Death in 17th Century England
Neither of the two potential, alleged causes of death – a fevered hangover or other illness – would seemingly induce silence. But maybe that’s just the way it was in 17th century England. Maybe deaths in general weren’t commented on save the notation in a church register. Perhaps it’s not an oddity. Surely, that will point to the answer, the truth of the question, i.e., it was a societal trend, a cultural practice not to comment contemporaneously on a death.
Death in 17th Century England
As it turns out, 17th century England did talk about death contemporaneously therewith – a lot. Information abounds. Elizabethan/Jacobean England had no such inhibition at all when it came to recording anything and everything related to death. Death was everywhere in the 17th century; so were written records documenting it.[1]
General Population Deaths
Death rates in 17th century England were roughly three times higher than rates experienced in modernity and the majority who made it past childhood died before 60;[2] they were surrounded by death and many deaths meant much opportunity to record and talk about them.
As is understandable for the era, social and environmental factors – faulty diet, water-borne toxins, contaminated food, poor harvests etc. – brought on much death. These social and environmental factors exacerbated the usual culprits circulating at the time: smallpox, various types of fevers including typhus and typhoid, dysentery, measles, influenza; the list could go on.[3] Add murder, drowning, the odd duel, wars and one finds death dominating the news cycle. Seventeenth century England had many occasions to contemplate, face, discuss and record death. And they did. Amply.
Plague, naturally, caused instances of death to be recorded and set down on paper. It is because of this exact reason – a written record – historians are able to accurately relate, in 1564, identifiable Stratford residents died of plague.[4] An actual death wasn’t the only death-related catalyst that driv pen to paper: keeping track of probate costs did likewise;[5] people recorded how they mourned a certain person’s death;[6] family memoirs documented how family members hoped they would be known to a deceased spouse in heaven.[7]
Diarists
Diarists – the thousands of Britons at-large and unknown to each other – wrote of and jotted down interesting things on a daily basis. As numerous and varied the comments are about everyday events, the fact is, 17th century diaries were plastered with references about death: how the diarist felt about someone else’s death, how they felt about their own eventual death, recording a family member’s death, jotting down a reference to someone’s death they didn’t know. Houlbrooke finds invaluable assistance from diaries as he studied death extensively in the early modern English period, saying “diaries often appear to offer the most direct access to intimate personal feelings.”[8] Much documented social history about death comes from information gleaned from diaries; contemporaneous information about the deaths of normal, regular people.
Perhaps, the deaths of famous people were different. If the general population didn’t shy away from contemporaneously documenting the deaths of bakers, blacksmiths, woolers and wenches perhaps figures of greater stature were treated differently. Perhaps, the everyday recorders of social history approached more famous subjects with guarded quill; which would then explain the lack of documentation about Shakespeare’s death.
Specific Individual Deaths
Foiled again. Modernity knows much about the deaths of those involved in the theatre world – due to contemporaneously written accounts. Variously, much is known of the deaths for many of those involved in London’s literary and theatrical scene in the 16th and 17th centuries, to wit: Christopher Marlowe,[9] Richard Burbage,[10] [11] Ben Jonson,[12] Edmund Spenser,[13] [14] Francis Beaumont,[15] Sir John Beaumont,[16] Hugh Holland[17] and John Dryden.[18] Nothing was written about Shakespeare’s death contemporaneously therewith – other than the three word record of his burial: Will. Shakspere, gent.
Funerals
The outpouring of grief from Londoners over Burbage’s death rivalled the mourning of their monarch, Queen Anne;[19] Edmund Spencer’s casket was followed by a train of lamenting poets;[20] Jonson’s funeral had the ‘better’ parts of London attending.[21] As for Shakespeare? It’s not known if he even had a funeral.
This is but a quick review of some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries and some who came after him; a review not meant to be definitive nor exhaustive. Rather, it offers a brief gaze into the fact that deaths – for the general population and specific individuals – were recorded and written about, contemporaneously with the event, including funerals. Obviously, many deaths went unrecorded in 17th century England; Shakespeare’s death is probably not the only death that escaped public comment. Even so, it’s almost as if Shakespeare possibly wasn’t mourned properly; by design – his or others – circumstance or happenstance, who’s to say?
Shakespeare has Julius Caesar suffer the ignominy of being ignored by fellow countrymen at his death and they were, rightly, admonished for doing so by Mark Antony when he orated
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason![22]
What cause withheld contemporary, written lamentation over Shakespeare’s death? If Shakespeare didn’t receive a funeral what cause withheld the mourning? Other actors’ and playwrights’ deaths were recorded; their mourning substantial and funerals widely attended. If Shakespeare died of a common ailment why the silence? The contemporary silence in 1616 and thereafter has prompted the world’s foremost Shakespeare authority to conclude ‘we do not know the cause of Shakespeare’s death’ and as such the two possible causes of death – fever contracted from drinking or illness – have almost gained custom status for hundreds of years and seemingly ended the scholarly discussion.
However, if only those two possible causes of death are researched and end the enquiry then that is nothing more than blindly following the tyranny of custom, for
What custom wills, in all things should we do’t,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap’d
For truth to o’erpeer.[23]
Another Investigative Finding can be made:
IF – Deaths, causes thereof and funerals in 17th century England were widely recorded contemporaneously therewith for commoners and persons of stature alike; not for Shakespeare.
Is concluding ‘we do not know the cause of Shakespeare’s death’ a mountainous error? Has the dust on antique time accumulated to such a height truth can’t overpeer? If an investigation starts and ends at the lack of contemporaneous comment about the event and modernity thereby concludes ‘we do not know the cause of Shakespeare’s death’ then truth is doomed. Though no contemporaneous comments about Shakespeare’s death exist in the historical record it is clear the silence didn’t last forever. To the Folio.
SDRP
[1] See throughout: Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and Family in England 1480-1750 (Oxford University Press, 1998); Peter Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford University Press, 2002); Ben Norman, A History of Death in 17th Century England (Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2020).
[2] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 6-8.
[3] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 11-15.
[4] Honan, A Life, 17-18.
[5] Norman, History of Death, 100.
[6] Norman, History of Death, 83.
[7] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 46.
[8] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 4; contemporaneously documented funeral sermons were also mined to inform Houlbrooke’s research, 386-387.
[9] John Leslie Hotson, The Death of Christopher Marlowe (Harvard University Press, 1925).
[10] A.L. Rowse, Shakespeare a biography (Harper and Row, 1963), 472n. Rowse’s book contains more information on Burbage’s death than Shakespeare’s – in his book about Shakespeare.
[11] Some opine because Shakespeare, unlike Burbage, was retired and a few years removed from the London stage, and thus out of the public eye, that’s the “true reason” why his death went undocumented: C.C. Stopes, Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage (A Moring Limited, 1913), 115. Possible, but her conclusory statement “true reason” is no more than wishful thinking; almost as if it’s a nice, neat conjectured excuse attempting to explain away the lack of lamentation or commentary surrounding Shakespeare’s death.
[12] Jonson, Benjamin (1572-1637), poet and playwright, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 04 December 2023.
[13] Camden, William (1551–1623), historian and herald | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com) Accessed 07 December 2023. Camden writes contemporaneously of Spencer’s death.
[14] Chamberlain, John (1553–1628), letter writer | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com) Accessed 07 December 2023. Like Camden, Chamberlain also writes of Spencer’s death.
[15] Beaumont, Francis (1584/5–1616), playwright | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 07 December 2023.
[16] Beaumont, Sir John, first baronet (c. 1584–1627), poet | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 07 December 2023.
[17] Holland, Hugh (1563–1633), poet | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 09 December 2023.
[18] Dryden, John (1631–1700), poet, playwright, and critic | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 05 December 2023.
[19] Ashley Horace Thorndike, Shakespeare’s Theater(Macmillan, 1916), 387.
[20] Oxford University Press online: https://blog.oup.com/2013/01/the-death-of-edmund-spencer Accessed 07 December 2023.
[21] Ian Donaldson, Ben Jonson: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2011), 428n. Donaldson describes Jonson’s death as a “major public event” while saying this about Shakespeare’s: “no contemporary writer noted the immediate fact of his death.” Indeed, the first written acknowledgment of Shakespeare’s 1616 death in the historical record doesn’t appear until 1623’s Folio, parsed hereinafter.
[22] Julius Caesar, 3.2.102-105, 986.
[23] Coriolanus, 2.3.115-118, 843.