§ 3. THE HISTORICAL PLAYS.

As the work proceeded, the plan would very soon be conceived of a connected and continuous series of historical dramas, which should embrace the entire period of the civil wars of the Roses, rich enough in tragic story and event, and affording ample materials for illustrative examples in the more dignified subjects of a civil and moral nature, beginning with the "King John," as it were by way of prelude, in which the legitimate heir to the throne is set aside, and the nation is plunged into civil war; and continuing in subject and design, though not composed, or produced, in strict chronological order, with the weak and despotic reign of Richard II., whose imbecility leads to another usurpation of the crown, with all the terrible consequences of disastrous civil war; and extending through the two parts of the "Henry IV.," the "Henry V.," and the three parts of the "Henry VI.," to the coming in of Henry the Seventh in the "Richard III.," when the two Roses are finally united in one line, and a tragical history is brought to an end in the more peaceful times which followed: a scheme which may even have been suggested by Sackville's tragedy of "Ferrex and Porrex" and the " Complaint of Buckingham." Speaking of Elizabeth Woodville, Dowager of Edward IV., Bacon says her history "was matter of tragedy," as it is very effectually made to appear in the "Richard III." The same historical subject was continued, in due time, in a plain prose history of the reign of Henry VII., which contains a graphic and "speaking picture of the false pretender, Perkin Warbeck, "a counterfeit of that Richard, Duke of York (second son to Edward the Fourth)," of whom there was divulged "a flying opinion" that "he was not murdered in the Tower": wherefore, "this being one of the strangest examples of a personation that ever was in elder or later times," it is also 1 Hist. of Henry VII.

given; and it is written in the true Shakespearean vein, and, as any one may see that looks sharply enough, lacks nothing of the compactness, brevity, clearness, and beauty of his former style, dropping only the high tragic buskin and the blank verse. And here and there, ideas and expressions inevitably crop out in it, all unconsciously to himself, which strike upon the ear of the careful listener like the sound of an echo, as thus : —

"Neither was Perkin for his part wanting to himself either in gracious and princely behaviour, or in ready and apposite answers, or in contenting and caressing those that did apply themselves unto him, or in pretty scorns or disdains to those that seemed to doubt of him; but in all things did notably acquit himself: insomuch as it was generally believed (as well amongst great persons as amongst the vulgar) that he was indeed Duke Richard. Nay, himself with long and continual counterfeiting and with often telling a lie, was turned (by habit) almost unto the thing he seemed to be, and from a liar to a believer." 1

And we have the same ideas and similar expressions, in a like connection, in the "Tempest," as follows:

"Pros. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate

To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which but by being so retir'd
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him

A falsehood, in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He, being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,2
Made such a sinner of his memory,

1 Hist. of Hen. VII.; Works (Boston), XI. 210.

like one,

2 So in the Folio, and in all editions I have seen; but I believe these words are an error of the press. It should read oft: the metre requires it; the sense requires it; and this authority from Bacon may be said to demand

it.

To credit his own lie - he did believe

He was indeed the Duke; out o' th' substitution,
And executing th' outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative: - hence his ambition
Growing, Dost thou hear?

Miran. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

Pros. To have no screen between this part he play'd,
And him he play'd it for, he needs will be

Absolute Milan."- Act I. Sc. 2.

The similarity of the thought, in this often telling a lie, is noticed by Mr. Spedding,' who remarks that the suggestion came from Speed. Shakespeare, it is true, as well as Bacon, may have gotten the idea from that author; but the general tenor of both passages, and the peculiar expression he did believe he was indeed the Duke, which accompanies the idea, sounds wonderfully as if it had dropped from the same mint, in both cases. Even this might be considered accidental, if it stood alone; but it is only one of a thousand instances of equal, or greater force, that everywhere pervade these writings. Nor is it at all probable that Bacon would catch both the idea and expression from Shakespeare's play in fact, it is far more probable that both came from Bacon; for we learn from Mr. Spedding's preface, that Bacon had formed the design of writing that history, and had actually begun it, and sketched the character of Henry VII., before the death of Elizabeth, having doubtless collected materials for the purpose, and made a study of the subject and of the story of Perkin, at the time when he was studying the historical pictures for these same dramatic histories. This conjecture is confirmed by the circumstance that Prospero's "false brother," the pretender in the play,

-"confederates

(So dry he was for sway) with the King of Naples." And the story itself seems well-nigh to have been suggested by the account, which is given in the "History of Henry VII.," of the French embassy, one topic of which

1 Notes to the Hist. of Hen. VII.

was, that the French King intended "to make war upon the kingdom of Naples, being now in the possession of a bastard slip of Aragon; but appertaining unto his majesty by clear and undoubted right; which, if he should not by just arms seek to recover, he would neither acquit his honour nor answer it to his people;" and so, he had resolved to make the reconquest of Naples." 1 Mention is made also of "Alphonso, Duke of Calabria, eldest son to Ferdinando, King of Naples"; and among the characters in the play are "Alonso, King of Naples; Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan; Antonio, his brother, the usurping Duke,” and "Ferdinand, son to the King of Naples":

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"Pros. This King of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises,
Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine

Out of the dukedom." -Act I. Sc. 2.

And so, the story in the play itself having been drawn from the same quarry of materials as the history, this idea, having been once written into the play, in 1611, (if not already written into his notes for the History before 1603), very naturally drops out again in the completed work of 1621; and that, too, at about the same time when we may suppose he was engaged in revising the plays themselves for the Folio of 1623.

And further still, these same Italian and Spanish histories, in the very next year (1612), are introduced into Bacon's speech in the Countess of Shrewsbury's case, in immediate connection with Henry VII. and Perkin Warbeck; and in such manner as to show that they were still fresh in his memory; and, in the facts stated as well as in the style and manner of the narration, the critical reader will discover some very suggestive resemblances with a part of the story of the "Tempest." The Countess had refused

1 Hist of Hen. VII.; Works (Boston), XI. 162, 199.

to answer in the matter of Arabella Stuart, who had married Seymour, without the King's consent, and fled the kingdom. Bacon's speech proceeds thus:

"And accordingly hath been the practice of the wisest and stoutest princes to hold for matter pregnant of peril, to have any near them in blood to fly into foreign parts. Wherein I will not wander; but take example of King Henry the Seventh, a prince not unfit to be paralleled with his Majesty. I mean not the particular of Perkin Warbeck, for he was but an idol or a disguise; but the example I mean is that of the earl of Suffolk, whom the king extorted from Philip of Austria. The story is memorable, that Philip, after the death of Isabella, coming to take possession of his kingdom of Castile, which was but matrimonial to his father-in-law Ferdinando of Aragon, was cast by weather upon the coast of Weymouth, where the Italian story saith, King Henry used him in all things else as a prince, but in one thing as a prisoner; for he forced upon him to promise to restore the earl of Suffolk that was fled into Flanders." 1

Now, as King Henry VII. was deemed a prince "not unfit to be paralleled with his Majesty," so Prospero in the play was "the prime Duke," and

And as Philip, coming to his kingdom of Castile, " which was but matrimonial to his father-in-law Ferdinando," was "cast by weather upon the coast of Weymouth," so the King of Naples, sailing with Prince Ferdinand, his son, for Tunis, where his daughter Claribel was to find a husband, was cast away in a storm upon the coast of the imaginary Atlantic island; and the fortunes of Prince Ferdinand, as well as the principal events and the leading interest of the story in the play, are made to turn upon matters matri

1 2 Howell's State Trials, 775.