Part 14
In two ways, both painful to the poet, during the following year, while Sir Thomas Heneage’s illness absorbed the attention of the Countess of Southampton, his young friend’s name had become bandied about among the gossiping cliques of Paul’s Walk. His friends, Sir Charles and Henry Danvers, instigated by personal revenge, for some cause unknown, had, in January 1594-5, taken their servants and gone out deliberately to murder two men, the Longs, which they had succeeded in doing. They stalled their horses in Southampton’s stables at Tichfield that night, and when they went to London next day he rode with them and helped them to escape to France. It is very difficult to understand the meaning of this episode in his life, for the Danvers remained his friends. The other was more natural. Southampton, “having passed by the ambush of young days,” at last fell incurably in love with the fair Mistress Elizabeth Vernon (the daughter of Sir John Vernon), cousin of the Earl of Essex, and Maid of Honour to the Queen. He needed no sonnets now to urge him to marry, but the Queen forbade the banns. He hovered round the Court, the “Sydney Papers” state that he was, in the absence of Essex, “a careful waiter here, and _sede vacanto_ doth receive favours at her Majesty’s hands, all this without breach of amity between them.” But it was the _other Elizabeth_ who drew him thither. Hasty and impulsive as he was, “My Lord Southampton doth with too much familiarity court the fair Mistress Vernon, while his friends, observing the Queen’s humour towards my Lord of Essex, do what they can to bring her to favour him, but it is yet in vain,” wrote Rowland Whyte, 22nd September 1595.
This gossip sunk into Shakespeare’s heart. He knew that he might be blamed by some, as the Earl’s adviser, and he called him to task in Sonnets 95 and 96. After the commencement of this absorbing passion the sonnets gradually ceased. Probably Shakespeare realized that his reign was over. None seem to suggest Southampton’s voyages, knighthood, marriage, or subsequent imprisonment. For the allusions in Sonnet 107 must not be confused with this.
Having interwoven many of the phrases, ideas, and even situations of the sonnets into his plays, having _thrown in_ even some of the verses entire, Shakespeare’s fame became fixed in 1598 by the liberal praise of Francis Meres, Professor of Rhetoric at Oxford, who noted not only the plays and the poems, but “the sugred sonnets among his private friends.”
By some means, pirate Jaggard got possession of two of these private sonnets, culled those already printed in the plays, stole many verses from other writers, among them the “Paris to Helen” and “Helen to Paris” of Thomas Heywood, and published them in 1599 as “‘The Passionate Pilgrim,’ by William Shakespeare,” eager to exploit the value of his name.
To reclaim his own, Heywood published them, as he had intended, in his “Troia Britannica,” registered before 1609. Apparently Jaggard published a second edition, probably in 1609. In the postscript of his “Apology for Actors,” 1612, Heywood complained of Jaggard’s “manifest injury,” and stated that the reputed author was much offended with the publisher for “having altogether unknown to him, presumed to make so bold with his name.”
This is interesting to us, because it is the only recorded notice of Shakespeare’s opinion of his publishers. Indeed it is just possible that Shakespeare permitted, if he did not suggest, the publication of his Sonnets, in order, by showing all that he laid claim to, at once to punish Jaggard, and protect Heywood and other injured poets. In spite of Heywood’s and Shakespeare’s protest, Jaggard brought out a third edition of the “Passionate Pilgrim” in 1612, stating that they were “newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespeare. Whereunto is newly added two Epistles, the first from Paris to Helen, and Helen’s answer back again to Paris.” But pressure was evidently brought to bear upon Jaggard, for though this stands in the title-page, the epistles _do not appear in the text_.
To whatever cause we owe it, the Sonnets were published in 1609, long after the vogue of sonneteering had passed, by T. T., _i.e._ Thomas Thorpe, with an address to Mr. W. H. The chief battlefield in the history of the sonnets has been over the meaning of those initials. I believe, as I have said above, that they mean Mr. William Harvey.
Sir Thomas Heneage had died in 1595, leaving the Countess of Southampton the second time a widow, in trouble over his bills, and not over well treated by her friends. Shortly after her son’s stolen marriage to Elizabeth Vernon in 1598 she had promised to marry her faithful friend, now her knight, Sir William Harvey. Her action roused the indignation of her son at first, and caused discomfort among her friends. Harvey’s family and position were not equal to hers, and matrimony in a mother is sometimes inconvenient to a son. The Earl of Essex himself took the trouble to counsel her gravely. But like her son she held her own way through thick and thin, and married Sir William Harvey that same year. She died in 1607, and it was reported by Chamberlain that “she had left the best part of her stuff to her son, and the most part to her husband.” It is very likely that a manuscript copy of “Shakespeare’s Sonnets” would be left among “the most part,” and it is quite possible that after consultation with Southampton and Shakespeare, Harvey, always a patron of letters, prepared them himself to be published.
Thomas Thorpe was too glad of the chance of becoming a merchant adventurer on the sea of publication. If, as I have shown to have been possible, Sir William had, in the first instance, suggested the writing of the early sonnets, the meaning of Thorpe’s address is clear. It was quite usual to address a gentleman as “Mr.” after his knighthood. Lady Southampton always spoke of her second husband as Mr. Heneage. Further, since the death of his first wife, in 1607, Sir William had consoled himself with a bright young bride, Mistress Cordelia Ansley, of Lee. It would therefore be perfectly consonant with Thorpe’s gratitude and his character to wish “Mr. W. H. all happinesse, and that eternitie promised by the everlasting poet.”
The “eternity” intended might have been that of a long line of descendants to keep up his noble name[40] (for it was a Thorpe who wrote the address).
It may be urged that I cannot _prove_ this. I acknowledge it. But surely an explanation so simple and one that fits so naturally into the whole known series of facts, may be justly considered and duly treated as a good working hypothesis, until something better may be discovered.[41] And the surest way to learn more of Shakespeare is to learn more about his friends.
_“Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,” vol. xxviii (read 24th June 1908)._
PS.--I had embodied most of these facts in the preface to my edition of “Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” 1904 (De La More Press) and in my articles in the “Athenæum.”
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Greene’s “Groatsworth of Wit,” 1592.
[32] See my articles in the “Athenæum,” “The Metrical Psalms of the Court of Venus,” 24th June 1899, and “The Authorship of the New Court of Venus,” 1st July 1899.
[33] Sonnet xx, 2.
[34] See my article, “Athenæum,” March 1898, “The Date of the Sonnets.”
[35] The Wriothesley motto was “Ung par tout, tout par ung.”
[36] See my “Date of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” “Athenæum,” 19th and 26th March 1898.
[37] It is curious that the allegorical “second intention” in the poem should have been applied by Thomas Edwards, so early as 1595, to the poet himself.
[38] The plague began on 20th October 1592 and ran on through 1593.
[39] See my article, “The First Official Record of Shakespeare’s Name,” “Shakespeare Jahr-Buch,” 1895, Berlin.
[40] He was afterwards ennobled as Lord Harvey of Kidbrooke, and Baron de Rosse in Ireland.
[41] It has been accepted by Dr. Brandl and published in his Introduction to his translation into German of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 1913.
XVI
WILLIAM HUNNIS, GENTLEMAN OF THE CHAPEL ROYAL
It has hitherto been a matter of surprise to the students of Elizabethan literature, that a writer who seemed to them so commonplace should have held such a high position in the opinion of his contemporaries as William Hunnis evidently did. This apparent anomaly set me seeking for something in the man that did not appear in his works, or appeared there only suggestively. Every dictionary that included his name added, “of his life very little is known.” When I grasped the meaning of his association with the Kenilworth festivities, I realized that his life was worth working out in relation to that of Shakespeare. One thing I have been fortunate enough unexpectedly to find: the William Hunnis of Elizabeth was only a survival of the William Hunnis of Mary. Throughout the earlier reign he was the centre of a group of dissatisfied subjects, whose souls were stirred within them by the miseries of their country, and who kept plotting in a haphazard and disconnected manner until their final discovery in 1556, when severity silenced them. The Protestant doctrines and the Protestant spirit of individual independence could, no doubt, find some means of reconciling treason to a Catholic sovereign and faithfulness to a distressed fatherland, crushed under a detested Spanish oppression. His was a period of unrecognized incongruities. An imitator of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet (d. 1542) in his first literary effort, a metrical translation of the Psalms published in 1550, it is evident that he shared in the feelings of Thomas Wyatt the son about the Spanish marriage, even if he did not join in his “plot” in 1553-4.
He was a friend of John Rogers, once Prebendary of St. Paul’s, the co-worker with Tyndale in editing “Matthews’ Bible,” and he had seen his friend burned at Smithfield on 4th February 1554-5. A few days after he had been implicated in a plot “to kill the King and after him the Queen,” while they were witnessing the “Juego de Cañas,” the Moorish game of throwing cane lances on horseback, brought over here by the Spaniards, at the wedding festivities of Lord Strange and the Lady Margaret Clifford.[42] Whether the “gentlemen of the Chapel Royal” were to be among the mounted performers, and thereby veil their purpose, or whether they expected to take advantage of the excitement and confusion prevailing, I know not. Nothing happened. Caution overcame their courage.
It is probable this was the real foundation of the rumour of what Rapin calls “the forged conspiracy pretended to be discovered before Philip left” in September 1555. (Bk. xvi, p. 242, ed. 1733.)
The burning of four Bishops, thirteen clergymen, and sixty-seven persons this year for religion; the increasing unpopularity of Philip, his neglect of the Queen and infringement of his marriage articles; the patriotic dread of seeing England overrun with Spaniards and its troops and money drawn into the Spanish wars; all these causes had combined to deepen the general discontent. Patriotic unity was even stronger than religious bonds; and a wider conspiracy, including many Catholics, was formed at the end of the year, aided by the shifty policy of the French King, also bitterly anti-Spanish. In January 1555-6 there was a close meeting of the chief conspirators, to plan how best to remove from the treasury the money destined for Philip, and to use it in a national war against the Spaniards, the Queen among them. One of their number, John Dethicke of Westminster, proposed they should invite to join them “William Hunnis, a very handsome man.” Thomas Whyte, “he who afterwards betrayed them,” made a difficulty about admitting a stranger to their secrets, “for fear of disclosing” (doubtless the others already knew his name), and then John Dethicke answered Whyte, “We shoulde not nede to dowt this man, because before at the Jugo de Cano or Barryers, he, Allday, Cornwalle and others to the number of twelve, were appointed to have slayen the Queen’s Majestie, and after that the King’s Majestie.” Being asked how this took not effect, he said: “There was such a cowardness and fear in their stomachs when they sholde have done it, that they made scrupulnes who sholde begynne--knowing that whoever should have been ruler afterwards would have been bound to have made an example of them.” This at least proved William’s inclination to action (tempered though it was with prudence), and prepared the conspirators to welcome him. But the matter was clinched by Dethicke’s telling them that Hunnis had _already_ “been aboute to counterfeit the Keys of Brigham, and stele away the treasure.” When asked how he could have come to the handling of them, Dethicke said Hunnis was very familiar with Nicholas Brigham, the Keeper of the Treasure House at Westminster, and with his wife. His special knowledge, skill, and opportunities made him a valuable acquisition.
Shortly after, in the beginning of February, as Hunnis himself narrates in his examination, John Dethicke, “understanding that I had some skyll and practice in the syens of alchemy, and more, knowing me to be, by means of certain suites in Ireland, in many men’s dangers, debated with me in this wise, ‘Mr. Hunnis, I have but small acquaintance of you, and that which is, came of my friend, Mr. Rogers, for whoes sake and yor own, I should be glad ye should do well ... for I take you to be a constant young man.’” Thereupon Mr. Dethicke tempted him to exercise his skill in “coining” in Dieppe Castle, as the French King had promised £100,000 to aid the conspirators. Through an amusing series of conversations, in which the acuteness as well as the caution of Hunnis is evident, the various plans of the conspirators were explained, further than the “oath” of Dethicke should have allowed to a member yet unsworn. “Thereunto,” quod he, “Beshrew that head. Thou hast a cursed brain, and forasmuch thou hast so truely gessed, I put thee out of dowte that same is our intention, for the French Kinge hath promised our gents on the other syde to ayd them with shippes and vitalls and ordenance, and all that we shall require shallbe to ayd them withall.” “This,” quod I, “doth lyke me very well.” Nevertheless Mr. William Hunnis very sensibly saw the possible dangers, and desired to know what friends they were likely to have. Dethicke told him of some thirty knights, and a great many noblemen, of Mr. Bethell and Mr. Thomas Whyte, and notably of Sir Peter Carew, the fellow of Wyatt in his ill-fated rising. “He is as sure on our syde, as I have you by the arm.” Suddenly Dethicke recollected himself, and warned Hunnis that if he disclosed the names and plans he had now heard, he would soon be despatched by a dagger from an unknown hand. “Why Sir,” quod I, “what nedeth ye thus to dowt of me?” “No, fayth,” quod he, “I dowt thee not, but as friend, I willed wysh thee fyrst to be slaine so that they might have their enterprise.”
Through further examinations we find that shortly after, Bethell, preparing a ship by the aid of John Benbow, of the Chapel Royal, and others, invited Hunnis to “go a-fishing with him.” Here, too, his humour and acuteness seem to have forced Bethell to lay bare the plans of his department of the conspiracy. “I would be loth to spend my time in fishing, I would rather go a piracying,” which remark Bethell seemed to disapprove of. Nevertheless Hunnis concluded, “I would very faine go with you, only I shall not be ready so soon.” Another time he asked Bethell “Do ye here of any news abrod that certen men should arrive in this land from beyond the seas?” Says he, “In faith I car not what I hear, but for myself I will be sure to serve my country truely.” “And howe?” “To kepe that no stranger shall land!” “Captain, that is well said!” answered Hunnis. This was at the very beginning of March, when they met at Fleet Bridge, and the Captain, having been to buy an ensign, told Hunnis that his boat was due by this tide at St. Katharine’s, and that he had harnesses and coats of mail aboard for over 109 men.
Hunnis was also consulted about the transcript of King Henry’s will made by Henry Peckham for Sir Anthony Kingston, who believed that this will, properly read, and also the laws of the realm, would support the plan of the Western conspirators “to send the Quenes Highness over the seas to the King, to make the Lady Elizabeth Queen, and to marry her to the Earl of Devonshire.” Kingston encouraged them all, saying, “I tell you true that the Lady Elizabeth is a goodly liberall dame, and nothing so unthankfull as her sister is, and she taketh this liberality of her mother, who was one of the bountifullest women, but you have served the unthankfullest mistress on the erth, and all she has done, has been agaynst her father, and her brother, or else to our sweet Lady Elizabeth.”
Allday attempted also to win Roger Carter, one of the King’s servants at Westminster, saying that Dethicke had sent him to open matters to him and to tell him that “Hunnis also was privie to the plot”; but Carter after a sleepless night had told Allday that he would have nothing to do with it, and willed both Dethicke and Hunnis “to leave all such practises, or he would turn Displayer.”
Nevertheless they worked on, without telling him any more.
Constant communications went on with Henry Dudley, the Ashtons, and other gentlemen abroad; with the “Pirates” and the leaders of the movement in the West, and with the French King, for a convoy. The conspirators had progressed so far that they had entered the Treasure House on the 6th of March, and finding the box too heavy had planned to force it open, and take the treasure in portable packages through Rossey’s garden to the boat that would await them on the river by the steps on the 17th of March. On the 16th they took the final solemn oath to hold by each other, and John Throgmorton, the real leader of the London party “said he wished his dagger was in the Queen’s heart, and in that of her Council.” On the 17th twenty of the chief of them were arrested, and conveyed to the Tower. I know that Mr. Froude gives it as the 18th, following Machyn and others. But the “Tower accounts” of the year contain the expenses for boarding Throgmorton, Daniell, Peckham and others, and are dated from the 17th.[43] I suppose therefore the arrest took place on the evening of the 17th, and became known to the people on the morning of the 18th. The name of Hunnis does not appear in this bill, but that only proves that he did not pay for extra diet. His name is given in Machyn’s list under the spelling Heneges, which Froude misrendered into Thomas Heneage. His name appears twice on the first list of conspirators. He was captured about the same time, and lodged near the others in the Tower; his conversations upon “prudence” and “purgatory,” spoken through the walls of cubicles and subdivided cells, are recorded among the confessions of Peckham. It must have been a trying time. The heat of action and the hope of success had died out of him, the certainty of danger, the dread of torture and of destruction surrounded him. Four days after his incarceration he would hear (for jailers then spoke to their prisoners) of the burning of Cranmer, while one after the other of his fellow prisoners was tortured. On the 21st of April his friend and leader, the one brave man among all the batch of prisoners, John Throgmorton, was tried at Southwark, along with Uvedale, Governor of the Isle of Wight, and they were executed together at Tyburn on the 28th. On the 5th of May, Hunnis himself was arraigned at Guildhall in company with Henry Peckham, John Daniell, William Stanton and Edward Turnour; on the 7th Peckham and Daniell were condemned, and the others afterward.
But Hunnis now disappears from _historical_ notes. Whether he appealed to any rights on technical points; whether he owed his life to his being arraigned as “Thomas,” instead of “William,” or to the unusually difficult writing of the clerk who took down his depositions; whether his youth, beauty, popularity, talents, or frank confessions moved the hearts of his judges; or whether he was _remanded_ through the interest of his old master the Earl of Pembroke, I know not. He may have been forgotten as being too _insignificant_. For two years he languished, neglected in the Tower, only to be delivered on the death of Mary. He may have been released _shortly_ before that date through influence. That the terrors and discomforts of prison life had entered into his soul, that fears of rack and execution had aged his youth, we can see from two sets of verses in “The Paradise of Dainty devices” (ed. 1596), “Being asked the occasion of his white head,” No. 4 and No. 93. In the latter, in feeble verse, and many incomprehensible phrases, he certainly gives a chapter from his life’s experience, and asserts his belief in the righteousness of his cause and in the reward of his faith in God.
(93) Being in trouble he writeth thus.
In terrours trap with thraldome thrust, Their thorny thoughts to taste and trie; in conscience cleare from cause uniust, With carping teares did call and crye, and saide O God yet thou art he, that can and will deliver me. Bis.
Thus trembling there with teares I trod, To totter tide in truthes defence; With sighes and sobs, I said O God, Let right not haue this recompense. Least that my foes might laugh to see. That thou wouldst not deliver me. Bis.
My soule then to repentance ranne, My ragged clothes all rent and torne; and did bewaile the losse it wanne, With loathsome life, so long forlorne, and saide O God yet thou art he that can and will deliuer me. Bis.
Then comfort came with clothes of ioy, whose seames were faithfull stedfastnes; and did bedeck the naked boy, that earst was full of wretchednesse. and said be glad for God is he. That shortly will deliuer thee. Bis.
Finis. W. HUNNIS.
Whether the whole period between March 1556 and the accession of Elizabeth was spent by William Hunnis in the Tower or not, we are certain he would be freed at once by the new queen, “his sweet Lady Elizabeth,” and restored to his “living” as gentleman of the chapel (if he ever had been formally deprived of it). Early in the new reign he passed through great personal sorrow, as well as joys. His friend Nicholas Brigham did not survive his Queen long. And his widow, having lost her only child Rachel before the death of her husband, married William Hunnis. His predecessor William Crane in the office of Master of the Children of the Chapel was a married man. Until I learned the fact, I had not thought the laws, or at least the customs of the time, would have permitted this. And the marriage of Hunnis was also surprising, especially in connection with the gossip of Dethicke, which implied undue familiarity between Hunnis and Brigham’s wife. Nevertheless the testimony is irrefragable. On 2nd June 1559, “Margaret Hunnis, alias Brigham, alias Wariner, wyfe of William Hunnys, gentleman of the Queene’s Majesties Chappell,” made her testament nuncupative, in which, by consent of her husband, she left to her “Cousin Francis Brigham all that her tenemente and mansion house lyinge and beyinge at Westminster, commonly cawled ‘The Allmes House,’”[44] founded by Henry VII, and sold by Vincent to Brigham in 34 Hen. VIII. All her other goods, movable and immovable, she left to her husband, William Hunnis, whom also she named her executor. This testament was proved by Thomas Willot for William Hunnis, 12th October 1559. Her will in Somerset House is strangely involved with that of her husband, and clears up much.