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Greene's James IV and Contemporary Allusions to Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ruth Hudson
Ruth Hudson*
Affiliation:
University of Wyoming
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Extract

Students of Elizabethan drama have practically agreed that James IV is one of Robert Greene's last undoubted plays, if not the very last in point of composition. They have, for the most part, assigned it to a date in or near 1590, and Professor C. M. Gayley has gone far enough to suggest that its composition belongs to the month of July, 1590. Arguments hitherto given for dating the play rest upon certain qualities of its style and structure that indicate the maturity of the dramatist's workmanship, similarities between lines of the play and Peele's The Hunting of Cupid (entered in the Stationers' Register, July 26, 1591), and possible allusions to events which transpired in Ireland and France in or near the year 1590.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , September 1932 , pp. 652 - 667
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 For other discussions of the date of James IV, see F. G. Fleay, A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559–1642 (London, 1891), I, 265; Thomas H. Dickinson, ed., Robert Greene (London, Mermaid Series), Intro., p. xlviii; J. Churton Collins, ed., The Plays and Poems of Robert Greene (Oxford, 1905), i, 85; John Clark Jordan, Robert Greene (New York, 1915, Columbia University Press), p. 182. For Professor Gayley's detailed discussion, see Representative English Comedies (New York, 1921), i, 415–417.

2 Op. cit., p. 80.

3 The Minor Elizabethan Dramas (ii) Pre-Shakespearean Comedies (New York, Everyman Ed.). Induction, ll. 104–105. All references to lines in the play are to this edition.

4 The Calendar of State Papers Relating to Scotland, edited by W. K. Boyd (1915), vol. ix; May, 1588, “Intelligences from Scotland,” p. 561; June 13, 1588, “Advertisements from Carlisle,” p. 573; June 28, 1588, “Intelligences from Berwick,” p. 576; Sept., 1598, “Intelligences from Scotland,” p. 620.—Calendar of State Papers Relating to Scotland, edited by Thorpe (1858), v. 2; June, 1590, “Advices from Scotland,” p. 577; August, 1592, “An Advertisement of Scottish Affairs,” p. 611; Sept. 16, 1592, “Advices from Scotland,” p. 613; November, 1592, “Advertisement of Occurrences in Scotland,” p. 616.

5 See Cal. of State Papers (ed. Boyd), ix, 674, Dec. 29, 1588, Fowler to Walsingham: “Though I know your honor is sufficiently advertised from this country, yet I must send you my knowledge among the rest”; p. 307, Feb. 1587, “Instructions for a person going to Scotland”; pp. 675–676, Feb. 5 and 6, 1589, Fowler to Walsingham, details of espionage methods; p. 676, Feb. 4, 1589, Walsingham to Fowler, details of cipher to be used. See also Cal. of State Papers, Domestic Series, edited by Robt. Leoman (1865), 1581–90: May 7, 1590, Sir Thomas Heneage (Vice-Chamberlain) to Burghley; sends an estimate of the charge for the continuing a “course of understanding how things pass in Flanders, France, and Spain” and names of persons to be so employed, p. 664. The Calendars preserve endless reports from “Intelligencers” in Scotland.

6 Calendar of State Papers Relating to Scotland (edited by Boyd), v. viii: Randolph to Walsingham March 14, 1586, p. 364; Elizabeth to Randolph, Apr. 28, 1586, p. 342; Walsingham to Randolph, March 19, 1586, p. 255. Calendar of State Papers of the Reign of Elizabeth, Domestic Series, 1581–90: Sir Thomas Heneage (Vice-Chamberlain of England) in a letter to Burghley, May 7, 1590, says her Majesty, hearing of the arrival of the King of Scots, “thought … of staying the bed and hanging with their furniture, which was to be presented to the King,” and hopes Burghley will better persuade her, p. 664. Ibid. p. 673, June 21, 1590, warrant to the Exchequer to deliver to Sir John Carmichael, Ambassador from the King of Scots, £500 for the “use of the said King.”

See also Cal. of State Papers Relating to Scotland (edited by Thorpe), 2, 570 ff.

7 Cal. of State Papers Relating to Scotland (ed. by Thorpe), v. 2. Asheby to Walsingham' July 22 1589; same to same, July 28, 1589; Fowler to Walsingham, Aug. 5, 1589; Archibald Douglas to Walsingham, Aug. 19, 1589; Asheby to Walsingham, Aug. 26, 1589; same to same, Sept. 24, 1589, same to same, Oct. 2, 1589; same to Burghley, Oct. 6 and Oct, 8, 1589; same to same, Oct. 12, 1589; Asheby to Queen Elizabeth, Oct. 23, 1589; same to Sir Thomas Heneage, Oct. 24, 1589.

8 Ibid., Asheby to Burghley, Nov. 2, 1589; Queen Elizabeth to Lord John Hamilton, Nov., 1589; December 1 and 3, memorials in regard to alterations in the management of Scottish affairs; Fowler to Walsingham, Dec. 7, 1589; Bowes to Burghley, Apr. 16, 1590; same to same, Apr. 30, 1590; May 2, May 4, 1590, papers relative to the preparations for the reception of the Scottish royal couple.

9 In order to understand Elizabeth's more than parental sternness toward James, one should read her letter written to him in Denmark in the spring of 1590, Letters of Elizabeth to James VI (Camden Society, 1849), pp. 57 ff. She called his journey “ill-timed and evil-seasoned,” reminded him of her hourly care for his “broken country, too too much infected with the malady of strangers' humors,” reproached him with the “ulcers … filled with venom” which had burst since his departure (Catholic plots with Philip II), and told him in no uncertain terms of his faults of timidity and procrastination: “And shall I tell you my thought herein?” she wrote. “I assure you, you are well worthy of such traitors, that, when you knew them, and had them, you betrayed your own surety in favoring their lives. Good Lord! who but yourself would have left such people to be able to do you wrong! Give order with speed that such scape not your correction, and hie your return, without you mind to make you seem innocent of your realm's ruin,” p. 58.

10 “It was time, he (Maitland) said, that the monarch, who was now in the prime of his years and vigour, allied by marriage to a powerful Prince, the heir of a mighty kingdom, and able, from his position, to take a leading part in European politics, should no longer be bearded by every baron who chose to consider himself as a born councillor of the realm.” Tytler, P. F., History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1843), vol. 9, pp. 43 ff. See also Cal. of State Papers Rel. to Scotland (ed. by Thorpe), v. 2. Bowes to Burghley, May 23, 1590, p. 475.

11 Tytler, ix, 9, 47.

12 Cal. of St. Papers Rel. to Scotland (ed. by Thorpe), v. ii, Burghley to Bowes, May 30, 1590.

13 Act ii, sc. ii, ll. 281–284.

14 Cal. of St. Papers Rel. to Scotland (ed. Thorpe), ii, 575, Bowes to Burghley. See also Tytler, ix, 48.

15 Ibid., p. 576, Bowes to Burghley, June 9, 1590.

16 Ibid., p. 577, Bowes to Burghley, June 12, 1590.

17 Ibid. p. 578, Bowes to Burghley, June 21 and June 29, 1590.

18 Act ii, sc. ii, ll. 1 ff.

19 Act i, sc. iii, ll. 425–428.

20 Act i, sc. iii, ll. 433–434.

21 Act ii, sc. ii, ll. 233–235.

22 See Joseph Wright, New English Dialect Dictionary (Oxford, 1905), v, 60, for the statement that “so-and-so” is used, especially in speaking of health as “nothing to boast of, middling,” and that in certain localities it means “pregnant.” This latter meaning of “so-and-so” and of “so-so” is confirmed by various dialectal glossaries: in Gloucestershire, J. O. Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (London, 1889), ii, 768; the Vale of Gloucester and the Hundreds of Berkeley, J. Drummond Robertson, A Glossary of Dialectal and Archaic Words Used in the County of Gloucester, E. D. S. (London, 1890), p. 145; in Gloucestershire and elsewhere, Jesse Salisbury, A Glossary of Words Used in S. E. Worcestershire, E. D. S. (London, 1894–96). In the district of Holderness in the East Riding of Yorkshire, “so-so” is “generally used in reference to health” and means “unwell,” Glossaries of Words Used in Mid-Yorkshire and Holderness, E. D. S. (London, 1876–77), p. 133, illustrated by “She's nobbot so-so.”

In the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1919) “so-so” is defined as “somewhat amiss, indifferently, well, mediocre, of middling quality; neither very good nor very bad.” For passages in Shakespeare indicating that “so-so” had in the sixteenth century the same general meaning, see Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, ii, 13–14; As You Like It, iii, v. 119, and v, i, 28.

23 A paper called “Advices from Scotland,” now preserved in the State Papers Office and dated June, 1590, is summarized in the Cal. of State Papers Rel. to Scotland (ed. by Thorpe), ii, 576, as follows: “The Convention to take place on the 7th; nobles expected. Ships in readiness for Spain, Spaniards in France. A reputed intention of Lord Home to have captured the King. The Queen with child. Spanish vessels at Bordeaux.”

24 Ibid., p. 577, Worcester to Burghley, June 15, 1590. See also Tytler, v. 9, p. 54.

25 Fleay, F. G., op. cit., i, 265. Collins states (op. cit., p. 79): “Mr. Fleay is of opinion that it was produced in 1590 because it bears the motto Omne tulit punctum, which Greene affected from August, 1589, to October, 1590; but as the play appeared nearly two years after his death the insertion of the motto may have been due to the publisher.”

26 “Political Propaganda and Satire in A Midsummer Night's Dream,” Mod. Phil., xxi, 53–87; 133–154.

27 Tytler, ix, 59 ff.

28 Rickert, loc. cit., extract from a letter written to Burghley, Apr. 15, 1598, by an English agent; cited by Miss Rickert from Cal. of State Papers, ii, 749. Miss Rickert refers also to the incident of an English company of actors' being called to account for “checking” the king “with secret and indirect taunts and checks,” Reg. of Privy Council of Scot. (1599–1604), pp. 39 ff; Calderwood, Hist. of the Kirk of Scot. v, 765–767; and Cal. of St. Papers Relating to Scot., ii, 777 ff. For further proof that James was jeered at upon the stage before his accession to the English throne Miss Rickert cites Dorothea Townshend's Life and Letters of the Great Earl of Cork (1904), pp. 34 ff.

29 Tytler, ix, pp. 25–26, referring to MS. Letters, St. P. Off., Fowler to Walsingham, Dec. 18, 1588, and Dec. 29, 1588.

30 Loc. cit.—Miss Rickert quotes from a letter written by James to Guise in 1583 in which he mentions “my virtues and rare qualities.” On the margin Philip II wrote, “He is quite ready to confess them himself” (Cal. S. P. Span. 1580–87), p. 502. She refers also to a letter in 1584 from Fontenay, the French ambassador to Scotland, to Mary Stuart in which he wrote her son had a good opinion of himself. (Cal. Salisbury MSS., iii, 60.)

31 Act ii, ii, 256, St. Andrews to Dorothea.

32 Induction, ll. 51–52.

33 Act v, sc. vi, 584–589.

34 Act i, sc. i, 186–187.

35 Ibid., cites Phoenix Britannicus, i, 323.

36 I am indebted to Professor Robert A. Law, of the University of Texas, for the suggestion as to the significance of the Bohan incident.

37 For discussion of James' timidity, see Fowler's description and note 29. Miss Rickert refers to Cal. S. P. Span. (1587–1603); Hist. Works of James Balfour, 1824, ii, 114; Weldon, Court and Character of King James (1650), p. 178; Sully, Memoires (1814), iii, 218; Scott, Secret Hist. of the Court of James I (1811), i, 152, 174.

38 MS. Letter, St. P. Off. —— to Walsingham, Jan. 1, 1587/8. MS. Letter St. P. Off., B. C. Hunsdon to Burghley, March, 1588. Cited in Tytler, ix, 21 ff.

39 Induction, ll. 21–33.

40 Athenaeum, Oct. 8, 1881.

41 Op. cit., pp. 80 ff. Since I have not read Cinthio's novel itself, I have relied upon Collins's detailed summary of the plot.

42 Ibid., p. 84.

43 Act ii, sc. ii, ll. 330 ff.

44 See Tytler, ix, 415, Elizabeth to James, March 16, 1589: “I am driven to complain to yourself of yourself, wondering not a little what injurious planet against my nearest neighbors reigneth with such blindness. … Let too late examples show you for pattern how dishonorable it is to prolong to do by right that (which) afterward they are driven to do by extremity. … If my love were not greater than my cause, as you treat it, I should content myself to see them wrecked with dishonor that condemn all loving warning and sister-life counsel; when they [the Spaniards] get footing, they will suffer few feet but their own. Awake, therefore, dear Brother, out of your long slumber and deal like a king who will ever reign alone in his own.”

Letters of Elizabeth to James (Camden Society), p. 60, May, 1590: “I hope you will not be careless of such practices as hath passed from any of yours without your commission, specially such attempts as might ruin your realm and danger you. … If I see all admonition so vain, I will hereafter wish all well, but counsel no more.”

Ibid., p. 69, Elizabeth to James, January, 1591–2, “I know not what to write, so little do I like to lose labor in vain, for if I saw counsel avail, or ought pursued in due time or season, I should think my time fortunately spent to make you reap the due fruit of right opportunity; but I see you have no look to help your state nor to assure you from treason's leisure. … Well, I will pray for you, that God will unseal your eyes, that too long have been shut.”

45 Act ii, sc. ii, ll. 341 ff.

46 Act v, sc. vi, ll. 564–566.

47 See Agnes Strickland, Queens of Scotland, i, 58 (Edinburgh and London, 1850), “Epithalamium” in honor of Margaret's coming to Scotland: William Dunbar, Poems, edited by Laing (Edinburgh, 1834), i, 8, “The Thrissill and the Rois”; David Lyndsay, Works of David Lyndsay, “The Testament of the Papyngo,” E.E.T.S., v. 18–21, p. 240; John Higginson, Mirrour for Magistrates (1587), “Bataile of Flodden Field;” and Gawain Douglas, Works (Edinburgh, 1874), “Palace of Honour,” i, 10.

Not too much emphasis can be placed upon the character of Dorothea, however for she follows closely the figure of Arrenopia as depicted by Cinthio. She is, furthermore, a typical Greene heroine and bears the name of his wife, whom he is reputed to have considered, in spite of his desertion of her, as the highest type of womanhood.

48 Loc. cit., p. 465.