Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  “Judith will never want to. She must stay where Hamnet is.”

  “Later she will. I won’t let grief fill her life. Or mine. Or yours. But if you go to London, Will...”

  “I will share my lodgings with Edmund, I will work, I will see my friends, including Harry, but you need fear no… attachments. That is in the past. All of it is in the past.” They looked at each other again in silence. “Remember we said, clap hands and a bargain? Never again will I renege on a contract. I broke my wedding vows, but that’s my past. Stratford now is my future.”

  “A bargain,” she said, and they clasped each other’s hand. The first time they’d met they had touched hands and William had beguiled her with words. As he always would do, no doubt.

  “Come,” she said, “let’s take the girls and go look at our new house, our gentleman’s house, and start our plans. That side garden wall must come down and we should rebuild the outhouses.”

  “There’ll be a lot to do,” he agreed, and followed her down the stairs. “And years in which to do it. But Anne, is there a writing room for me there? A library? There’ll be no more poetry, but I must write my plays, every year, even when I’m home.”

  Anne glanced back over her shoulder, half-smiling. “Yes, Will, there’s a library. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the house.”

  “Good. And I think we’ll plant roses. And mulberry trees. We could play with our grandchildren in the shade of a mulberry tree. And a grape-vine?”

  “Not warm enough for grapes.”

  “We could try… Go and fetch the girls, and we will see.”

  Epilogue

  1603

  “The grapes flourished. The roses, too. And things changed, of course. I went home less and less, yet when I was there it was more real than London, I loved it more, and I wrote more there. Here…” William turned away and went to the window, staring down into the swirling fog that misted Tower Green. On his first visit to London, he had come here to see the Tower, that epitome of English history. Never had he thought he would be here like this, bribing the guard to let him in to visit a prisoner, waiting through an icy night that could spell the end of a reign or of his lover’s life. Harry’s little black and white cat, Deborah, sprang up onto the window seat and rubbed her head against his arm. Absently he stroked her, as once he had stroked her master. “Here,” William went on as the cat purred, “here in London, it was all business. Running a playhouse. Building the Globe. I was back to clerking and keeping accounts, just as I did for my father twenty years ago. And acting, of course. All the usual routine of a show a day, six days a week, and fretting over the management of the whole thing, and going on the road. Never writing, it seems.”

  Harry had said nothing for almost an hour. He was watching the clock. “But you did write. All those plays.”

  “Oh yes, of course I did. But at home, in Stratford, in our beautiful house. Not here in London. And when I am at home, I am William Shakspere the glover’s son, the landowner and wool dealer and malt dealer, not William Shakspere the playwright and poet. Stop a man in the street in Stratford and ask what I do for a living and he wouldn’t know, except that he’d probably say I must make a fair amount out of wool and malt. Pushed, that man might say he’s heard I own shares in a playhouse or some such thing. Meaningless, at home.”

  “Except to your wife and daughters?”

  “My daughters spend my money and don’t care where it comes from. But Anne cares in her way. Now she’s come under her brother’s influence and turned Puritan. So has Susanna. Odd, I never thought Anne cared much for religion. Susanna is interested in a doctor – calls himself a physician – called John Hall, and he’s rabidly Puritan and does not approve of me. Of my money, yes, but not of me or my work.”

  “Does Anne ever come to London? I’ve been away so much…”

  “She comes sometimes. When we built the Globe, for instance, she came to the opening performances. She brought Susanna and Judith. Susanna liked the plays and the visit to London, but Judith was bored.”

  “She doesn’t understand how famous you are? Your reputation?”

  “She has no idea, and couldn’t care if she did. She’s a country girl and keen on men. She blames me for her brother’s death.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Oh yes.”

  Harry came to join him at the window. “You note they have given me a room with a view of Tower Green. Of the beheading ground. Where Essex died. And so many others. And,” he laughed wryly, “they charge extra for a room with a view. I pay nine pounds a week for this.”

  “They make you pay?”

  “The final refinement. Yes.” His fingers closed on William’s arm. “If the old bitch doesn’t die, she’ll put me to death after all.”

  “Even now? After two years?”

  “She never did like me.”

  “Well, you did join Essex's rebellion against her. You were neck-deep in treason, Harry.”

  “Oh, can no one resist the temptation to say ‘I told you so’?”

  “I haven’t said that.”

  “You mean it, though.”

  William sighed. They sat down, turning their backs on the window. The cat jumped into Harry’s lap. Cuddling her, he said, “For a while she was my only friend, my only visitor. D’you know, she made her way here from Southampton House to be with me?”

  “A touching story.”

  “True.”

  “You mean, why did I never come to visit you before tonight.”

  “Well, why didn’t you?”

  “Because what we had was over years ago. Because these past seven years I have been busy being a good, conscientious father and husband – as have you – and playhouse owner. Keeping out of trouble. It is not wise to visit prisoners in the Tower of London. Or at least not wise for ordinary people like me, people without power and influence.”

  “I have no power or influence now,” said Harry. “Nor title. They stripped me of everything. I’m plain Mr Wriothesley. We’re equal. Middle-aged married men. You’ve probably more money than I now. We’re equals.”

  “Unless the queen dies and Scotch James becomes king.”

  “Unless.”

  “Why did you do it, Harry? Why did you join in that brainless, hopeless rebellion of Essex’s? Because he was your lover? Because you loved him?”

  Harry put the cat into William’s lap and stood up. He poured two glasses of wine. Fine, expensive crystal glasses, William noted, despite his pleas of poverty. “He was my lover but I never loved him. A few times, when we were young together, and again in Ireland, on military service there. But there was loyalty, of a kind. I knew how badly the Queen treated him over his command of the Irish campaign, I thought he had reason.

  “Although now, two years later, I suppose a lot of it was vanity and spite. He thought he had made the Queen love him beyond reason. But Elizabeth Tudor loves no one beyond reason. So I joined him in his stupid, petty, badly planned rebellion, and he was beheaded down there.” He pointed over his shoulder to Tower Green. “And for some reason I was not put to death. Just indeterminate imprisonment; not for the first time, of course – remember when I married Bess Vernon she popped us both into prison till her temper cooled.

  "And if the Queen rallies, lives, comes back to health, she’ll have my head.”

  “They say she’s past that, they say she’s dying.”

  “‘They’ have been saying that for days, for weeks, for years. She uses it, Will, she plays at ill-health. She takes to her bed and swears it’s her death-bed. She’s been doing that for forty-five years.”

  William shook his head. “This time it is sure. I asked.”

  “Oh, before you dared visit me?”

  “Don’t reproach me too far, Harry. I would have tried to talk you out of that rebellion, had you asked me, or told me of it. I would have done anything to stop you taking part. Don’t forget that when you and your friends asked my playing company to stage Richard the Second
for you, with its dangerous, dangerous theme of regicide and rebellion, I did so. That nearly had the lot of us in here with you. But we talked our way out of it. We said we did it for the money.”

  “And did you not do it for the money? Or did you believe, just a little, in our rebellion?”

  “I never believed in it. The Scotch king will be the Queen's heir, without silly plots in his favour. But I put that play on for you. Out of the memory of our love. I did love you, Harry, very much.”

  Harry leaned his head against William’s shoulder. “And I you. It seems so very long ago.”

  “Nearly ten years.”

  “And I am married now, and a father. Just as you advised in all those poems. Like your Anne when you married her, Bess was with child and loved me. And it was worth it for my child, my daughter.”

  A little time went by in silence. They drank their wine, petted the cat, let their hands meet on the animal’s fur.

  “So why did you come tonight?” Harry asked again.

  “Because it is sure the Queen cannot live the night out. She will die, James will be king of England and you will be free. Earl of Southampton again. Because it is the end of a reign, and of the only monarch you and I have ever known. And because it seemed a good time to ask you something.”

  “What?” Harry sounded very tired.

  “That woman. That Scotchwoman. That dark woman. Marian something.”

  “What of her?”

  “Was she a spy? For Scotland?”

  Laughing, Harry said, “Oh yes, all the time. That is, she was spying on who was not for King James. Burghley, Essex, me – we were all in it, all for James. If the Queen dies and James of Scotland becomes King, you’ll see her riding in his coronation procession. A hundred years ago her parents were for York, you see, and fled to Scotland after King Richard died at Bosworth Field. Her father’s an earl, and an intimate of the King’s. So yes, you’ll see the Lady Marian Robsart, meek as butter, her husband conveniently dead, no hint of the whoring spy, riding with King James’s courtiers. She did quite a lot of spying, I think. She was after Essex, and didn’t get him. But me she got, and had, for a while.”

  “And you told her secrets?”

  “Oh, Will, what secrets did I ever know? I was never in favour at court, never given any duties, never in the Queen’s confidence, never part of the spying service like Essex or poor Christopher Marlowe. Ten years since he died, Will, ten years in May. So no, I had no secrets to sell. I didn’t betray my country. Unless you count sending letters to that Scotch sodomite James, assuring him of my support and utter loyalty at need.”

  “Was that what the rebellion was about?” William asked.

  “Yes. Essex thought he would overthrow the Queen and invite James down from Scotland to take her place. Glory and rich rewards for Essex and Southampton et alia. A stupid plot.”

  “One put up to you by that Scotchwoman and her friends?”

  “Not to me. Perhaps she did get to Essex. Not in bed, though. She bedded you and me for fun, I think.”

  “Fun that nearly cost me my wife, and did cost me my son’s life. And cost me you.”

  “Never. Everything has changed, but nothing can take away the memories.” With a change of tone he went on, “You remember that hundred pounds I gave you ten years ago?”

  “Why, do you want it back? I could afford to pay it now.”

  “Of course I don’t want it back. I just meant, I gave you that money because I was in love with you and wanted to give you a gift. And now, because I still love you, if in a different way, I can give you another gift. If I live. If the Queen dies. If James becomes king.”

  “What gift, Harry?”

  “King James of Scotland likes plays, likes your plays. They perform them at his court in Scotland. He admires you. For me, and for his admiration of your plays, and perhaps a little for that dark-haired woman who spied for him, on you as much as on the Queen, James will make your playing company his royal one. The King’s Men, William. Royal servants. Courtiers. You will be the King’s playwright. You will have his royal protection forever. And money. Position, status. You are already famous, you need no one, king or commoner, to give you fame, but it is not nothing to be the King’s playwright and his favourite.”

  “I know it.” William lifted Harry’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you. Odd, isn’t it? I wanted to be known as a poet. All I wrote was three long poems and a clutch of sonnets, and it’s my plays people clamour for. But they’ll go out of fashion, you know. Already it’s all these new men, Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont. New men. I’m going out of fashion.”

  “Not yet. You'll write great plays for King James.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You will. And if that bell rings, the Westminster passing bell, to say the Queen is dead, then you can start buying your scarlet livery, for you’ll be established forever, you and your fellow players. Not any other players, not for the King. You, and yours. He’ll commission plays from you, Will.”

  “I’ll have to dance to his tune, you mean.”

  “You won’t dare write anything he doesn’t approve, but what’s new about that? You barely got away with Richard the Second. Will you ever write a play about the Queen? Elizabeth the First, by William Shakspere? Queen Elizabeth? Gloriana, perhaps?”

  “I doubt it. About her father, perhaps. Although I’ve little enough interest in history plays any more.”

  “I enjoyed your Hamlet,” Harry said. “And Henry the Fifth. I’ve been little enough to the theatre in these past few years, but those I did see.”

  “You did all the things I longed to as a boy; you’ve been a soldier, you’ve been to sea, you’ve fought on campaign.”

  “Ireland,” Harry said on a grunt of contempt.

  “Yes, Ireland. I used to want all those things.”

  “You’ve written about them, you’ve made them real to other people.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Will you,” Harry said, “ever write about me?”

  “Oh my dear, I have. Every golden youth I’ve ever written was you.”

  “And every woman was Anne?”

  “No. But some of them were her, at least in part. The loving, steadfast wives were all Anne. No doubt more will be, too. Or my daughters. The rest are, as usual, imagination. And one day soon people will lose interest in my plays and laugh at my poetry. I’ll be out of fashion and forgotten. And then I shall retire permanently to Stratford and marry off my daughters and sit by the fireside with my wife and fret about repairing my house and saving my money.”

  “Or go on to even greater fortune as the King’s pet playwright. Perhaps he’ll knight you. Give you a pension.”

  “I’d like it, but I doubt it.”

  “It’s possible. Anything is possible.”

  “Trite but true.”

  They were holding hands now and William could feel the pulse in Harry’s wrist racing. “Whatever happens,” he said awkwardly, “she won’t put you to death. Not now.”

  “She might.” Harry’s blue eyes had dilated with fear and tension so that they looked entirely black. Black as that woman’s. “She might give the order as the last thing she does, to show that traitors are not to be forgiven. Even as she dies, so might I, by her order. Or someone may try to seize the crown before James can do so. Think of Lady Jane Grey. There are always ambitious people, always people plotting. If I am to live, James must become king. Elizabeth killed his mother and he has never forgotten or forgiven that. Her enemies are his friends. His friends are her enemies, and she may be vengeful even after death.” Feverish colour burning in his face, he turned to William again. “If I die, write something for me. Something on my death. So that I shan’t be altogether forgotten. Promise me, Will.”

  “I promise.”

  “And that song of yours, the one that woman set to music, fear no more the heat o’ the sun, make that mine, say it at my funeral or over my grave. Make my grave renownéd.”

  “I promise.
But there is no need, Harry, the Queen will die, you will live. And when we meet again, you as the new King’s Counsellor, perhaps, me as one of his tame players, we’ll bow and perhaps talk. You’ll tell me of your children and your wife, I’ll speak of mine, and then I will retire to Stratford and be forgotten, and sometimes I will hear news of the Earl of Southampton’s latest glories. I promise.”

  Muffled at first by the fog, a sound began to come clearly to this room. Outside, the passing bell was ringing, to say the Queen was dead.

  End Note

  Of the people in this novel:

  Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603 and was succeeded by James VI of Scotland. In April 1603 the new king issued Letters Patent making the Shakespeare's company The King's Men. Shakespeare wrote some of his greatest plays after Queen Elizabeth's death, and retired, rich and famous, to Stratford not long before he died in April 1616.

  Anne Shakespeare died in August 1623. Famously, or notoriously, Shakespeare left her only his 'second-best bed' in his will, which may mean anything or nothing. Probably her husband assumed she was automatically entitled to the widow's share of one third of his estate, although some biographers say there was no such entitlement in Warwickshire. If not, unless she had some private settlement of money, Anne was left to the tender mercies of her elder daughter and son-in-law.

  Susanna Shakespeare married John Hall, a Puritan and quack physician without any medical training, on 5 June 1607. Although in his will Shakespeare was pathetically anxious to settle his estate on Susanna's male heirs, she and Hall had only one child, Elizabeth, born in February 1608. She married Thomas Nash, son of one of her grandfather's friends, in 1626, and after his death married John Barnard, who later received or bought a baronetcy. Lady Barnard died without issue, and the Shakespeare estate went to her Hart cousins. Susanna died in July 1649, her husband in 1625. The Halls received the bulk of Shakespeare's estate in his will. (In 1637 creditors chasing a debt against Hall's estate broke into New Place and stole "divers books…and other goods of greater value", probably including all of Shakespeare's books and other papers.)