THE date of Hamlet is uncertain, but a careful examination of the evidence suggests that Shakespeare's first sketch of the play was written in 1601, and that this was expanded into the final form in 1603-4. It seems likely that Shakespeare wrote his first draft in 1601, while the Lord Chamberlain's men were travelling because they were for the time being out of favour at Court on account of their connection with the Essex conspiracy; this is apparently referred to in the allusion to the "inhibition of the players to perform in the city owing to the late innovation." [See Boas, Shakespeare and His Predecessors.]

The whole question of Richard II is so closely bound up with that of Hamlet, that it is necessary to dwell upon it here at some length. It will show us, for one thing, how intimately Shakespeare's company and he himself were connected with political matters through the medium of Shakespeare's own plays, and it will show us also how material which might in itself seem innocent was regularly adapted to political purposes.

In the year 1596 the Pope published a bull empowering Elizabeth's own subjects to depose her. The queen knew that there was much discontent with her policy; Essex was an exceedingly popular and exceedingly gifted soldier, and his enemies insinuated to the queen that he aimed at deposing her, and seizing the crown for himself. Now Richard II was a king who had been deposed, and the Essex partisans were suspected of using his fate as a kind of symbol of what Essex intended with Elizabeth. The queen and her advisers revealed continual nervousness on this subject.

On July 11th, 1600, [Calendar of State Papers, Green.] interrogations and notes were presented by Attorney-General Coke on Dr Haywarde's book on Richard II in proof

"that the Doctor selected a story 200 years old and published it last year intending the application of it to this time, the plot being that of a king who is taxed for misgovernment and his counsel for corrupt and covetous dealings for private ends; the king is censured for conferring benefits on hated favourites, the nobles become discontented and the commons groan under continual taxation, whereupon the king is deposed and in the end murdered."

Haywarde (it is stated) confessed that he had altered history in certain respects to suit his purposes; as, for instance, having heard of a benevolence under Richard III he transferred it to Richard II.

July 21st, 1600. Essex admitted his treason.

"He permitted underhand that treasonable book of Henry IV to be printed and published; it being plainly deciphered, not only by the matter and by the epistle itself; for what end and for whose behalf it was made, but also the Earl himself being so often present at the playing thereof [This was, apparently, Shakespeare's play.] and with great applause giving countenance to it."

January 22nd, 1601. The examination of Dr Haywarde showed how repeatedly he had altered his book.

"Read in Bodires and other authors that the subject was bound to the state rather than to the person of the King; inserted it as spoken by the Earl of Derby and Duke of Hereford to serve his own turn . . . did not invent the Earl's speech as it is, but found it somewhere. Set forth the oration of the Bishop of Canterbury according to matter found in other authorities and cannot affirm that he found these eight stories in any oration the Archbishop made but it is lawful for an historian so to do.

"Confesses that it is his own speech that it was not amiss in regard of the Commonwealth that King Richard II was dead because it prevented civil war through two competitors . . . asked where he found the description of the Earl . . . says that he found in Hall and others that he was of popular behaviour, but for the particulars he took the liberty of the best writers.

"Gathered the description of the Earl out of his actions; found the matter but not the form of the words."

Haywarde's book was dedicated to Essex in terms which in themselves suggested suspicions: the dedication ran

"Roberto Comiti Essexiæ . . . Vicecomiti Herefordiæ"

"cujus nomen si Henrici nostri fronte radiaret, ipse e latior et tutior in vulgus prodiret Magnus siquidem es et presenti judicio et futuri temporis expectatione: in quo, veluti recuperasse non oculos cæca prius fortuna videri potest."

The phrase about his future greatness was taken as referring to an expectation of the kingship.

The same book was referred to by Sir Robert Cecil, at the Essex trial, February 13th, 1601 [State Papers, Green.]:

"He (i.e. Essex) conspired with Tyrone that Tyrone should land in England with an Irish army . . . these things appeared by the book written on Henry IV, making this time seem like that of Richard II, to be by him as by Henry IV deposed. . . . He would have removed her Majesty's servants, stepped into her chair and perhaps had her treated like Richard II."

And again:

"He came over from Ireland so unexpectedly to remove such from the Queen as he misliked, and could not bend to his traitorous faction; then Tyrone and he were to join their forces and by destroying her Majesty Essex to be made King of England."

The same book is once more made important evidence against Essex in the " Directions to Preachers " given on February 14th:

"Two years since a history of Henry IV was printed and published wherein all the complaints and slanders which have been given out by seditious traitors against the Government, both in England and Ireland, are set down and falsely attributed to those times, thereby cunningly insinuating that the same abuses being now in this realm that were in the days of Richard II, the like course might be taken for redress. . . .

"The Earl confessed that he kept the copy with him 14 days, plotting how he might become another Henry IV. . . .

"If he had not been prevented there had never been a rebellion in England since Richard II more desperate and dangerous. . . . "

James Knowle said he had agreed with Tyrone that Tyrone should be king of Ireland and Essex of England. [State Papers, Green.]

Now, Shakespeare's company were almost as much involved as Dr Haywarde in the dispute over Richard II, as is shown by the examination of Augustine Phillips (February 18th); Phillips is described as a servant to the Lord Chamberlain, and was therefore certainly a member of Shakespeare's company. "On Thursday or Friday seven-night," runs the deposition,

"Sir Charles Percy, Sir Josceline Percy, Lord Mounteagle and several others spoke to some of the players to play the deposing and killing of King Richard and promised to give them 40 shillings more than their ordinary to do so.

"Examinate and his fellows had determined to play some other play, holding that of King Richard as being so old and so long out of use that they should have a small company at it, but at this request they were content to play it."

Not only did they play it, but they went on playing it some forty times in all during the whole period of the trial and execution. Wyndham says in this connection:

"Theatres were then, as newspapers are now, the cock-pits of religious and literary contention. . . .

"The City Councillors could well, had they so minded, have prevented the performance of Richard II, with his deposition and death some 'forty times' in open streets and houses, as Elizabeth complained; and indeed it is hard to account for the Queen's sustained irritation at this drama save on the ground of its close association with her past fears of Essex. Months after the Earl's execution she exclaimed to Lambard: 'I am Richard the Second, know ye not that?'

"Shakespeare's colleagues, acting Shakespeare's plays, gave umbrage to Essex's political opponents in Henry IV, applauded his ambition in Henry V, and were accessories to his disloyalty in Richard II." [Poems of Shakespeare.]

Shakespeare's company having incurred the serious displeasure of the queen, did not perform at Court, Christmas 1601-2, and it was during the period of their disgrace that, according to Mr Boas, [Shakespeare and His Predecessors.] Hamlet was most probably produced.

Three things become at once obvious when we consider the above facts carefully.

(1) That seemingly innocent subjects might be used, and, apparently, were often used, as in the case of Richard II, with a direct political bearing.

(2) That Shakespeare's company were twice accused [See Introduction.] of using plays—Henry IV, Richard II—for political purposes.

(3) That, in each case, the dramatic author involved was Shakespeare himself.

Now, what was the reply of Essex's friends to the accusation that he had intended to emulate Henry of Lancaster and make himself King of England? The answer was that Essex was an impassioned partisan of James I and of the Scottish succession, and that he had fallen a martyr to the cause of James. Let us examine the political situation a little more closely in order to see how this came about. Let us endeavour to place ourselves in the exact position of an Elizabethan audience when the play of Hamlet was produced.

During the last years of Elizabeth's reign the great problem of practical politics lay in the succession to the throne. The queen was visibly growing feeble; she hated any mention of a successor; but it was obvious that, in the ordinary course of nature, her life could not last much longer. The Tudor policy had been to concentrate power in the hands of the monarchy, and, therefore, the character of the sovereign was all powerful in determining the future of the realm.

Foreign politics presented many points of extreme difficulty; Spain was still a most powerful and dangerous foe, continually plotting new Armadas: there was a plot for a landing at Milford Haven in the very year of the queen's death, 1603. [Martin Hume, Philip II. (Cambridge Modern History, III.).]

At no period in English history had the character of the monarch been more important, and in no single instance had the succession been so doubtful and men's minds so hopelessly distracted.

James of Scotland was, undoubtedly, the person who had the best title to the crown, but there were many reasons against him; he had been set aside, somewhat unaccountably, by the will of Henry VIII in favour of a younger branch; he was a Scot, and, as such, might be considered ineligible; by English law no Scottish subject could inherit landed property in England, not even the smallest estate; how then, the lawyers argued, could a Scot inherit the throne? [Burton.]

There was also a considerable amount of prejudice against Scotland simply as a country.

"It is difficult," says Mr Martin Hume, "for Englishmen in these times to conceive the distrust and dislike then entertained for Scotchmen. They were, of course, foreigners and had for centuries been more or less closely allied to France, the secular enemy of England; their country was poor and large portion of it in semi-savagery." [Sir Walter Ralegh.]

The Protestantism of Scotland was, naturally, a feature in its favour; the English had vehemently taken the side of Murray and his Protestant lords as against the queen the English populace embraced the cause of Murray far more ardently than Elizabeth herself; they espoused absolutely the cause of the Scottish lords, and when the Scottish lords commissioned the historian—Buchanan—to defend their actions, the English populace probably accepted as accurate every word of his terrific indictment.

English sentiment was, on the whole, strongly in favour of James of Scotland; he was the natural heir, and notwithstanding all prejudices against Scotland, there was an obvious and great advantage to be gained by uniting the whole island under one rule. The partisans of James very naturally pointed out the immense benefits that would accrue from the union of the crowns, and especially the great increase of safety to England herself.

It is worthy of note that those plays of Shakespeare which are obviously connected with Essex are also plays which all lay stress on the unity of Britain. Thus, in Henry V, he pays an open and daring compliment to Essex, [Act V., Chorus.] then in Ireland, and it is also in Henry V that he introduces, obviously as symbols of national unity, the four soldiers drawn from the four quarters of Britain: Gower the Englishman, Fluellen the Welshman, Macmorris the Irishman, and Jamy the Scotchman. This would be absurdly impossible in the time of the actual Henry V; but it represents the exact ideal at which the partisans of the Scottish succession were aiming when the play was written. The same thing may be said of the famous speech of the dying John of Gaunt in Richard II:

"This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle
          *           *           *
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war."

English sentiment was, for these reasons, strongly in favour of James of Scotland; but it could not be said to be unanimous; there were the legal difficulties in the way, and a further difficulty lay in the character of James himself.

James' character had, or seemed to have. many admirable traits; but it was a baffling and a difficult one. He had a great reputation for learning, and for interest in philosophy and theology; he was mild and merciful by temperament, sternness and cruelty were far from him; he hated bloodshed, and he was the least revengeful of men; no trait in him was more marked than his reluctance to punish even when punishment seemed just and necessary, and most of the odium he incurred in life was on account of this very reluctance. His whole tone of mind was serious and reflective, and, though he was often coarse in his language, he was exempt from the grosser vices.

On the other hand, he was totally unlike the Tudor sovereigns with their love of pleasure, their bonhomie, their frank willingness to mingle with all classes of their subjects. He was melancholy and retiring; he had one confidant in the Earl of Mar, his fellow-pupil under Buchanan—in whom he seemed to repose implicit trust; but to the majority of men he was inaccessible and difficult. He loved seclusion in a way almost incomprehensible to people accustomed to the bustling and vigorous temperament of the Tudors.

His political position was, and always had been, one of extraordinary difficulty; with his father murdered, his mother in lifelong imprisonment, and his country full of factious, partisan nobles, there seems to have been no one, except possibly Mar, whom he could intimately trust. His weapons in these circumstances were a baffling subtlety, a habit of verbal fence, a passion for keeping his own counsel which went so far that he was at times suspected of insanity. His position made him a very close student of men and manners, for his very existence depended on the care and accuracy of his judgment; almost all his Stuart predecessors had met premature deaths, several by assassination, and he only escaped a similar fate by his reticence and subtlety, his genius for evasion. All his life he prided himself on his knowledge of human nature, his power of judging character at a glance, and so far as his youth was concerned, he had apparently exercised that knowledge with considerable skill; at any rate he preserved himself from a premature death which was more than any of his Stuart predecessors had done.

His melancholy, his love of seclusion, his baffling subtlety, the occasional doubts of his sanity might all be explained by the difficulties of his position, and by the shifts to which he was put in extricating himself from such serious perils.

His extraordinary carelessness and untidiness in dress, which revolted many observers, might possibly be set down to a similar cause.

More serious defects, however, suggested themselves, the most fatal being, apparently, a singular vacillation and weakness of will. The Tudors had been, above all, strong and vigorous statesmen; they were powerful rulers; their will-power and determination ranked with their popularity among their chief assets. But James seemed incapable of strong and effective action; he allowed the younger Bothwell to usurp power and practically make himself the master of Scotland while he, James, stood aside in comparative retirement; the younger Bothwell held him in a kind of duresse vile, and James made no effective protest.

Anyone who will read the correspondence of Elizabeth and James will see how continually the queen reproaches him for these defects of character; he knows very well, she maintains, that his subjects destroy his royal authority, and even plot against his life; but he does not execute justice. It is right to be merciful; but when mercy shows itself as complaisance towards villains and scoundrels, then mercy itself becomes a weakness.

It is his duty as a king to defend his realm against evil doers, to execute justice, and to punish rebels; his realm is a mass of disorder; it proceeds from bad to worse, and it is his fault because he does not punish where punishment is due. So long as violence is allowed to flourish, there can be no security in a kingdom. Elizabeth reiterates these charges again and again, in different epistles and in various ways. And James hardly defends himself. He practically admits that the indictment is just; he sees what he ought to do, but he cannot do it; he knows very well that the times are out of joint, but he does not feel himself vigorous enough to set them right; he cannot assume the necessary severity. The queen accuses him continually of vacillation and delay; he knows what he ought to do, why does he not do it? And James can only reply by admitting the procrastination and acknowledging the delay. From the Tudor point of view, this vacillation of will and this procrastination were precisely the qualities most dangerous to a monarch and most likely to be fatal to his people.

We, in these later days, inevitably consider James I and VI from what we know of his history on the English throne; it is prosperity, as Bacon says, which really tries a man; but the James who was known to the Elizabethans in the year 1601 was almost precisely the James described above; there is not a single trait which has not complete warrant in the Scottish historians or in his own correspondence with Elizabeth. [See especially Burton and Hume Brown.]

We must also remember the fact that the Scottish monarch had a special connection with Denmark; his queen—Anne—was a princess of Denmark; he himself had brought her home in a romantic voyage; there were Danes resident at the Scottish court. Moreover, the murderer of James' father, the elder Bothwell, had also taken refuge in Denmark and had ended his life imprisoned there.

This, then, was the political situation at the exact moment Hamlet was written: the whole future of the realm turned on the question of the succession and the character of the future monarch; the most direct heir to the realm was a prince who was melancholy by temperament, whose character seemed flawed by a vacillating will and a habit of procrastination; on the other hand, he had an unexpected capacity for acting with decision in emergencies, as, for instance, in the Gowry conspiracy; he was one of the most learned princes in Europe, and he took an intense interest in philosophy and theology.

His whole situation was tragic and difficult: his father had been murdered, and his mother had married the murderer; to the amazement of Europe he had allowed his royal authority to be usurped and his own person placed in jeopardy by a man of the same title and family as the usurper, a person who, to the excited imagination of the time, seemed almost like a reincarnation of the same evil genius who had ruined the mother.

Let us now examine carefully the connection of Shakespeare's friends and patrons with the Scottish prince. The nation, taken as a whole, seems to have profoundly mistrusted the Cecils, and Essex made himself the mouthpiece of this mistrust. It was known how completely Elizabeth trusted Burleigh and how great her confidence was; but the Essex faction accused him of dishonest diplomacy, of spying, of eavesdropping, of "laying trains to entrap people" and many other objectionable practices. After the death of Burleigh Robert Cecil succeeded, and more than succeeded, to his father's ill-repute. One group of his enemies accused him of designing to marry the Lady Arabella Stuart, and seize the crown for himself in her name; Essex, at his trial, declared that Robert Cecil was in collusion with the Spaniards and wished to deliver the crown to the Spanish Infanta; it is quite possible that Essex sincerely believed this, and that it was one of the motives for his action—at any rate, he said so upon his oath.

It is obvious that the Essex conspiracy was aimed especially at Raleigh and Robert Cecil, and was essentially an endeavour to take the queen from their influence. With the details of this conspiracy, in so far as they affect Shakespeare, I will deal later. Here I only wish to point out that Shakespeare himself had a double connection with it, once through his company and once through his friend and patron—Southampton.

The Essex conspirators had, as we have seen, requested Shakespeare's company to perform the play of Richard II, since, because it dealt with the deposition of a monarch, it was supposed to have a definite bearing on their case.

The attempt on the queen's person was made and failed; Essex, the brilliant idol of the populace, was tried and executed; Southampton, Shakespeare's patron and friend, was condemned to death, though afterwards reprieved, and at the time Hamlet was written he was still in the Tower.

Shakespeare's company, as we have seen, were practically disgraced because of their sympathy with Essex. So general was this sympathy and so determined were the players to make capital of it on the stage, that for several years after the Essex conspiracy no plays dealing with any conspiracy were allowed at all, the authorities being firmly convinced that any conspiracy play, whatever its ostensible subject, would really allude to Essex.

Now, in addition to these reasons—the popular sympathy with Essex, his own company's marked connection—Shakespeare had reasons of his own for taking the greatest interest in the Essex conspiracy. Southampton was certainly Shakespeare's most generous patron; if, as seems plausible, he was also the hero of the sonnets, he was Shakespeare's best-beloved friend. As the result of his connection with that conspiracy he was under sentence of death; he was reprieved for the time being but, any day, the intrigues of Robert Cecil and his faction might destroy him.

Such was the exact situation when Shakespeare's Hamlet was produced.

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