Part 28 (1/2)

Ie was soon public property His wife quickly became a mother, and when he crossed the Channel a feeeks later to revisit her he was received by pursuivants, who had the Queen's orders to carry him to the Fleet prison For the tiaol, all avenues to the Queen's favour were closed to hih command was denied him Helpless and hopeless, he late in 1600 joined Essex, another fallen favourite, in foain by force the positions each had forfeited

The attempt at insurrection failed, and the conspirators stood their trial on a capital charge of treason on February 19, 1600-1 Southampton was condemned to die, but the Queen's Secretary pleaded with her that 'the poor young earl, merely for the love of Essex, had been drawn into this action,' and his punishment was coation was not to be looked for while the Queen lived But Essex, Southampton's friend, had been Jaland was to set Southampton free (April 10, 1603) After a confinement of more than two years, Southampton resumed, under happier auspices, his place at Court

Later career Death on Nov 10, 1624

Southampton's later career does not directly concern the student of Shakespeare's biography After Shakespeare had congratulated Southampton on his liberty in his Sonnet cvii, there is no trace of further relations between theh there is no reason to doubt that they remained friends to the end Southampton on his release froht of the Garter, and was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight, while an Act of Parliament relieved him of all the disabilities incident to his conviction of treason He was thenceforth a proure in Court festivities He twice danced a correnta with the Queen at the ust 19, 1604, in honour of the Constable of Castile, the special an a treaty of peace between his sovereign and Jaenial field for the exercise of Southaies Quarrels with fellow-courtiers continued to jeopardise his fortunes With Sir Robert Cecil, with Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgoham he had violent disputes It was in the sche the New World that Southampton found an outlet for his iinia, and acted as treasurer of the Virginia Company The map of the country commemorates his labours as a colonial pioneer In his honour were named Southainia Finally, in the sue of fifty-one, Southampton, with characteristic spirit, took colish volunteers which was raised to aid the Elector Palatine, husband of Jale with the Emperor and the Catholics of Central Europe With hi in the Low Countries were attacked by fever The younger th to accoen-op-Zooy Father and son were both buried in the chancel of the church of titchfield, Hampshi+re, on December 28 Southaht years

IV--THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON

Southampton's collection of books

Southaive powerful corroboration of the theory that he was the patron whom Shakespeare commemorated in the sonnets Frohout the dissipations of Court life, aue cost him, in the distractions of war and travel--the earl never ceased to cherish the passion for literature which was ie, St

John's, is characteristic When a new library was in course of construction there during the closing years of his life, Southampton collected books to the value of 360 pounds ith to furnish it This 'e authorities described the benefaction, ift largely consisted of illuends of the saints, and mediaeval chronicles Southampton caused his son to be educated at St John's, and his wife expressed to the tutors the hope that the boy would 'i and to them'

References in his letters to poems and plays

Even the State papers and business correspondence in which Southampton's career is traced are enlivened by references to his literary interests

Especially refreshi+ng are the active signs vouchsafed there of his sylish drama It ith plays that he joined other noble his chief, Sir Robert Cecil, on the eve of the departure for Paris of that embassy in which Southa Southampton contrived to enclose in an official despatch fros'

which he was anxious that Sir Robert Sidney, a friend of literary tastes, should share his delight in reading Twelve months later, while Southampton was in Ireland, a letter to him from the Countess attested that current literature was an everyday topic of their private talk

'All the news I can send you,' she wrote to her husband, 'that I think will make you merry, is that I read in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaff is, by his oodly miller's thumb--a boy that's all head and very little body; but this is a secret' {383a} This cryptic sentence proves on the part of both earl and countess familiarity with Falstaff's adventures in Shakespeare's 'Henry IV,' where the fat knight apostrophised Mrs Quickly as 'good pint pot' (Pt I II iv 443) Who the acquaintances were about whohtly does not appear, but that Sir John, the father of 'the boy that was all head and very little body,' was a playful allusion to Sir John's creator is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility In the letters of Sir Toby Matthew, many of which ritten very early in the seventeenth century (although first published in 1660), the sobriquet of Sir John Falstaff seems to have been bestowed on Shakespeare: 'As that excellent author Sir John Falstaff sayes, ”what for your businesse, news, device, foolerie, and libertie, I never dealt better since I was a man”' {383b}

His love of the theatre

When, after leaving Ireland, Southampton spent the autumn of 1599 in London, it was recorded that he and his friend Lord Rutland 'co to plays every day'

{383c} It seems that the fascination that the draerate the influence that it was capable of exerting on the emotions of the multitude Southampton and Essex in February 1601 requisitioned and paid for the revival of Shakespeare's 'Richard II' at the Globe Theatre on the day preceding that fixed for their insurrection, in the hope that the play-scene of the deposition of a king ht excite the citizens of London to countenance their rebellious design {383d} Imprisonment sharpened Southampton's zest for the theatre Within a year of his release from the Tower in 1603 he entertained Queen Anne of Dene and his fellow players, one of as Shakespeare, were bidden to present the 'old' play of 'Love's Labour's Lost,' whose 'wit and ly'

Poetic adulation Barnabe Barnes's sonnet, 1593

But these are merely accidental testimonies to Southampton's literary predilections It is in literature itself, not in the prosaic records of his political or domestic life, that the amplest proofs survive of his devotion to letters From the hour that, as a handsome and accomplished lad, he joined the Court and ed his appreciation of literary effort of almost every quality and form He had in his Italian tutor Florio, whose circle of acquaintance included all men of literary reputation, a mentor who allowed no work of promise to escape his observation Every note in the scale of adulation was sounded in Southampton's honour in contemporary prose and verse Soon after the publication, in April 1593, of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis,' with its salutation of Southampton, a more youthful apprentice to the poet's craft, Barnabe Barnes, confided to a published sonnet of unrestrained fervour his conviction that Southampton's eyes--'those heavenly lamps'--were the only sources of true poetic inspiration The sonnet, which is superscribed 'to the Right noble and Virtuous Lord, Henry, Earl of Southampton,' runs: