The Shakespeare Code

PROVING AN OLD ROMANTIC MYTH IS TRUE

A TRIXIE SPECIAL

(It’s best to read Parts One , Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven first)

Now, Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code…..

We come to the crux of The Ring argument…..

We come to letters that Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex…..

 

……wrote to Queen Elizabeth I……

…..letters cited by his descendant, Walter Bouchier Devereux…..

….in his magnificent two-volume Life and Letters of the Devereux Earls of Essex (1853)….

(See Part Seven for information about Old Salt Devereux

….who believes ‘The Ring Story’ is true…..)

Here is one letter – undated – which reveals the true nature of the relationship between the Queen and her young favourite, Essex…..

Madam, The delights of this place cannot make me unmindful of one in whose sweet company I have joyed as much as the happiest man doth in his highest contentment; and if my horse could run as fast as my thoughts do fly, I would as often make mine eyes rich in beholding the treasure of my love, as my desires do triumph when I seem to myself in a strong imagination to conquer your resisting will. Noble and dear lady, though I be absent, let me in your favour be second unto none; and when I am at home, if I have no right to dwell chief in so excellent a place, yet I will usurp upon all the world. And so making myself as humble to do you service, as in my love I am ambitious, I wish your Majesty all your happy desires. Croydon, this Tuesday, going to be mad and make my horse tame. Of all men the most devoted to your service. Essex.

The sado-masochistic nature of the relationship is clear…..

Essex dreams of conquering the Queen’s……

 ……resisting will……

  ….and plans to go…….

…….mad…..

…….and make his horse…..

……..tame……

…….much as he plans to ‘tame’ the Queen of England…..

Essex, who was half the Queen’s age…..

……was a replacement for Elizabeth’s old lover, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester……

 

…..who had been Elizabeth’s exact contemporary…..

…… and who had died in Armada year, 1588.

Essex…….

…..who was rumoured to be Leicester’s son…..

…..came from an old, but impoverished family.

Elizabeth’s favour allowed Essex to live up to his title….

…..and wear clothes that weren’t falling to bits.

But there was a price to pay….

 The Queen wanted Essex constantly by her side……

…..that’s why she made him her Master of Horse.

But Essex…..

……like most young noblemen at the time…..

……wanted to achieve glory in battle……

So there was always a tension between his wishes and the Queen’s.

The Queen had no interest, as Essex did, in creating an empire…..

…….or ruling over countries that were not Protestant.

She thought that the cult of….

…… chivalry…..

…….developed by Essex’s soldier-hero, the late Sir Philip Sidney……

……..was a stupid and dangerous waste of time……

……..except of course when handsome knights…….

 

 …..tilted before her at Whitehall each year….

……in honour of her Accession to the Throne 0n 17th November.

 

When Essex came to the court, the Queen was in her mid-fifties……..

….. and so could, if she wished, have sexual relations with her favourites without danger of child birth.

(She was rumoured to have given birth, by Leicester, to a son – who was brought up in Venice – and a daughter as well.)

Essex wasn’t the only one to receive the Queen’s attention…..

Sir Walter Raleigh…..

.

……had his work cut out….

He later confessed to, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham…..

……King James’s boyfriend…..

……that….

Minions were not so happy as vulgar judgements thought them , being frequently commanded to uncomely and sometimes unnatural employments.

Elizabeth, as we have seen from Essex’s letter, was excited by ritualistic sex…..

….and dark games.

Her hangman, Topcliffe, even wrote letters to the Queen…….

…..describing how he intended to torture Roman Catholics….

He even claimed to have fondled the Queen’s breasts and thighs…..

(See ‘The Background to ‘King Lear” Part: Two. )

When the Spanish seized Calais, though, the romps with Essex had to stop….

Everyone thought that Spain was planning another Armada…..

…….so Essex had to go to war to save England.

He sailed on an expedition to sack Cadiz……

…..and though Elizabeth had told the Lord Admiral, Charles Howard, First Earl of Nottingham……

 

…..to keep Essex out of danger…….

…..Essex was the first to jump into the waters and lead the attack on the town….

Dressed in the Queen’s colour, white,  he returned a bearded hero….

…….and for a while led a self-consciously godly and religious life.

But he soon embarked on affairs again with Elizabeth’s Ladies-in-Waiting…..

…..and sulked in his bedchamber for days on end when he couldn’t have his way with the Queen.

Elizabeth thought he had inherited his stubbornness from his mother…….

…..her cousin once removed….

…..her great friend……

…..and great enemy…..

…..and great rival for Leicester’s affection…..

…..Lettice Knollys…..

On 25^th February, 1597, Rowland White wrote:

 My lord of Essex comes out of his chamber in his gown and nightcap…Full fourteen days hath my Lord of Essex kept his chamber: Her Majesty, as I heard, resolved to break him of his will, and pull down his great heart; who found it a thing impossible, and says he holds it from the mother’s side; but all is well again, and no doubt he will grow a mighty man in our state…..

Essex would visit the Queen every day……

……..often dressed in in his night-clothes and using a secret stairway……..

But the Spanish returned to their attack on England…..

……and planned to join forces with the Irish rebels.

The Queen had to agree to release Essex for a further expedition…..

This time to the Azores….

……to seize Spanish ports….

……and to seize Spanish shipping….

……galleons, laden with silver, returning from the Indies.

While Essex was waiting to sail with the English ships at Sandwich…..

…..Elizabeth sent one of her Knights to deliver her…..

…..blessings to the fleet and the army…..

…..and to……

….bestow…..

…. on Essex a…..

…..fair angel to guard [him]

Essex sent a letter of thanks to the Queen by way of the Knight:

 Most dear Lady – For your Majesty’s high and precious favours, namely for sending this worthy Knight to deliver your blessings to the fleet and army, but above all other for your Majesty’s bestowing on me that fair angel which you sent to guard me; for these, I say, I neither can write words to express my humble thankfulness, nor perform service fit to acknowledge such duty as for these I owe. For whatsoever I could be able to do as your Majesty’s servant , subject, creature, and humble vassal, I did owe it and a great deal more before. But as I am tied to your Majesty by more ties than was ever subject to a Prince, so I will strive to be worthy of your gracious favour with more industry than ever man did upon this earth, for my industry and my humble affection will be, as my duty, an obligation ever infinite, which I most humbly beseech your Majesty to believe of your Majesty’s humblest and most affectionate vassal.                                     Essex

 Just over a week later – on 6th July – Essex, docked at Portland Road, wrote another letter to the Queen:

My dear and most excellent sovereign, – I received your gracious letter full of princely care, of sweetness, and of power to enable your poor vassal to all duties and services that flesh and blood can perform. I received this dear letter, I say, as I was under sail, coming with your Majesty’s fleet into the road of Portland. And because I think it will be welcome news to your Majesty that we are all with safety thus advanced, I send the gentleman whom your Majesty despatched to me forthwith back again. By whom, if I could express my soul’s humble, infinite and perfect thankfulness for so high favours as your Majesty’s five dear tokens, both the watch, the thorn, an, above all, the angel which you sent to guard me, for your Majesty’s sweet letters indited by the spirit of spirits; if, for this I say, I could express fit thankfulness, I would strain my wits to perform it. But till God in time make my poor endeavours and services my witnesses, I must hope your Majesty will conceive, in your royal breast, that which my weak words cannot signify. So shall you do justly as you ever used to do, and so shall you bless and make happy your Majesty’s Humble vassal whose soul is poured out with most earnest, faithful, and more than most affectionate wishes.

Essex AGAIN uses the phrase…….

…..the angel which you sent to guard me…..

So the words…..

…… MUST HAVE COME FROM QUEEN ELIZABETH HERSELF!!!

But what was this ‘angel’?

Essex uses the same word in a letter to the Queen, written three years later…..

……on 4th April, 1600….

To encourage me to be an unfortunate petitioner for myself, I have a lady, a nymph, or an angel, who, when all the world frowns upon me, cannot look with other than gracious eyes ; and who, as she resembles your Majesty most of all creatures, so I know not by what warrant she doth promise more grace from your Majesty than I without your own warrant dare promise to myself.

So, this….

…..angel….

…is also….

….a lady or nymph….

….who….

…..resembles your Majesty most of all creatures…

….and…..

….promises more grace from your Majesty than I without your own warrant dare promise to myself…..

Devereux believes…..

…….and Your Cat is happy to believe with him…..

……that the ‘angel’ is the ring which Elizabeth gave to Essex…..

……with a portrait of herself engraved on it…..

It came with a……

…… promise……

…… of the Queen’s…..

……grace…..

It CANNOT be a painting…..

……or even a miniature…..

……because Essex, in the first two letters, is about…..

…..TO DO BATTLE AT SEA!!!

 But is there any HISTORICAL evidence…….

……as opposed to LITERARY evidence……

…. that the…..

…..fair angel….

….. is the ring?

BRILLIANT EVIDENCE….

…..NEVER CITED BEFORE…..

…..WHICH YOUR FAITHFUL CAT WILL PRESENT IN HER NEXT POST!!!

See Post Nine: Enter Francis Osborn.

‘Bye now…..