Tag Archives: Henry the Sixth






Shakespeare’s plays as looking glasses



Looking into the mirror of 2 Henry VI




A Pair of Power Duos





In 2016, I had the pleasure to attend the American Shakespeare Center’s fine production of 2 Henry VI at the Blackfriars Playhouse in beautiful, historic Staunton, Virginia. ASC appropriately titled the play “The Rise of Queen Margaret.”  The idea that Elizabeth and Leicester are mirrored in Margaret and Suffolk added a whole new dimension to experiencing the play.

Suffolk = Leicester

Other markers in 2 Henry VI link Suffolk and Leicester.




A Prophecy Twice Fulfilled



Leicester shares Suffolk’s prophesized fate in a couple of ways.





Here lies the noble warrior that never blunted sword;

Here lies the noble courtier that never kept his word;

Here lies his excellency that governed all the state;




How Shakespeare Mirrored Queen Elizabeth in Joan of Arc






Joan of Arc: Queen Elizabeth’s Reflection




A Woman with the Heart and Stomach of a Man





Joan the Virgin, and the Virgin Queen



Joan, Elizabeth, and the Duke











Shakespeare’s Motive




The More One Reads Shakespeare, the Moor One Knows

Shakespeare mirrored contemporaries in his plays—including England’s most powerful rulers—and often in unflattering ways. He reserved a particularly sharp pen for Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester.

Joe Alwyn (here with Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth) plays Robert Dudley in the film “Mary Queen of Scots.”

The Eyes Have It

Leicester had the Queen Elizabeth’s favor from the start of her reign, achieving power which approached that of a king. She appointed him Master of the Horse and a member of her privy council, and made him General of the Crown’s army fighting Spain in the Netherlands. He also had command of the Crown’s forces during the Spanish Armada.

Leicester and Elizabeth are reflected as the Earl of Suffolk and Queen Margaret, the power duo in Shakespeare’s Henry the Sixth, Part Two.

Leicester was handsome. As Alison Weir has written, he “was almost six feet tall and very attractive; his skin was so dark as to earn him the nickname of ‘the Gypsy’, a name used by some to refer to his moral character rather than his face.”

As English troops awaited the Spanish Armada, Leicester wrote a letter to Elizabeth, signing it, “your most faythfull & most obedient R. Leycester” with “Eyes” above his signature.

Elizabeth’s nickname for Leicester was “Eyes.” He signed letters to her with an ôô symbol for the nickname. She also called him “Sweet Robin.”  The two spent a lot time together, often alone. Commentators agree that if Elizabeth had taken a husband, it would have been Leicester. One small problem: Sweet Robin already had a wife.

Bird Of Prey

In 1584, Leicester’s enemies published Leicester’s Commonwealth, a book in which they accused Leicester of many evil-doings, including adultery and murder, even listing his poison victims.

Leicester’s wife had been found dead at the bottom of a staircase, her neck broken. Leicester’s Commonwealth claimed the earl had hired someone to murder her and make it look like an accident. Leicester’s alleged motive was he would then be free to marry Elizabeth.

Few could rival Leicester as the realm’s number one domestic villain. Shakespeare wouldn’t have been alone in his hatred for “the Gypsy.”

Beware the Gypsy . . . and the Moor

The Middle English word gypsy derives from the Greek word for Egyptian, and was founded on the mistaken belief, prevalent in the Middle Ages, that “gypsies” were nomadic Egyptians when, in fact, the Romani ethnic group originated in India. In contrast, the term “Moor” was first applied to indigenous Muslims in Morocco, and later to Arabs and North Africans.

Elizabethans thought of gypsies and Moors as dark and evil. Shakespeare was no exception.

Eyes, Claudius

Scholars since 1898 have viewed Leicester as the model for Claudius in Hamlet.

In his lust for power, Claudius poisons his brother King Hamlet and quickly marries the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude, to become King of Denmark, setting the stage for Shakespeare’s great drama. Prince Hamlet, robbed of his kingdom, berates Gertrude, his mother, for marrying Claudius:

Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten [gorge] on this moor? Ha! have you eyes                            You cannot call it love […]

Shakespeare uses two “eyes,” one on each side of “moor” (a homonym for “Moor” whose middle letters resemble eyes, and suggesting dark skin like  “gypsy”), to paint the dark face of Elizabeth’s favorite. In the play, Claudius ends up accidentally poisoning his own wife, the Queen. Conceivably, Shakespeare was warning Elizabeth of the same danger if she married Leicester.

It’s no surprise that Hamlet appeared in print only after the deaths of Elizabeth and Leicester. Because the play mirrors members of Elizabeth’s court—and the queen herself, as Gertrude—I have argued the play was banned during her lifetime.

Moor sweetness

If Shakespeare, as many did, despised Leicester, why stop at Hamlet in dissing him?

The principal villain in Titus Andronicus is Aaron the Moor who, as Leicester was reputed to be, is an adulterer and murderer.

Like Claudius, Aaron engages in an illicit relationship with the Queen. In Titus, her name is Tamora, who invites Aaron to make love to her in a cave, something she says “Dido once enjoy’d.” In Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido was Queen of Carthage. In some sources, Dido is known as “Elissa,” a subtle but clear link to Elizabeth.

Queen Tamora gushes to her lover Aaron: “Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life.” Like a pair of eyes, the words “sweet” and “sweeter” surround “Moor” and echo “Sweet Robin.” Aaron himself refers to his own “charming eyes.”

The protagonist in Titus labels Aaron a would-be poisoner:

Give me thy knife, I will insult on him;                                                Flattering myself, as if it were the Moor                                                    Come hither purposely to poison me

As a slam at Leicester, making Aaron a “gypsy” would have been too obvious. Instead, Shakespeare chose the synonymous disparagement, Moor, which when accompanied with “charming eyes,” poison, and Queen Tamora (aka Elissa), does the job as a marker for Leicester.

Unlike Hamlet, Titus Andronicus was printed and sold while Elizabeth was alive, albeit anonymously. Why did the publishers omit Shakespeare’s celebrated name? The reflection of Leicester and Elizabeth as the sinners Aaron and Tamora offers a plausible explanation.

. . . and Moor poison

In The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, Othello commits the same act committed by Claudius and Aaron—premeditated murder—and poison is in the picture.

While Shakespeare makes Claudius an actual poisoner—who intentionally poisons King Hamlet and unintentionally poisons Gertrude—he initially makes Othello a poisoner in a figurative sense.

One character drills Othello about how he won Desdemona’s heart, asking him, “Did you by indirect and forced courses subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?” Later in the play, Shakespeare extends this theme by making Othello an actual, would-be poisoner, another possible warning to Elizabeth about Leicester.

In his state of extreme jealousy and anger, Othello rattles off different ways he could kill Desdemona, settling on poison. He tells Iago, “Get me some poison.” But without explanation, Iago says, “Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed.”

If Leicester did murder his wife, such an explanation would go without saying: given his reputation as a poisoner, that method would have been far too incriminating.

Iago, whose machinations lead Othello to murder Desdemona and then to suicide, says:

The Moor already changes with my poison:
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons.
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood,
Burn like the mines of Sulphur.

In the end, Othello, is a victim of poison in a figurative sense as much as Claudius is in a literal one. Indeed, subtext in Henry VI, Part Two suggests that Leicester got some of his own medicine and died of poisoning.

Leicester “the Gypsy” was an army general. In that sense, his reflection in the military commander Othello is sharper than his reflection in Claudius and Aaron. All three of these “Moors” display the disturbing profile of a poisoner (or would-be poisoner), or adulterer, or both, and in all cases a murderer, a profile that matches the description of Leicester in Leicester’s Commonwealth.

Looking into Shakespeare’s mirrors . . . and into the future

As time goes on, researchers likely will identify in Shakespeare’s works additional reflections of his contemporaries and events of his day, corroborating Charles Beauclerk’s observation that the plays are “highly political documents” with significant ramifications for understanding the history of the Elizabethan era.

Studying Shakespeare’s methods for mirroring real people will enhance appreciation of his art and the understanding of themes in his plays, including the motives behind the choices he makes.

It will also advance the Shakespeare authorship debate, giving context to the issue of who was best positioned to create those mirrors and had the best motives for doing so—a grain merchant from Stratford-upon-Avon with no court connections, or a courtier who wrote plays and was on intimate terms with Queen Elizabeth?

From No Name to Shakespeare . . . or Not

Imagine you’re an author. Your first publication—a long poem—is a huge success. Within a year, you publish a second poem, another hit. You write plays, too, which have been staged and well-received. Since your published poems are doing well, you’re ready to see how the plays do in print. Readers will see your name on them, right?

Nope, not if you’re William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare plays, but no Shakespeare

William Shakespeare first achieved fame as a poet. His narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, was published in 1593 and went through seven printings in as many years. His other long poem, The Rape of Lucrece, appeared in 1594. It, too, had good success. Both poems had Shakespeare’s name on them.

His plays appeared in print beginning in 1594 with Titus Andronicus. However, that play didn’t name an author. For several more years, none of the first editions of Shakespeare’s plays showed he had written them.

In addition to Titus Andronicus, these anonymous plays were Henry the Sixth, Part 2 (1594); Henry the Sixth, Part 3 (1595); Richard the Second (1597); Richard the Third (1597); and Romeo and Juliet (1597).

It’s baffling why a publisher would leave off a best-selling author’s name from that author’s work. There are several explanations, but no definitive answer.

Shakespeare emerges as a playwright

Finally, in 1598, readers who frequented London bookstalls could purchase the first play attributed to Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Over the next five years, other plays bearing Shakespeare’s name followed: Henry the Fourth, Part 1; Much Ado About Nothing; Midsummer’s Night Dream; Merchant of Venice; Henry the Fourth, Part 2; Merry Wives of Windsor; and Hamlet.

Oddly, however, further editions of most of Shakespeare’s plays printed before 1598 remained unattributed, including Titus Andronicus, Henry the Sixth Parts 2 and 3, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry the Fifth.

Most of these anonymous plays (including the five listed above) were not attributed to Shakespeare in print until a collection of his plays was published in 1623.

Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s first published play, had three editions over 17 years. None showed him as the author, though other plays did. Titus Andronicus wasn’t attributed to him in print until 1623.

Traditional Explanations

Why were some of Shakespeare’s most popular plays printed without attribution, even while others did name him as the author? Traditional explanations include:

  • Elizabethan plays weren’t thought of as literature until after 1600.
  • The title page of most plays during the 1590s didn’t name an author.
  • Some playwrights were never named on a title page while they were alive.
  • In the case of John Lyly, some of his plays were published over a dozen years until his name appeared on a title page in 1597.

When it comes to Shakespeare, however, these explanations are unsatisfactory. His name appeared on some of his plays after 1597. The question is, why not on all of them?

Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594), each of which showed Shakespeare as the author, were back-to-back best-sellers. Publishers were profit-motivated. They should have been keen to attach the poet’s name to his plays.

To increase sales, why not attribute Titus Andronicus, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, and Romeo and Juliet to William Shakespeare?

By 1598, Love’s Labour’s Lost had been printed with attribution to Shakespeare, followed by Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, and other popular Shakespeare plays. Yet second editions of most of the anonymous Shakespeare plays remained unattributed, including the second edition of Romeo and Juliet (1599).

These facts distinguish Shakespeare from the case of John Lyly. It simply makes no sense that publishers didn’t attribute Shakespeare’s plays because they didn’t consider them “literature.”

After 1598, it would seem foolish for publishers not to attach the Shakespeare brand to his previously unattributed plays—unless they had other reasons not to do so.

A Different Theory

The content of the certain plays may explain why Shakespeare’s name wasn’t attached to them, even after 1598. The plays in this category are Titus Andronicus, Henry the Sixth Parts 1 and 2, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry the Fifth.

In each case, one can argue that the play contained material that offended the authorities—in particular, Queen Elizabeth I—such that Shakespeare or the publisher, or both, concluded it was best the play’s author remain anonymous.

Shakespeare and Elizabeth: No Love Lost?

Shakespeare mirrored real persons in his plays. In Love’s Labour’s Lost, even the characters’ names mimic the people they reflect.

Scholars have long associated the windbag Polonius in Hamlet with Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s closest adviser. In the same play, Elizabeth can be seen as Queen Gertrude, the incestuous adulteress, and Elizabeth’s long-time consort, the Earl of Leicester, as Claudius, the notorious poisoner.

It’s easy to understand why Hamlet wasn’t published until after the deaths of Burghley, Elizabeth, and Leicester. I have argued that the Crown banned Hamlet during Elizabeth’s lifetime.


In The End of Kinship, Shell speculates that the character Isabella in Measure for Measure is modeled on Elizabeth, though “[o]ne cannot make an airtight case . . . [W]ere that possible on the basis of what is said in [the play], Shakespeare might have been open to charges of treason.”

Mark Anderson, in Shakespeare By Another Name, calls Elizabeth “the leading candidate” for Lady Macbeth.

This may help explain why Measure for Measure and Macbeth, like Hamlet, didn’t appear in print until after Elizabeth’s death.

Elizabeth the Adulteress

Titus Andronicus (1594) is another play which appears to mirror Elizabeth and Leicester, in this instance in the characters of Tamora and Aaron the Moor. In the play, Tamora and Aaron engage in adultery, which produces a child.

Charles Beauclerk, in Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom, says:

Tamora, a composite of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, is ruled by her passions, creating chaos in government and devouring her own children. Her affair with Aaron the Moor threatens to become a national scandal when she is delivered of a child by him. Bearing in mind that the Queen of England used to call the Earl of Leicester her “Moor,” we can conclude that the incident is clearly meant to reveal one of the darker secrets of the Elizabethan state.

Though Shakespeare may not have been a big fan of Elizabeth, he likely had a close connection with her court. Both of his poems published in 1593 and 1594 were dedicated to the highly popular Earl of Southampton. Many believe Southampton is the “lovely boy” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Southampton’s dealings with Elizabeth were rocky—she imprisoned him for treason—and he may have had a not-so-positive attitude towards her similar to Shakespeare’s.

Readers knowing that the court-connected Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus could have more easily seen the parallel between Elizabeth’s relationship with Leicester on the one hand and Tamora’s relationship with Aaron on the other. Leaving Shakespeare’s name off the play would have been the wise thing to do.

Elizabeth the Amazon

Elizabeth and Leicester show up again in Henry the Sixth, Part 2 in the characters of Margaret and Suffolk, illicit lovers who dominate affairs of state and mirror the real-life power duo of Elizabeth and Leicester. There are a number of markers that identify them as such, which I discuss in detail in another blog post.

In the play, Elizabeth once more is mirrored as an adulteress and Leicester as a poisoner—a good reason for Shakespeare not to have his name on the title page.

Likewise, in Henry the Sixth, Part 3, Shakespeare continues to mirror Elizabeth as Margaret in an unflattering way. As I’ve shown in a separate post, Margaret is a cruel Amazonian warrior who leads one of the armies in the War of the Roses.

This could have been reason enough not to attribute the play, but there may be an additional one. As I’ve also demonstrated, Shakespeare, in Henry the Sixth, Part 3, may have been commenting on Elizabeth’s succession which, like Measure for Measure, would have subjected him to accusations of treason.

Elizabeth the Envious

In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo sees Juliet at a window above him and says:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

The moon was a familiar symbol for Elizabeth. Percy Allen, in his 1932 biography of Edward de Vere (whom many believe was Shakespeare), observed:

[t]he references [in Romeo and Juliet] are unmistakable for when it is remembered that the Tudor livery was green and white, the envious moon, or Diana as she was so frequently called, whose vestal livery is sick and green,” can be none other than Queen Elizabeth.

In subsequent decades other scholars, such as Charlton Ogburn and Charles Beauclerk, have agreed with Percy, noting parallels between the story in Romeo and Juliet and de Vere’s love relationship with Anne Vavasour, one of Elizabeth’s maids of honor.

There’s strong evidence that de Vere and Elizabeth were also romantically involved. In this view, Shakespeare, through the character of Romeo, calls Elizabeth envious (not once, but twice) and in a rather vicious manner—“Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.”

With such an insult aimed at the Queen of England, it would be no surprise that an author with court connections and/or his publisher chose to publish the play anonymously. Indeed, none of the four separate editions of Romeo and Juliet bear the author’s name.

Elizabeth the Queen, but who’s next?

Henry the Fifth (1600) was published during a time when factions in Elizabeth’s court were jockeying for position in preparation of her succession. She had only a few years left to live.

One of those factions favored Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, a charismatic soldier who got in a lot of trouble with Elizabeth after the military campaign he led in Ireland failed. Ultimately, Essex was executed.

Around the same time, the historian John Hayward wrote a book about how King Richard the Second was deposed. The book contained a dedication praising Essex. The Crown feared Hayward intended Richard of Second to serve as a model for overthrowing Elizabeth. For years Hayward was jailed in the Tower of London.

Many scholars agree that Shakespeare gives cryptic praise to Essex in Henry the Fifth. I’ve proposed that Shakespeare, in the same play, was supporting Essex’s ally, the Earl of Southampton (the same courtier to whom Shakespeare dedicated the long poems) to be the next King of England.

Shakespeare sent this message by using markers in the play—including the name Southampton and the earl’s military role in Ireland—which link him to King Henry (Southampton’s birth name was Henry Wriothesely). This also suggests that Shakespeare was showing (very subtly) that Southampton was Elizabeth’s son, a dangerous business indeed.

For these reasons, anonymity was the better part of wisdom when it came to publishing Henry the Fifth.

Of course, all of this is only a theory, based on the content of certain Shakespeare plays, to explain why they remained anonymous even after others began showing his name.

As time goes on, one may hope that research in this area extends beyond traditional explanations, as well as beyond orthodox assumptions about who Shakespeare really was.