All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.
Nothing else quite sums up William Shakespeare’s attitudes on the power of Theater.
But England’s Favorite Bard demonstrates time and time again that the reverse is also
true, that one Stage can become anywhere in the World.
You’ve surely spent a class or two with one of William’s works, and heck, Red started
OSP as a Shakespeare channel, but today, we’ll put aside the Tragedies and Comedies we’ve
handled here before, and instead focus on his relationship to History.
So, to see how he became a legendary playwright and find out why he’s England’s #1 Accidental-historian,
let’s do some History!
William Shakespeare was born in the English town of Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1564, early
into the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1.
Though Shakespeare’s family wasn’t noble-born or all that rich, they lived far enough from
London that they could pay the rent without going on a monthly heist.
Shakespeare spent some of his early life in Stratford helping in his dad’s glove shop,
so our young Bill would have been familiar with his local tradespeople.
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway and had a daughter 6 months later;
I’ll let you run the math on that one.
Aside from family matters, Shakespeare studied at the town’s Grammar School.
It wasn’t fancy, but it was an honest education, and as we’ll see, it gave him everything
he needed to succeed in his later career as a playwright.
His primary instruction was in Greek and Latin, with the aim of reading the New Testament
and the ancient Roman classics in their original language.
On its face, this is a fairly simple curriculum, but it was radically new to Elizabethan England,
as the Renaissance love for all things ancient was just making its way north.
In the 1500s, a lot of things were new to England.
In addition to the concept of disposable income, English theater culture was just taking shape,
and it was the textbook definition of Quick and Dirty.
With only a few permanent play-houses, most stages were simple wooden sets with no decoration
and only a few key props.
And unlike the ancient Greeks and Romans, England didn’t have a handy catalogue of
material to draw from, so plays were written quickly, often in collaboration, then performed
and discarded.
This meant that freelancers were in high demand, and this is probably where Shakespeare got
his start in the theater biz: writing with London’s other leading playwrights.
Actors, by contrast, mostly went in troupes, working together over multiple productions,
with the financial support of some hotshot patron who got the naming rights.
In 1594, Shakespeare was a founding member of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, under the
patronage of none other than the Lord Chamberlain.
And this is where William worked as both an actor and a playwright for the rest of his
career, writing tragic and comic fiction as well as historical plays for almost two decades.
Sweet Mother of Job Security.
In 1598 the city’s main Play House was closed over a landlord dispute, so our troupe took
matters into their own hands by disassembling it and hucking the timber across the Thames
in the dead of winter to build a New theater on the other side of London.
Now that is dedication to the craft.
The next year, The Globe became The home of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, but despite
its size, it was still pretty simple; flat stage, no roof or fancy sets, standing area
below and three balconies above; The Globe didn’t faff around.
And with room for the lower-class groundlings as well as the high-rolling aristocrats, everybody
had a place, so Londoners of all stripes could enjoy the plays.
To that end, Shakespeare wrote to the high-brow and to the low.
So if your local Shakespeare production skips over the dirty jokes, then you have been duped,
because that’s not the authentic Shakespeareance.
Before too long, Shakespeare and friends performed at the royal court for Queen Elizabeth herself.
And when the crown passed to King James in 1603, he was so fond of the troupe that he
became their patron and redubbed them The King’s Men.
Classy.
And speaking of Kings, let’s zoom out for a minute to look at how England was doing
in Shakespeare’s day, because it was quite a busy time.
Before James Stuart became King, Elizabeth was the last reigning monarch of the Tudor
dynasty.
The Tudors are best known for ending the War of the Roses, telling the Pope to scram, and
converting the Spanish Armada into a subaquatic lumber yard.
In Shakespeare’s day, life was pretty good, England was peaceful — finally — and the
arts had never been more popular.
Ancient Greek and Roman texts were getting translated into English for popular consumption,
and Raphael Holinshed had just finished up a mammoth Historical Chronicle of England,
Scotland, and Ireland.
With English patriotism flying higher than ever, people wanted to hear stories about
English greatness.
Now, most Englishmen knew how to read, sure, but Holinshed’s history was about 1,000
pages too-doorstoppy to be accessible to the average lad.
So this is where Shakespeare comes in.
He lures you with the promise of entertainment, keeps things exciting with pathos and murder,
dazzles you with snark and low-brow jokes, and then when you leave you realize he duped
you into learning.
This might sound familiar, because this is how we teach you stuff.
Disregarding the fact that he was extremely good at writing plays, Shakespeare’s mere
choice of subject matter gave countless Englishmen their first glimpse at their own history.
In making popular the genre of the History Play, Shakespeare inadvertently became the
most influential Historian in England.
Shakespeare’s early work is loaded with histories, and his first focus was on The
War of the Roses; where he covered the life of Henry VI in 3 plays, and concluded with
the “bloody” reign of Richard III.
Afterwards, he jumped back in time to show the rise of the Hero King Henry V.
This was a 4-play sequence starting with King Richard II, through Henry IV, and finishing
with Henry V.
Now, all of these plays are self-contained, but they share characters, conflicts, & some
key themes.
Plus, when we put the 8 plays together into a macro-story, this Henriad becomes a century-long
Epic of English History’s greatest hits, culminating in the ascension of Henry 7 and
the new Tudor Dynasty.
So, with our proverbial stage set, let’s summarize some Shakespeare… quickly, and
quietly, before Red catches me trespassing on her turf.
*R2* We begin in the late 1300s with Richard II, who’s been asked to settle a dispute
between two nobles over some misplaced cash and a murdered uncle.
Richard dawdles and avoids doing his job, so Henry Bolingbroke takes the opportunity
to coup his way into becoming King Henry IV.
*H4I* Now Henry had wanted to absolve his usurpation guilt by going on a crusade, but
there’s turmoil at home with the nobles, so it’s too risky to leave.
Worse yet, his son Hal is too busy partying in the tavern to be a helpful prince.
But he eventually decides to Do His Job and fights the rebels.
*H4II* Now Hal might be a decent Prince, but being a good King is a much harder Ask.
Unfortunately, this takes the entire runtime of the play and an earful from his dying father.
But by the end he’s shaped up, apologized for his misdeeds, and is ready to take on
the world as King Henry V. *H5* Now this is the spicy play.
Our Prince Hal is all nice and Kinged, and England is done civil-warring, so he lays
a renewed claim to the throne of France.
In return, the French Prince sends him a very rude letter and some tennis balls as concession,
so Henry, quite toasty by the slight, sets off to go a-conquring and starts the Hundred
Years War back up.
He first takes the port of Harfleur with a hearty Once More Unto the Breach, and pushes
onto Agincourt, heavily outnumbered.
The night before the battle, he treks around his camp to ruminate on how being King is
effort, ugh.
And the next day, the English army surprise the French and themselves by longbow-spamming
their way to victory.
Cut to several years later, and Henry is negotiating a treaty with France as well as wifing up
Princess Catherine of Valois.
The End.
EEeeeexcept for the part immediately after this where Henry 6 whiffs it and loses the
war, but that’s where the second 4-parter comes in.
*H6I* So, timeskip forward 2 years and Henry V unexpectedly bites it, so little beeby Henry
6 is now King.
From here, everything goes south.
France starts throwing hands at Orleans with the help of one Joan of Arc, while English
Nobles are too busy scheming against each other to stop it.
A rift opens up between the Lancaster family and the Yorks, which becomes a big mess later.
Several timeskips later, Joan is captured and killed by England, and Henry marries Margaret
of Anjou.
*H7II* Despite some initial success, England lost the war and got the boot out of France,
so Richard of York is rather miffed with Henry’s leadership, and lays a claim to throne.
This comes to a head at the battle of St Albans, where York smashes the King’s forces and
sends Henry into disarray.
*H6III* With defeat in sight, Henry marks York as next in line for the throne, but Henry’s
wife Margaret and the Lancastrian faction think that this is stupid, so they take the
fight to the Yorkies.
They win for a little bit, lose for a little bit, win a little more, but then they start
losing again, and eventually Henry is captured, and killed in prison by Richard Jr of York.
*R3* Once again, the last play in the set is the spiciest one.
Edward IV of York is King, again, long story, and his brother, Richard Jr, wants the hedgear
for himself, because it’s civil war allll the way down.
So Richard jails his younger brother and drowns him in a vat of wine, which makes Edward die
of shock, leaving the crown to his two kids, with Richard as their regent.
Clearly his work isn’t done, so he convinces the nobles that the princes are illegitimate,
so that he can get the crown from his dead brother.
But then to seal the deal he has the kids killed anyway because Loose Ends Sink Royal
Claims.
Richard takes the throne but rebellions break out immediately, and the Earl of Richmond
leads an army against the king.
Before their battle, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all the people he’s killed.
He gives the Kingdom for a Horse speech, Richmond kills him, and takes the throne as Henry 7.
England’s troubles are over, the Tudors have arrived!
Now, in a stage performance, there’s not much room to investigate the big-scale dynamics
of national conflict like you’d see in a typical history book, but Shakespeare does
focus in on the nuances of Kingship, and how their character affects the way they rule
a state.
That said, these plays can get flak for retroactive Tudor Bias, especially in the case of Richard
3.
Historically, Richard was unremarkable, but he was guilty of Being The Last King Before
The Tudors, so clearly he just has to be awful.
As such, Shakespeare condemns him to a murder-frenzied reputation, and shows rumors like the killing
of the young princes as fact.
The play explicitly sets up Richard as a Pure Evil villain to contrast with the heroic arrival
of Shakespeare’s present Tudor dynasty.
So while Richard 3 makes for Great Drama, it pulls double-duty as Political Propaganda.
And this isn’t the last time Shakespeare fiddles with facts to make a narrative more
exciting, as MacBoy and Wife are fully rewritten to be more murderous, and Cleopatra is…
alright, listen up BILL — *Rant Removed, Profanity Limit Reached*.
But outside those three glaring exceptions, Shakespeare tells his history pretty straight.
And the benefit of a multi-person drama is that diverse perspectives can be portrayed,
especially with stories like Julius Caesar, where competing rhetoric weighs the morality
of tyrannicide and civil war.
Shakespeare is at his best when characters and ideas are in conflict onstage, and that’s
just as true for his Histories as it is for his dramas.
Ignoring for a second how Shakespeare has made life tricky for later historians, let’s
appreciate the effect he had on his contemporary audience.
When history is distilled from its thousand-page write-ups and presented in a way that people
can actually appreciate, suddenly an entire share of the population can understand their
national history for probably the first time ever.
This kind of storytelling was powerful then and it’s powerful now, I mean, just think
of how much better you know revolutionary American history since Hamilton came out.
Though Shakespeare didn’t intend to publish his plays, because a script is lifeless without
actors, his friends in The King’s Men compiled a folio of his works for distribution, which
is why we’re able to enjoy the brilliance of his plays even today.
And that’s actually where some get hung up on his story: Because surely, our talented
William couldn’t really have been some countryside plebeian.
Only a gentleman of Refinement could possibly have written these masterpieces.
So there’ve been theories that Shakespeare was just a pen-name for Edward de Vere or
Sir Francis Bacon, or some secret guild of writers.
But alas, Shakespeare was indeed a kid from Stratford who got a decent Grammar-School
education and really enjoyed reading the classics.
Perhaps the greatest Shakespeare Conspiracy of all, dare I say, a Shakespearacy, is that
William could be smart without being rich.
Thank you so much for watching!
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