Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592

by Arthur Acheson

Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry.

The natural sequel to the conditions so plainly indicated in the passages quoted from the lately revised Love's Labour's Lost, regarding Jaquenetta and Armado, and from the recently written Henry IV. in reference to Doll Tearsheet and Falstaff, is reported in due time in a postscript to a letter written by Elizabeth Vernon, now Lady Southampton, on 8th July 1599, to her husband, who was in Ireland with Essex. She writes from Chartley:

"All the nues I can send you that I thinke will make you mery is that I reade in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaff is by his Mistress Dame Pintpot made father of a godly millers thum a boye thats all heade and very litel body: but this is a secret."

Here we have record that Shakespeare's patron, and his patron's wife, knew that Falstaff had a living prototype who was numbered among their acquaintances. That the birth of this child was not in wedlock is suggested by the concluding words of the Countess's letter "but this is a secret."

The identification of Florio as the original caricatured as Parolles and Falstaff has never been anticipated, though some critics have noticed the basic resemblances between these two characters of Shakespeare's. Parolles has been called by Schlegel, "the little appendix to the great Falstaff."

A few slight links in the names of characters have led some commentators to date a revision of All's Well that Ends Well at about the same time as that of the composition of Measure for Measure and Hamlet. While the links of subjective evidence I have adduced for one revision in, or about, the autumn of 1598, and at the same period as that of the composition of the Second Part of Henry IV., of the final revision of Love's Labour's Lost, and shortly after the production of Troilus and Cressida, in 1598, are fairly conclusive, a consideration of the characterisation of Falstaff in the First Part of Henry IV. and of the evidence usually advanced for the date of the composition of this play will elucidate this idea.

The First Part of Henry IV. in its present form belongs to a period shortly preceding the date of its entry in the Stationers' Registers, in February 1598. I am convinced that it was published at this time with Shakespeare's cognizance, and that he revised it with this intention in mind. All inference and evidence assign the composition of the Second Part of Henry IV. to some part of the year 1598. It is unlikely, however, that it was included in Meres' mention of Henry IV. in his Palladis Tamia, which was entered on the Stationers' Registers in September of that year. If the link between Doll Tearsheet's condition and the similar affair reported in Lady Southampton's letter in July 1599 be connected in intention with the same conditions reflected in the case of Armado and Jaquenetta, its date of production is palpably indicated, as is also the final revision of Love's Labour's Lost in about December 1598. Both of these plays were probably presented—the Second Part of Henry IV. for the first time, and Love's Labour's Lost for the first time in its final form—for the Christmas festivities at Court, in 1598. While the Quarto of Love's Labours Lost is dated as published in 1598, there is no record of its intended publication in the Stationers' Registers. It must be remembered, however, that all publications issued previous to the 25th of March 1599 would be dated 1598.

A comparison of the two parts of Henry IV. under the metrical test, while clearly showing Part I. as an earlier composition, yet approximates their dates so closely in time as to suggest a comparatively recent and thorough revision of the earlier portion of the play in 1597 or 1598. It is plain, however, that Shakespeare's Henry IV., Part I., held the boards in some form for several years before this date. The numerous contemporary references, under the name of Sir John Oldcastle, to the character now known as Falstaff, evidences on the part of the public such a settled familiarity with this same character, under the old name, as to suggest frequent presentations of Shakespeare's play in the earlier form. The Oldcastle of The Famous Victories of Henry V. has no connection whatever with the characterisation of Falstaff.

Though the metrical evidences of so early a date are now obscured by the drastic revision of the autumn of 1597, or spring of 1598, I am of the opinion that Henry IV., Part I., as it was originally written, belongs to a period antedating the publication of Willobie his Avisa in 1594, and that it was composed late in 1593, or early in 1594. I am led to this conclusion by the underlying thread of subjective evidence linking the plays of this period with the affairs of Southampton and his connections. It is unlikely that Shakespeare would introduce that "sweet wench" my "Young Mistress of the Tavern" into a play after the publication of the scandal intended by Roydon in 1594, and probable that he altered the characterisation of the hostess to the old and widowed Mistress Quickly in the Second Part of Henry IV. for this reason.