The Vavasour Macbeth

by Bart Casey

  “That would be better, I think.”

  “And meanwhile the embassy asked me to make sure you have everything you need for the children, and to let you know they will reimburse any and all of the expenses you have. Just keep a list.”

  “Oh, that’s good to know. I’ve been going shopping day to day—and I will again tomorrow.” She laughed. “All these little things have to be done right in the face of the ominous big picture.”

  “I get the feeling the embassy is also very much in the dark about what’s going on at home,” Stephen said. “Margaret’s team is really stretched as well. It’s chaotic.”

  “Yes,” said Margaret. “Yesterday I heard they have a lead they’re following up on. And I gave them the name of that village you gave us where there might be family. But I haven’t heard back yet with anything else. They did warn me the news might not be good when it comes.”

  “The picnic idea will be very helpful,” said Mrs. Quick. “I have to drive back over to my house, check on everything, get a few things for Billy, and tend the plants and so on. It would be a good break.”

  “Fine, then. I’ll drive my father’s car from the vicarage and pick them up here at ten on Saturday. I’ll take care of everything for the picnic. I’ll load them up on books, toys, and videos at the zoo shop and have them back here between three and three thirty, all right? I have something to do that night in the city, but the zoo is unique and will surprise them, I think.”

  And a good surprise will be better than dread, thought Margaret.

  At least for a while.

  1603. Queen Elizabeth hung on tight until the very end, and gave the nod for the succession to her cousin James VI of Scotland only on her deathbed. Early the morning of March 24, Elizabeth died in Richmond and a rider headed north to Edinburgh with the news. Then her body was moved to Whitehall in a river procession of barges draped in mourning black. There she lay in state awaiting burial for over a month while her old court went on as usual.

  At last, on April 28, a funeral procession of fifteen hundred mourners marched with her hearse to Westminster Abbey. On her coffin was a painted wax effigy, so lifelike many thought it was her body, still unchanged by death, and another legend about her spread. She was entombed with her own coffin literally sitting on top of the coffin of her sister, Queen Mary, “partners of the same throne and grave.”

  On May 7, seventy-year-old Sir Henry Lee led a troop of sixty men who rode out from London to welcome James arriving from Scotland. They wore golden chains or scarves decorated with the motto “Constantia et fide”—”Constant and faithful.” The new king knew Sir Henry well and spoke “lovingly” to him, well pleased at the reception.

  In July, Sir Henry was at the Order of the Garter installation with King James, and in September, when the court was at Woodstock most of the month, James and his wife, Queen Anne of Denmark, went to visit Sir Henry and Anne Vavasour at his country house three miles away, with the Dutch and French ambassadors in tow. James loved to hunt, and he asked Sir Henry to become a mentor on chivalry to his son Harry, the Prince of Wales.

  ~

  1605. Sir Henry had a full-size portrait of Anne painted by Jacobe de Critz, one of the family of Flemish artists he patronized at court. Anne is resplendent in a bejeweled ensemble and mysteriously holds either a glove in her left hand, or possibly the hand of an ailing Sir Henry, who might have been lying just outside the main image area of the portrait, on a daybed.

  ~

  1606. Sir Henry was ill and missed the Garter installation and feast in April, but he recovered and was at court during the summer state visit of Queen Anne’s brother, King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway. The last week of July, both he and Shakespeare (who, as one of the King’s Men players, carried the rank of Groom of the Chamber at court and was issued red cloth for his livery) were probably in attendance for the public procession of James and Christian into the City of London. A week later, King Christian was admitted into the Order of the Garter. He celebrated his installation the same evening at Hampton Court, where he viewed a shortened performance of a new play by Shakespeare called Macbeth. Songs and jests were added and the script was trimmed to fill no more than two hours in the evening’s well lubricated festivities on the eve of Christian’s departure for home. However, the drinking didn’t dampen the interest of the royal guests—they were transfixed by the play.

  ~

  1607. Edward Vere, Anne’s bastard child from her days as Gentlewoman of the Bedchamber for Elizabeth, was knighted for his military service by King James. A scholar as well as a soldier, he was famous for spending “all summer in the field, all winter in his study.”

  ~

  1608. James’s wife, Queen Anne of Denmark, visited Anne and gave her an especially fine jewel. Sir Henry, now aged seventy-five, was energized by his sweetheart’s recognition and decided to go to court again, one more time. Anne and Henry’s bastard son, Thomas Lee, won a royal appointment as a Yeoman of the Armoury; and Anne’s younger brother Thomas Vavasour became a favorite of King James and was given both the office of Knight Marshal of the Household and a princely stipend. He built a fine residence called Ham House on the river at Kingston-upon-Thames.

  ~

  1610–1611. Sir Henry prepared tombs for himself, his family, and Anne at the chapel of his estate at Quarrendon, Buckinghamshire.

  He died in 1611, a month before his seventy-eighth birthday. His instructions ordered a magnificent funeral. Anne was left alone at age forty-seven, but was well cared for by a rich inheritance assured by Sir Henry and the attentions of her two grown sons, Edward Vere and Thomas Lee who both had successful careers. She moved to a fine house in Surrey, two miles from the beautiful Ham House estate of her younger brother, Sir Thomas Vavasour.

  ~

  1612–1621. The Lee family heirs have repeatedly tried to sue Anne for her inherited treasure, but she always prevailed. In August 1618, the heir of Sir Henry—a distant cousin, but the nearest legitimate heir—attempted to fight Anne on different grounds as described in this letter:

  Mrs. Vavasour, old Sir Henry Lee’s woman, is like to be called in question for having two husbands now alive.

  Anne had remarried, to John Richardson of Durham, but apparently old John Finch was still living. At first the bigamy case went badly for Anne. In February 1621 she was condemned to pay a fine of £2,000 (an incredible sum at the time), with the King’s interest in the fine—about half—being granted to the heir. Corporal punishment was also to be administered. However, with James I still on the throne, a royal pardon was issued “to temper the severity of the law with our royal mercy, and grant her dispensation from public penitence or other bodily penalty.” James wasn’t about to let his old friend’s mistress be disciplined in public, and he knew she had plenty of money.

  ~

  1622. Anne was asked to send her shortened version of the script for the 1606 performance of Macbeth to John Heminge, who was collecting materials for a memorial edition of Shakespeare’s plays, known today as the First Folio. Anne’s manuscript was the only copy of that play that Heminge could find.

  ~

  1622–1654. Anne lived another thirty-two years, as a very rich old lady of the old school, fighting off the legal efforts of her figurehead first husband, John Finch, to get her money. In particular, she was a great patron of her village church.

  Epigram. Upon the Queen’s last remove,

  being dead

  The Queen’s removed in solemn sort,

  Yet this was strange, and seldom seen,

  The Queen used to remove the Court,

  But now the Court removed the Queen.

  Lines by Thomas Dekker on Elizabeth’s death and James’s succession

  Never did the English Nation behold so much black worn as there was at her Funeral. … Her hearse (as it was borne) seemed to be an island swimming in water, for round about it there rained showers of tears.

  Oh what an Earth-Quake is the alteration of a State!<
br />
  Upon Thursday it was treason to cry “God save King James, King of England,” and upon Friday high treason not to cry so. In the morning no voice heard but murmurs and lamentation, at noon nothing but shouts of gladness and triumph. Saint George and Saint Andrew that many hundred years had defied one another, were now sworn brothers: England and Scotland … are now made sure together, and King James’s coronation is the solemn wedding day.

  —Thomas Dekker in his pamphlet

  “The Wonderful Year 1603”

  Captions on 1605 hunting trophies at Sir Henry’s estate in Ditchley

  August 24th, Saturday

  From Foxehole Coppice rouz’d, Great Britain’s King I fled,

  But what, In Kiddington Pond he overtoke me dead.

  August 26th, Monday

  King James made me run for life from Dead man’s Riding;

  I ran to Goreil Gate, where Death for me was biding.

  From a letter about Queen Anne Denmark’s gift to Anne Vavasour in 1608

  The Queen, before her going out of the County, dined with Sir Henry Lee at his Little Rest, and gave great countenance and had long and large discourse with Mrs Vavasour; and within a day or two after, sent a very fair jewel valued above £100; which favour hath put such new life into the old man, to see his sweet-heart so graced, that he says he will have one fling more at the Court before he die; though he thought he had taken his leave this summer, when he went to present the Prince with an armour that stood him in £200.

  —Letter of John Chamberlain

  to Dudley Carleton

  Inscription engraved on Anne’s tomb in the “lost” chapel at Quarrendon

  Under this Stone intombed lies a faire & worthy Dame

  daughter to Henry Vavasour, Anne Vavasour her name

  Shee living with Sir Henry Lee for love long time did dwell

  Death Could not part them but that here they rest within one cell

  Naughty epitaph about Anne and Sir Henry, as reported by Aubrey

  Here lies good old knight Sir Harry

  Who loved well, but would not marry,

  While he lived, and had his feeling,

  She did lie, and he was kneeling,

  Now he’s dead and cannot feel

  He doth lie, and she doth kneel.

  On Friday morning, Stephen and Margaret both wanted to be in London early, so they took the 0700 morning train down to King’s Cross. Walking out onto the Euston Road, Margaret gave him a light kiss on the cheek and headed west for a quick check in with the Bosnia team at the BBC. Meanwhile, Stephen joined the wave of people marching south into Bloomsbury. He wanted to be at the British Museum at opening time to see the Heminge papers retrieved from storage and compare them with what they had seen in Stratford. Then they would both be together again at a late morning meeting arranged with an Elizabethan expert at the museum, to talk through Shakespeare’s supposed handwriting treasure, the play-doctored manuscript of Sir Thomas More.

  Stephen stopped for a takeaway cappuccino and killed a little time peering into the windows of secondhand bookstores until the museum’s gates opened. Once settled in at the Manuscripts Students’ Room, it took only a few minutes before he found one bold signature on a short note that confirmed Anne Vavasour’s letter from Heminge was genuine. So there was some kind of connection there—but what?

  Margaret arrived with a visitor’s day pass just before 11:00 a.m. and they were ushered into a small meeting room behind the service desk. She told Stephen there was nothing new to report on the Jurics yet, but everyone in Sarajevo would keep looking. Soon a bearded and bespectacled young man who introduced himself as Doctor Bowen, not much older than Stephen and Margaret, joined them across the table with a small portfolio bag.

  After assurances that Margaret was not there in some official BBC capacity, but simply as the owner of a hoard of papers unearthed from her family’s tomb, the meeting was ready to begin. Bowen was sharp enough to immediately offer another meeting with people up the chain from him at the museum, if Margaret wanted to have a discussion about having the staff take a look at her papers.

  Bowen unzipped his portfolio and took out a massive two-inch-thick block of clear plastic laminate, somewhat smaller than a tabloid magazine, in the center of which was encased a single sheet of paper measuring about 9½ by 12 inches. Around the edges were six substantial brass screws, smooth on both sides and without convenient slots for unscrewing, which hinted there were probably two clear plates, fastened together, holding the precious parchment within. Stephen thought you could probably set a bomb off on top of the thing and there would be no damage to its precious cargo.

  “This is one of the pages thought to include Shakespeare’s own handwriting in the manuscript of the play,” explained Bowen. “Another page is on display downstairs in one of the museum’s ‘greatest hits’ exhibits, oddly enough next to Lennon and McCartney’s handwritten lyrics to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ Some sort of Shakespeare-meets-the-Beatles pairing, I suppose. But at any rate, we’ll have to make do with just this one sheet.”

  “Good lord,” said Margaret. “At least it looks very well protected.”

  Bowen laughed. “That’s for certain, Miss Hamilton. It’s from the manuscript for a play that was never approved by the censors called Sir Thomas More. The document has been dated to the mid-1590s. First, there is the base script, primarily written in the autograph hand of a gentleman called Anthony Munday who was a writer and professional scribe very active at the time. Approved scripts were in much demand among the acting companies of the time, but the general topic of this play—the rise and fall of Sir Thomas More and his conflicts over religion with King Henry VIII during times of civil unrest—was just too hot to handle as far as Elizabeth’s censors went. They were very wary of material that could spark dissent in their own day, especially about matters religious. But then this manuscript shows four or five ‘play doctors’ having a go to desperately rework the script so it might be approved and get into production. They ultimately did not succeed, but that’s the background. Shakespeare is thought to be one of those play doctors. His supporters believe he wrote 142 lines for a crucial speech by the lead character, Sir Thomas More. That block of handwriting is referred to as being written by ‘Hand D’ among the others all working on the script.”

  “But I thought there were no examples of Shakespeare’s handwriting. So how could people claim that?” asked Margaret.

  Stephen said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, Doctor Bowen, but, when all is said and done, almost everyone agrees that there are six genuine handwritten signatures of Shakespeare, on his will and various deeds and leases. That’s the starting point.”

  “But, how can you get from six signatures to these lines?” said Margaret.

  “That’s a good question, Miss Hamilton,” said Doctor Bowen. “And there is an explanation...quite a good story, actually. So here goes. The first real work on this play was done in the 1840s, when a Reverend Alexander Dyce spent a great deal of time making a thoughtful transcription, including all its crossing outs and adding ins, from a manuscript buried here in the British Museum.”

  “Watch out for those vicars,” said Margaret. “Just kidding, Doctor Bowen. It’s an in-joke.”

  “Yes, well, it was a difficult manuscript, but over the years the work was noticed, and eventually people began to put forward theories about it—including one that proposed those 142 lines were written by Shakespeare. All of this discussion was bubbling around during the years leading up to the three hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, when his tercentenary celebration came up in 1916. That’s when the Oxford University Press was working on compiling a celebratory book called Shakespeare’s England. They’d invited the leading scholars of the day to contribute a chapter each on topics as diverse as religion, science, agriculture, sports and pastimes of the period, and so on. Two volumes and about three dozen separate sections on aspects of Elizabethan life. It first came out during the Great War a
nd then again in later editions.”

  “Yes, I have one of those copies from 1926. It’s a great set,” said Stephen.

  “Then several of those scholars decided as a companion effort to really take a close look at these lines in Sir Thomas More and render a definitive opinion—and that’s what they did. The old turn-of-the-century scholars were a special bunch. They had each spent their whole lives exploring some arcane corner of their chosen fields. They first determined there were actually six examples of Shakespeare’s writing that were definitely his, beyond the shadow of a doubt—those are the six signatures Mister White just mentioned. And there were thousands of other supposed Shakespeare scribblings that could not be certified as genuine. I mean, there were lots of forgeries and so on that were put forward through the years, so they set all of those aside and just settled on the six signatures.”

  “Six?” asked Margaret.

  “Yes, six. There are the three signatures on the various pages of his will, although those are obviously a bit shaky since he was already old and suffering through his final illness. And he abbreviated the spelling of each one of them to keep it quick. Then there is one signature on a sworn deposition in a legal case; he was much younger, and presumably more healthy, but that had to be signed in a very constrained area across the tape attaching a seal to the sworn testimony, which meant he had to fit his name to the width of the tape. I think that one is over two lines: you know, ‘William’ on top and ‘Shakespeare’ below—not exactly the most natural way to scratch your handwriting. And then the final two signatures are on papers for buying a house one day and then taking out a mortgage on it the next. One was across seal tape again, so it was tight for space. But the other was free of any space constraints, so that’s probably the most natural example. He even wrote ‘by me William Shakespeare’ with a curly flourish after it.”