APPENDIX A

JAMES prided himself on being the destined restorer of the Arthurian empire. He offended both his Parliaments by styling himself, without the consent of either, King of Great Britain, and he desired, as Selden puts it, to get rid of the very names of strangers (i.e., Scotland and England). Masson says in his edition of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: "Nothing is more creditable to King James than the strength of his passion for such a union of the two kingdoms and peoples as might fitly follow the union of the two crowns. The intensity of his conception of the desirable union is not more remarkable than its thorough-going generality. . . .

"What had hitherto been the 'Borders' or 'Marches' between the two kingdoms were they not now simply the 'Middle Shires' of one and the same dominion, and ought they not to be re-christened by that name? Nay, why should the distinctive names of Scotland and England themselves be perpetuated more than reference to the past might make inevitable? Why should they not be known henceforth simply as North Britain and South Britain, integral parts of the same Great Britain? . . . By his own royal authority he attempted to abolish the names England and Scotland in all general documents."

James believed that the Gunpowder Plot was due largely to discontented subjects who disliked the union of the two kingdoms and the restoration of the Arthurian empire.

We may also compare the Venetian State Papers (April 17th, 1603):

"He will stay a few days in Berwick in order to arrange the form of the union of the two crowns. It is said that he is disposed to abandon the titles of England and Scotland and to call himself King of Great Britain, and like that famous and ancient King Arthur to embrace under one name the whole circuit of one thousand seven hundred miles, which includes the United Kingdom now possessed by his Majesty, in that one island."

APPENDIX B

The following is interesting as a commentary upon The Merchant of Venice.

It is an extract from the Burleigh papers, a portion of what appears to be an actual proclamation entitled: "An Account of Dr Lopez' Treason, 1593-4."

"Doctor Roger Lopez, a Portugall borne . . . he did use always the means of certain choice persons picked out by himself, in whom he reposed special trust, whereof a Portugall called Manuel Andrada was one, a man sometime attending on the King Don Antonio, both as their countrymen say, of one tribe and kindred. This Andrada by letters intercepted, was discovered to have practised the death of the said Don Antonio."

[Andrada travels a great deal, to Spain and elsewhere.]

"He (Lopez) most wickedly did undertake a most heinous purpose and resolution to take away the life of her most gracious Majesty by poison that had honoured him, a base fellow otherwise, with princely favour, rewards and good opinion.

" . . . The precious life of our sovereign sacred Princess, upon whose life so many lives depend, should have been sold. Her life, I say, that giveth life to many, loath to take away the life of any, though by Law convicted; a sweet Lady, wonderfully inclining to Mercy, most loving to all Strangers; I may truly say, 'Decus et deliciæ mundi' the jewel of the World. . . . This Stranger, made a denizen in the land, her sworn servant, would betray her beloved and dear life. . . . For the King of Spain, they say, so long as her Majesty liveth, distrusteth in the success of his intended purposes. . . .

"Now like wary Merchants (for their letters were written in style of Merchants), that these letters might be conveyed with more safety they communicated."

The document goes on to state how Elizabeth was referred to under the disguise of the Pearl: "Indeed this Pearl they mean though brought forth in a northern climate, yet far surmounting all the Oriental Pearles and Jewells, which the East or any other parts of the world ever had or hath."

Now here we surely have remarkable parallels to Shakespeare's play; there is first the disguise of the conspirators as merchants which suggests at once Shakespeare's title and general scheme. Then we have the praise of Elizabeth as the jewel of the world, far surpassing all others, as Bassanio praises (Portia I, i.), and we have the enthusiastic praise of her mercy; we have the plot of the alien Jew; we have the fact that the Jew employs to travel for him one of his own tribe exactly as Shylock employs Tubal.

Further close parallels—as, for example, that Don Antonio becomes a bankrupt, that he has to borrow money from the Jew Lopez even to pay for his clothes, that his vessels are lost, one by one or in groups, by fire, shipwreck, etc., in what seems an unprecedented run of ill-luck—can be found in the State Papers, 1593-4.

If the above proclamation were actually placarded on the walls of London (as it probably was) when Shakespeare's play was performed, the main significance of the drama would have been immediately apparent to all.

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