Numbers in bold brackets [] indicate original page numbers.
II
THE ANCESTRY OF EDWARD DE VERE
It is waste labour usually to trace the ancestral connections of literary men. It is themselves and what they accomplished that really matter, and literary biographies which go beyond this generally succeed in being tedious. In the case before us, however, these ancestral connections and the writer's attitude towards them are vital; so that some brief notice of the family of the De Veres is essential to the argument.
The founder of the family was one Aubrey de Vere (derived, it is supposed, from Ver near Bayeux) who came to England with the Conqueror, and was rewarded for his support with extensive estates in Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdonshire and Middlesex; and "the continuance of his family in the male line, and its possession of an earldom [182] for more than five and a half centuries have made its name a household word." During these centuries the vast estates of the family, as well as its titles and dignities, were further augmented by marriage or by royal favour.
In the time of the anarchy which marked the reign of the Conqueror's grandson Stephen, the title of Earl of Oxford was bestowed by Matilda upon the representative of the family, another Aubrey (1142), whilst nine years prior to this a son or grandson of the founder, also of the same name, had been created Great Chamberlain. On the accession of Henry II the title conferred by Matilda was confirmed by the new monarch. Amongst the hereditary dignities obtained through marriage was that of Chamberlain to the Queen, and the titles of Viscount Bolebec, Lord Sandford, and Lord Badlemere. Lyly in dedicating his "Euphues and his England" to Oxford, whom he addresses as his master, takes occasion to string all these varioustitles together.
All through the long period of the Plantagenet kings, the lands, titles and dignities of the family were transmitted through a succession of Aubreys, Johns, and Roberts, like so many representatives of a royal dynasty; and, in the reign of the last of the Plantagenets, Richard II, the Earl of Oxford, who was the royal favourite, was created a Marquis, being thus raised above all the rest of the nobility and ranked next to the King himself. This is the Robert, Earl of Oxford, mentioned in ordinary history text books as the favourite responsible partly for the troubles that befell the King, and who earned for himself a reputation of extreme dissoluteness.
The personal relationship of Richard II to the Earl of Oxford of his day, and the honour he conferred upon the family, might account for "Shakespeare's" slight partiality to Richard, if we suppose the former to have been a later earl of the same family; whilst the unfortunate character borne by Richard's favourite [183] would explain the curious fact of his non-appearance in a play written by a member of the same house, one in whom family pride was a pronounced trait. For the character of this Robert, Earl of Oxford, of Richard II's reign, made it impossible to introduce him without either immortalizing his infamy or of so altering the facts as to have betrayed the authorship. The silence of the author at this point is therefore even more significant than his utterances in the case with which we shall presently deal. For be it observed that Shakespeare deals with this very question of the pernicious influence of evil associates upon Richard and leaves out all mention in this connection of the one particular evil counsellor that history has clearly recorded for us, Shakespeare, whoever he was, had evidently some special reason for screening the Earl of Oxford. He had not overlooked him, for at the end of the play the Earl is mentioned as having been executed for supporting the King*; possibly the only thing in his favour that could be recorded.
Edward de Vere's pride in his ancient ancestry is commented on by more than one writer; and so marked a feature of Shakespeare's is this regard for high and honoured birth, that one writer, believing it to be written by the Stratford man, does not hesitate to speak of it as "snobbery." By whatever name we may choose to call it, it is at any rate an outstanding mental trait which Edward de Vere and "Shakespeare" have in common. To have found it in one situated like the Stratford man would, however, have bespoken a measure of "snobbery" inconsistent with the intellectual largeness of "Shakespeare." In the case of Edward de Vere it is merely the spontaneous fruit of centuries of family tradition and the social atmosphere into which he was born, and shows us that even the broadest minds remain more or less at the mercy of their social milieu.
[184] We have had occasion already to point out that Shakespeare did not understand the "lower orders." What is even more striking is the fact that he did not understand the middle classes. Mr. Frank Harris, who, if our own theory of authorship be accepted, has, in many particulars, shown great sureness of psychological analysis, but who never expresses a single doubt as to the truth of the Stratfordian position, asserts, in his work on "The Man Shakespeare," that Shakespeare did not even know the middle classes. "He utterly missed," he says, "what a knowledge of the middle classes would have given him," whilst "in all his writings he praises lords and gentlemen." And again, "Shakespeare, one fancies, was a gentleman by nature, and a good deal more." That one, like Shakespeare, whose studies of human nature rest so obviously upon observation, could both remain ignorant of his own class and also assimilate rapidly the characteristics and courtesies of another class is neither more nor less than a contradiction in terms. The logical conclusion is that "Shakespeare" was himself an aristocrat: a point on which anti-Stratfordians of all schools agree, and on which some Stratfordians, in return, most weakly try to make merry.
It would unnecessarily overload these pages with quotations to give all that Shakespeare says on the question of high birth, whilst a few selected passages would not accurately represent the position. Some measure of its importance to him may, however, be gathered from the fact that he does honour to the idea in more than twenty separate plays. Now, a person may happen to be of high birth and yet be able to take a true measure of its value. In the case of Edward de Vere, however, it would seem that he had the same exaggerated idea of its importance that we meet with in Shakespeare. And as we have chosen the play of "All's Well that Ends Well" to preside in great measure over the first part of our biographical argument, we would ask the reader to notice as an illustration of Shakespeare's [185] attitude to this question how the idea of high birth dominates the whole of the play.
* Note. — In the First Folio edition "Spencer" is substituted for "Oxford." Such a substitution (not noticed until the above was in print) is very striking. back