This book proceeds from the conviction that careful historical research can establish whether Henry Neville wrote Shakespeare’s works.
Relying on Mainstream Shakespeare Scholarship
If Neville was the author, findings from Shakespeare scholarship undertaken independently of that question should help illuminate the connection. This book therefore draws extensively on such scholarship.
For instance, Anne Barton’s The Shakespearean Forest (2017) and Randall Martin’s Shakespeare and Ecology (2015) examine Shakespeare’s knowledge of forests, land use and the demands placed on woodland. Their work gives substance to a comparison with Neville’s responsibilities in Windsor Forest and his ironworks at Mayfield.1
Jessica Dell’s chapter in Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage (2014) connects The Merry Wives of Windsor with the Windsor witchcraft cases of 1579. Her account identifies Sir Henry Neville—the ambassador’s father—as the magistrate who heard Elizabeth Stile’s case and committed her to Reading Gaol.2
In “France in Shakespeare’s Henry V” (1995), David Womersley investigates the play’s relationship to the politics of France in 1599, during Neville’s ambassadorship.3
In “We Band of Brothers” (1929), Robert Boies Sharpe suggested that Shakespeare might have enlarged the role of Neville’s ancestor, Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, in Henry V to honour Henry Neville.4
Distinguishing Coincidence from Evidence
It is essential to distinguish what a play inherits from its sources from what the dramatist adds or changes. Those departures can reveal what the author brought from personal knowledge and experience. Studying the sources in the languages consulted by the author allows us to compare those departures with Neville’s reading and correspondence.
The Shakespeare text also requires attention to its witnesses. A wording present in a quarto may differ from the Folio, and a passage may be absent from an earlier version. Those differences are identified where they affect the comparison.
Finally, parallels need discrimination. A shared sentiment or a broad resemblance between two lives carries little weight on its own. A distinctive expression used in the same sense, an unusual combination of actions, a specific source connection or a documented intersection of people and events deserves closer attention. Claims of verbal rarity must state the period and body of texts searched. The chapters therefore give priority to the words and circumstances themselves, so that readers can judge the strength of each comparison.
Dates retain the day and month of the cited witness unless a conversion is specified. Where an English year beginning on 25 March is normalized to a year beginning in January, the change is stated; this does not itself convert the date to the Gregorian calendar.
Notes and sources
Anne Barton, The Shakespearean Forest, edited by Hester Lees-Jeffries (Cambridge University Press, 2017), especially pp. 11–12, 122–132, doi:10.1017/9781139015257; Randall Martin, Shakespeare and Ecology (Oxford University Press, 2015), especially chapters 1–2 and pp. 78–95, doi:10.1093/oso/9780199567027.001.0001.↩︎
Jessica Dell, “‘A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean!’: Image Magic and Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor,” in Lisa Hopkins and Helen Ostovich, eds., Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage (Ashgate, 2014), pp. 185–201, especially pp. 186, 188–189, book.↩︎
David Womersley, “France in Shakespeare’s Henry V,” Renaissance Studies 9.4 (1995), 442–459, especially 450 n. 34, JSTOR.↩︎
Robert Boies Sharpe, “We Band of Brothers,” Studies in Philology 26.2 (1929), 166–176, especially 174–175, JSTOR. Sharpe suggests that honour may have reflected from Westmoreland’s title to Neville’s family name; he does not attribute the play to Neville.↩︎