Shakespeare and the Cobham Controversy: The Oldcastle/Falstaff and Brooke/Broome Revisions
James M. Gibson · Medieval & Renaissance drama in England · 2012
The Way Forward FEW questions about Shakespeare have evoked as much speculation with as little regard for historical, textual, and bibliographical as relationship between revisions and allusions in 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and The Merry Wives of Windsor and William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham and Henry Brooke, 11th Lord Cobham. (1) That Falstaff was originally named Sir John Oldcastle and that Shakespeare changed name of Oldcastle to Falstaff in 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV and name of Brooke to Broome in The Merry Wives of Windsor, leaving behind trail of ruined puns, fractured metre, and missed speech prefixes, has been well and ably documented. (2) There is little disagreement here. However, questions of precisely why Shakespeare used original names, who objected to their use, when changes occurred, and who required Shakespeare to make them have provided fertile ground for speculation. The numerous conflicting theories proposed to answer these questions, often dealing with only part or even none of evidence, have resulted in critical maze of blind alleys and erroneous routes, leaving one recent scholar to lament, after surveying seventeenth-century references and allusions to controversy, Seldom can dramatist's indiscretion have provoked such long-lived concern. is tantalizing to hear these reverberations but to know so little of what really happened, and who made noise, and when, and what exactly Shakespeare did, and why flurry lasted so long in memory. (3) Any explanation even remotely close to what actually happened must be able to account for all known with simplicity, with clear regard for political realities of Elizabethan court in late 1590s, and with as little reliance as possible on speculation or coincidence. Although parts of road have been cleared of obstructive scholarly traditions and although accurate signposts have been erected in other parts, no one roadmap has yet charted most direct way through dense critical forest, thick undergrowth, and overgrown footpaths of Cobham controversy and Oldcastle/Falstaff and Brooke/Broome revisions. (4) Before setting out on that route, however, we must firmly reject two initially alluring, but inevitably dead end, alternative paths. Cobham Enemy of Players Early twentieth-century commentators found reason for controversy in William Brooke's alleged anti-theatrical Puritanism. In 1923, for example, E. K. Chambers stated, the balance of parties on Privy Council was seriously disturbed death of Henry Lord Hunsdon, who had been Lord Chamberlain since 1585. His successor, Lord Cobham, was less favourable to (5) In 1931, Leslie Hotson added, Hunsdon's successor as Lord Chamberlain, William Brooke, Lord Cobham, did not look with favour on players. They reciprocated his dislike (6)--an assertion repeated Hotson in 1949 with even greater certainty: It is well known that he [Cobham] did not like players. That they reciprocated in kind seems indicated Shakespeare's choice of name Oldcastle for fat buffoon later changed to Falstaff. (7) In 1945, John Dover Wilson described William Brooke as a man puritanically inclined and inimical to theatre. (8) Even as late as 1960s A. R. Humphreys (9) and David Bevington (10) continued to make this claim about Cobham as self-evident proposition. The only evidence ever advanced to support claim is letter from Thomas Nashe to William Cotton commenting on events of July and August 1596. On July 22 Privy Council had prohibited playing in London, because by drawing of muche people together increase of sicknes is feared. (11) On following day Henry Carey, Lord Chamberlain and patron of Lord Chamberlain's Men, died and was buried in Westminster Abbey on August 12. On August 8 William Brooke, 10th lord Cobham, was appointed Lord Chamberlain in his place. …