Writing
Duels in Hamlet
Though Shakespeare’s Hamlet is very much the story of a renaissance prince, it’s important to remember that the play’s sources date back to the Dark Ages. The anonymous “UR-Hamlet,” (later published in the early 1590s ), is based on an ancient legend about a prince who fights to the death to revenge his father’s murder. Shakespeare’s adaptation still contains a nod to this ancient culture that praised and highly ritualized the concept of judicial combat.
Back in Anglo-Saxon times, private disputes, (such as the murder of one’s father) could be settled through means of a duel. In this period, England was occupied by the Danes, (which we would now call Vikings), and several Viking practices of judicial combat survive. For example, the Hólmgangan, an elaborate duel between two people who fight within the perimeter of a cloak.
At the end of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the revenge cycle between Hamlet, Leartes, and Fortinbras, comes to a close using a duel. Hamlet has murdered Leartes’ father but Hamlet did not intentionally kill him. This kind of legal dispute would certainly have been settled with a duel in Saxon times. This is one reason why Leartes scorns Hamlet’s offer of forgiveness at the beginning of the scene, and instead trusts in the outcome of the fight to prove his cause. Hamlet and Leartes begin fighting officially under the terms of a friendly fencing match, but it becomes clear early on that at least in the mind of Leartes, this is actually a blood-combat. He is demanding blood for the death of his father, as the Danes would have done during the Anglo Saxon times when Shakespeare’s source play of Hamlet was written.
What happens in the fight
The sword fight at the end of Hamlet is surprising in many ways. First of all, it is much more choreographed than many of Shakespeare’s other fights which are usually dramatized on the page very simply with two words: “They fight.” In Hamlet by contrast, Shakespeare has a series of important and descriptive stage directions. Furthermore, the fight is divided into three distinct bouts or phrases, or if you like “mini fights.” Below is the full text of the fight. I shall then explain what happens in each phrase.
PHrase One
Shakespeare it very clear that Hamlet gets a normal fencing rapier, while Leartes gets a sharp one, they fight one fencing bout where Hamlet scores a point. This is the most “sportsman like” part of the fight:
Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Osric, and Lords, with other Attendants with foils and gauntlets. A table and flagons of wine on it. Claudius. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me. [The King puts Laertes' hand into Hamlet's.] Hamlet. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong; But pardon't, as you are a gentleman. Laertes. I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my revenge. But till that time I do receive your offer'd love like love, And will not wrong it.3890 Hamlet. I embrace it freely, And will this brother's wager frankly play. Give us the foils. Come on. Laertes. Come, one for me. Hamlet. I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance3895 Your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed. Laertes. You mock me, sir. Hamlet. No, by this hand. Claudius. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,3900 You know the wager? Hamlet. Very well, my lord. Your Grace has laid the odds o' th' weaker side. Claudius. I do not fear it, I have seen you both; But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.3905 Laertes. This is too heavy; let me see another. Hamlet. This likes me well. These foils have all a length? They Prepare to play. Osric. Ay, my good lord. Claudius. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.3910 If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire; The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw3915 Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,3920 'Now the King drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin. And you the judges, bear a wary eye. Hamlet. Come on, sir. Laertes. Come, my lord. They play. Hamlet. One.3925 Laertes. No. Hamlet. Judgment! Osric. A hit, a very palpable hit. Laertes. Well, again! Claudius. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;3930 Here's to thy health. [Drum; trumpets sound; a piece goes off [within].] Give him the cup. Hamlet. I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile.
Phrase Two
- Claudius. Come. [They play.] Another hit. What say you?3935
- Laertes. A touch, a touch; I do confess’t.
- Claudius. Our son shall win.
- Gertrude. He’s fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.3940 - Hamlet. Good madam!
- Claudius. Gertrude, do not drink.
- Gertrude. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me. Drinks.
- Claudius. [aside] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.
- Hamlet. I dare not drink yet, madam; by-and-by.3945
- Gertrude. Come, let me wipe thy face.
- Laertes. My lord, I’ll hit him now.
- Claudius. I do not think’t.
- Laertes. [aside] And yet it is almost against my conscience.
Again, Hamlet gets the upper hand and scores a point. While his mother is celebrating his victory, she accidently drinks the poisoned cup that Claudius meant for Hamlet. Now Claudius is enraged, Laertes is angry because of losing the first two bouts, and Hamlet is blissfully unaware that he is in mortal danger.
Phrase Three
When Hamlet isn’t expecting it, Leartes wounds him with the poisoned sword. From there, the fight degenerates into a violent, bloody mess where Hamlet disarms Laertes, then stabs Leartes. After this, the Queen dies, and Hamlet kills Claudius:
- Hamlet. Come for the third, Laertes! You but dally.3950
Pray you pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me. - Laertes. Say you so? Come on. Play.
- Osric. Nothing neither way.
- Laertes. Have at you now!3955
[Laertes wounds Hamlet; then] in scuffling, they change rapiers, [and Hamlet wounds Laertes].
- Claudius. Part them! They are incens’d.
- Hamlet. Nay come! again! The Queen falls.
- Osric. Look to the Queen there, ho!
- Horatio. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?3960
- Osric. How is’t, Laertes?
- Laertes. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.
- Hamlet. How does the Queen?
- Claudius. She sounds to see them bleed.
- Gertrude. No, no! the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!3965
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d. [Dies.] - Hamlet. O villany! Ho! let the door be lock’d.
Treachery! Seek it out.
- Laertes. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain;3970
No medicine in the world can do thee good.
In thee there is not half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice
Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie,3975
Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d.
I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame. - Hamlet. The point envenom’d too?
Then, venom, to thy work. Hurts the King. - All. Treason! treason!3980
- Claudius. O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.
- Hamlet. Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion! Is thy union here?
Follow my mother. King dies.
God’s providence in Hamlet (or lack therEof)
It is telling that everyone dies in this scene, which indicates that the concept of providence seems somewhat ambiguous in this scene- yes, Claudius dies but so does Hamlet. In addition, Leartes dies justly for his own treachery as he claims, but he also tries to avoid damnation. Leartes is guilty of treason for killing Hamlet, but Hamlet is guilty of killing an old man and a young maid, so Leartes asks God to forgive Hamlet for two murders, while he has only committed one. Providence doesn’t seem clear which crimes are worse. Further, Providence fails to reveal the guilt or innocence of Queen Gertrude- did she know her second husband murdered her first? Did she support Hamlet’s banishment? Did she know the cup was poisoned, and is therefore guilty of suicide, or was she ignorant and punished by fate for her adultery and incest? Knowing the conventions of judicial combat help the reader understand the compex world of Hamlet, a world devoid of easy answers.
How Would I Stage the Fight?
Phrase 1
I want the two combatants to start en guarde, their blades touching, then there will be a series of attacks on the blade.
Hamlet will advance and attack the low line of Leartes’ sword
Hamlet will advance and attack the high line of Leartes’ sword
Leartes will advance and beat attack the high line of Hamlet’s sword
Leartes will advance and attack the low line of Hamlet’s sword
Hamlet performs a bind on Leartes’ sword, sending it off on a diagonal high line.
Hamlet attacks Leartes leg and Leartes will react in mild pain.
Phrase 2
Leartes is no longer fighting in polite manner, so this will be the real fight where he’s actually going for targets
Hamlet and Leartes come together and bow,
Both go into en guarde and Osric signals the start of the fight.
Hamlet attacks Leartes’ blade high
Leartes attacks Hamlet’s blade low
Leartes suddenly does a moulinet and attacks Hamlet’s right arm. Hamlet does a pass back and parries 3
Leartes attacks Hamlet’s Left Arm. Hamlet does another pass back and parries 4
Leartes cuts for Hamlet’s head. Hamlet passes back and does a hanging parry 6, which causes the sword to slide off.
Hamlet ripostes, slips around Leartes’ ________side, and thrusts offline in suppination. He then flicks the sword, hiting the back of Leartes’ knee.
Phrase 3
Concern- you need to have enough space for Hamlet to chase Leartes DS, and for Leartes to slice Hamlet with the forte of his sword.
Before the bout is supposed to start, Hamlet walks toward the sword, point down to Leartes US L or USR
“I am afeard you make a wanton of me”
Leartes: “You mock me sir!”
Hamlet: “No, by this hand”
Hamlet presents his hand. Leartes places his sword on it, and slices it
Leartes gives Hamlet a stomach punch
Hamlet falls to his knees dropping the sword. If necessary, Hamlet can pull out a blood pack to put on his hand.
Leartes points his blade above Hamlet’s head, then brings it back, preparing to strike off Hamlet’s head.
Leartes: “Have at you now”
Hamlet ducks to the right, with his leg extended.
Leartes Passes forward, trips on Hamlet’s leg. Hamlet does a slip and goes behind Leartes’ back.
Hamlet rabbit punches Leartes on the back, picks up Leartes’ sword, noticing the blood on it
Leartes slowly rises, then notices Hamlet with his sword, he quickly grabs Hamlet’s weapon
Hamlet shoves Leartes DS into a corp a corp, then traps Leartes’ blade
The two push each other for a while
Osric: “Nothing Neither way”
Hamlet pushes Leartes downstage, then slices him across the back.
Leartes stops DS, and falls to the ground
Murder of Claudius
If Claudius is standing, we can have Horatio grab the king around the neck, Hamlet places the sword across Claudius’ stomach, and slices him.
If Claudius is seated, Hamlet picks up the goblet with one hand, slices the king’s leg, then, (after establishing a good distance), Hamlet points the blade off line, just left of Claudius’ neck. Hamlet is giving Claudius a choice- drink or be stabbed. When Claudius chooses to drink, either Hamlet or Horatio can give him the cup. If Horatio gives it to Claudius, it might give him the idea to die later.
Sources:
Sources-
- Ur- Hamlet
- Lear source- Hollinshed’s Chronicles
- Holm ganner
- JSTOR
- Dr. Cole
- Bf paper on duels
- Tony Robinson’s Crime and Punishment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yz9VLkNHJU&feature=youtu.be
- Truth Of the Swordhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFL2ghH0RLs
- Secrets Of the VIking Sword http://youtu.be/nXbLyVpWsVM
- Ancient Inventions- War and Conflict http://youtu.be/IuyztjReB6A
- Terry Jones- Barbarians (the Savage Celts) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSuizSkHpxI
- Joe Martinez book
If you enjoyed this post, and would like to do some stage combat of your own, sign up for one of my stage combat classes on Outschool.com!
Watch “The Klingon Hamlet Part 1: The Original Klingon – Summer of Shakespeare” on YouTube
A fascinating look at the pitfalls and problems of translating Shakespeare into another language, even into a made-up language!
And here’s the whole Soliloquy in Klingon:
Go watch “Merry Wives Of Windsor” on PBS!
Happy Pride Month From “The Shakespearean Student!”
Happy Pride Month everyone! This month I’m going to concentrate on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” more info on Shakespeare’s comedies, and a few little nerdy analyses, but first I wanted to extend a friendly hand to members of the LGBTQ+ community, whom arguably Shakespeare has celebrated in some of his writing, especially in Midsummer and the other comedies.
The quote on the featured photo comes from “Twelfth Night.” The character Antonio repeatedly mentions how much he loves Sebastian (Viola’s twin brother). He shows a great amount of courage and devotion. Sadly, Sebastian doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, but he is grateful to Antonio, and tries to help him when he gets in trouble.
If you’re interested in queer readings and queer coding in Shakespeare, enjoy this video analysis from Kyle Kalgren and Rantasmo- a scholar who delves into queer representation in popular media:
Let me know if you’d like me to cover more of this topic. I admittedly, haven’t read many Queer Theory papers on Shakespeare, but it’s a fascinating and wide-ranging topic. It also helps develop the case that, as Rantasmo puts it: “If we truly believe (and I do) that Shakespeare is a universal writer, then his plays should be able to speak to all races, cultures, and all forms of love.”
Happy Pride Month!
Watch “Shakespeare’s Mother The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman BBC Documentary 2015” on YouTube
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
Ever wonder what it was like to be a woman and a mother in Tudor Times? Watch this excellent documentary by Michael Wood
May the Fourth Be WIth thee- here’s why Falstaff is like Boba Fett
In 1978, a “holiday special’ was released under the Star Wars umbrella. Today it is universally panned as the worst Star Wars product ever conceived. It is tonally completely different from Star Wars and it spends most of its time either in a bar on Tatooine or on Kashik with Chewbacca’s family; characters we don’t know, can’t understand, and have no influence on the larger Star Wars Universe!
The only bright spot in this tragic black hole of a time-wasting special, (at least according to most of the internet), was that this special brought back the character of Boba Fett, the cool, anti-heroic bounty hunter who is constantly deceiving our heroes. As you can see, they changed the format into a cartoon, so that’s a little bizarre, but it was nice to see an old friend in this otherwise who’s who of lame new characters.
THIS WAS NOT A NEW IDEA, EVEN FOR 1978,
In around 1598 (allegedly), Queen Elizabeth the first asked William Shakespeare to write a comedy about Sir John Falstaff, the fat cowardly comic center of the Henry IV plays. The Queen wanted to see a comedy about Falstaff in love, which Shakespeare allegedly completed in a few short weeks.
Ant the result, was the Star Wars Holiday Special of the Shakespearean Cannon.
Unlike Henry IV, which is a complex history play about rebels going up against an empire (Henry IV claimed part of France so that counts :), Merry Wives a silly comedy set in the country town of Windsor. Just like the Holiday Special, Shakespeare’s comedy has a totally different tone than the other plays that feature Falstaff.
I think Shakespeare wisely didn’t try to make Falstaff a romantic figure- that would be absolute character assassination. What he does instead is take Falstaff’s ability to sweet-talk women and his penchant for thievery, and make the play about his attempts to seduce two virtuous housewives and steal their money. Just like how Boba Fett was not changed into a good-guy to pander to audiences (yet), but instead, Lucas made him a cunning deceiver who tries to sell out our heroes to Darth Vader.
Though Falstaff himself works within the context of the play, most of the new comic characters are very dated and not very funny. Dr. Caius and the Welshman are written with outrageous accents making them as incomprehensible as alien bit players in Star Wars. Frankly, I’d rather kiss a Wookie than listen to these losers try to woo Mistress Page’s daughter. It’s like Shakespeare cut and pasted the worst scenes from Taming Of The Shrew and added a French accent.
Even more boring are the scenes at the Garter Inn- a place that must’ve had significance for knights in the 1590s, but nowadays is somewhat forgettable, (like the Cantina, deal with it NERDS!)
The one really good part of the play is this scene in Act II, Scene I where Mistress Page and Mistress Ford simultaneously receive letters of “love,” (which really means ‘I want sex and your money), from Falstaff. The ladies are incensed for a couple of really good reasons:
A. It’s Falstaff- a fat, old, penniless knight who is well known as a drunk.
B. They’re already married, and he has the pudding guts to assume they’d betray their husbands.
C. If they were to cheat on their husbands, THEY WOULDN’T DO IT WITH FALSTAFF
D. The love poem he writes them is terrible. If he wanted these virtuous wives to cheat on their husbands for someone as completely undeserving as him, he could’ve at least put some effort into it!
I would also argue that the worst thing about the Holiday Special became the best thing about Merry Wives: the songs!
The most egregious change to the tone of Star Wars that the Holiday Special made was putting in a bunch of terrible musical performances by people like Jefferson Starship (get it?) to make the special more of a variety show with the Star Wars characters slapped on top of it like a sticker on a lunch box. Now we know what it sounds like when Princess Leia sings a song that clearly required a second draft:
Luckily for Shakespeare, instead of Jefferson Starship, he got opera composer Otto Nikoli, who saved this mostly terrible play by turning it into a charming opera! Look at this duet from Act I!
A lot of the more absurd plot points of Merry Wives work extremely well as musical comedy shtick, and Falstaff himself works very well as a big basso profundo
So if you go to see Merry Wives, know that it’s not a very good play by Shakespearean standards. It’s silly, kind of pointless, and not a very good addition to the story of Falstaff, but much like the Star Wars Holiday Special, it’s sure to make you laugh:
Heaven and Hell through Shakespeare’s Eyes
Since Easter and Passover are coming up, (and we are already in the middle of Rhamadan), I thought I’d examine Shakespeare’s depiction of other worlds both celestial and infernal. As the quote above says, philosophers and poets often wonder what greets us in the hereafter, so let me be your guide through Shakespeare’s poetic renderings of heaven and he’ll, accompanied by some gorgeous artwork from HC Selous, William Blake, and others.
The whitewashed images of Shakespeare’s childhood
Shakespeare was no doubt interested in religion. He quotes from and alludes to the Bible many times in his plays. More importantly, he lived in a time when the national religion changed three times in just 4 years! When Henry VIII changed England to a protestant country, the religious identity of England completely changed:
This change was not just felt in monasteries, but in all English churches. King Henry decreed that certain Catholic traditions like Purgatory, indulgences, and praying to saints were idolatrous, and were therefore banned in the Church of England. So, when Shakespeare’s father was called to destroy the “idolatrous” images of the Last Judgement in the Guild Chapel of Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church, he had no choice but to comply. If you click on the link below, you can see a detailed description of the images that Shakespeare no doubt knew well in his family’s church, until his father was forced to literally whitewash them.
Purgatory and the harrowing of hell
Like the images on the Stratford Guild chapel, the ideas of Catholic England didn’t disappear, they were merely hidden from view. Shakespeare refers to these Catholic ideas many times in his plays, especially in Hamlet, a play where a young scholar, who goes to the same school as Martin Luther, is wrestling with the idea of whether the ghost he has seen is a real ghost from purgatory, or a demon from hell, (as protestant churches preached in Shakespeare’s life).
I’ve written before that the ghost of Hamlet’s father teases us with the possibility that he might be a soul in purgatory, the Catholic afterlife realm for those not evil enough for Hell, nor good enough for Heaven. At the height of their powers, monks and bishops sold prayers called indulgences that supposedly allowed a soul’s loved ones to buy them time out of purgatory, thus making them able to ascend to Heaven quicker. The image above is an illustration from Purgatorio, part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, where he visits the soul of
Buonconte da Montefeltro, who is languishing because he doesn’t yet have the strength to get out of purgatory and enter Heaven.
Of course, the Tudor monarchs Henry VIII and Elizabeth I abolished indulgences and proclaimed that purgatory itself didn’t exist, but ideas can’t die, and I feel that Shakespeare was at least inspired by the notion of purgatory, even if he didn’t believe in it himself.
“It Harrows me with fear and wonder.”
(Horatio) Hamlet, Act I, Scene i.
Lucifer and the vice of kings
As a young boy, William Shakespeare was entertained by medieval Mystery plays; amateur theater pieces performed by local artisans that dramatized great stories from the Bible. We know this because he refers to many of the characters in these mystery plays in his own work, especially the villains. King Herod is mentioned in Hamlet and many other plays in and many of Shakespeare’s villains seem to be inspired by the biblical Lucifer, as portrayed in Medieval Mystery Plays.
In this short video of the Yorkshire Mystery play “The Rise and Fall of Lucifer,” we see God (voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart), creating Lucifer as a beautiful angel, who then, dissatisfied with his place in God’s kingdom, is transformed into an ugly devil. At first, Lucifer mourns losing his place in Paradise, but then finds comfort by becomming God’s great antagonist.
Compare this character arc with Shakespeare’s Richard of Gloucester, who also blames his unhappiness on God, (since he feels his disability and deformity are a result of God’s curse). Richard is angry with God, nature, and society, so he wages against them all to become king.
“Then since the heavens hath shaped my body so, let Hell make crook’d my mind to answer it.”
Richard of Gloucester, Henry VI, Part III, Act III, Scene i.
“All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.”
Lucifer― John Milton, Paradise Lost
Journeys into Hell
Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible!
—Measure For Measure, Act III, Scene i
“Methought I crossed the meloncholy flood with that grim ferryman the poets write of, into the kingdom of perpetual night.”
— Richard III, Act I, Scene iv.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! - Troilus and Cressida, Act I, Scene iii.
Sources:
https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Idolatry:_Icons_and_Iconoclasm
Today in history: End of the American Civil War
Shakespeare and the Civil War are forever linked. All the major players had a connection to the Bard, and some might surprise you:
1. Did you know US Grant played a woman in a Shakespeare play!
We rarely see images of the future general and future president without his well-kept beard, but if this apocryphal tale is true, Grant might have grown a beard after he was embarrassed by the reaction of his fellow soldiers during a performance of Othello, where Grant rehearsed the part of Desdemona:
That December, officers decided to stage “Othello.” They looked for someone to play the beautiful Desdemona. Grant was urged to try out for the part. He had a trim figure and almost girlish good looks; his friends called him “Beauty.” Though the costume fit perfectly, the officer playing the Moor couldn’t look at Grant without laughing. They sent to New Orleans for a professional actress to play Desdemona. After that, Grant grew a beard to hide his girlish good looks. He was “Beauty” no more.
Civilwartalk.com
#2. President Lincoln, Shakespearean Gentleman
I’ve talked before about how, to the South, President Lincoln was as big a tyrant as Julius Caesar, and how John Wilkes Booth was determined to cast himself as a real life Brutus
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-american-presidents-and-shakespeare
What you might not know is that Lincoln’s favorite Shakespeare play was Macbeth. I find a more fitting character for the compassionate and eloquent president would be the good King Duncan from Macbeth. According to Whitehousehistory.org. Lincoln quoted some lines about the good king’s death, a few days before his own:
On Sunday, April 9, 1865, with the war over, he was returning to Washington on the River Queen from City Point, Virginia, where he had visited the front, and he talked Shakespeare to his companions, read aloud to them, and recited his favorite passages from memory. He spent most of his time on Macbeth. “The lines after the murder of King Duncan. Lincoln’s companions were struck by the slow, quiet way he read the lines:
Whitehousehistory.org.
“Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well,
Treason has done his worst; not steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch
him farther.”
When Lincoln finished, he paused for a moment, and then read the lines slowly over again. “I then wondered,” reflected one of his friends, “whether he felt a presentiment of his impending fate.”
If you choose to sign up for my Outschool class: The Violent Rhetoric Of Julius Caesar, I compare Antony’s speech, (which essentially started a civil war in Rome), with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I also discuss John Wilkes Booth and his obsession with the character Brutus.
#3: Ex Confederates hid out in Shakespeare’s home town!
I was pretty shocked to learn this one, and it took a while before I found a decent amount of evidence to justify reporting on it here, but apparently a few ex confederates fled to England after the war, and took refuge at inns and houses in and around Stratford, including Royal Leamington Spa, which is a town just 12 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon.
I had scarcely become domesticated before the visits of the Confederates began, & we have now quite a little Southern Society. Mr & Mrs Fry of N. York, & Mrs Leigh reside very near us. Mr & Mrs Westfeldt also; but just now they are absent. Mr & Mrs Dugan, Mr & Mrs & the Misses
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, US Consul, 1861
Stewart, Mrs Hanna & Miss Reynolds, Mr & Mrs Clements, Mr & Mrs Skinner, Capt Flinn, & various others who are here, off & on, compose the little nest of Confederates in Leamington.
England was anti Slavery in the 1860s but they were also partners with the Confederates in the lucrative cotton trade. CSA president Jefferson Davis dispatched a number of ambassadors and negotiators to hopefully gain support from the English to help them fight the US in the Civil War.
Once President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, England politely declined to aid the confederacy militarily, but Davis’ visits opened the door for Confederates in England, and that is why they wound up living in Leamington Spa.
While they were there, some purchased English warships to become part of the Confederate Navy. Some even got married!
Sources:
1. Shakespeare and US Presidents: Whitehouse History.com
2. Civilwartalk.com
3. New York Times: John Wilkes Booth
4. Leamington History: “A Confederate Nest in Leamington.”
The Shakespearean Student 