Shakespeare’s Death: Has Something Been Missed?
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Shakespeare’s burial is recorded in Stratford’s parish register on 25 April 1616. We do not know the cause of Shakespeare’s death.
– Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Is this because Shakespeare’s death has been fully researched and investigated and such researched investigation has yielded less than satisfactory answers? Is it because his death hasn’t heretofore been researched or investigated fully – or at all? A combination thereof?
The Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington, DC – holder of the world’s largest Shakespeare collection – is home for approximately 277,000 pieces of literature. The collection not only includes Shakespeare works and books about Shakespeare’s life but it also includes thousands of pieces of literature created in – or writ about – the English early modern period. Not one is a contemporaneous written account of, nor a later researched piece dedicated to, Shakespeare’s death or cause thereof. When Shakespeare died on or about 23 April 1616 no one said a thing; it is puzzling.[1]
The historical record reveals many Shakespeare references during his lifetime: municipal records, local letters, court records, literary acknowledgements and references writ about Shakespeare and his writing by other playwrights. And then…nothing. Silence. It was as if the 11th Commandment was duly passed on his death and promulgated thusly: Thou Shalt Not Henceforth Voice Nor Write Of Shakespeare Under Pain Of Excommunication and/or Confiscation Of Thy Worldly Goods. And just like that, poof, the record goes dry. Might there be a logical reason why no contemporaneous comment on his death exists? Prior to investigating possible reasons for the silence, a quick look at the two currently-held possible causes of death provides some background.
The Merry Meeting
In 1663, approximately fifty years – 47 to be exact – after Shakespeare’s death, the historical record reveals its first and only comment about Shakespeare’s possible cause of death when vicar John Ward[2] jots in his diary, barely in passing, that
Shakespear Drayton and Ben-Jhonson had a merry meeting and itt seems drank too hard for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted[3]
This is all the world has commenting on Shakespeare’s possible cause of death – a diary notation from a vicar approximately fifty years after the event. But for the vicar’s passing comment some fifty years after the fact there wouldn’t be a single recorded comment in the historical record about Shakespeare’s cause of death – contemporaneously recorded or otherwise.
This view, based on Vicar Ward’s diary entry, has it Shakespeare died of a fever contracted after drinking too hard during a merry meeting with fellow dramatists Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton. No scholar lends this theory credence while, of course, leaving open the possibility anything is possible. Schoenbaum,[4] [5] Bate,[6] Honan[7] and Potter,[8] for various reasons, all think the diary entry lacks veracity and strains credibility; this investigation agrees.
Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind both Jonson and Drayton kept up letter writing campaigns with various other poets and playwrights during this time period; there is nothing in the historical record indicating either of them told/wrote to anybody about this alleged night of revelry they spent with Shakespeare just before he died. Therefore, if the three of them got drunk and Shakespeare died as a result thereof neither of the other two party-goers said anything, which is odd because both Drayton and Jonson were gossips, self-promoters and letter writers.
The space the merry meeting has commanded in the scholarsphere is not unlike the space given to the authorship question: out of the blue – decades or centuries after the fact – an idea surfaces, from somewhere, and ends up riding the wind for hundreds of years and sneaks into conversation with zero supporting evidence. Regardless, the evidence suggesting Shakespeare died of a fever contracted after drinking is a 23 word diary entry written 47 years post-death.
Illness Not Connected To Drinking
The second possible cause of death that has gained traction amongst scholars is a conjecture positing Shakespeare died of illness sans the fevered hangover. The evidence put forth for this opinion is twofold: 1) in the spring of 1616 other people in Stratford died due to a circulating illness[9] and 2) the differing and possibly shaky signatures on Shakespeare’s will – thereby maybe suggesting an infirm hand was due to illness contracted right before he died.[10] Differing signatures on a document suggesting Shakespeare may have caught the same illness others caught is the foundation some researchers have combined to extrapolate he succumbed to sickness not due to drinking; there is zero evidence in the historical record – other than a shaky signature – to suggest Shakespeare was ill prior to his death.[11]
Interestingly, recent research suggests one of the shaky signatures on one of the pages of Shakespeare’s final 1616 will might have been signed as part of an earlier c. 1613(?) will with that entire page being inserted into, and forming part of, Shakespeare’s final 1616 will.[12] Dr. Amanda Bevan, principal records specialist at The National Archives in London, and her team undertook spectral analysis of the ink and paper used for Shakespeare’s 1616 will. They conclude page 2 of Shakespeare’s three page 1616 will was likely re-used from an earlier will, possibly c. 1613.[13] It is this page – a page now forming part of Shakespeare’s 1616 will – from the possible c. 1613 will that contains a signature in “what may be a shakier hand.”[14] Therefore, one of the ‘shaky’ signatures previous scholars have suggested was due to illness in 1616 was possibly signed three years earlier. Given the overall textual and spectral analysis Bevan is unwilling to ascribe to the view Shakespeare was ill when he undertook his will-making efforts in 1616.[15]
Neither view – a fevered hangover or other illness – would seemingly induce silence. But maybe that’s just the way it was in seventeenth 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 Seventeenth Century England
As it turns out, seventeenth 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.[16] Death was everywhere in the seventeenth century; so were written records documenting it.
General Population Deaths
Death rates in seventeenth century England were roughly three times higher than rates experienced in modernity and the majority who made it past childhood died before 60;[17] 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.[18] 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.[19] An actual death wasn’t the only death-related catalyst that driv pen to paper: keeping track of probate costs did likewise;[20] people recorded how they mourned a certain person’s death;[21] family memoirs documented how family members hoped they would be known to a deceased spouse in heaven.[22]
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, seventeenth 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 in the early modern English period, saying “diaries often appear to offer the most direct access to intimate personal feelings.”[23] 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 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to wit: Christopher Marlowe,[24] Richard Burbage,[25] [26] Ben Jonson,[27] Edmund Spenser,[28] [29] Francis Beaumont,[30] Sir John Beaumont,[31] Hugh Holland[32] and John Dryden.[33] 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;[34] Edmund Spencer’s casket was followed by a train of lamenting poets;[35] Jonson’s funeral had the ‘better’ parts of London attending.[36] 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 seventeenth 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![37]
What cause withheld contemporary 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 – fever – 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. 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.[38]
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 Shakespeare’s death and modernity thus 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.
The Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, Published According to the true Originall Copies, the Folio, was published in late 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death; complete with introductory accolades and elegies. It took seven years post-death but praise for Shakespeare – and thus, public acknowledgment of his death – was finally published.[39] Is it possible 1623’s Folio elegies left some clues – clues commenting, in some fashion, on the circumstances of Shakespeare’s death?
Dramatis Personae:
Author: Shakespeare. I.e., Shakespeare wrote the plays printed in the Folio.[40]
Introductory Elegists: An elegy is a serious, reflective poem usually associated with praising or lamenting the dead and offered as written words, published. A eulogy, while similar, is the spoken version; think, a funeral eulogy or sermon. Because there is zero evidence Shakespeare received a funeral his death might not then have received a spoken, public eulogy.[41] However, prefatory elegies for Shakespeare – written words published – abound in 1623’s Folio: John Heminges and Henry Condell were responsible for two, collectively; as was Ben Jonson. Hugh Holland, Leonard Digges and James Mabbe each wrote one. Strictly speaking, the prefatory material composing the written introductory remarks in the Folio can be broken down as follows: true elegies number four, two addresses and one dedication total seven written pieces.
John Heminges and Henry Condell[42]
Heminges and Condell wrote two introductory pieces for the Folio; one is its Dedication and the other an Address To The Readers, a marketing pitch. Because neither the Dedication nor the Address is an elegy qua elegy – notwithstanding the two men could loosely be termed elegists – neither piece will be reproduced here.
Ben Jonson
Jonson – contemporary of Shakespeare, poet and playwright – contributed an Address To The Readers and an elegy. Only his elegy is reproduced:
To The Memory Of My Beloved, The Author
MR. W I L L I A M S H A K E S P E A R E:
And What He Hath Left Us.
To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame;
While I confesse thy writings to be such,
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
‘Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these wayes
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho’s right;
Or blinde Affection, which doth ne’re advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
And thine to ruine, where it seem’d to raise.
These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proofe against them, and indeed
Above th’ ill fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age !
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our Stage !
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome :
Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses;
I meane with great, but disproportion’d Muses :
For, if I thought my judgement were of yeeres,
I should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
And tell, how farre thou dist our Lily out-shine,
Or sporting Kid or Marlowes mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
For names; but call forth thund’ring ’schilus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread,
And shake a stage : Or, when thy sockes were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time !
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth to warme
Our eares, or like a Mercury to charme !
Nature her selfe was proud of his designes,
And joy’d to weare the dressing of his lines !
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
The merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not
please;But antiquated, and deserted lye
As they were not of Natures family.
Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part;
For though the Poets matter, Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses anvile : turne the same,
(And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
For a good Poet’s made, as well as borne.
And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
Lives in his issue, even so, the race
Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines
In his well toned, and true-filed lines :
In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
As brandish’t at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James !
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
Advanc’d, and made a Constellation there !
Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy flight fro’ hence, hath mourn’d like night,
And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.
Ben: Jonson[43]
Jonson’s elegy has left no clues.
Hugh Holland
Mentioned earlier, Holland contributed one elegy to the Folio:
Upon The Lines And Life Of The Famous Scenicke Poet
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britaines brave; for done are Shakespeares dayes:
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
Which made the Globe of heav’n and earth to ring.
Dry’de is that veine, dry’d is the Thespian Spring,
Turn’d all to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rayes:
That corp’s, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
Which crown’d him Poet first, then Poets King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have,
All those he made, would scarse make a one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave
(Deaths publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is,
For though his line of life went soone about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.
Hugh Holland.[44]
Holland’s short elegy helps not.
Leonard Digges
Digges, a decent-enough poet but first rate translator,[45] one way or another had Fortune’s favour looking down on him to ensure his inclusion as a Folio elegist: the printer for Digges’s literary translations was one of the Folio’s printers, Edward Blount; Digges was an Oxford friend of James Mabbe, fellow elegist, see below, and the clincher – Fortune’s biggest favour – was the fact Digges’s widowed mother married Thomas Russell; the same Thomas Russell Shakespeare named as an overseer of his will. It might not be unreasonable to think there was much closeness between Digges and Shakespeare. Did Digges leave any clues?
To The Memory Of The Deceased Author
MAISTER W. S H A K E S P E A R E.
Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellowes give
The world thy Workes : thy Workes, by which, out-live
Thy Tombe, thy name must when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Moniment,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what’s new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not Shake-speares; ev’ry Line, each Verse
Here shall revive, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once invade.
Nor shall I e’re beleeve, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) untill our bankrout Stage be sped
(Imposible) with some new straine t’out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo ;
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst never dye,
But crown’d with Lawrell, live eternally.
L. Digges.[46]
The trend continues; Digges leaves nothing. That said, it was awfully nice of Digges – the only elegist to do so – to mention a few of Shakespeare’s characters. No other elegist mentions any of Shakespeare’s characters. Juliet and her Romeo get a specific shout-out and Digges also gives a nod to a couple of Shakespeare’s noble Roman characters but doesn’t name them. There is no point trying to guess to what Romans Digges was referring; Shakespeare wrote of many noble Romans. Digges knew the cause of Shakespeare’s death; too bad he didn’t put it in his elegy – it would have saved scholars wondering about it for centuries.
James Mabbe
The last of the elegists’ qualifications are thus: translator, Oxford friend of Digges, acquaintance of Jonson and he had both a personal friendship and professional relationship with printer, Edward Blount. Mabbe’s elegy in the Folio is to the point:
To The Memorie of
M. W. SHAKE-SPEARE
WEE wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went’st so soone
From the Worlds-Stage, to the Graves-Tyring-roome.
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went’st but forth
To enter with applause. An Actors Art,
Can dye, and live, to acte a second part.
That’s but an Exit of Mortalitie;
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.
J.M. [47]
Unfortunately, Mabbe’s elegy cannot assist the investigation.
To summarize, it is now late 1623 and it is only now the historical record reveals the first published comments concerning Shakespeare’s death – an event that occurred seven years previous. Two initial Investigative Findings can be put forth:
IF #1 – Deaths, causes thereof and funerals in seventeenth century England were widely recorded contemporaneously therewith for commoners and persons of stature alike; not for Shakespeare.
IF #2 – The first published comments extant in the historical record commenting on Shakespeare’s death appear as memorial elegies in 1623’s Folio; thus far, they provide no clues as to Shakespeare’s cause of death.
Is it just happenstance Shakespeare’s death – save for the burial date notation in the church register – lacked recorded comment contemporaneously therewith? The only potential causes of death as commented on by previous scholars to date – fever or illness, due to drinking or not – were common; there doesn’t seem to be anything inherent in a fevered death that would precipitate silence.[48] Be that as it may, modernity is left with nothing but silence and mystery.
The next logical step in an investigation looking into Shakespeare’s death – given the ever-present silence – would naturally be the following: is there a certain type of death that might, when reasonably viewed, induce silence in seventeenth century England?
Unfortunately, there is: suicide. Four hundred years of post-death commentary has failed to yield one serious researched comment about the possibility of suicide. Therefore, Shakespeare’s death can never be said to have been fully investigated until the possibility of suicide is researched – however unlikely – if only for the sake of completeness; nothing will likely come of it and at that point it can be ruled out. But until then, it can’t be ruled out by a grunt at hearing the notion of such a thought or a wave of an orthodox hand dismissing the conspiratorial.
The heretofore lack of research into suicide is true and somewhat baffling: true, because over the last few hundred years no research has been undertaken looking into suicide as a possible cause of death; baffling, considering how often Shakespeare wrote about suicide.[49] It is time for the investigation to tread down the most uncomfortable path imaginable: self-murder, the worst death of all.[50] O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought![51]
The Crime of Self-Murder
Sometimes, later researchers can’t re-word something better than how it was penned prior by previous researchers. And so it goes for the latest subheading: The Crime of Self-Murder. Which just so happens to be the title of chapter one in Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England[52] writ almost 35 years prior to this article. It is a powerful chapter title; it says much, gets to the point relatively quickly and no amount of re-wording would yield it better. MacDonald and Murphy, it is clear, knew what they were doing when they chose those five words for their first chapter’s title; it is crucial, imperatively so, to understand suicide was a crime in 1616, a terrible crime against the king:[53] the crime of self-murder.
From the approximate beginning of the House of Tudor (1485-1603) to the middle of the Stuart period (1603-1714), around 1660, the law concerning the crime of self-murder and the enforcement thereof were notoriously hard on suicides and their families.[54] For perspective, the crime of self-murder in 1616 – the year of Shakespeare’s death – was prosecuted as rigorously as at any time in England’s history; 1616 falls in the middle of the war on suicide. Enforcement of the crime of self-murder was taken seriously: from approximately 1485 to 1660 95% of those accused of killing themselves were found guilty.[55] It was not a great time to be identified as a suicide nor, by extension, a great time to be a member of a suicide’s family in 1616.
In seventeenth century England it didn’t matter if the alleged perpetrator of the alleged crime of self-murder was dead; he or she was still put on trial for allegedly committing said crime. The fact there wasn’t a warm, living body in the prisoner’s dock mattered not: if you were successful at killing yourself, and identified as such, you would be put on trial – in absentia – for self-murder.
Self-murder, as with any crime, first, had to be identified as such; if the deceased was identified as a suicide the case would be presented to an inquest by the coroner; the ultimate finding of guilt or innocence was left to a jury of local men from the four surrounding townships.[56] However, a finding of guilt or innocence wasn’t so black and white in a self-murder trial; as with other criminal trials much rested on the accused’s state of mind. If the deceased, say, after a clear case of hanging, was found to be of sane mind, the jury would return the guilty verdict known as felo de se – felon of him/herself. If the accused was found not to be of sound mind, the jury would return a not-guilty non compos mentis verdict: not in sane mind.[57]
But, make no mistake, if the crime of self-murder was found to have been committed by someone of sane mind – felo de se – a punitive sentence would follow. Because people – subjects – were basically thought of as chattels belonging to the monarch, to deprive the monarch of one of his chattel-subjects by way of an unnatural self-murder, some sort of penalty must be handed down. Not wanting to be a subject of the king or queen, and ending that voluntarily, was seen as a stain on the monarch’s reputation. Or, as John Donne put it, “the king hath lost a subject [and] that his peace is broken”[58] and because it was murder qua murder, without qualification, the suicide crime warranted a penalty.
How would a guilty dead person pay recompense to the wronged monarch? In short, the family would stand in the criminal’s stead and receive the sentence: seizure, confiscation and forfeiture to the crown of all the deceased’s estate – an absolutely devastating sentence passed onto the suicide’s family. The forfeiture to the crown included houses, land, leases the deceased owned over that land, moveable chattels, money, debts owed to them – anything forming part of the deceased’s estate.[59] Adding insult to injury, confiscation of entire estates was just the fallout for committing a crime against the king; unfortunately, that was only the first, not the last, of their worries.
A Sin Against God
To suicide was a sin against God.[60] Like the king, God too, demanded a penalty. Self-murderers, wealthy or not, had much to forfeit to God. This was so because, at its root cause, self-murder was seen as the work of the devil.[61]
During this era the act of suicide was possibly considered the gravest sin a Christian could commit in the eyes of the church[62] and, notwithstanding all suicides are not created equal, demanded punishment. This sort of punishment – church punishment – was spiritually crippling. A Satan-inspired suicide, as can be imagined, would bring shame to the family and swift punishment to the deceased far more serious than other forgivable Christian sins.
On balance, the corpse of a suicide – great during life or no – was now thought of as polluted[63] and therefore would be proclaimed, and treated, as such.[64] After a proclamation the deceased was a suicide, and thus polluted, the Church treatment unfolded.
First up, suicides were denied mourning[65] – the first feature of getting Christian death-rites under way. This deprived the family of proper Christian grieving but also deprived the deceased of prayers and intercessions on their behalf. Subsequently, the polluted corpse of the suicide was often denied any sort of Christian mass celebration,[66] i.e., no funeral – the second religious act of sending the person’s soul into God’s care. The funeral prohibition – the denial of a church-sanctioned celebration thus relegating the suicide’s soul to destination-less wandering in the afterlife – like lack of mourning, heaped more despair onto the family and without clerical assent at a funeral, the departed soul would not be admitted into heaven.[67] After no mourning permitted and no funeral mass observed next up would often be the denial of a burial on consecrated church ground; ‘profane’ burials occurred at night, outside the village or town boundaries, at a highway or crossroads, in a shallow grave, with a stake driven through their heart.[68] These desecration burials could be modified or relaxed, depending on the situation, resulting in reduced Christian rites – neither the full denial of death rites nor the full standard Christian package.[69] Shakespeare referred to reduced Christian rites as maimed rites.[70]
From the first – mourning rites – to the middle – funeral rites – to the end – burial rites – suicides were shunned from and, in the worst cases, fully denied Christian death customs and blessings notwithstanding some rites could be arranged.
Practical Result Of A Felo De Se Verdict And ‘Polluted’ Proclamation
In 1616, if a deceased was convicted of self-murder the fallout for the family was crushing; it having to bear the full weight of the state’s criminal penalty: financial ruin potentially manifesting in poverty, homelessness. Should the church proclaim the corpse polluted the deceased’s soul became subject to the full wrath of the church: no mourning, no funeral service and no, or reduced, burial rites.
What Are Family, Friends And Colleagues To Do?
Stay silent. Very silent. Or, lie. Adamantly.
The Cover Up By Everybody
The main goal would be to ensure the suicide of a family member didn’t even get to the inquest stage; better to head it off at the pass. If a family was beset with a successful suicide staying silent was their first course of action; if they had to say something, perhaps the following would be offered: “ah, yes, Uncle John slipped and fell last night; his awkward landing position, on his bed, while carrying a butcher knife, alas, pierced his heart. No, no, it wasn’t strange for him at all to take a small sword or the like to bed with him, afraid of burglars, you know. Poor troubled soul, terrified of the dark, too, so he was. And drink? Big John was given to drink far too much; became unsteady on his feet, you know. Mostly sack.” Hopefully, with that story circulating, the whole coroner’s inquest thing could be avoided and Uncle’s John’s death could be conveniently and neatly classified as a truly unfortunate slip and fall, alas; Aunt Nell could get on with planning the funeral and burial. Quickly.
Obviously, the pretend example of Uncle John and Aunt Nell was just that, a pretend example. But it’s dead-on accurate because “from the moment of the discovery of a dead body, the relatives, friends and neighbours of the deceased played a key role in determining whether or not a death had been a suicide.”[71] Entire communities – the family, friends and neighbours – rallied the troops in order to conceal suicides from royal officials.[72] If Uncle John was found with a small sword in his chest it behooved the family, friends and locals to stay silent. Or, lie. By staying silent or lying, families had everything to gain, nothing to lose; if they told the truth they had everything to lose, nothing to gain.
In light of the foregoing, it is clear death notices weren’t sent out by families noting suicide as the cause of death. For Aunt Nell to publicize in 1616 – by any means – Uncle John died by suicide would be unthinkable; for a friend or professional colleague to write something for public consumption contemporaneously therewith was likewise.
If an inquest couldn’t be avoided the family and witnesses at the hearing at least had a second chance to evade a forfeiture order by trying to persuade the jury the death was either accidental or the deceased was not of sane mind.[73]
A few more Investigative Findings can be made:
IF #3 – A family in seventeenth century England would try, if possible, to ensure nobody knew the truth if a family member committed suicide. They would stay silent or lie about the true cause of death because if word got out a coroner’s inquest might ensue.
IF #4 – If a coroner’s inquest couldn’t be avoided, family and friends did everything in their power to persuade the jury to rule the death was not a suicide or, if it was ruled self-murder, make a finding of non compos mentis.
IF #5 – A finding of felo de se against the deceased was financially ruinous for the family; a well-to-do family could be reduced to poverty in an instant.
IF #6 – Suicides were denied varying degrees of Christian mourning, funeral and burial rites; reduced rites, maimed rites, including partial Christian burials on church property, could be ‘arranged.’
When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.[74] When you change the way you look at the puzzling silence surrounding Shakespeare’s death it changes, the silence changes. This is not to say the silence proves Shakespeare committed suicide, far from it; though, it would curiously fit – with no extrapolated, “true reason” conjectures needed. Thus far all that is gained by researching the practical results of a suicide death in seventeenth century England is to show such deaths were engulfed in silence. That said, the silence surrounding a death by suicide in the seventeenth century and the silence surrounding Shakespeare’s death combine to provide the investigation with a possible foundation and a tentative lead.
Leads must be followed up and foundations – a building’s foundation, a scientific hypothesis or an investigative theory – must be tested to ensure structural integrity. In this instance, will the silence foundation – a possible suicide lead – withstand further weight of evidentiary scrutiny? Will it fall apart? Spectacularly? Though suicide could handily explain the silence surrounding Shakespeare’s death can anything else in the historical record confirm or refute suicide as a possible cause? If the foundation crumbles under the weight of other extant material – as it very well may – then a suicide hypothesis can be ruled out forthwith. It is time to investigate the first lead in over 400 years looking into possible reasons for the silence and test the foundation; more evidentiary weight from the historical record must be added.
The Folio – A New Look
The first known published comments about Shakespeare post-death, reproduced above, appeared as elegies in 1623’s Folio, seven years after his death. Remember Leonard Digges? Portions of Digges’s 1623 Folio elegy seem somewhat deserving of a second look:
Nor shall I e’re believe, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) until our bankrout Stage be sped
(Imposible) with some new straine t’out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo;
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst never dye,But crown’d with Lawrell, live eternally.
L. Digges.
It’s a great example of dignified mourning and a vociferous defence of a few of Shakespeare’s scenes and characters: Digges won’t believe or think Shakespeare dead until the now bankrupt stage has some new straine t’out-do / Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo. That is to say, Digges will not view Shakespeare dead until the stage has some new scene to best – out-do – the suicide scenes of Juliet and her Romeo. Passions. Suicides. Digges isn’t referring to their speeches or, even less likely, their emotional love for each other; he’s referring to the suicides of the two grief-laden lovers. Even if the reader is unwilling to equate ‘Passions’ with suicide, the fact is, Digges still refers to two suicides by name: Juliet and her Romeo. It is somewhat interesting, and quite possibly due to nothing other than coincidence, Digges identifies two of Shakespeare’s characters by name and both committed suicide; would there be more extant material to test the additional weight of Juliet and her Romeo to see whether their presence in Digges’s elegy is pure coincidence or advertently connected to their suicides.
Digges’s next reference from the same excerpt is Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take / Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake. Here, Digges won’t think Shakespeare dead until he hears a scene more nobly undertaken than when Shakespeare’s half-sworded Romans have spoken. It is unfortunate Digges didn’t identify the Romans to whom he was referring; or at least leave some clues elsewhere. Or, did he?
1640
1640 saw the publication of Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent.[75] It was compiled and published by book-seller John Benson (d. 1667) and printed by Thomas Cotes, printer of the Second Folio. Poems: Written included Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Passionate Pilgrim, A Lover’s Complaint, The Phoenix and Turtle and poems by others.
Poems: Written also included an obligatory, introductory marketing pitch and two elegies; of interest to this investigation is the elegy by, intriguingly, Leonard Digges. While retaining a few lines from his 1623 Folio elegy, Digges develops and changes it considerably in this later 1640 version. Be advised, Digges was dead by 1640, he having died in 1635; it is possible Digges wrote this ‘new’ piece around the same time he wrote his 1623 Folio elegy but might not have wanted it published immediately. If this was so, it may be due to the fact Digges takes direct, biting shots at Jonson in this later piece and with Jonson dying in 1637 there would be no reason, in 1640, for it not to be published given both author Digges and target Jonson were dead. Or, the delayed publishing might have been due to a different motive.
The reason for including Digges’s 1640 piece here is due to the fact – as luck would have it – he did leave some clues: he names the names he left blank in 1623 when he commended Shakespeare’s Roman scenes but left the reader wondering who the half-sword parlying Romans were. First, a quick review of what Digges partially wrote for the Folio in 1623:
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake…
Here is what Digges wrote about the noble, half-sworded Romans in his 1640 Poems: Written elegy:
And on the Stage at halfe-Sword parley were,
Brutus and Cassius: oh how the Audience,
were ravish’d, with what wonder they went thence…[76]
There they are. Brutus and Cassius are Shakespeare’s half-Sword parlying Romans Digges was referring to in 1623; Brutus and Cassius were responsible for the noble scenes. Therefore, in all, Digges in 1623 directly refers to Juliet and her Romeo and indirectly refers to Brutus and Cassius. Though Digges doesn’t refer to Brutus and Cassius by name in his 1623 Folio elegy, he does refer to them in his 1623 Folio elegy. Brutus and Cassius are both suicides. In real life and in Julius Caesar. Digges, therefore, won’t believe Shakespeare gone until he hears on the stage a more noble scene than when Brutus and Cassius have spoken, i.e., have killed themselves. They have spoken – nobly – by committing suicide.[77]
Of some note, Brutus and Cassius killed themselves with small swords, big daggers really, the Roman gladius: half-swords. The half-swords spoke, parlying – by way of suicide – for the two Romans wielding them. Digges is not referring to conversations between Brutus and Cassius as they strode the stage with a half-sword slung around their hips; he’s referring to the noble scenes of Brutus’s and Cassius’s half-sword suicides.
Bringing both references together Digges, in 1623, is predicting that until these scenes – the passions of Juliet and her Romeo and the noble scenes of Brutus and Cassius – four persons who killed themselves – are bested, Shakespeare can never die and will live eternally. It’s great imagery.
In 1640, Digges not only fills in what Romans he was actually talking about in his Folio elegy but also cryptically expands that 1623 imagery:
oh how the Audience,
were ravish’d, with what wonder they went thence…
Digges, in this second 1640 piece, gives modernity a deeper glimpse as to how the audience reacted to the two Romans: O, they were ravished and with what wonder they left the playhouse after witnessing Brutus and Cassius on stage. Digges is not saying the audience was ravished because Brutus and Cassius had some really great lines;[78] he’s cryptically implicitly referring to their self-inflicted, half-sworded, noble deaths as ravishing the audience with wonder. An explanation suggesting it was their dialogue that ravished the audience and made them leave the playhouse in wonder would be an interesting one. Parse it anyway – and as many times – one will, Digges is referring to their deaths at the end of the play – just before the audience went thence in wonder – not their dialogue.
It’s rather peculiar – and head-scratching – Digges calls on half-Sword parlying Romans in 1623 to add to the memorable characters of Juliet and Romeo instead of using, say, Julius Caesar or Octavius. The significance of Digges referencing only suicides isn’t just the fact he referenced them; the significance increases, not inconsiderably, due to how he referenced them. Recall, suicides were viewed as sinful, polluted, criminal corpses in seventeenth century England; Digges, on the other hand – for some reason – seems to think four of Shakespeare’s self-murderers will actually make him live eternally, never die and be crowned with laurel.
A fascinating question to put to Digges would be thus: why? However, without the benefit of his answer modernity must still ask the following questions: why did Digges refer to specific, and allude to other, characters in his Folio elegy – only characters who killed themselves? Why did Digges reference the deaths of Brutus and Cassius as opposed to just referencing them as characters? Why did he characterize four suicides, in 1623, with such admiration and reverence? Why did he specifically mention the suicide weapon for two of them? Why did he call on these characters to remember Shakespeare? Did he just pull a bunch of names out of a hat and all of them just happened to be suicides? Did he refer to only suicides in his Folio elegy just because? Out of the blue with no purpose or reason behind it? Was it coincidence only suicides were mentioned? Were Juliet and Romeo and Brutus and Cassius his favourite characters?
After pondering the above rhetorical questions, after understanding how Digges characterizes scenes in which four suicides appear and after acknowledging – as fact – all the characters he referred to killed themselves it is at this point a few more Investigative Findings seem appropriate:
IF #7 – Leonard Digges is the only elegist in 1623’s Folio to name any of Shakespeare’s characters – Juliet and her Romeo; he alluded to others.
IF #8 – Using a subsequent 1640 elegy as aid, the other characters Digges alluded to in 1623 were Brutus and Cassius. Out of the hundreds of characters Digges could have picked he picked four suicides.
IF #9 – Digges, in 1623, referred to these characters who committed suicide – and only suicides – on purpose and for a specific reason; it is not coincidence.
Curiously, and of no small consequence, Digges uses the exact same five words – of Juliet and her Romeo[79]– Shakespeare ended the play with; spoken by Prince Escalus as he’s standing over the two suicide corpses of Juliet and Romeo still on-stage; it’s powerful stuff. Further, Shakespeare concludes, via Hamlet, it is ‘nobler’ to commit suicide than suffer outrageous fortune; in Julius Caesar, Shakespeare has Mark Antony, as he’s looking at Brutus’s suicide corpse, lament: This was the noblest Roman of them all.[80] Shakespeare explicitly refers to the act of suicide as ‘noble’ four times in Antony and Cleopatra.[81] A discussion trying to pick Shakespeare’s most noble Roman suicides might very well arrive at the same two Digges picked: Brutus and Cassius.[82] [83] Digges, for his part, concludes he won’t believe or think Shakespeare dead until he hears on the stage a Scene more nobly take than when Brutus and Cassius have spoken. Digges uses the word ‘nobly’ on purpose – a very direct, dignified purpose; just like he referred to only suicides on purpose. Disproving the next Investigative Finding might prove difficult:
IF #10 – Given how Digges refers to the Juliet, Romeo, Brutus and Cassius scenes – including mentioning, oddly, the suicide weapon for two of them – and understanding how and why he uses the word ‘nobly’ Digges is straight-on referring to, and defending, suicide. In his 1623 Folio elegy memorializing Shakespeare. Whose death was blanketed in silence.
Digges is the only Folio elegist out of six to refer to any of Shakespeare’s characters; all the characters he referenced – not one out of four, not two, but a perfect four for four – killed themselves. One must admit, Digges was being incredibly clever: defending suicide without letting on he was doing so by actually identifying – for all to read – only characters who killed themselves. He didn’t even throw in a King Henry to throw readers off the scent; maybe he figured he didn’t need any obfuscation. Digges even used the word Shakespeare used – more often than not – to describe suicide: noble. For good measure, Digges also included the suicide weapon for two of them. You have to hand it to Digges, tricky sirrah; he wanted to remember and praise Shakespeare without calling attention to his defence of suicide. He almost got away with it too, slippery knave; well, he did get away with it for 400 years, 402 to be exact. His defence lay perfectly hidden in plain sight for four centuries; but not concealed well enough to stay hidden for all time.
Scholars have been confounded for centuries why Shakespeare’s death was inexplicably, mysteriously shrouded in silence. When mysteries get investigated – instead of relying on custom – by changing the way you look at things the things you look at, well, they change; Max Planck wasn’t wrong. When you change the way you look at the weird silence and absence of documented mourning surrounding Shakespeare’s death and the strange lack of a documented funeral then understand the actual and intended meaning of Digges’s 1623 Folio elegy and lastly add his 1640 clues the silence-suicide foundation, surprisingly, not only doesn’t crumble spectacularly but, interestingly, seems to bear the extra evidentiary weight with somewhat startling strength.
When trying to make sense of the silence surrounding Shakespeare’s death and the paucity of contemporary records, rather than focusing on a rumoured diary entry writ almost 50 years post-death or trying to come up with – yet another – poor, extrapolated, signature-based illness conjecture – one of which describes Shakespeare as “the invalid”[84] – modernity could do no wrong by 1) looking at the existing historical record, including researching death in seventeenth century England and 2) listening to what Shakespeare wrote about, and how he portrayed, suicide then 3) pay attention to a contemporary of Shakespeare’s – one who knew him personally, knew the cause of his death and made it patently clear he wanted to remember Shakespeare in a gracious, distinguished manner. Compared to rumours and conjectures, going directly to the source rarely leads one astray; as all readers of Shakespeare know it is from Rumours tongues / they bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.[85]
Digges wrote what he wrote for a specific reason: his 1623 references to only suicides, his mention of the suicide weapon for two of them and his explicit use of ‘nobly’ were meticulously calculated; as were his carefully chosen 1640 words describing how the audience reacted to the suicide deaths of Brutus and Cassius. But please, please, be under no illusion that reason was to inform modernity 400 years hence – or his contemporaries – how Shakespeare died.[86] It was writ for – by honouring and defending – his deceased friend; a defence steeped in deep respect and revered dignity. It was writ to let his contemporaries know how he viewed his friend, post-death. Regardless – and maybe in the face of – how some of contemporary society might have viewed his dead friend. Can Digges’s words sweep away the dust on antique time’s mountainous error so truth can o’erpeer? Are the fevered hangover and illness conjectures smooth comforts false?
So, how didShakespeare die? That, is the question.[87] Shakespeare knows, but he’s not sharing.[88] Others know too – his family, Heminges and Condell, Burbage and the rest of the usual suspects – but they’re not sharing either. Perhaps one guy didn’t get the memo.
SDRP
[1] As noted at the outset, Shakespeare’s burial was recorded in Holy Trinity Church’s burial register contemporaneously with his passing; the entire entry dated 1616 April 25 reads thusly: Will. Shakspere, gent. And, there are prefatory, elegic comments acknowledging Shakespeare’s death written in 1623 – seven years after his death – in William Shakespeare, Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published According to the true Originall Copies (London: Printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623.), aka, The First Folio, hereinafter, the Folio. Unless otherwise noted all elegic comments and excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays are taken from The Tudor Edition of William Shakespeare The Complete Works, ed. Peter Alexander (Collins, 1951), hereinafter identified as Works.
[2] John Ward (1629-1681), vicar Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1662-1681.
[3] Folger MS V.a. 292, Fol 150r, John Ward Diaries, vol. 9, ca. 1662-1663, Folger Shakespeare Library. A semi-diplomatic transcription of selections from John Ward Diaries, vol. 9, from the Folger Digital Image Collection, edited by Emily Fine, Mary Hardy, Tobias Hrynick, Timothy Lundy, Kirsten Mendoza, Colin Rydell, Jenny Smith, Margaret Smith, and William Thompson. There are many volumes to Ward’s diaries; individual entries concerning Shakespeare total six. The ‘merry meeting’ entry is the only entry discussed herein.
[4] S. Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford University Press, 1977), 296.
[5] S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford University Press, 1991), 78-79.
[6] Jonathan Bate, Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare (Random House, 2009), 404-405.
[7] Park Honan, Shakespeare: A Life (Oxford University Press, 1998), 406.
[8] Lois Potter, The Life of William Shakespeare A Critical Biography (Wiley Blackwell, 2012), 407.
[9] Honan, A Life, 406.
[10] Schoenbaum, A Compact Documentary Life, 297.
[11] And, really, a shaky signature could be due to countless reasons and not just a possible fatal fever. One of the biggest errors of modern scholarship has been the focussed conjecture that a shaky signature was due, and only due, to illness and not, say, a broken hand, or poor writing instrument, or poor substrate underlying the document or perhaps a muscular condition or one hundred other reasons.
[12] Amanda Bevan and David Foster (2017), Shakespeare’s original will: a re-reading, and a reflection on interdisciplinary research within archives; Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association, 51 (132-3), 8-34.
[13] Bevan and Foster, Shakespeare’s orginal will, 15-17.
[14] Bevan and Foster, Shakespeare’s orginal will, 25.
[15] Bevan and Foster, Shakespeare’s orginal will, 18.
[16] 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).
[17] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 6-8.
[18] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 11-15.
[19] Honan, A Life, 17-18.
[20] Norman, History of Death, 100.
[21] Norman, History of Death, 83.
[22] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 46.
[23] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 4; contemporaneously documented funeral sermons were also mined to inform Houlbrooke’s research, 386-387.
[24] John Leslie Hotson, The Death of Christopher Marlowe (Harvard University Press, 1925).
[25] 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.
[26] 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 like the merry meeting, unlikely.
[27] Jonson, Benjamin (1572-1637), poet and playwright, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 04 December 2023.
[28] 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.
[29] 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.
[30] Beaumont, Francis (1584/5–1616), playwright | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 07 December 2023.
[31] Beaumont, Sir John, first baronet (c. 1584–1627), poet | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 07 December 2023.
[32] Holland, Hugh (1563–1633), poet | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 09 December 2023.
[33] Dryden, John (1631–1700), poet, playwright, and critic | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 05 December 2023.
[34] Ashley Horace Thorndike, Shakespeare’s Theater (Macmillan, 1916), 387.
[35] Oxford University Press online: https://blog.oup.com/2013/01/the-death-of-edmund-spencer Accessed 07 December 2023.
[36] 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.”
[37] Julius Caesar, 3.2.102-105, 986.
[38] Coriolanus, 2.3.115-118, 843.
[39] There was an undated, unpublished poem by William Basse circulating between 1616 and sometime prior to the Folio’s publication in 1623; its first known publication was in 1633: https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/manuscript-copy-william-bassess-elegy-william-shakespeare Accessed 16 December 2023.
[40] With, of course, the necessary caveat acknowledged: some plays were collaborations and contribution by others in some plays is certain.
[41] He might have received a funeral; but ‘might’ doesn’t make it so.
[42] Both were friends of Shakespeare, fellow actors in The King’s Men acting troupe and beneficiaries in Shakespeare’s will; they were responsible for compiling Shakespeare’s plays for publication in the Folio.
[43] Works, xxviii-xxix.
[44] Works, xxx.
[45] Digges, Leonard (1588–1635), poet and translator | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com). Accessed 16 December 2023.
[46] Works, xxx.
[47] Works, xxxi.
[48] Research yielded nothing to suggest deaths caused by drinking or illness were characterized by silence.
[49] In 17 works, Shakespeare discusses suicide or has actual suicide deaths. In 11 of those 17, Shakespeare has 20 identifiable characters commit suicide and one attempt; one or two more are possible, but uncertain. Some were historical suicides; some were of Shakespeare’s creation. In the remaining 6 works, no suicides occur but there is dialogue – to some degree – discussing suicide. That’s not an insignificant amount of successful suicides and accompanying dialogue.
[50] Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, 26.
[51] King Henry VI Part 3, 3.2.164, 682.
[52] Michael MacDonald and Terence Murphy, Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 1990), 15.
[53] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 15.
[54] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 16.
[55] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 16.
[56] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 23.
[57] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 16.
[58] John Donne, Biathanatos: A Declaration of that Paradox or Thesis that Self-Homicide is not so Naturally Sin that it may never be otherwise (Humphrey Moseley, 1648). In J. William Hebel, ed., John Donne: Biathanatos (The Facsimile Society, 1930), 90.
[59] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 15.
[60] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 15.
[61] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, Ch.2 throughout.
[62] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 43.
[63] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 42.
[64] Shakespeare specifically addresses the concept of a polluted corpse and whether a suicide should, in fact, be viewed as polluted and treated as such: Hamlet, 5.1.212-234, 1066-1067.
[65] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 47.
[66] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 19, 49.
[67] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 47.
[68] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 15, 19, 47-49; Norman, History of Death, 131. In typical brilliant fashion, Shakespeare compares virgins to self-murderers and, because both offend against nature, both deserve burial at the highway and out of all sanctified limit: All’s Well That End’s Well, 1.1. 131-134, 317.
[69] Macdonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 15, 48-49, 49n.
[70] Hamlet, 5.1.213, 1066.
[71] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 223-224.
[72] Alexandra Mary Lord, “Four Perceptions of Suicide in Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century England” (Dissertations, Theses and Masters Projects, William & Mary, Paper 1539625619, 1990), 82.
[73] MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 78-79.
[74] Max Planck (1858-1947), German theoretical physicist, Nobel Laureate.
[75] Poems: Written By Wil. Shake-speare. Gent. (London: Printed by Tho. Cotes, 1640).
[76] Digges, Poems: Written, 3v. https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/bib161408-153876 Accessed 05 December 2023.
[77] At the risk of being trite, on balance, Shakespeare held a positive – noble – view of suicide. And, at the hazard of stating the overly-obvious, his grandest view holding suicide as noble doubles as perhaps the most recognizable phrase/monologue in the English language, courtesy of ‘To be or not to be’: Hamlet, 3.1.56-88, 1047.
[78] They don’t.
[79] Romeo and Juliet, 5.3.309, 939.
[80] 5.5.68, 998. In Caesar, Shakespeare refers to the ‘noble’ Brutus or a variation thereof 15 times and likewise for Cassius, seven.
[81] 4.14.95, 1188; 4.15.86-88, 1190; 5.2.237, 1194; 5.2.283, 1195.
[82] Though, one would be wise not to count Mark Antony or Cleopatra out of the running. And, Lucrece, don’t forget about Lucrece; hers, possibly the noblest of them all.
[83] Shakespeare has Cassius kill himself on his birthday; Cassius acknowledges it as such, twice: Julius Caesar, 5.1.71-72, 995 and 5.3.23-25, 996. A few lines later Cassius runs onto his sword, held and thrust by his servant Pindarus, and thus his suicide is on This day I breathed first. An enduring mystery has centered around whether Shakespeare’s death date – 23 April – was also his birthday. Maybe.
[84] Schoenbaum, Compact Documentary Life, 297.
[85] King Henry IV, Part 2, Induction, 39-40, 515.
[86] They knew.
[87] The other, better known question might – thanks to Leonard Digges – take on some new, added significance; if so, Hamlet might never be read the same again.
[88] Unless, he has.