Table Of ContentSHAKESPEARE: THE LIVING RECORD
Shakespeare:
The Living Record
Irvin Leigh Matus
Foreword by S. Schoenbaum
University of Maryland
M
MACMILLAN
© Irvin Leigh Matus 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991 978-0-333-51981-3
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First published 1991
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LT O
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Matus, Irvin Leigh
Shakespeare: The Living Record.
1. Drama in English. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
I. Title
822.3'3
IISSBBNN 997788--11--334499--2211223377--88 IISSBBNN 997788--11--334499--2211223355--44 ((eeBBooookk))
0D0O1I 1100..11000077//997788--11--334499--2211223355--44
To the memory of
BETIYMATUs
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall bum
The living record of your memory.
-Sonnet 55
Contents
List of Plates viii
Foreword by Professor S. Schoenbaum ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
1 Such Wind as Scatters Young Men 5
2 Now in London Place Him 28
3 The Gorgeous Palaces ... The Great Globe Itself 52
4 How Chances It They Travel? 69
5 Southern Travels (1597) 77
6 Western Travels (1603) 98
7 Eastern Travels (1606) 118
8 A Gentleman of Stratford 150
Appendix 159
Bibliography 160
General Index 166
Index of Cities and Towns 192
vii
List of Plates
1. Angel of the Expulsion. Statue in the Beauchamp Chapel, St
Mary's Church, Warwick. By courtesy of the Society of Anti
quaries of London
2. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (The Kingmaker). Weeper on
tomb of Richard Beauchamp in the Beauchamp Chapel. Photo
graph by Alan Baker
3. St Mary's Hall, Coventry. The North Wall showing the Annun
ciation Tapestry
4. George Carey, 2nd Lord Hunsdon. By permission of the
Trustees of the Will of the 8th Earl of Berkeley. Photograph;
Courtauld Institute of Art
5. Statue of Queen Elizabeth I, c1586. St Dunstan-in-the-West
Church, Fleet Street London. Originally in Ludgate. Photograph
by the Author
6. Middle Temple Hall. By permission of the Masters of the Bench
of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. Photograph by
Country Life
7. Henry Wriothsley, 3rd Earl of Southampton as a boy. Weeper on
tomb of the 1st and 2nd Earls in St Peter's Church, Titchfield.
Photograph by Martin Green
8. Guildhall, Leicester. Great Hall Interior
9. Edward, Princ~ of Wales (The Black Prince). Statue in the
Market Hall, Shrewsbury. By permission of the Local Studies
Library, Shrewsbury
10. New Inn Courtyard, Gloucester. Photograph by Britain on View
Photographic Library
11. Old Tobits. Wall painting in the White Swan Hotel, Stratford
Upon-Avon. By permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
12. Record of Admittance of George, Duke of Clarence and Family
to the Guild of the Holy Cross, from the original register. By
courtesy of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
viii
Foreword
I first encountered Irvin Matus several years ago, in my nation's
capital, at the Folger Shakespeare Library: that mecca which lures
enthusiasts from all over the world, folk dreaming their Shakespea
rian dreams - or even, on occasion, their anti-Stratfordian night
mares (perturbations in which Mr Matus has lately taken an
interest). It didn't take me long to realise that Mr Matus was indeed
possessed by his own lonely impulse of delight.
He would (he was certain) in time bring to fruition his ambitious
survey of the buildings public and private, stately and unstately
houses, the castles and ruins throughout England which impinged
upon the life and far from sullen art of the master who was not for
an age but for all time. Matus was right; a dream is here fulfilled.
The account begins with John de Stratford, who would in time
become Chancellor of England and ultimately (in 1333) be invested
as Archbishop of Canterbury. This John's father Robert founded
the Guild of the Holy Cross in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1267. The
Guild chapel was 'a monument to the prosperity of the guild and
the ambitious vision of its brothers and sisters - the great guilds of
England's wealthiest cities were content to place their chapels in
existing churches'. The fraternity - as Matus writes - 'was equally
ambitious in meeting the earthly needs of its members. As early as
1295 a schoolmaster had been hired and in 1417 the present
guildhall was built, followed by the almshouse ten years later and a
schoolhouse in the Chapel Quad in the year after that'. The house
in the Chapel Quad would eventually furnish facilities for the
Edward VI grammar school, where the young Shakespeare pre
sumably took his place as a pupil (school records for this period
have failed to come down). All this, and much more, Matus relates.
Passages on Charlecote, where Shakespeare in time was said to
have poached deer; Warwick, seat of a still imposing Castle; Guy's
Cliff, and Coventry follow. We are launched.
Matus proceeds to the capital. The Tower of London - most
familiar of British historic landmarks - assumes a special reso
nance, as it did in Shakespeare's English histories in Matus's
loving description of this unlovable site. In the Beauchamp Tower,
where for a time an Earl of Warwick cooled his heels in the tower
prison, a skilled artisan carved an inscription on the prison wall, in
ix
x Foreword
the centre of which was the bear and ragged staff of Warwick
joined with the double-tailed lion of Dudley, the whole sur
rounded by a border of flowers representative of his brothers.
Familiar, no doubt, to some readers, but the record does live in The
Living Record. Shoreditch, outside the City wall (where playhouses
stood), St John's Gate, Holborn and Gray's Inn, Fleet Street, the
Temple, and Westminster Abbey: all follow.
From London we are off on the road to Rye, and thence to
Dover, as we join the Lord Chamberlain's Men (Shakespeare's
Troupe) on their 1597 provincial itinerary. After the south, in 1603
the west, and then the east (1606). Marlborough to Oxford, and on
to Leicester, from there to Cambridge, Ipswich, and Maidstone,
with stops on route. All this is evocatively described. These locales
Matus has himself journeyed to on foot or in his camper, what is
these days called an RV, or recreational vehicle. For Matus the
labour was also a species of recreation; his delight is manifest
throughout Shakespeare: The Living Record, where he describes what
he has witnessed, drawing upon the texts which inspired him.
Now that the book has achieved publication, Matus's readers can
follow the quest. If the knowledgeable will only now and then
draw startled breath, they will be pleasurably informed without the
author's necessary expenditure of dedicated and unremitting
effort.
S.Schoenbaum
Director, Centre for
Renaissance and Baroque Studies
University of Maryland
Acknowledgements
Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
The people who are here recognised are deserving of your atten
tion, for they are all very much a part of this book. There are two
especially who have my deepest gratitude for their faith in me,
their efforts on my behalf and, not least, for their friendship: Sam
Schoenbaum, who would otherwise be deserving of my thanks for
the inspiration provided by his brilliant works on Shakespeare (as
well as for allowing me a share of the kindness of his wife,
Marilyn); and Richard Dutton, to whom I am indebted as well for
his important contributions to the portions of this book that
concern the Office of the Revels and its masters.
My thanks to two long and loyal friends for their unfailing
support, Martin J. Burr and Arthur Percival, both of whom also
provided invaluable material on the Temple, London, and Faver
sham respectively. Especial thanks, too, to Dale Randall and
Laetitia Yeandle, and to the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation for a
most timely grant. I gratefully acknowledge the personal attention
and co-operation of the reading room staffs of the Folger
Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress in Washington,
DC, and the Guildhall Library in London. I am also indebted to the
many readers at the Folger who gave me the benefit of their
expertise, as well as their encouragement and fellowship, especial
ly Giles Dawson (who was most helpful in dealing with the
difficult questions posed by the tours of the players), Jackson
Boswell, Nancy Brown, Martin Green, Phyllis Gorfain, Jay Halio,
Bernice Kliman, Margaret Knapp, Peter Lake, Brian and Dorothy
Parker, Brian Striar and John Velz. It is a particular privilege to
have the friendship of Thomas Froschl, Roy Kendall and the lovely
Katina, Jurek Limon, Jan Simko and Gyorgy Szonyi.
It is my pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of so many who
provided material and references for this work. I am especially
grateful for the frequent help given by Robert Bearman of the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust; David J. Rimmer, the archivist of
Coventry, and Peter ffrench-Hodges and Rose Hughes of the
British Tourist Authority. I am indebted to the following for
sharing their knowledge and research with me: Alexandra F.
Johnston, General Editor of the Records of Early English Drama;
William J. Tighe, for providing material from his extensive research
xi
