Shakespeare's Sword

by Alan Judd

  The desks were safely exchanged during ten or so brisk minutes as my chaps made light work of the lifting while offering their opinions of the weather, the house, the pot-holed East Sussex roads and the state of the nation. Mrs Coombs fluttered about, extravagantly grateful. It would have been natural for me to leave with them, of course, but I deliberately remained in the study, contemplating the desk. ‘It looks right in that spot.’

  She shrugged. Her manner had changed when she closed the door on my chaps, as if she were deflated. ‘It’s where he wants it.’

  ‘It protrudes less into the room than the other one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another pause was coming. I was about to ask whether I could examine the sword when she brightened and said, ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’

  ‘That’s very kind. Only if you’ve time.’ I followed her back into the drawing room, pausing by the fireplace as if on impulse. ‘May I have a quick look at these swords?’

  ‘Of course. Milk, no sugar, wasn’t it?’ She crossed the hall into the kitchen.

  For appearance’s sake, I unhooked the middle one from the wall. As I had suspected, it was a seventeenth-century piece, a well-preserved broadsword of the Civil War period. The blade was engraved with ME FECIT HOVSLOE – the village of Hounslow having become a centre of sword-making by then – and it had a dish-shaped guard with two knuckle guards screwed into the pommel. It was the Victorians who called them mortuary swords, wrongly assuming that the stylised human heads chiselled into their hilts represented the executed Charles I and his queen, Henrietta, hence that the owners were Royalists. But in fact the two heads were merely contemporary fashion and such swords were used by both sides. I didn’t bother to examine the nineteenth-century military swords hanging above and below it.

  The kettle was already boiling in the kitchen and there was a clatter of cups and saucers. I laid down the mortuary sword and took up the one in the hearth, my heart beating as if I were already stealing it. It was a rapier, that was already obvious, longer than the mortuary sword, a pointed, double-edged weapon intended for duelling or self-defence or stealthy murder rather than battle, designed to be worn with a cloak, a mark of status. Exactly what one would have expected of a man as desirous for status as William Shakespeare.

  The blade was blackened by fire and smoke and no maker’s mark was visible. It had no fuller – a groove in the blade designed to reduce weight – but instead had a ridge or spine that strengthened it, making the blade triangular in cross-section. It was known as a hollow ground ridge, I had read, the sides ground out or scalloped to save weight. That was expensive and time-consuming work, suggesting quality steel and a top-notch product. It was long, too, between three and a half and four feet plus the hilt, grip and ovoid pommel, so clearly made before the later fashion for shorter blades. The hilt was almost as blackened as the blade although I could make out some sort of decoration or adornment beneath the dirt. The pommel was large and heavy, partly to balance that long blade and partly, we know from illustrations, because at close quarters it was useful for literally pommelling your opponent’s skull. There was also a cross-guard – a slim metal bar at right angles to the grip, in this case downturned at one end like a swan’s head – and a curved knuckle guard or bow. The grip felt as if there were coiled wire beneath the dirt.

  I stood holding it for I don’t know how long, pointing it at the fireplace and thinking – could it, could it really be? Could I be holding what Shakespeare’s hand had held? And if so could there be a dimension unknown to us through which I might absorb or sense something – anything – of him? There ought to be, given the almost daily revelations of counter-intuitive truths from particle physics. The longer I held the sword the more convinced I became that there was something, that eventually one would feel it and that this, surely, must have been Shakespeare’s sword. The Combe-Coombs name, their accumulated inheritance, their legal antecedents and geographical origins, made coincidence recede in my mind.

  ‘I hope I haven’t made it too weak.’ This time she brought the tea on a polished wooden tray, with a plate of ginger biscuits. ‘No custard creams, I’m afraid. Gerald must have finished them all and they seem to be harder to find now.’

  ‘He likes his custard creams?’

  ‘Yes, a life-long passion. Not that he’s generally . . .’ She half-hid her smile as she lowered the tray onto one of the sidetables by the armchairs. ‘Are you interested in swords, Mr . . . Mr Gold?’

  ‘Interested and I know a bit about them but I’m no expert. They’re not an obsession, I’m afraid.’

  She smiled again at that. ‘Gerald thinks those on the wall might be quite valuable. One was used by one of his ancestors in the Civil War, he thinks.’

  I was reluctant to let go of the rapier so picked up the mortuary sword with my left hand. ‘That would be this one. It’s certainly of that period and is in very good condition.

  ‘Dreadful to think it might have killed people.’

  ‘Yes.’ The thought that a weapon might have killed actually enhanced its appeal to me, but that was a reaction I had learned to conceal. Personally, I had always rather liked the idea of killing someone. Not someone I hated or feared – my motive was not polluted by any personal consideration. No, it was purer and worse than that: narcissism. I just wanted to know what it felt like. Concealing such thoughts from Mrs Coombs was, I later discovered, unnecessary.

  She picked up her tea and sat in one of the armchairs. I carefully replaced the rapier in the hearth and restored the mortuary sword to its place on the wall between the others, then sat in the other chair. It felt awkward, sitting side by side drinking tea, facing the empty fireplace with, to its side, the blank television screen. ‘And the other one?’ I asked. ‘The one used as a poker? Did that belong to a Coombs ancestor too?’ Absurdly, I could feel my heart beating again.

  She glanced at it and shrugged. ‘Presumably. I’ve never heard him say anything about that one.’

  ‘It might be worth cleaning it up a little and having a look. Swords sometimes tell you something about themselves – makers’ marks and so on.’

  ‘I can’t imagine Gerald getting round to cleaning anything. Unless it’s to do with golf.’

  ‘Strange to be surrounded by so much ancestry and to have no interest in it.’

  ‘Yet at the same time he refuses to get rid of any of it, as I was saying. Despite the fact that he’s always moaning about it and every now and again threatens to dump it all.’

  ‘I could clean it up for you, that sword.’

  Once again her expression was radiant with implausibly extravagant gratitude. ‘That’s so sweet of you, Mr Gold, but there’s no need, there really isn’t. Have another biscuit.’

  We moved on to the pleasures and pains of living in a very small, very quiet and very ancient town, until I felt that conversation was becoming an effort for us both. I stood, saying I had better get back to the shop.

  ‘There’s no one to look after it when you’re not there? I assumed that lady who came in when we were leaving . . .’

  I told her about Stephanie, going on for some time when I saw the sympathy in her face.

  ‘Not many brothers – not many men – would do what you’re doing,’ she said as we lingered by the front door.

  ‘Can’t not, really, no choice,’ I said breezily, with what was meant to come across as selfless good cheer. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if I have anyone else to look after.’

  ‘You’ve no family, no wife or children?’

  ‘Divorced before we had children. Probably as well. You and Mr Coombs . . .?’

  ‘We have no children.’

  It felt as if neither of us wanted to part, but it was becoming awkward not to. I was outside now, hesitating on the path. ‘Nor siblings? So the family will end with—?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But not for a while yet, we hope.’ I smiled and then tried to look as if I’d just thought of something. ‘Ta
lking of family, names and so on, has it always been spelled Coombs?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know, I think so. I’ll ask – actually, no, I think on some of the old portraits – have you got another moment? I’m not keeping you?’

  The bewhiskered Waterloo hero in the hall was a Coombs, as was one of his eighteenth-century ancestors in the drawing room. Another was unnamed, though there was a facial resemblance, but the seventeenth-century Puritan civilian at the far end of the room was a Combe, William Combe.

  ‘This is the one I was thinking of,’ she said. ‘Does this mean he’s not really a Coombs?’

  ‘Not at all, it’s all quite consistent. Before standardised spelling and registration of births, deaths and marriages, voters lists and whatever, spellings frequently changed. People sometimes even spelled their own names differently at different times – those that could spell at all, that is. Shakespeare’s will, for instance, has him as both S-h-a-c-k-s-p-e-a-r-e and S-h-a-c-k-s-p-a-r-e.’

  She looked at me as if I’d announced something sensational. ‘Really? Really? I didn’t know.’

  I regretted it immediately. I’d mentioned Shakespeare because he was so much on my mind but I didn’t want her to realise that. Still less did I want her to take an interest in his will. ‘Not just Shakespeare, of course. I’ve read no end of old wills with similar inconsistencies, sometimes perpetrated by the people themselves but often through careless transcription by clerks. It extends well into the nineteenth century. You’d probably find similar confusions now with the names of immigrants.’

  ‘How astonishing.’

  ‘When this portrait was painted variation was the norm rather than the exception. Also, people sometimes changed name spellings for social reasons, one version being thought of as smarter than another, especially if it coincided with an aristocratic version. Sometimes they changed their names completely in order to inherit or be associated with a distinguished ancestor or relative. Oliver Cromwell’s family adopted Cromwell in order to make their association with Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister, closer than it was.’

  Or so I’d read. I couldn’t remember where. Nor could I remember what Oliver’s family was previously called. Happily, she was too busy gushing with admiration to press for details. We moved back towards the door and repeated an abbreviated version of my earlier leave-taking.

  As soon as I got back I began tracking down the Cromwell family’s previous name. There was no need, no one was going to ask me. I suspected Mrs Coombs had no more intellectual curiosity than most people one meets. I didn’t blame her for it, any more than I blamed the mass of humanity for lacking interest in anything beyond their immediate concerns. It may depress the altruist but it’s what helped us to evolve, it’s what we’re like. Nor do I except myself from this; it’s just that, having remembered something like the Cromwell example and then committed myself publicly to it, I couldn’t rest until I’d settled it. The family’s previous name was Williams; they were descended from Thomas Cromwell’s married sister, Katherine. I would tell that to Mrs Coombs one day, whether she wanted to know or not.

  Not that I was going to rest that evening, anyway. It and the evenings to come were largely taken up with researches into Thomas Combe, Elizabethan swords and Shakespeare himself. I soon found not one but three William Combes related to Thomas. There was his elder brother, another lawyer who was twice Sheriff of Stratford, an aggressive man with a chequered financial history. In 1614 he provoked a legal dispute peripherally involving Shakespeare. He enclosed common land without going through the proper procedures, making no secret of his intention to sell for a profit. The dispute, which included physical intimidation, went on until 1619 when the Privy Council ordered him to restore the land to the village. There’s no record of whether or not he did. An example of how vice is rewarded, he outlived his younger brother, Thomas, dying in 1667 and leaving his substantial property to his grandson, Sir Combe Wagstaff. It subsequently went to the better-known Clopton family.

  But of the sword there is no mention, which is puzzling because swords were expensive and often valued by families. If Shakespeare had had his made for him it would surely have been a significant heirloom, like the ‘broad silver-gilt bole’ he left to his less-favoured daughter, Judith. His leaving the sword to Thomas – he had no son to inherit, young Hamnet having died – must surely have been a mark of favour and distinction. Did Thomas not value it, or had he given it away, or was it somehow taken up for service in the Civil War?

  Though almost certain it would have been a rapier, I searched for any indication of what kind of sword it was, why Shakespeare had it, whether he ever used it. It’s conceivable that it was for self-protection. He knew fellow playwrights and actors who had fought and killed with swords; Ben Jonson killed the actor Gabriel Spencer and possibly also another man in a duel in the Low Countries, while Christopher Marlowe, notorious for ‘causing sudden privy injuries to men’, was killed by a knife. London’s South Bank, where Shakespeare mostly worked and to which he would have walked daily from his lodgings in Cripplegate, was known for violence and disorder. His journeys to and from Stratford might have been vulnerable to highwaymen.

  But Shakespeare was no fighting man. It’s more likely that he acquired his sword as a result of his successful 1596 application for a coat of arms. The grant by the College of Heralds of a coat of arms gentrified the holder and his family – a number of later documents refer to Shakespeare as Gentleman or Gent. – and also conferred the right to bear a sword in public. Outward signs of status mattered to ambitious, upwardly mobile Elizabethan families, and Shakespeare’s was no exception. His father, John, had tried unsuccessfully for a coat of arms in the 1560s or 1570s but lived to see his son achieve it. Perhaps Shakespeare sought it partly on his father’s behalf. Family status mattered enough to him for him subsequently to apply to quarter the arms – that is, divide the shield – with those of his mother’s family, the older and more distinguished Ardens. This was no small business – the thirty-guinea fee was more than the Stratford schoolmaster would have earned in a year and Shakespeare had to call in aid his father’s service as Bailiff of Stratford and his great-grandfather’s military service for Henry VII. Once granted, John Shakespeare and his descendants were entitled to display the coat of arms on their door and on all their possessions.

  Such marks of respectability would have been particularly important to anyone in Shakespeare’s profession. Actors and theatres were far from respectable, being associated with disorder, drunkenness and whoring. It may even be that he was mocked for his pains by Jonson, his friend and rival, who wrote of players with social aspirations: ‘They forget they are i’ the statute, the rascals, they are blazoned there, there they are tricked, they and their pedigrees: they need no other heralds.’ But for the son of a provincial glove-maker who had made himself playwright, actor-manager and part owner of a company that played at court by royal command and later had minor roles in state occasions as grooms of the bedchamber with their own issue of red cloth, it would have been worth the mockery to have been accorded the status of William Shakespeare, Gent. Just as Gerald Coombs, perhaps, had been pleased to be elected to his golf club. Such vanities, unlike the aggressive assertion of ego, are mostly harmless.

  If my surmise were correct, then Shakespeare’s sword would most likely have been a fashionable rapier like the one in the Coombses’ hearth. It would not have been a war-fighting sword, broad-bladed and designed for slashing, awkward to wear with civilian clothing. The rapier – though Gerald’s example was heavier than I had expected –was more elegant, signifying the rank and wealth to which Shakespeare aspired. The word rapier, I read, derived from the Spanish espada ropera, meaning sword of the robes, something you could wear with court dress. But it was still a deadly weapon with a long reach, slim and piercing sharp, first choice for duellists and probably a deterrent to assailants armed only with knife or club.

  As to the coat of arms itself, little i
s known. There are two rough drafts of a document in which the Garter King-of-Arms declares he has assigned and confirmed a shield ‘Gold, on a bend sables, a spear of the first steeled argent, and for his crest or cognisance a falcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreath of his colours, supporting a spear gold, steeled as aforesaid, set upon a helmet with mantles and tassels as hath been accustomed and doth more plainly appear depicted on this argent.’ There is a rough draft of a simplified version and three drafts of a possible motto, ‘Not Without Right’. No fair copy has ever come to light, nor any full illustration. Nor is it known whether Shakespeare or his father put it on the front door in Stratford or on any possessions. Among the latter I wondered whether he might conceivably have had a simplified version engraved on his sword, beneath all that dirt and discoloration. But that would have been unusual.

  Frankly, such heraldic details bore me, partly because of the effort of interpretation and partly because – well, so what? They flatter the vanity of the owner, harmlessly enough, and doubtless interest those that follow such things. Just like personalised car number plates, for those who can be bothered with them. Nevertheless, I did take the trouble to look online at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s worked-up version in glass of the coat of arms, based on the description. I was looking at this in the shop that evening when Stephanie crept down and stood behind me, unnoticed.

  ‘That’s pretty,’ she said.

  She likes obvious colours and ‘pretty’ is her all-purpose word for anything visually appealing. I enlarged it for her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  The explanation took a while. How good a job I made of it was evident when she said she wanted a coat like that. It is never easy to divert Stephanie once she starts on something. Her mind is single-track and she persists with the doggedness of a terrier at a rat-hole. It can go on for days. Anxious to close this track down before it really got going, I turned off the computer and stood. ‘Time we went to bed, I think.’