(It’s best to read Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six first.)
The text that we have of Love’s Labour’s Lost is not the same as the original version which was played at Titchfield at Whitsun in 1592.
As we can see from the frontispiece of the ‘Quarto’ edition…
…the play was ‘newly corrected and augmented’ for a performance before Queen Elizabeth at Christmas 1597….
Why was the play changed?
The answer, as usual, was politics…
●
Sir Walter Raleigh was over six foot high, of a swarthy complexion and with a beard which turned up naturally….
He’d had a distinguished career as a soldier in Ireland, but first gained the attention of Queen Elizabeth by laying down his cloak in front of her….
……so that (according to the Churchman and historian, Thomas Fuller, 1608-61)…..
…… she could walk over ‘a plashy place’……
This was a particularly chivalric act because…..
…his clothes were then a considerable part of his estate….
Raleigh’s family, though old and distinguished, was poor….
So poor, his father rented the family home…
But Raleigh made up for it when Elizabeth, taking a shine to this handsome soldier…..
…..she always had a soft spot for tall men….
…… financed him with lucrative monopolies.
He wore a hat with a pearl band and a jewelled feather and shoes encrusted with jewels worth thousands of pounds….
He even jousted in a suit of armour made of silver which glittered with gems….
And wore gigantic pearls in his ears…
But he stayed mean….
He never, for example, returned the cloak he had ‘borrowed’ from a fellow student at Oxford…..
Or paid for it….
John Aubrey, the gossipy antiquarian…..
…..says that Raleigh was….
…..damnable proud….
….and….
…..loved a wench well….
Aubrey recounts how Raleigh engaged in casual, vertical sex against a tree with one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting who…
….seemed at first boarding to be something fearful of her honour [and] cried ‘Sweet Sir Walter, what do you ask me? Will you undo me? Nay sweet Sir Walter! Sweet Sir Walter! Sir Walter!’ At last, as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cried in the ecstasy ‘Swisser Swatter, Swisser Swatter…..’
But in 1591 Raleigh fell madly in love with another of Elizabeth’s ladies….
….the lively, feisty Bess Throckmorton….
Raleigh started to write amorous verses to her…..
Then he impregnated her….
Then he married her in secret……
Then, in a letter, he denied the whole business to little round-backed Robert Cecil….
…..claiming that…..
….if any such thing were, I would have imparted it unto your self before any man living…
The Queen, of course, found out and went into one of her rages….
The ladies-in-waiting were her wards….
She decided who, if anyone, would woo them…
And she decided whom they married….
And, besides, Raleigh was hers….
After all, she’d paid for him….
[Raleigh was later to say….
…..that minions were not so happy as vulgar judgements thought them, being frequently commanded to uncomely and sometimes unnatural employments.]
Raleigh was too proud to seek Elizabeth’s pardon….
So he was exiled from the Court for five years….
He returned, forgiven, in 1587, the year of the Christmas production of Love’s Labour’s Lost….
●
Raleigh commissioned Thomas Nashe to write a book for him – but when Nashe finished it, Raleigh, typically, never paid up…
Nashe took his revenge in a pamphlet…..
……in which he suggests that the Devil himself would be a better patron than Raleigh…
He lambasts Raleigh in code as….
a buckram giant….
…..and….
an upstart…
……..and claims that he is….……
….all Italianato in his talk….
.i.e. elaborate and artificial, like his clothes…..
……and his…..
…….spade peke is sharp….
Following Fuller, Nashe claims that…..
…..the weaver’s looms first framed the web of his [Raleigh’s] honour’….
….and describes him as….
….an inamorata poeta….
….who would….
…sonnet a whole quire of paper in praise of Lady Swine-Snout, his yellow-faced Mistress [Bess Throckmorton] and wear a feather of her rain-beaten fan for a favour, like a fore-horse….
He declares he will never write for Raleigh again, asking…
….what reason have I to bestow any of my wit upon him that will bestow none of his wealth upon me? Alas it is easy for a goodly tall fellow that shineth in his silks, to come and outface a poor simple pedant in a threadbare cloak, and tell him his book is pretty, but at this time he is not provided for him; marry about two or three days hence if he come that way, his page shall say he is not within, or else he is too busy with my Lord……
For Nashe, Raleigh was one of…
…our English peacocks that, painting themselves with church spoils, like mighty men’s sepulchres have nothing but atheism, schism, hypocrisy and vain glory, like rotten bones, lie lurking within them….
At the beginning of 1592, Queen Elizabeth had made Raleigh a gift of Sherbourne – which she had ‘alienated’ (i.e. stolen) from the Bishop of Salisbury…
And later in the same year the Jesuits accused Raleigh of belonging to a ‘School of Atheism’…
These were a loose group of free-thinkers, financed by the ‘Wizard Earl’, Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland….
They included Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman…
Nashe would have known all about them as we know, for certain, from the frontispiece to Dido and Aeneas, that he collaborated with Marlowe on his plays….
In the summer of 1591 the ‘School of Atheism’ would have gathered at Petworth…..
…..Northumberland’s stately home, a day’s ride from Titchfield…
…..to greet the Queen and entertain her on her Progress to the South East…..
(Please see: The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth. )
This gave Shakespeare the idea of lampooning them collectively as ‘The School of Night’ in Love’s Labour’s Lost…
And Nashe (collaborating with Shakespeare and playing Moth) of lampooning Raleigh as Don Adriano di Armado…
Armado, like Raleigh, is a soldier, but a ‘damnable proud’ one…
(He is called ‘Braggart’ in the stage directions of the Quarto and Folio edition of the play…)
He falls passionately in love with the loose country wench Jaquenetta (Bess Throckmorton) and writes poetry to her…
Just as Raleigh wrote love-poetry to Bess Throckmorton….
And…
‘….affects (loves) the very ground….
….where his beloved walks….
….just as Raleigh had laid his cloak down on the ground for Queen Elizabeth to walk on…
Costard, the swain, describes how Armado, like Raleigh, uses the fan of his lady as a ‘favour’…
….To see him [Armado] walk before a lady and to bear her fan…
Like Raleigh, Armado calls Moth/Nashe ‘pretty’…..
He is poor….
(He can’t even afford to wear a shirt…)
And he is mean…
(He gives Costard a paltry three farthings to deliver a letter while Berowne gives him nearly a shilling….)
The Lords describe him as….
an oracle…
According to the historian and politician Sir Robert Naunton, (1563-16350)…..
…..Queen Elizabeth took Raleigh for….
….an oracle that netted them all….
But the Love’s Labour’s Lost story has one, huge inconsistency….
Jaquenetta, unlike Bess, rejects Don Armado’s advances…..
But suddenly ends up pregnant by him….
By rights, the potential father should be Costard the swain, who, at the beginning of the play, has been discovered making love to Jaquenetta….
What had happened?
●
The Shakespeare Code believes that, when Shakespeare and Nashe began writing Love’s Labour’s Lost, it was not known that Bess Throckmorton was pregnant….
All that was known was that Raleigh had fallen for Bess in 1591 and was writing poetry to her….
Raleigh, as an enemy and rival of Essex, was an ideal figure to send-up….
But in the course of writing the play, word came that Bess had given birth to a child on 29th March, 1592…..
The Earl of Southampton even acted as Godfather….
So a hasty – and not very convincing – re-write to the show was made…
Don Armado suddenly becomes the father to Jacquenetta’s baby…
(He does the decent thing and marries her, gives up soldiering and becomes a farmer…)
But what was the original ending going to be?
Armado, in the throes of love, exclaims….
Assist me, some extemporal God of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise wit, write pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio….
We never hear these sonnets….
But there are two very odd sonnets at the end of Shakespeare’s own collection – all about Cupid, the love god, having his flaming brand stolen by nymphs while he sleeps….
The nymphs put the brand into a well….
And the brand heats up the waters to provide a perpetual ‘remedy’ for venereal disease….
One sonnet talks of ‘the help of bath’ – which is a coded reference to the city of Bath, where Tudor gentlemen….
….including Raleigh…..
….went when they had caught a venereal disease.
But the other sonnet has the line….
Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love…..
‘Water’ was Queen Elizabeth’s pet name for Raleigh….
She was fond of saying….
I thirst for water…..
It is The Code’s belief that in the original draft of the play, Armado seduces Jaquenetta and ends up, still love-lorn, but with ‘the clap’ as well….
●
Aubrey tells us that……
….he [Raleigh] spoke broad Devonshire to his dying day…..
Don Armado greets the pedant Holofernes and the curate, Sir Nathaniel, with the cheery West Country salutation….
Chirrah….
What is a Spaniard doing using a Devonshire word……?
This raises the whole question of Armado’s ‘Spanishness’….
It is true that Raleigh often wore black and was said to have a ‘Spanish’ heart….
But Spanishness seems singularly lacking in the LANGUAGE of Armado….
It is colourful and ornate….
…..’Italianato’ even….
…..strange in someone to whom English was supposed to be, at best, a second language…
When Shakespeare wants to point up the ‘foreigness’ of a character – such as Dr. Caius the French doctor in The Merry Wives of Windsor – he shows them MANGLING the English language….
And Armado is referred to as ‘Braggart’ far more often in the stage directions than he is as ‘Don Armado’….
It is the belief of The Shakespeare Code that in the first Titchfield script, Don Armado wasn’t even Spanish….
He was a blatant, raging caricature of Raleigh….
However, by the time the Queen ordered the play to be presented at Court, Raleigh was back in favour….
And making political alliances with the Earl of Essex….
So a direct attack on Raleigh would not go down well….
When Shakespeare ‘newly corrected and augmented’ the script, he turned the Braggart into Don Armado….
But why a Spaniard?
●
In 1593, King Henri of Navarre sent to Elizabeth, without consulting her….
…..one Antonio Perez…
…..for her to clothe and feed….
Elizabeth was furious….
Perez was, in the language of Francis Bacon’s mother….
an old, doted, polling Papist….
He had once worked as secretary for Philip II of Spain and was now betraying Spanish secrets to anyone who would buy them….
On top of all this, he was a notorious homosexual who’d enjoyed affairs with young men in Spain and France…..
….and was about to begin all over again in England…
….with Anthony Bacon (Francis’s brother) who was secretary to the Earl of Essex.
Mrs. Bacon wrote to her son, Francis….
I pity your brother [Anthony] yet as long as he pities not himself but keepeth that bloody Perez, yea, as a coach-companion and a bed-companion, a proud, profane costly fellow, whose being about him I verily fear the Lord God doth mislike, and doth less bless your brother in credit, and otherwise in his health, surely I am utterly discouraged….
Elizabeth would have nothing to do with Perez….
She despised him for betraying the secrets of Philip II….
But Essex, wide and tolerant in his sexual tastes, thought Perez could provide useful information….
He lodged him in Essex House (along with his lover Anthony Bacon) and allowed him to celebrate the old Catholic Mass….
He even asked Perez to keep an eye on his sexually wayward sister, Penelope Rich….
….and so, according to contemporary Anthony Standen…..
….. provided him[Perez] here with the same office those eunuchs have inTurkey, which is to have the custody of the fairest dames…..
Even Essex finally had to admit that Perez usefulness was limited….
And ‘let him go’ in 1596…
But up to that point, contemporary historian William Camden says….
[Essex] entertained him at his house, and supplied him largely with money, using him as his counsellor, yea as an oracle….
It is The Code’s belief that the word ‘oracle’ (used of both Raleigh and Perez) triggered the idea in Shakespeare’s mind of turning the Braggart into the fantastical Spaniard, Don Armado…..
That way, no-one would be offended….
So, to all the other flamboyant characteristics of the Braggart, Shakespeare now tacks on homosexulaity…
The King of Navarre says….
How you delight my lords, I know not, I,
But I protest I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy…’
The Lie was a famous poem by Sir Walter Raleigh….
And ‘minstrels’ were famous for their homosexuality….
So the actor playing Don Armado has to fuse ‘wench-loving’ Sir Walter Raliegh with ‘coach-riding’ Antonio Perez…..
He has to be camp and straight at the same time!!!
Something the brilliant young actor, Paul Ready, achieved magnificently……
…..when he played a lisping, virile Don Armado in the production of Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Globe in London…
Love’s Labour’s Lost was first performed at Titchfield in 1592….
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first performed at Copped Hall in 1594….
To find out the extraordinary events that happened between these two years….
….the love triangles…
…..love squares….
…..betrayals….
…..gay ‘comings out’…
…..torture….
….. and trips to Itlay….
…..Brothers and Sisters of The Code can do no better than to turn to…
But if you wish to follow the A Midsummer Night’s Dream story, please click: HERE.
The Shakespeare Code 
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