from his days at Oxford in the 1580s through the outbreak of war in Europe in 1626. As a stand-alone volume, it should be useful to historians of the period 1590 through the end of the reign of King James. The letters, many long and rich in detail, provide the perspective of a highly intelligent and well-placed observer and participant for many political events of those years. The letters from 1591 through 1605 are mostly under pseudonyms for secrecy from the English government. Those from 1616 to 1626 are all under Sterrell’s own name. Many were translated into Spanish and forwarded to Spain. There are probably many more letters of William Sterrell in private collections and in archives that will emerge once historians know of his potential importance.