the Plays
His Cousin’s a Saint
“Art and the saints are the greatest apologetics for our faith.
No better witness is borne to the Lord than splendor of holiness and art.”
– Pope Benedict XVI
the Mission
In a time of persecution, a time of tyranny, a time of hardship and difficulty, a time where good people were tortured and killed, a time when the faithless flourished and the faithful few suffered, often unto death, in times such as these the mission of the faithful to restore the old religion was critical. And the Catholic response to the Protest movements of Europe at large, and England locally, took on many forms. On a global level, the Council of Trent spanned decades and was the official church response. Leaders from across the church gathered in Trent to settle key issues and clarify apostolic church teaching for the faithful. Hot topics included sacred tradition, the canon of scripture, and the sacraments, to name a few.
At a local level, each country had to deal with the Protestant movements in different ways. In England, where Queen Elizabeth made Catholicism illegal and treasonous, the mission was especially dangerous. And the Jesuits were among the leaders of the mission to England, again mixing the unique ties and long intertwined and interrelated history between England and Spain. The Jesuits, also known as the Society of Jesus, are an order within the Catholic church started in 1541 by a Spanish warrior, St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius was born in that nearly famous year, 1491, and began the religious order partly as a response to Protestant movements exploding across Europe. The religious order serves the Pope as missionaries and is bound by a vow of special obedience to the Pope.
Remember, under Queen Mary, the leader of the Catholic church in England – Cardinal Pole – focused much of his teaching and evangelization on reminding the English of God’s supreme blessings on their lands. These blessings were especially bountiful when they themselves remained loyal to the Pope. So, the Jesuit mission (with their Papal vow) were aligned with Cardinal Pole’s strategy under Queen Mary to restore England to the old faith. Once Cardinal Pole passed away, the Jesuits were well-suited to take on Cardinal Pole’s mission to restore England to Papal obedience. They were well-suited to help English Catholics survive the coming wave of persecutions.
And so, in 1580, the Jesuit mission to England began. (This mission is alluded to and chronicled in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet). At the time, in 1580, Shakespeare was 16 years old and his barely older cousin had just become a Jesuit. Yes, one of the most famous Jesuit missionaries in England was Shakespeare’s cousin, Robert Southwell. Southwell was a renowned poet, a Jesuit priest, and an English martyr. Yes, key to understanding Shakespeare’s mission is to know and understand this fact – Shakespeare’s cousin is a saint. And not just any cousin, one he was close with, who responded to each other publicly in their published writings. And in Shakespeare’s case, he would quote Southwell and allude to his works in key passages throughout his canon, including Hamlet’s famous To Be or Not To Be soliloquy.
While Southwell became a Jesuit the year the Jesuit mission to England began, he wouldn’t be ordained until 1584. That same year Queen Elizabeth (aka Sycorax) created a death sentence for English-born Catholic priests. Psycho Rex was out to kill not only Catholic priests, but to impoverish the lay faithful who harbored priests. The punishment for harboring priests was the confiscation of one’s wealth. Family turned on family in fulfilment of the savior’s promise “brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will revolt against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.” Priests were hunted in Bloody Bess’s England. Nowhere on the island was safe.
And so, on the day of his ordination, Father Southwell not only truly accepted the call to the priesthood, but as an English Catholic, he also accepted the call to martyrdom. Like his savior, he “laid down his life for his friends” and handed himself over to death. Powerful witness and testimony for his young and talented cousin, William Shakespeare.
Two years later, in 1586, Father Southwell began his mission to England. His aim was to comfort the lay faithful with the sacraments that English Catholics longed to receive. His goal was to support the restoration of the ancient religion in England. During the time Father Southwell had become a priest and received his mission, Shakespeare had become a husband and father and had entered into what is known as his “lost years” (1585-1592). Little is known at this time about Shakespeare, but we must assume this time was critical to Shakespeare’s formation as a playwright. For the years that followed this period, 1592 through 1612, were prolific. Shakespeare ruled the English stage and became the greatest poet and playwright in history – a storyteller par excellence.
In 1592, both cousins, Father Southwell and William Shakespeare, are discovered by the English world. Unfortunately, Father Southwell’s discovery led to imprisonment, torture and daily closeness to death as he suffered for three years in the Tower of London. In contrast, Shakespeare’s discovery led to two decades ruling the English stage as actor, poet, and Catholic playwright. The last days of Saint Southwell’s mission were the beginning of Shakespeare’s, and Shakespeare’s mission was closely bound to the mission of his cousin the Saint. Yes, Shakespeare became his cousin’s biographer. But a little more on this later.
Somehow, while imprisoned, Father Southwell found a way to continue to write, publish, and encourage English Catholics. He published some of his most beautiful writings, including St. Peter’s Complaint and his Epistle of Comfort, while in prison. And he found a way to encourage and inspire his cousin Shakespeare to a greater calling and mission – to unite verse with virtue and compose and form fables that would make it past the English government censors and comfort the English lay faithful. That’s right, Saint Southwell encouraged his cousin William Shakespeare to use the great gifts God gave this talented poet – his skill with the quill – to record England’s history and write Christian works for the English people. Father Southwell wrote in a foreword of St. Peter’s Complaint to his loving cousin, Master W.S., “I have here laid a few course threads togethers, to invite some skillfuller wits to go forward in the same, or to begin some finer piece; wherein it may be seen how well verse and virtue sit together.”
A little later, Father Southwell tells the reader that if the poem is bad it’s because he was compelled to write a bad one hoping to inspire his more talented cousin (i.e. Shakespeare) with a model to use and then outpace. For he complained that finer wits were toiling vainly, and their labors spent as “to Christian works few have their talents lent.” It’s no accident that Shakespeare uses St. Peter’s Complaint as his model for Venus and Adonis, and Southwell’s influence is stamped on The Rape of Lucrece Shakespeare promises his patron for worthier products in the future as he “vowed to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honored you with some graver labor.” Graver labors Shakespeare did produce.
Shakespeare starts producing work after work that records the Catholic side of England’s history. And Shakespeare quotes his cousin Father Southwell throughout his canon of plays. From comedies like Love’s Labor’s Lost and MidSummer Night’s Dream, to tragedies like Hamlet, Macbeth and Timon of Athens, Shakespeare frequently weaves in Southwell’s writings throughout his own canon of writings. And he weaves them in the most important times – like Hamlet’s famous To Be or Not To Be speech, or Hamlet and Horatio’s tour of the graveyard, or Macbeth as he decides whether he should kill the king and take the crown, or Puck’s hilarious ending to MidSummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare consistently brought his cousin’s memory into momentous moments of his plays. And always with honor and love.
Remember, the circumstances at the time meant that all writings and plays had to be approved by the Queen. There were censorship laws. And so, the true story was hidden, and fake news prevailed. Only things profitable to the Crown could be published, and the Catholic side of the story was not profitable to the Crown. England’s thousand-year Catholic history was not only repressed, but actively destroyed. But soon the Catholic resistance found ways around English censorship. Southwell’s writings were published in underground presses. Shakespeare’s plays were rarely printed, but they were publicly performed. It is only due to the work of Shakespeare’s friends that the First Folio was even printed, the Folio which records in print many of Shakespeare’s plays for the first time. For such a talented playwright, Shakespeare cared very little about publishing his works. He trusted his friends to carry that work once he and his wife had passed away, so that they would not be persecuted further for their Catholic faith. And if not for the brief laxing of censorship laws against Catholics in the 1620s, we might not even have the First Folio. Thanks be to God that there was a brief window of time which allowed Catholic writings to be published in England, otherwise we would have hardly any of Shakespeare’s many masterpieces, and for the ones we had, poor versions of the originals.
Thanks be to God, Father Southwell had given Shakespeare a model to follow. He advised him, “For in fables are often figured moral truths, and that covertly uttered to a common good, which, without a mask, would not find so free a passage.” Or, in modern words, Saint Southwell encouraged his playwright cousin to create stories which would hide the truth. Father Southwell knew this was the way to proclaim truth publicly so that those with ears to hear could hear – they had to disguise the message. They needed to hide the truth in parables and allegories. They had to somehow get beyond the government censors of speech and publishing and get the true message to the masses. Southwell called Shakespeare to higher clarity and moral purpose, to be a warrior on the stage like he was on the mission field, willing to lay down his life even for his countrymen.
Father Southwell continually encouraged Shakespeare to attain higher levels of beauty, purpose and piety in composing his plays and poetry. Father Southwell wrote introductions to his works of art addressed to Shakespeare himself and begged Shakespeare to take his talent seriously. Father Southwell’s mission informs Shakespeare’s own mission and purpose in composing his poems and plays. And the English Saint constantly and publicly encouraged England’s great Bard to use his talents for the sake of God and church and thus fulfill their mission – to maintain and restore the old religion in England.
the Mass
Civil liberties were at stake. A country with close, intimate, and longstanding ties to the Catholic religion where no longer allowed to practice the faith that built their island nation into a global power. When the priests were outlawed, and the mass was missing, the result is Christ no longer dwelt bodily with his people. For over a thousand years Christ was present in England, but when Queen Elizabeth re-instituted the State church and banned the universal church, she exiled Christ. Yes, she banned Jesus from England. This is how Catholics saw the issue, and to better understand Shakespeare, we need to consider how Catholics saw and reacted to what was happening in England under Queen Elizabeth. By and large, there were three responses.
The easiest was to convert and conform to the State religion. Many left the faith of their fathers and conformed to the new State religion as this the easiest path. It’s what the government wanted and, importantly, demanded through the force of law. Queen Elizabeth instituted the Oath of Supremacy in 1559, which forced all Englishman who held public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. In England, the Pope was usurped as earthly representative of the King of Kings by the Queen of England. Usurpation, conspiracy and the proper transfer of power would be a frequent theme throughout Shakespeare’s canon. He would compose great passages about the people’s right to protest the government for redress of grievances and to defend their individual rights and liberties against tyrannical rulers. Titus Andronicus opens with powerful lines,
“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 my age with this indignity.”
Shakespeare concisely makes many points crystal clear in one short stanza. “Defend justice of my cause with arms” – we have a right to fight for what is justly ours, including the right to worship freely in Spirit and truth. As Americans, our Founding Fathers wisely secured this right through our Bill of Rights. Shakespeare continues, “I am his first-born son that was the last that wore the imperial diadem of Rome” – in other words, my father was the last who freely practice the Roman religion (that is, Catholicism). Shakespeare continues, “Then let my father’s honors live in me” – then let me practice my religion freely. England under Elizabeth was not allowed to practice the religion of their ancestors, destroying family unity and ties across the living and the dead, across the years and the centuries. Again, our Founding Fathers wisely secured the right through our First Amendment that government shall not make laws establishing or prohibiting religion, and allowed us to protect our rights through the Second Amendment. Our Founding Fathers codified into law the major themes and issues found in Shakespeare’s stories. At heart, our Founding Fathers were Englishmen who attempted to restore what the English royals had unjustly stolen from the people – not only our church but also our other basic freedoms.
With the Oath of Supremacy, Queen Elizabeth banned and banished Catholics from public life. There was no freedom to practice the true religion in England for nearly three hundred years. Catholics could not hold public office nor go to English university. In 1571, Queen Elizabeth also passed the 39 Articles of Religion, further cementing the Protestant beliefs of the English government and clarifying the creeds of the State religion. Shakespeare hilariously poked fun at these “foolish oaths” and “idle and vain articles” in Love’s Labor’s Lost. One of the comedic characters promised “I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat, these oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.” Very true, as priests who went out into the mission field of England to prove how foolish these oaths and articles were paid the price with having their heads chopped off and impaled on city gates. And this was legal as it was the law Queen Elizabeth passed and enforced. Yes, this was the cost of refusing the government’s oath. You literally lost your head.
Many Americans forget the root of the argument of the separation of Church and State is to preserve true religion in public life, not to remove its practice from public life. The English government literally tried to take over the Catholic church in England, and when that proved fruitless, they created laws to ban Catholics and compel their conversions to the State religion – the newly created Anglican church. Yes, governments have a habit of persecuting people, and our Founding Fathers uniquely sought to preserve people’s rights. They proclaimed governments existed to protect our God-given rights. And our Founding Fathers even named those basic rights, such as the right to religion, truth and protect ourselves, to name a few.
In contrast to State religion, Catholic religion is not furthered by force but freewill. It is the false religions who need to rely on the use of force. It was Queen Elizabeth who used forced because what she lacked in truth she compelled by force – whether by the force of law or arms. Yes, the cost of remaining Catholic in Elizabethan England was to surrender one’s wealth to an unjust government and possibly one’s life. Could you imagine this today?
Could you imagine if the government passed laws allowing babies to be slaughtered and forced Americans to pay for it through taxation? That American Catholic Christians would be forced by law to partake in crimes against humanity and in violation of the central tenets of their religion? Or, could you imagine that every April 15 when Americans paid their taxes, that they would also need to show up to a courthouse to take an oath that invalidated their creeds as Christians? Or their creeds as Jews or any divinely inspired religious group? Could you imagine that one’s inability to say the government was the natural head of morality or spiritual matters in America would cost them their livelihood, religion, and even life? In the words of Thomas Jefferson and Dr. King, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and his justice cannot sleep forever. May justice surge like waters and righteousness like an unfailing stream.
If there were any doubts to Shakespeare’s Catholic argument, later he has an actor cry for the playhouse to hear, “what fool is not so wise to lose an oath to win a paradise?” In other words, who would not forfeit their life and gain paradise? Who would not give up the Oath of Supremacy for the kingdom of heaven? Who would not give up the oath to government for faith in God? Who would not forsake the new State religion for the true and ancient Catholic religion? This was a strong modern rewording by Shakespeare of our savior’s old promise, “what profit would there be for one to gain the world and lose his soul? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”
In another instance, our savior said, “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” In other words, what good is it to gain good standing and even wealth and nobility in the kingdom of England and lose your place in the kingdom of heaven? This is why Shakespeare often revisited the theme of oaths as well as themes of exile and banishment (As You Like It, King Lear). This is what Queen Elizabeth and her henchmen did to English Catholics – she banned them from public life, branded them as traitors, confiscated their wealth, exiled their sons and daughters, and always held the threat of death over their heads. Many English Catholics converted to the newly created State religion because it was forced, it was the easy path compared to faith.
A second option was to conform to the State religion in public (i.e. Anglicanism) but continue to practice the true religion (i.e. Catholicism) in private. To this Shakespeare’s cousin, Father Southwell, warned his fellow countrymen in his Epistle of Comfort about the dangers of those who went to the State church,
“Will you seek to shelter yourselves under the pretext, that you are in mind Catholics, and that you come to church only to obey the law? Will you say that going to church is not a spiritual, but a civil action? Can anything be more against all sense and reason, seeing that it is the very principal sign of spiritual duty, to be present at that, whereby religion is chiefly professed; especially when this presence is commanded by a law, the known meaning whereof is to force men to the profession of a false belief? I omit the scandal which you give, in confirming the obstinacy of misbelievers; in weakening and overthrowing the faith of the faint-hearted and wavering. I omit what advantage you give to the enemies of the Church, to triumph over her as overcome, and to boast of you, if not as children or voluntaries, at least as of pressed men, and slaves of their synagogues. I omit the danger of infection, by their contagious speeches, that creep and corrode like a canker. To neglect and not consider this, is willful blindness; to consider and not fear it, is a tempting of God, and the greatest presumption; to fear and not to avoid it, is perverse obstinacy, and impiety towards your own souls.”
Highlighting the difference between the State and Catholic church would be a key theme throughout Shakespeare’s career. He invoked this discussion through the constant issue of mistaken identity or lost twins (for example, Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night). The guise of mistaken twins was a way to approach the issue of the differences between the two religions and still get past government censors.
In Twelfth Night, or What You Will, the twin Viola represents the Anglican church while her twin brother Sebastian represents the Catholic church. When Antonio mistakenly sees Viola for Sebastian because she’s in disguise as a man (not being what she appears to be) and looks like her twin brother Sebastian, and Antonio demands his money, Viola obviously does not have it. She only has the message of love, not the actual gifts of love. For a Catholic watching the play, the implications are clear, the Anglican church may have the message of love, but they do not have the divine sacraments entrusted to Christ’s true church. Viola cannot give what she does not have. Likewise, the Anglican church cannot give what it does not have – neither the divine sacraments nor the body of Christ. Shakespeare warns Catholics and Englishmen alike to see things for what they truly are, not what they appear to be. And to judge justly, Or What You Will.
In the following chapters of this book, Hear Shakespeare and Shakespearean Themes, we will go into specific details of how to correctly hear Shakespeare and understand his underlying spiritual messages. For now, the main point is to understand the issues Catholics dealt with at the time and recognize that Shakespeare wove them into his stories throughout his canon of writings.
And yes, both William Shakespeare and his cousin Father Southwell promoted the third option available to English Catholics – to keep the truth faith as witnesses of the old religion. This option is what is now called Catholic recusancy. Recusants did not participate in the State religion and continued to practice the true Catholic faith, and suffering for it. Shakespeare’s father was a Catholic recusant. This was not an easy path, it was filled with poverty and danger, many were exiled and banished, and all treaded constantly close to death.
The fact of the matter is the new State religion could never unify England like the ancient Catholic religion. For the moment the State religion was created it created a divide in England. The State religion caused the banishment of Christians from their native place. The State religion could not create the ties of brotherhood across nations and Christendom. The State religion could not unite Englishman from their ancestors, only divide them. And, more importantly, the State religion was a new creation of government, not a gift of God like the ancient religion. Yes, the State religion may have helped build an Empire, but this Empire was bound to break based on so faulty a foundation. And break it did, starting with Shakespeare’s generation which sought freedom on faraway shores and won freedom when the American colonies gained their independence. Under The Constitution, those thirteen colonies guaranteed freedom of religion for a free people.
And so, the English government may have made State religion a civil requirement, and they may have demanded obedience to their man-made religious institution, but the English monarchs’ defiance against the true church and forced obedience on its own citizens would not last. Soon, an English king would literally lose his head. And a little later, England would lose its colonies. But English Catholics simply hungered for the freedom their ancestors had to practice the faith of their fathers. Or in Shakespeare’s words,
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 my age with this indignity.”
English Catholics “hungered for bread, not thirsted for revenge.” For Catholics believe Christ was not only made flesh within the womb of a virgin but made incarnate at the hands of priests. When Catholic priests consecrate the host and perform the sacred mysteries and transform earthly bread and the fruit of the vine into the Bread of Life and Wine of Salvation, they have made it possible for God to dwell with humanity. In those moments, God’s word is fulfilled when he proclaims, “God’s dwelling is with the human race.” Each one of us has the opportunity to be tabernacles of his body. For Catholic recusants – like Shakespeare’s family – the cost of their spiritual bread was the loss of wealth, banishment, and death. From a Catholic point of view, these were significant issues to consider – literally heaven and hell was at stake. And so, when we consider the eternal issues facing Catholics in England at the time, the many quirky artistic choices and peculiar lines from Shakespeare quickly come into focus and offer clarity. Shakespeare simply encouraged his fellow countrymen to keep the old faith, just like his cousin did, his cousin who was a saint.
“Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity itself fulfills the law
And who can sever love from charity?”
the Martyr
Queen Elizabeth was the maker of many a martyr. She enforced unjust laws to the penalty of death, and Father Southwell, like many other English Catholics, paid the price of her evil laws with his life. He laid down his life for his countrymen at the eternal age of 33. This year was a turning point in Shakespeare’s career. Father Peter Milward, a Shakespeare scholar, rightly calls 1595 Shakespeare’s annus mirabilis, or in English, his ‘year of marvels.’ The year of his cousin’s martyrdom was a turning point in Shakespeare’s life, artistry, and career.
Shakespeare would compose two marvelous plays around this time, MidSummer Night’s Dream and Romeo & Juliet. These plays are an important leap towards his status as England’s beloved bard, a great playwright, and key Catholic historian. In his literary output, not only did he combine verse with virtue, but he also openly mocked the Queen and clearly chronicled the political issues of his generation. His writings were part of the literary wisdom, along with the sacred scriptures, that America’s Founding Fathers used to build America. Let’s consider each of these two plays briefly and understand them a little deeper, scratching the surface of the storyline to see some deeper messages that might be lost on those of us living hundreds of years after their writing.
With MidSummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare clearly is building on the work of fellow poets in unique ways as well as dealing with the circumstances of England’s time. The play starts with a forbidden love story, a frequent theme for Shakespeare that allows him to deal with the issue that Catholics were forbidden by the State to love their church.
From the first scene, we are introduced to this forbidden love story through the characters of Hermia and Lysander. Unfortunately for this pair of lovers, Hermia has another suitor, Demetrius, who has the approval of her father. And this is the crux of the issue. She must either wed Demetrius or “to her death – according to our law.” Through the guise of a love story, Shakespeare creates an allegory about the ability for one to choose the church they love and belong to, and not suffer the consequence of death by law for choosing to be Catholic. Since this is a comedy, he weaves in some hilarious storylines and by the end we have the wedding, and of course, “all’s well that ends well.”
One storyline includes Shakespeare openly mocking Queen Elizabeth. A few years earlier, Edmund Spenser wrote a famous ode to the Queen in his poem, the Fairee Queene. In Shakespeare’s play, he pokes fun of the fairy queen by having her fall in love with an ass, “a rude mechanical” who is an actor in a local troupe preparing to perform before the Athenian royalty. Somehow, Shakespeare balances the comedy so that he doesn’t lose his head, treading the fine line of artistic beauty and political satire. There’s much to point out about the play, but for the sake of brevity, we shall bypass the insights Shakespeare shares on oaths, and focus on one last point – Shakespeare’s response to his cousin’s concerns about taking God’s gifts seriously.
In Father Southwell’s introduction to St. Peter’s Complaint, he encourages Shakespeare to “begin some finer peace; wherein it may be seen how well verse and virtue sit together.” At the beginning of his introduction Saint Robert also writes, “Poets, by abusing their talent, and making the follies and faynings of love the customary subject of their base endeavors, have so discredited this faculty, that a poet, a lover, and a liar, are by many reckoned but three words of one sophistication.” Shakespeare takes up Southwell’s theme and in MidSummer Night’s Dream responds, “the lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact” and provides insight into the role of a poet. “The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and, as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them into shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and name.” In other words, the poet helps us think through the unknown. The poet sees heaven and helps us earthlings see the greater glories beyond this world and the poet, like a prophet, brings those insights to earth.
This is exactly what Bottom reiterates when he reworks the Prophet’s Isaiah phrase and shares “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was.” St. Paul quotes Isaiah and uses this line to reference God’s glory in the crucified Christ. Shakespeare, knowing these sacred scriptures as he often quotes Isaiah and Paul throughout his own canon of plays, uses them to allude to the greater glories of what the lovers experience. True lovers are willing to suffer the persecution of exile, the pain of banishment, the horrors of an untimely death, for their love. Just as Catholics suffered in England, and as Father Southwell experienced in his martyrdom.
MidSummer Night’s Dream is a comedy. So, Shakespeare ends it with not only a wedding, but also a short little ditty from the comic Puck, reminding the audience that if serious topics have offended, just pretend they have passed in a dream. Puck tells the audience,
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long.
Else the puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Remembering that Robin is a nickname for Robert, whose very life lies in the predicament that the young lovers find themselves in, the mix of religion and politics is always woven into Shakespeare’s love comedies. But woven through the disguise of love between lovers. Shakespeare does this in his love tragedies as well. Romeo & Juliet picks up where the MidSummer Night’s Dream leaves off. And whereas Shakespeare’s comedies end in a wedding, writing a tragedy allows Shakespeare to explore the consequences of martyrdom. From the very beginning, he maintains the story is told to mend wrongs and concerns and will end in death,
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lover take their life;
Whose mis-adventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parent’s strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Yes, Romeo & Juliet is another forbidden love story. The forbidden love in Shakespeare’s England is between an Englishman and his beloved Catholic church. The two households – Church and State – were at war, and “civil blood made civil hands unclean” as the civil rulers used civil laws unjustly. Yes, Catholic citizens were unjustly persecuted by the State government. Yes, once again, the story of two lovers is the perfect guise for the forbidden love story of English Catholics, forced to choose the higher love of God over country. Romeo literally means “pilgrim of Rome,” and his is the story of a Catholic priest banished from his beloved savior. By the laws of England, this story could only end in death.
Again, many Catholic details are woven into the storyline, but we shall focus on one main point, the scene where Romeo (the Catholic-figure) meets Juliet Capulet (the Christ-figure). The play is Shakespeare’s biography of Southwell disguised in story. It is a history that would have never been told under the tyrant Elizabeth and her totalitarian government, and so he had to use a love story of young lovers as his disguise. As his cousin the saint encouraged, “For in fables covertly uttered to a common good, hidden truth may find free passage.”
The scene of the young lover’s meeting not only has strong allusions to the Prophet Isaiah’s encounter with the glory of the Lord, but Shakespeare also uses clearly Catholic language of scenes banned in Elizabethan England. Holy shrines, pilgrims, saints…these were things of the old religion. They were banned by the new State religion. No longer could Catholics freely visit the old shrines, hold the old solemnities like the feast of St. Valentine, or even go to confession freely like the young lovers do – throughout the story the practices of the ancient religion are frequently brought before an audience who would have found it illegal to practice. Somehow the actors are alluding to or even acting out behaviors that would have been illegal for their audiences. And illegal now for at least a generation. Shakespeare specifically weaves in these Catholic behaviors into his storylines as a way to help the audience remember practices of the old religion outlawed by the new one.
Let’s follow the dialogue of the lover’s meeting for a moment and simply note the very Catholic language used, filled with illegal Catholic behaviors and practices in a now Protestant country, Elizabeth’s England.
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
which mannerly devotion shows in this,
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet: Saints do move, through grant for prayers sake.
Romeo: Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged. (kisses her)
Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Romeo: Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again. (kisses her)
It’s not enough to see this text and recognize the overtly Catholic imagery. But we must also notice the context. These are the words of the heroes of the story. These are the words of the two lovers when they first meet. These are the words of the two “star-crossed lovers” whose life, love, and death hoped to reconcile two households in enmity with each other. And in this first meeting of the two lovers, Juliet very clearly calls Romeo pilgrim. The pilgrims at the time of Shakespeare’s writing where the priests who went to study in Rome, yes, the very same English priests who were never allowed to step forth on English soil. For these priests were under the sentence of death by the laws of England who had no lover for their beloved Catholic church.
Another item to note. This interchange has again a soft echo of Isaiah. This time, it is the passage from Isaiah where the Prophet encounters the glory of the Lord. An angel touches the Prophet’s lips to purge his sin. This is a very powerful moment in the life of the Catholic church. Though Isaiah lived centuries before Christ, he had many prophecies and visions that looked forward to the coming of Saint John the Baptist and his cousin, Jesus our Savior. Both John and Jesus quote Isaiah when religious leaders ask them questions about their authority and what they’re doing. Saint Paul constantly weaves insights from Isaiah into his letters and sermons. As does Saint Peter and other new testament writers. And Isaiah is still a centerpiece of Passion week for Catholics as his “Servant Songs” are read out for the Catholic faithful. In many instances throughout the life of Christ and his church, those rejected by religious leaders held Isaiah’s words ready on their lips.
In the case of Jesus, the prophet rejected by the local religious leaders was the prophet God used. The builders rejected the chief cornerstone. It was no different in Elizabethan England, the priests rejected by the English rulers where the priests God was using. A whole book could be written on Shakespeare’s references and allusions to sacred scriptures, and if ever such a book would be written, whole sections would focus on his quotes and allusions to Isaiah. But for the sake of brevity, we simply note this point. Shakespeare is not only intimately aware of critical moments in Judeo-Christian history and scriptures, he weaves them beautifully into magnificent moments of his own masterpieces. And in his year of marvels, he found a way to make his cousin’s life the centerpiece. Again, Shakespeare’s cousin is a saint.
And so, dear reader, I ask you, if you were a skilled playwright, already renowned for your talent as poet and storyteller, and your cousin was martyred early in your career, how would that affect how you approach the rest of your work and life? How would your cousin’s life and mission affect yours? Father Southwell was arrested just as Shakespeare started to find success as a playwright. Over the course of three years, Father Southwell was tortured in the Tower of London by Evil Elizabeth’s henchman and top torturer and priest hunter, Richard Topcliffe. Again, imprisonment and suffering in the Tower of London is a frequent theme throughout his History Plays because of its contemporary context and importance. This was a critical issue not only Shakespeare but all English Catholics. In the end, Saint Robert Southwell was hanged, drawn, disemboweled, quartered and beheaded; his head impaled on a stake at the city gates as a warning to all other Catholics. Yes, consider, if you were Shakespeare and your cousin was a saint, how would that impact how you live, write, and act?
In Shakespeare’s case, Father Southwell’s martyrdom was a turning point in his career. His plays became more beautiful, more purposeful, and more Catholic. His comedies were still funny but filled with even more gravities; his tragedies were full of sober realities, more clearly chronicling the sufferings endured by English Catholics; his artistry attained new heights; and his mission became more focused. He honored his cousin’s memory by recording the Catholic testimony of the persecution they faced in 16th and 17th century England. And Shakespeare became the paramount poet and playwright for all persecuted peoples, a hero to many, and the greatest English poet ever. For his wasn’t simply poetry, but also history. His wasn’t simply plays, but also prophecy. His was the story of Catholic England under the Protestant State persecution of tyrannical rulers. His cousin is a saint and a martyr, and he is the Catholic hero sharing his story across the centuries.
“If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile
And in this harsh world draw thy breath pain
To tell my story.”
– Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2)
“For in fables are often figured moral truths, and that covertly uttered to a common good, which, without a mark, would not find so free a passage. But when the substance of the work hath neither truth nor probability, nor the purport thereof tendeth to any honest end, the writer is rather to be pitied than praised, and his books fitter for the fire than for the press.”
–Saint Robert Southwell,
Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears