a Life
Royals, Priests, and Poets
“To understand a doctrine from the past
correctly, it is necessary to set it within
its proper historical and cultural context.”
– Saint John Paul II, Fides et Ratio
INRI
The most interesting of playwrights lived in the most interesting of times. To look at the content of Shakespeare’s life, we should see it in the context of history and culture. And to do so means we must widen the lens of history to include not only key moments in his life, but also key moments in world history. To truly understand Shakespeare, we need not only see his life and the kingdom of England, but also the church and the kingdom of heaven. We need not only include the life and times of English kings and queens, but also place them in context of the reign of the king and queen of the Jews.
So, to understand England, we must first begin with Israel and the Roman Empire, tracing the influence of a carpenter’s son across this world. For Israel’s Messiah transformed not only Israel’s traditions and institutions, but also Rome’s. And Rome changed the world.
To understand William Shakespeare, let us look to his savior – Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews – and to his beloved bride, the church. Though the story is told often, it never ceases to amaze in its retelling. For long ago, prophets foretold of ancient promises and amazing news, that God would dwell among his people and save them from sin and death, that good would permanently triumph over evil, and that the world would end in a joyous celebration, a wedding feast in fact, as the prophet Isaiah had promised long before the Christ’s birth, “for your husband is your Maker, the Lord of Hosts is his name, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, called God of all the earth.”
The Jewish people were meticulous in compiling these promises given to them by God across all of history, tracing back the story of our maker and mankind all the way to the beginning of the universe and chronicling the many promises made by God to his people. As we read the many sacred testaments of the Jewish people, we have a picture of a messiah that is fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, born of a virgin, son of David, and crucified for our sins – just a few of many other mysterious promises fulfilled in Christ alone. This good news of salvation was entrusted to the church to share and spread throughout the world. This good news changed the world.
For with the news of this humble carpenter and wandering rabbi, we have the story of eternal life and the measure by which to understand earthly life. To this day, we tell time across the world by the birth of the Galilean. More than two thousand years later, Christ is still our standard. In ancient times, cultures recorded time in reference to great men and kings, and now, all the world records time in reference to our great king, the king of kings, Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). In the United States of America, more than two thousand years later, we still honor the life of this carpenter’s son by making the memorial of his birth a public holiday. We still celebrate his birth every Christmas. We also celebrate his death and resurrection, every Sunday and every Easter. On these days we celebrate his great victory over sin and death. To this day, all over the world, people profess Jesus is king. He has over 2 billion followers, many of whom willingly lay down their own lives to testify “sin is defeated, death is no more.” To this day, he is loved, cherished and worshiped all over the world. Jesus is king, not only of the Jews, but also the Gentiles. He rules as King of the Universe.
This message of salvation was entrusted to his followers. After Jesus’s death, on the third day he rose from the dead. He appeared to his apostles and early followers over a period of 40 days before he ascended into heaven. For those who scoff at what seems like such incredible claims, eleven of the twelve apostles died martyrs for testifying to Christ’s death and resurrection. These were not men who experienced worldly benefits for their faith in Christ. They were beheaded, crucified, and boiled alive for their testimony that Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar. The story entrusted to the Catholic church was not convenient to tell, but it was true, and the church was entrusted with the mission of sharing news of our savior to a weak, weary and ruinous world. And the church shared this testimony even among hostile governments, enduring these trials as momentary afflictions that produced eternal fruit. The tree of life is once again seen in the garden of God.
This was the message that the church was entrusted by Jesus to share with the world. To understand the story of William Shakespeare, we must understand these basic facts about his savior and the unique role of his bride in this world. For the main theme of Shakespeare’s life is the right to worship Jesus and be Catholic, and we shall discuss, one by one, key moments of history that fuel Shakespeare’s mission and legacy as the poet of poets and the prolific playwright whose plays are performed to this day across theaters and televisions all over the earth.
Edict of Milan
The Edict of Milan in the year of our Lord 313 was a defining moment in European and church history. The Edict secured religious toleration for Christians throughout the Roman Empire. The religious movement started by Jesus and his apostles had so thoroughly spread throughout the Roman Empire, like yeast through leaven, that even the Caesars recognized Christ as Lord. Catholic Christians throughout the empire no longer feared persecution as they were finally allowed to practice their religion in peace. And Europe changed.
Until the Edict of Milan, the church had suffered wave after wave of persecution. The message of salvation from death and dying was a message that the rulers and principalities of the world did not tolerate. The Roman Empire kept trying to push upon the peoples the pagan religions and cult of Caesar, hoping that a state religion would unify the people of the Empire. But Christians were not willing to lie or participate in false religions. Jesus promised “the truth shall set you free,” not the worship of false gods and world governments. The Christian message of salvation is news, and news must be told in truth. Fakes news is not news, its lies and propaganda. The good news is always about the truth.
And so, Christians who know Jesus as Lord and savior could not participate in any other religion, even if it was the state-sanctioned religions of the Empire. But after hundreds of years of keeping the testimony that Jesus is lord of life and the many martyrs who shed their blood in witness to Jesus, the hard hearts of the Empire finally softened and were defeated. With the Edict of Milan, the church was finally free to proclaim her message without fear of persecution. And in the centuries that followed, the world changed.
In the 4th century, Christians were finally able to come out of severe persecution from all across the Empire and settle key issues. Issues like the canon of sacred writings and key teachings of apostolic faith (like the Creed and Trinity). They also began some of the most fruitful missionary journeys of the early church, going beyond the Empire’s walls to barbarian lands. One of the most celebrated missionaries was Saint Patrick, a Roman Briton stolen as a slave by the Irish. Saint Patrick escaped slavery in Ireland to later return to the island as a priest bringing the message of salvation to his former captors. The Irish fell in love with Jesus and his church, and the Irish were critical in laying the foundations of Western Europe’s love of God and church and country. This love flourished in Europe for over a thousand years. Western Europe was fertile soil for the gospel and many great institutions arose in Europe, like justice systems that honored life as sacred, hospitals to save lives, and universities to further knowledge of God’s word and works.
To understand Shakespeare, we need to see the good brought about by the Edict of Milan. In came religious liberty for Christians to practice their faith freely. This freedom lead to the rich Catholic heritage of Europe, including England. Shakespeare’s isle of origin was invaded by Caesar to be conquered by Christ. And British saints were crucial to serving the Empire and Europe, helping neighboring lands flourish in the years after the fall of the Empire. The church was the light through the Dark Ages, and the foundation of modern Europe as the proclaimer of truth and preserver of history – be it Jew, Roman or Greek history. In the light of Christ, all was transformed.
Our Lady’s Dowry
Once the Empire fell, the Roman hinter lands like England struggled to preserve the traditions that led to Rome’s greatness. And as the Empire receded, so did the Christian faith struggle to see the light of day in the hinterlands of the empire. In A.D. 597, Pope Saint Gregory the Great commissioned a small group of Benedictine monks and priests to evangelize England. This time, Saint Augustine was sent as Bishop of Canterbury, and with his small group of missionaries, they united with the work of Saint Patrick’s sons to re-evangelize England and cement its status as defender of the faith and protector of the church. In due time, England also became known as Our Lady’s Dowry due to their strong devotion to the Virgin Mother. From the archbishop’s seat in Canterbury, the church guided the island nation for a thousand years, and helped transform a backwater country in the north of Europe to a world power spread throughout the world. Shakespeare himself would eloquently record of England, “this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise…this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, this nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, feared by their breed and famous by their birth, renowned for their deeds as far from home, for Christian service and true chivalry, as in the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s son; this land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, dear for her reputation through the world…”. Yes, this England was so beholden to Catholic religion that she become known throughout the world for Christian service, true chivalry, and was dubbed Our Lady’s Dowry.
The last Catholic Archbishop of England, Cardinal Reginald Pole, living in the time of Shakespeare’s father and just before Shakespeare’s birth, would share with the English people that God has shown special favor to England, often through the papacy. Eamon Duffy records Cardinal Pole’s testimony in Fires of Faith, “When Britain had been overrun by Saxon paganism, the faith was restored by Pope Gregory the Great. Ever since, the English people had been ardently attached to the popes, their fathers in the faith, and they had prospered in proportion to their filial devotedness.”
Even the Magna Carta, the great charter of liberties that Americans look to as inspiration for our own Declaration of Independence and Constitution, was a church document written in 1215. The Charter seeks peace between the King and nobles, promises to protect church rights and individual rights, and ensures swift justice. Even though it was annulled shortly after due to neither side, the king or the nobles, keeping their commitments, it is still a key document inspiring Americans and highlighting the church’s role in England, the protector of the people against an overreaching government.
For hundreds of years England flourished, and by the time of the 15th century, was an influential world power and almost-Eden where Englishmen lived in a demi-paradise of dear souls with dear reputation throughout the world. This was England, just before the discovery of the Americas in 1492, shortly after invention of the printing press, and at the edge of the first Protest movements that would engulf much of Catholic Europe in the following century. At this key moment in history, we need to consider England’s special relationship with another world power, the kingdoms and territories we now call Spain.
Defenders of the Faith
The kingdoms of Spain had been under constant threat by Muslims for hundreds of years. Since the 8th century, the Religion of War was threatening the peace, stability and freedom of Catholic Europe, wreaking havoc in Spain. Spanish warriors kept the Muslims from terrorizing the rest of Europe, a bulwark protecting much of Western Europe. And when Queen Isabella married King Ferdinand, Spain united in a powerful way. Under these Catholic monarchs, Spain was finally able to free itself of Muslim persecution and threat, and once Spain was stable, Spanish explorers began searching the world to further the kingdom of Christ and his beloved church. When the Christian kingdoms of Spain won control of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors in 1492, Christopher Columbus was able to secure sponsorship for his voyages to the new world. The Reconquista of Spain led the Spanish to explore the new world with the hope of conquering the nations for Christ and his church.
Let us hear Columbus’ own description of the events. “On 2 January in the year 1492, when your Highnesses had concluded their war with the Moors who reigned in Europe, I saw your Highnesses’ banners victoriously raised on the towers of the Alhambra, the citadel of that city, and the Moorish king come out of the city gates and kiss the hands of your Highnesses and the prince, My Lord. And later in that same month, on the grounds of information I had given your royal Highnesses concerning the lands of India and a prince who is called the Great Khan – which means in Spanish ‘King of Kings’ – and of his and his ancestors’ frequent and vain applications to Rome for men learned in the holy faith who should instruct them in it, your Highnesses decided to send me, Christopher Columbus, to see these parts of India and the princes and peoples of those lands and consider the best means for their conversion. For, by the neglect of the Popes to send instructors, many nations had fallen to idolatry and adopted doctrines of perdition, and your Highnesses as Catholic princes and devoted propagators of the holy Christian faith have always been enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all idolatries and heresies. Your Highnesses ordained that I should not go eastward by land in the usual manner but by the western way which no one about whom we have positive information has ever followed.” Beyond Columbus’s explanation for going westward, his logbook was filled with thanksgiving to God, the men breaking into Salve and Gloria In Excelsis Deo and other acts of Catholic religious piety, devotion and thanksgiving.
The signing of documents by the Spanish royalty which authorized Columbus’s voyage were done in a monastery, the Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura, Spain. Once Columbus returned from the Americas, “he returned to the Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe to give thanks to God through the intercession of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who had granted him a safe voyage.”
The story behind the Virgin of Guadalupe is crucial for understanding the new world. And while many believe the story begins in Mexico in 1531, in fact it begins in Europe long before. For Pope Gregory the Great, the same Pope who had commissioned the evangelization of England, had given as a gift to the Bishop of Seville a statue, Our Lady of Guadalupe, in gratitude for the Bishop’s work in converting Visigoth kings. The statue is famous being carved by Saint Luke the Evangelist, a writer of the gospels, as well as for being one of only a few “black Madonnas” in all of Europe.
In 714, Seville fell to the Moors and priests took the image, fleeing the Moorish armies, and hid the statue in the mountains of Extremadura. Hundreds of years later, in the fourteenth century, the statue was found by a shepherd, and soon thereafter the shrine was entrusted to the monastery. And so, documents signed to celebrate the Reconquista and commission Columbus’ voyages were done in front of the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In those same years as Spain concluded its Reconquista and commenced its new world voyages, the Catholic monarchs raised their children. One of those children, Catherine of Aragon, born in 1485 was married in 1509 to the newly ascended English monarch, King Henry VIII. Yes, the princess of these renowned Catholic monarchs became the Queen of England. And thus, these historically powerful Catholic countries – England and Spain – found love and peace in the marriage of England’s son and Spain’s daughter.
Unfortunately, their love story was soon interrupted. In 1517, Northern Europe erupted with protests against the holy church when Father Martin Luther posted his 95 Thesis. This moment is seen by many Protestants as the birth of Protestantism. England’s Catholic king soon responded with a defense of the sacraments which earned him the title “defender of the faith,” a title which English royalty retains to this day. While the marriage of Spain and England may have united Europe’s powers and brought some small measure of peace, it was short-lived. Chaos descended on northern Europe. But out of Europe’s darkness a light was to shine in the Americas.
In the aftermath of these decades, Shakespeare leaves his testimony. Plays like the The Tempest and Measure for Measure are named after Spanish Catholic heroes and heroines. But these insights on Shakespeare’s artistic choices must wait as we continue placing his life in the context of world history. Soon, we will understand why many of his heroes hold names of Spanish kings, queens, and heroes, tied to the heroic family members of some of the last Catholic Queens of England, Catherine and Mary.
Light in the Darkness
While Europe flourished with the love of Christ, the Americas were covered in blood, darkness and human sacrifice. One of the major empires in the history of the world, known as the Aztecs, were among the most bloodthirsty in human history (until, of course, recent abortion laws allowed the wholesale slaughter of millions of innocent children). On the eve of the Protestant Rebellion in Europe, human sacrifice was a regular practice in the Americas. The demonic gods demanded human lives during Aztec monthly festivals and temple dedications. With eighteen months a year (their calendar had 20-day months) and what is likely 371 temples, human sacrifice was prevalent across the Aztec empire. Conservative estimates include 50,000 human sacrifices a year, but there were probably much more, as entire tribes within the empire were exterminated by sacrifice. The Aztecs were skilled and systematic about human sacrifice; their priests were able to kill each victim within 15 seconds. At one of their temple dedications that sometimes lasted 4 days and nights, more than 80,000 men were killed. The stench, the horror, the beating hearts torn out of human bodies with incredible speed and skill, it is almost unthinkable. Yet, this was central to Aztec culture and their practice of religion. This was America before the light of Christ shone from Europe into the darkness.
This Mexican religion held the serpent as a universal symbol, and snake skins were used to beat drums to herald sacrifices that could be heard from miles away. The historian Warren Carrol records, “nowhere else in human history has Satan so formalized and institutionalized his worship with so many of his own actual titles and symbols.” The miracle that 600 Spanish Catholic warriors could conquer an empire of 15 million people is frequently glossed over in history books. But it is worthy of meditation and deep consideration. For once you realize the horrific institutional practices of some of the cultures from pre-European Americas, you realize why so many natives would so readily adopt European ways and ideals, which was fortified and informed by Catholic religion. At the point Europe met America, the Catholic church had so thoroughly embedded Judeo-Christian values and ideals within European culture, that this clash of cultures was in fact a clash of religions. Spanish conquistadors brought the light of the Jewish Messiah to the Americas. Their holy Catholic faith brought to the Americas salvation from the horrific practice of human sacrifice. Although, again with abortion, the practice has returned in increasingly horrific numbers (over a million innocent babies slaughtered every year).
As the church suffered the loss of millions of souls in Europe, the Americas were soon to find an even more bountiful harvest. Hernan Cortes would lead the charge. He came from that special region of Spain, Extremadura, where the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe was located. A brave warrior, a Catholic Christian, a Conquistador, Cortes was “a good horseman and skillful with all weapons on foot or on horseback and knew very well how to handle them, and above all a heart and a courage which is what matters… [He wore] just a thin chain of gold of simple pattern and a trinket with the image of Our Lady the Virgin Saint Mary with her precious Son in her arms…he prayed every morning with a [book of] Hours and heard Mass with devotion; he had for his protector the Virgin Mary our Lady (whom all Christians must hold as our intercessor and protector) as well as the Lord St. Peter and St. James and the Lord St. John the Baptist; and he was fond of giving alms.” This was the firsthand testimony about Cortes from Bernal Diaz, an eyewitness and fellow conquistador. This is also a great description of a heroic warrior.
Cortes would lead the charge to dethrone the bloodthirsty emperor of the Aztecs, known as the Hummingbird Wizard. The expedition by Cortes and his crew would last nearly three years and end in 1521. For the next ten years, some Aztecs and other natives would convert to the Catholic religion, but converts were small in number. The people may have been freed from the slavery of human sacrifice, but their hearts were not yet conquered by Christ and his Virgin mother. The heroic deeds of the conquistadors did not automatically result in the triumph of Christian religion. There was still too much of a cultural gap to bridge. An empire can be held by force, but Catholic religion may only be spread through love and freewill. As Carroll notes, “to build Christendom on the ashes and the ruins of Mexico required a spiritual splendor and heroism of a wholly different order form the heroism that had overthrown the Aztec empire.” Cortes had told the Aztec emperor about the times to come, “our lord and king would send men who lead holy lives, better than ourselves, who would explain everything about the faith, for we had come only to notify them.” The conquistadors paved the way for Mexico’s saints. And the Franciscan mission began immediately, but it would only reap a huge harvest after a unique sign from God.
The Virgin Mary appeared to a native of America, Juan Diego. He had grown up in one of the towns of the Aztec empire, his native name was Cuauhtlatohuac, “he who talks like an eagle.” Juan Diego was baptized with his Christian name in the mid-1520s. He and his wife were among the first conversions by the Franciscan priests. He was a humble convert to the Catholic religion, who took the savior of his Spanish liberators as his own. The Virgin Mary appeared to this humble man in 1531.
The Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego multiple times. Thinking himself too humble to be utilized by the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, he told her to choose someone of higher standing. To shorten a longer story, she chose him and gave him a sign to share with the local Bishop to Mexico. The sign included collecting flowers in a piece of cloth, and when Juan Diego gave the cloth to the Bishop, the power of God had created an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This tilma remains to this day in a Basilica in Mexico. The image was a cultural bridge. She was seen covered with sun rays, a crown of stars on her head and her feet on the moon, held up by an angel, and the name Guadalupe sounding like the native Aztec word “coatlaxopeuh” which means “to crush the serpent,” an allusion to biblical stories from Genesis and Revelation as well as what the conquistadors accomplished against the Aztec religion. They conquered the darkness with the light of Christ. “For he commands his angels with regard to you, to guard you wherever you go. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You can tread upon the asp and the viper, trample the lion and the dragon.”
The locals saw in the miraculous image key cultural cues. Like the crucifix spoke to ancient Romans, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke to Aztecs. Millions converted almost immediately. The physical conquest of Mexico had led to the spiritual conquest of the Aztecs. As Warren H. Carroll records, “Mary had come to claim the conquest of Hernan Cortes had made in her name,” and fulfill what she had started decades before in Spain as Catholic royals sponsored Catholic sea-voyagers. Our ever-Virgin Mother of God “had come to call upon all now dwelling in Mexico to live united in this land and to ask her to help them in their need, raising the shining shield of her eternal love over a people who had been victimized more than any other on earth.”
Shakespeare, born a little more than thirty years after these great miracles in Mexico, loosely chronicled the miracles of what was happening in the Americas. In The Tempest, he would write “O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t!” Shakespeare noted, “all thy vexations were but trials of thy love, and thou hast strangely stood the test. Here, afore Heaven, I ratify this my rich gift.” The struggles that had befallen European lands may have been “trials of thy love” so that more people might hear the message of salvation in new worlds.
And so, as millions were falling away from the church in Europe, millions were added in the Americas. While formerly Catholic Europe was suffering under Protest movements throughout her continent, formerly demonic civilizations in the Americas were being conquered by the light of Christ. The devil may have had his day in Europe, but he met his demise in the Americas.
Truly, God was orchestrating all things for his good, and while the church was being challenged, souls were being saved. Never underestimate the reason for European prosperity and love of the church was to make evangelization possible for the Americas. That God so loved the Americas that he created Catholic Europe to one day evangelize two great American continents shrouded in darkness. Demonic practices prevailed until set against those who carried the light of Christ. Devilish enterprises continued until our Mother brought her Son to all mankind. And somehow, the fingerprints of Pope Saint Gregory the Great was over Spain, England and the Americas – influential in the evangelization of England and the Reconquista of Spain. Influential in these united empires settling the Americas. Influential in conquest over the dark principalities and powers that ruled two nations and two continents. Influential in evangelizing England and influential in sharing Our Lady with Spain. And influential in the Americas.
Thanks be to God for the light of Christ shone on the Americas to rule over the darkness. The flickering flame of conquistadors began the conquest of darkness in the Americas, leading to the unfailing light of Christ and his holy Mother. Yes, thanks be to Christ’s holy Mother for finding a way to bridge continents and cultures through her love.
Her words to Juan Diego ring true to this day, “You must know and be very certain in your heart, my son, that I am truly the perpetual and perfect Virgin Mary, holy mother of the True God through whom everything lives, the Creator and Master of heaven and earth. I wish and intensely desire that in this place my sanctuary be erected so that in it I may show and make known and give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people. I am your merciful mother, the mother of all of you who live united in this land, and of all mankind, of all those who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow, and will remedy and alleviate their suffering, necessities and misfortunes.”
Oath of Supremacy
Yes, as the Spanish were spreading the Catholic religion to the Americas, and incredible signs and wonders were being wrought by God, England was soon to undergo its own tempest. England’s trial would involve the daughter of the great Queen of Spain. King Henry VIII desired to secure a divorce from Queen Catherine, daughter of renowned Catholic royals, Ferdinand and Isabella. But when the church would not let Henry invalidate his vows to his wife, Catherine, he created his own church that would let him divorce his wife. Yes, in order to secure a divorce from his Queen, Henry created his own state institution, the Church of England. In order to divorce his bride, he demolished Christ’s.
In 1534, Henry demanded that all English public servants take the Oath of Supremacy. This oath stated the king of England was the sovereign head of the church in England. Church and State would no longer be separate in England, Henry proclaimed himself head of the church and forced his citizens to agree. A tyrant and dictator, the King of England attempted to nationalize a universal church. And not until the birth of America would our founding fathers rediscover and secure an ancient Catholic concept – the separation of church and state, the need for separation between government and religion, between earthly and heavenly affairs.
It is ironic, that a king known for breaking his vows would ask others to make vows to himself. The supreme oath breaker now wanted many oaths. But the root of the whole issue between Henry and the church was Henry’s desire to divorce his wife and break his vows to his queen. Once he broke his vows to her, he demanded others to break their vows to the church. He required English people pledge their allegiance to him as head of his church, a newly created State institution. In this case, to quote Shakespeare, “what fool would be so wise as to lose an oath and gain paradise?” Shakespeare meant, what fool would be so wise as to lose an oath to Henry and gain paradise with Jesus?
Before Henry, England had been Catholic for over a thousand years. The island invaded by Caesar had been conquered by Christ. And in this island nation there existed fervent members of the Catholic church. British saints are numerous and influential in the history of the church. Their stories and feats of faith are heroic. But Henry, driven by lust and greed, attempted to destroy this rich history and instead of being a good king and defender of the faith, he became a cruel tyrant and destroyer of ancient religion. In his time, he murdered friend and foe alike, including great saints like Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fischer, who revealed their Catholic faith and strong devotion by laying down their lives before the tyrant king. They died “the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”
This is the root of our American ideals and our right to freedom of religion – government cannot demand oaths that belong to God. And so, we might pledge allegiance to our flag, but any that pledge doesn’t invalidate our oath to God. Instead, the pledge fulfills our obligations to God because it’s is aligned with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is a pledge to secure liberty and justice for all, a pledge that is firmly aligned within the Judeo-Christian Deity who desires us to “bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to release prisoners, and to announce the year of favor from the Lord.” But it is not a pledge to any one church or synagogue. And in the wisdom of our forefathers, they’ve granted us the inalienable right to be free of government mandates regarding religion. The government will never create a church for us to be tied to, but instead will respect our God-given right to worship the true God. Or at least, that is the God-given right Americans had secured by our forefathers.
This is the root of key themes throughout Shakespeare’s canon. Early in his career, he wrote a comedic tale about stupid oaths and vain articles of religion, like the vain articles of the Anglican church. This story was hilariously told in Love’s Labor’s Lost. Later in his career, as he approached his peak as a playwright, he wrote a masterpiece, King Lear, that tackled the key issue of what oaths can kings rightly demand of their subjects? The heroine, Cordelia, refuses to pledge her love to her father the king in any way beyond what is rightly due to him as father and sovereign. She confesses her love for him, but no more than the love that a daughter dutifully owes her father, or a subject her king. The tragedy of King Lear is that he banishes all who truly love him and maintains liars and sycophants close to him. All who truly loved the king had to take on disguise to serve him, just like English Catholics had to disguise their faith to serve the country they loved.
Shakespeare would bemoan this turn of events, where the Catholic religion was outlawed, and record his testimony in Titus Andronicus. “Noble patricians, patrons of my right, defend the justice of my cause with arms. And countrymen, my loving followers, plead my successive title with your swords. I am his first-born son that was the last that wore the imperial diadem of Rome. Then let my father’s honors live in me, nor wrong mine age with this indignity.” Shakespeare’s father would be the last generation to live in a time where the Catholic religion was openly practiced, hence Shakespeare’s line “I am his first-born son that was the last that wore the imperial diadem of Rome.” Veiled words to convey Shakespeare’s position as the first-born son of the last openly practicing Roman Catholics in England.
With Henry, Catholics could no longer practice the religion of their ancestors. “This sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this Eden, this England” banned the religion of its forefathers. The Act of Supremacy required that any who would participate in public life, or even attend a university, take the Oath of Supremacy. This Oath stated that the English monarch was the head of the church in England. No Catholic could take such an oath. And Shakespeare’s father would withdraw from public life due to such oaths. Shakespeare himself would never go to an English university because of such an oath. For no Catholic could go to any university which required an oath that violate our religious beliefs. The truth shall set you free, but the Oath of Supremacy makes you a slave to tyrants.
It is ironic, that the method to bring stability to Spain – a common religion – would now be used to make England Protestant. The faith that laid the foundation for an island nation to become a global superpower was now made illegal. And the famous Catholic monarchs of Spain would have their daughter deposed. Yes, the famous monarchs who finalized the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula, who united the country in a common and ancient religion, would one day have their own daughter dethroned as monarch because her husband needed a church to secure his divorce, and if the Catholic church wouldn’t, he’d start a State church that would. Yes, Catherine was divorced and set aside because her husband created a new state religion and required his citizens to become his slaves. With the new religion, Henry could force a divorce from his wife. While he broke vows made to his own bride, he also demanded his subjects break their vows to the church, the bride of Christ. He used the threat of government persecution to force Englishmen to participate in his wickedness. For Henry, the only way to secure this decree of divorce was by creating a State institution (the Anglican church) that he could control, not the universal Catholic church that protected the universal and God-given rights of not only the English, but all humanity. Many English Catholics laid down their lives to testify of Christ’s goodness and Henry’s evil.
And so, while warring Muslims and peaceful Jews were forced to convert to the Catholic religion or leave Spain, England used similar methods to erase Catholic religion and install a new State institution, the Anglican Church. While the Spanish royalty united Spain in a common Catholic religion, English royalty created a new State religion to chop England’s Catholic roots. During the reign of Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth, nevermore would Church and State be separate in England. To this day, the Queen of England is head of the Church of England. Yes, to this day, English royals rule over Anglican churches. And citizens are slaves to tyrants.
Psycho Rex
Henry was a brute. He was a psychotic king, a tyrant fueled by lust, greed and other deadly sins. During his nearly forty-year reign of terror, he had 2 wives beheaded, he killed 7 saints (including his friend, Sir Thomas More, and his mentor, Bishop John Fisher), as well as 2 cardinals, 2 archbishops, 18 bishops, 13 abbots, over 500 priors and monks, 38 university doctors, twelve Dukes, 164 noblemen, and over 100 private citizens. It’s estimated that he was responsible for over 70,000 executions. He was a martyr maker and faith killer and under his reign many a saint was made martyr.
And this is nothing to mention how he stole and destroyed the church, depleted the national treasuries, and caused tremendous suffering in England and abroad. Shakespeare himself mourned the “bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang” and bemoaned the state of England’s affairs, “If ever you have looked on better days, if ever been where bells have knolled to church, if ever sat at any good man’s feast, if ever from your eyelids wiped a tear and know what ‘tis to pity and be pitied, let gentleness my strong enforcement be, in the which hope I blush and hide my sword.”
Now, when Henry died, England was in turmoil as various kings and queen reigned briefly. Finally, his daughter Queen Elizabeth ascended to the English throne. Elizabeth was cut from a similar cloth as her father, and as rumors had it, Henry was not only her father but also her grandfather. That disgusting detail comes to us from the famous pamphleteer and Protestant William Cobbett’s testimony about how the mother of Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, was not only Henry’s mistress but also possibly the product of a love affair he had with her mother.
Queen Elizabeth reigned for nearly fifty years, she tortured and executed 130 English Catholic priests and over 60 laymen. She was also responsible for the gross murder of many Irish, as an estimated 1,500,000 Irish were starved to death or “put to the sword” and Irish lands seized by the English. In 1569 alone, she conducted at least 450 executions during the northern rebellion of England. Countless English Catholics were impoverished, imprisoned, exiled and impaled during her reign of terror.
It is odd, that in such circumstances, Elizabeth’s half-sister and predecessor, Queen Mary of England, is the one called Bloody Mary. Probably, if it weren’t for English government propaganda against Spanish Catholics, Mary might be called Good Queen Mary and Henry known as the Killing King or Horny Henry and Elizabeth as Bloody Bess or Evil Elizabeth or Lady Macbeth. Queen Mary reigned for less than five years and was in a difficult position of trying to bring justice to an island nation destroyed by her family. How to return stolen lands? Give back stolen wealth? Restore stolen churches? How to guide a nation back to their religious roots and the faith of their forefathers? The fact that her relatives do not have worse nicknames, again like Killer King Horny Henry or Bloody Bad Bess, is a sign of the Protestant State’s lies and propaganda and attempt to whitewash England’s Catholic and even Spanish roots and justify the nationalization of the universal church.
This situation is key to understanding Shakespeare’s mission as a Catholic poet and an English playwright. Otherwise, we would never see how much Shakespeare was simply recording the true testimony to combat the propaganda and lies of England’s 16th and 17th centuries. Shakespeare hoped his beloved nation would remember their true history and stay faithful to the holy Church, not the State church.
When Mary’s father, Henry, divorced her Spanish mother, Queen Catherine, Henry created the State church by stealing from the Catholic church. When Good Queen Mary ascended the English throne, she quickly began the work of returning England to the island’s Catholic roots. But it wasn’t easy because when Henry had created a new church, he had waged a campaign of destruction and theft of the Catholic church that is saddening and sickening, but he did not do it alone. Many people found themselves newly wealthy because they were willing to participate and execute Henry’s campaign of destruction and theft against the church. Under Henry’s direction, they destroyed images, plundered churches, and ruined abbeys and monasteries as well as church buildings and statues. In doing so, they attempted to destroy England’s history, culture, religion and traditions. Shakespeare’s parable on the destruction of the English church, Julius Caesar, begins with the State police attempting to destroy Caesar’s images, recording the testimony of what English Catholics experience under Henry and his conspirators. And there was a tremendous amount of Church wealth stolen by the king and his henchmen.
In the church’s work to build up England over the previous millennia, the clerical class administered land for about a third of England. This was like the church’s role throughout western Europe. The work of the church was running monasteries, inns, hospitals and universities; the church served the poor, providing education and learning to the people; and the church took care of the land, farming it for the people to have abundant crops. This wealth wasn’t amassed by any one person in the church, it was administered and run by people who belonged to the church. It was owned by many people. It is very similar today, like if we were to say that the private sector owns three quarters of the land in our country. We know that the private sector is not any one person but the sum of all persons and companies that are not the government. Same with the Catholic church. When we say the church owned one third of all land, what we really mean is that many people who belonged to the church took care of the land.
And so, when Henry took the work of many people and claimed it as his own, it was nothing more than theft on the grandest scale. What had been governed by many was stolen and ruled over by one. Henry had taken what had previously been of the people and made it his own. As GK Chesterton noted, “What we cannot find is one of the real wrongs that the Reformation reformed. For instance, it was an abominable abuse that the corruption of the monasteries sometimes permitted a rich noble to play the patron and even play at being the Abbot, or draw on the revenues supposed to belong to a brotherhood of poverty and charity. But all that the (English) Reformation did was to allow the same rich noble to take over all the revenue,” meaning England’s royals took what had belonged to the English people.
Henry used this stolen wealth to buy favors from his henchman. He had an elite class of nobles who occupied the lands and the buildings and become the new owners of the church’s wealth. So, when Queen Mary ascended, her desire to let the people return to the religion of their forefathers set her against many newly rich nobles who were concerned with what would happen with their newfound and stolen wealth. Would the crown demand justice for the church? Would the crown restore to the people what her father had stolen? Queen Mary ascended the throne in tumultuous times and was in a very difficult situation. The fact that she died so early in her reign, after only five short years, meant that the reforms she began and had put in place were abruptly ended with no heir to continue her just reforms. The new nobles ensured the next monarch would not help England return to papal fidelity and true justice. And they ensured she was slandered forever with the name “Bloody Mary.”
Hence, the nobles backed Henry’s bastard daughter, Bloody Bad Bess. They knew she would halt the Catholic reforms in its tracks and allow the nobles to keep their stolen wealth. Bloody Bess would bring back England’s State institution, the Anglican church, and this would ensure the rich would never have to return what they stole from the church or the poor. It was early in Queen Elizabeth’s reign that William Shakespeare was born, as he was “the first-born son of he who last wore the diadem of Rome.”
Shakespeare was born in 1564, the 6th year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. She passed away while he was at the height of his powers on the English stage and London Theater in 1603. Shakespeare had no love for Bloody Bess, filling plays and poems with evil queens modeled after her. This includes Lady Macbeth from Macbeth, Sycorax (Psycho Rex) from The Tempest, the Queen from Cymbeline, Tamora the Queen of the Goths from Titus Andronicus, and even Venus from the narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, to name only a few.
In fact, Bloody Bess was just like her father, a severe persecutor of the Catholic church. Her method of persecution against Catholics freely included impoverishment, imprisonment, torture and death. Her focus was on priests, but her reach included all Catholics. And the grotesque practices that English speakers often associate with the Spanish Inquisition were what English royals did to their own Catholic priests and peoples (and much worse). Priests, and those caught helping priests, were hanged, drawn, quartered and beheaded with limbs cut off and heads placed on city gates as a warning to other Catholics. We previously covered the death toll of 16th century England by the crown against her people, as it was in the tens of thousands not including the Irish wars which would bring the death toll into the millions. In the same century, the height of the Spanish Inquisition, less than 200 people were sentenced to death under the Spanish Inquisition. England committed mass murder on a global scale, and then they set out a series of propaganda and lies charging Spain with the grotesque practices they themselves practiced and performed against their own citizens. England’s lies about Spain affect our perception to this day, and the systematic lies are known today as the Black Legend. Though only a few know.
After Bloody Bad Bess’s reign of terror was finally over, Shakespeare would compose plays like Macbeth celebrating her death and proclaiming to English audiences, “All hail, king of Scotland.” For King James VI of Scotland was now king of England. And since there were “none of woman born,” Shakespeare’s taunt of the barren Queen Elizabeth, the Tudor dynasty ended with the Scotsman becoming King James of England, known to us as the king who produced the famous King James Bible.
The last part of Shakespeare’s life was lived under King James. Times were still tumultuous, but there were hopes of better days with James. Even though James was a Protestant, his mother was Catholic, and his wife too. The thought at the time was the dark days for Catholics were over. That would not be so. With the Gunpowder Plot, who some say was staged as a scandal and farce to again blame Catholics and create chaos in the kingdom, kept the clamp down on Catholics. It was still illegal and treasonous to practice the true faith and old religion.
But upon James’s son would fall judgement against English royals. King Charles I, who was the last English king to have a Catholic Queen (to this day it is illegal for English royalty to marry Catholics), was beheaded by Parliament, partly out of fear for his Catholic sympathies. His successors persecuted Catholics for hundreds of years thereafter.
And so, while Spain found stability as a Catholic country and sent explorers to the Americas to further the holy Catholic faith, England found instability as a Protestant country. Christian settlers fled England and created a mass exodus of English Christians seeking religious liberty on foreign shores and faraway lands. These were the life and times that Shakespeare was born into and lived under. And these are some of the critical points that are little known and less spoken of that we must know and speak of to properly frame Shakespeare’s writings and hear his message.
Let us now uncover a little more about Shakespeare’s mission as poet and playwright. His cousin’s a saint, and that’s important to know too.
“Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.”
– As You Like It (Act I, Scene 2)
“This makes my mourning Muse resolve in tears,
This themes my heavy pen to plain in prose;
Christ’s thorn is sharp, no head his garland wears;
Still finest wits are ‘stilling Venus’ rose,
In Paynim toys the sweetest vaines are spent;
To Christian works few have their talents lent.”
–Saint Robert Southwell
Saint Peter’s Complaint