Phillips may have acted towards the close of 1603, however, when the King’s Men performed for the first time before their new patron. From Mortlake they were obliged to travel to Wilton, the Earl of Pembroke’s estate near Salisbury in Wiltshire, where on 2 December they played for the sovereign. John Heminges was paid £30 “for the paynes and expenses of himself and the rest of the company in coming from Mortelake in the countie of Surrie unto the court aforesaid and there presenting before his majestie one playe.”2 There have been numerous reports that a letter once existed, written by the Countess of Pembroke from Wilton House. She is supposed to have counselled her son to come with the king from Salisbury, in order to see a performance of As You Like It; she also mentioned the fact that “we have the man Shakespeare with us.” The letter has disappeared, but the story lingers. It is not necessarily apocryphal, and the remark has the appropriate ring of noblesse oblige. But it cannot now be substantiated. There are even reports of an “amicable” letter from King James himself to the dramatist, but this is beyond conjecture. It may have been the Earl of Pembroke, however, who recommended that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men be given royal patronage; he had been closely involved with Shakespeare and Burbage, as we have seen, and he had also become a confidant of the new king.
From Wilton, the king and his retinue moved to Hampton Court. The King’s Men moved with them. They would not return to London until the early spring. One courtier observed that at Hampton Court “we had every night a publicke play in the great halle, at which the King was ever present, and liked or disliked as he saw cause: but it seems he takes no extraordinary pleasure in them. The Queene and Prince were more the players frendes, for on other nights they had them privately.”3 So the king was perhaps not enamoured of the drama. He was himself of a theatrical disposition, and went to some pains to announce his majesty in dramatic and symbolic way; his long delayed “entry” into London proceeded under great triumphal arches designed to renew the example of Rome. It is likely, then, that he viewed theatrical representations as but a shadow of the real spectacle of power and authority. The fact remains, however, that the players performed before him far more frequently than they ever performed before his predecessor. In this period, too, the dramatist himself was being described as “Friendly Shakespeare” in whose plays “the Commedian rides when the Tragedian stands on Tip-toe,” and thus manages “to please all.”4 “All” included the new sovereign.
CHAPTER 76. I Will a Round Unvarnish’d Tale Deliuer
The king entered London, as into his kingdom, on 15 March 1604. It was a triumphant occasion, not least because it was a celebration of the fact that the epidemic plague had finally retreated from the city. It was for this occasion that Shakespeare and his fellows had been given the 4½ yards of scarlet cloth, so they are likely to have been part of the ceremonial procession through the streets of London from the Tower to Westminster. It was an historic walk by Shakespeare through the city that had nourished him. It is possible that he, or one of his colleagues, made a speech at one of the triumphal arches; their rival, Edward Alleyn, made an oration as the “Genius” or guiding spirit of the city. It may have been Alleyn’s last performance, since in this year he retired from the acting profession. The pageants at Bishopsgate and Fenchurch Street were devised respectively by Thomas Dekker and Ben Jonson. Dekker seems to have borrowed from Shakespeare in his address to the king:
This little world of men; this pretious Stone,
That sets out Europe …
Since Thomas Middleton was also brought in to provide some suitable verses for the occasion, the absence of Shakespeare from this cast-list of royal panegyrists is somewhat puzzling. He could hardly have declined the honour. It may have been implicitly understood, however, that he was not that kind of writer. There were seven triumphal gates, created in the style of Roman arches by Stephen Harrison; there were fountains, and flames, and living statuary. Shakespeare himself adopted the device of a statue coming alive, at a later date, in The Winter’s Tale. It was a thoroughly theatrical occasion, complete with all the crowds and noise that the new king detested.
The King’s Men were called upon to perform other royal services in this first full year of the new king’s reign. Twelve of them were appointed grooms of the chamber in the summer of 1604, when in August they were charged with the entertainment of the Spanish Ambassador Extraordinary and his retinue of 234 gentlemen who had come to London in order to negotiate the signing of a peace treaty; they had taken up residence for eighteen days in Somerset House, which had become the palace of the queen. The duties of Shakespeare and his colleagues are not detailed, and it is even possible that Shakespeare himself avoided attendance; if he was no longer an actor, there might be no need for him. The players were there, however, to look decorative and to fulfil their role as courtiers. They may even have been asked to perform; but there are no records of any play being staged, and each of them was paid what seems to have been a bare minimum of 2 shillings per day.
The King’s Men were travelling in the spring and summer of 1604; they visited Oxford, for example, in May and June. It is unlikely, as we have seen, that Shakespeare now travelled with them. During this period he completed two plays that were performed at court towards the close of 1604; Othello and Measure for Measure were staged respectively in November and December of this year. Since the public theatres had been allowed to open again in April, one or both of these plays had first been shown at the Globe. They were the first productions of the King’s Men after their return from Hampton Court. It has been suggested that Othello and Measure for Measure are both dark plays for a dark time, born of the plague and the queen’s death, with the tragedy of Othello and Desdemona preceding the bitter and forlorn story of Angelo and Isabella. But in fact they seem to have been written in a period of general rejoicing at the new king’s accession, with Shakespeare reaching the pinnacle of his social eminence.
The King’s Men were acting as courtiers for the Ambassador Extraordinary of Spain in the period when Othello “the Moor” was being created. The “Moor” himself is of Spanish origin while two of the other characters in the play, Roderigo and Iago, have recognisably Spanish names. Even in the period when Shakespeare was writing there was a concerted Spanish effort to expel the very large population of Moors from their country. The Moors, like the Jews, were the victims of European racial prejudice. There was also a large colony of Moors in London, refugees from Spanish persecution. Elizabeth I issued an edict against “the great number of negars and blackamoors which are crept into the realm since the troubles between Her Highness and the King of Spain”.
In 1600 a Moorish ambassador for the King of Barbary came to Elizabeth’s court, and became an object of fascinated attention. There is ample reason for Shakespeare to have seen, and even spoken with, him. He played before him at court, during the Christmas season. The Moor sat for his portrait during this visit, too, and the image of this dignified if somewhat withdrawn figure must have impressed itself upon Shakespeare’s conception of Othello. At the age of forty-two he looks haunted, forever watchful. It is a mistake to consider Othello to be of African or West Indian origin, as is often the case in modern productions. He was of Moorish stock, olive-skinned, and Shakespeare portrays him as “black” for the purposes of theatrical emphasis and symbolism. In Shylock Shakespeare had created a character of some complexity; by the time he came upon Othello, he had become even more interested in the role and nature of the scapegoat. But it would be a mistake to assume that he had any overt humanitarian purpose. Instead he had a keen eye and ear for theatrical intrigue.