The Late Mr Shakespeare

Chapter Ninety-Eight The day Shakespeare died (with his last words, etc.)

Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.

Who killed Cock Shakespeare?

I, said Ben Jonson, with slow-acting poison ...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, what if his great rival did murder him? It is a possibility I have considered. Some slow-acting poison (fly-agaric, say, or colocynth) could have been slipped into Shakespeare's cup by the bricklayer's hand at that merry meeting. (Slow acting would suit Mr Jonson right down to the ground.) Of course we shall never know now if this is what happened. But I wouldn't put such a stroke past the author of Sejanus. The fellow was when all is said and done a proven assassin. In fact old upright Alleyn always called him so. Bricklayer and assassin, I mean, rather than poet and playwright. With reference to Jonson's early trade as a builder's labourer, and then to his killing that actor Gabriel Spencer with a long foil. And Alleyn, note, was a sober man, and a pious, a man in the habit of writing JESUS at the top of each page of his account books at the playhouse.

But perhaps William Shakespeare died of a broken heart? That Quiney business must have got him down. I mean the discovery that his son-in-law had knocked up another woman while engaged to marry Judith. It might not break your heart, but it would make you dispirited and sick. And then you might drink too much, not long after the wedding, and with the funeral of your sister's husband* to remind you of your own mortality, face to face with despair that your daughter was now married to a scoundrel, and if you had no brains or guts for drinking it could make you sick to death.

The poet's health had not been of the best for some time. He could not eat but little meat; his stomach was not good. He had this lump I noticed, by his left eyelid. It came up after he pricked his eyeball on the thorn of a sick rose. This might have been the true cause of his death. It is just the sort of accident that people do die of. After all, as he had me say as Rosalind, men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

For love or not, the death of William Shakespeare took place in another cruel and rainy April, on another St George's Day, 23rd April 1616. So if the poet was really born on that day, I think we should applaud him for his neatness. Unfortunately the only other notable I can think of who performed this feat of dying on his own birthday was the late and unlamented Oliver Cromwell. The coincidence is worth remark. It provides your humble servant with an opportunity to say that Cromwell and Shakespeare had nothing else in common.

Forgive me, reader, but I suppose we have to consider the vulgar matter of Mr S's last words. What were they? Some say that he said, 'I have had enough.' Others again report that he called out 'More light!' - at which the casement window was opened for him, only for those in attendance at his death-bed to realise that their beloved Will was speaking of spiritual illumination. Then there are those who claim that the poet's last words were those of his own Hamlet: 'The rest is silence.' This last, in my opinion, is less than likely. WS was not much in the habit of quoting his own works, and I feel sure that a man of such fluency would have found new words for what was after all a unique occasion. On the other hand, there are those who assert that the Bard's eloquence deserted him at the end, and that with his final breath what he really said was a laconic, 'Now what?'

One strange report has it that as Shakespeare lay dying he kept shouting 'Reynolds! Reynolds!' all through the night. I cannot say I would care to believe this either. But others more credibly claim that his final earthly utterance was a whispered, 'Lord, help my poor soul!' This, I think, is my favourite from amongst his reputed Last Words. Though, at the other extreme, there is something to commend Mrs Shakespeare's claim that on returning from his 'merry meeting' her husband declared: 'I've had eighteen straight brandy-wines. I think that's the record!' (Those who credit this would also say that WS thus died of 'an insult to the brain'.) After this boast, Mrs Shakespeare said, she cradled her husband's head in her arms, and he said, 'I love you, but I am alone.' Too touching, perhaps, to be true.

Then again, some lovers of taciturnity claim that at the end William Shakespeare said nothing at all, but just smiled.

I say I hope the man laughed.

Anyway, it is not true that he called out for two meat pies as he lay dying.

Reader, he died a Papist. Nor should this surprise you. It was the faith of his mother and his father, and who could deny that you find in the plays what I would call a catholicity of images? That is to say, it is a catholic view of things which WS most readily employs and inhabits in his works, a habit of thinking through images, and while there are no strong personal expressions of belief there, and indeed there is as I have said a cast of mind at work in them which is neither Protestant nor Papist, it should not surprise us that at the end the poet chose to return to his own beginnings.

Mary Arden was always an adherent of the old faith, though she made no fuss about it, and drew no attention to herself by recusancy. As for John Shakespeare, I have heard that he once prepared and signed a Papist last will and testament of the spiritual kind - but I never saw a copy of this, I admit. Such documents were brought into England in the last century by Jesuit missionaries. They consisted of a simple declaration of orthodox faith, in fourteen articles, following the model composed by St Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan.

The testator would declare, principally, as follows:

I am myself an unworthy member of the holy Catholic religion;

I crave the sacrament of extreme unction;

I ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to be my chief executrix;

I accept my death however it befalls me, bequeathing my soul to be entombed in the sweet and amorous coffin of the side of Jesus Christ;

I beg that this present writing of protestation be buried with me;

And I beseech all those who love me to succour me after my death by celebrating Mass.

I never heard it claimed that William Shakespeare signed such a document himself, nor do I suppose for a minute that one now lies buried with him in Holy Trinity Church. As I say, I simply heard it claimed that his father John Shakespeare had signed one. And that the old sinner's notorious failure to attend at Anglican celebrations of the Eucharist may not always have been for fear of having writs for debt served on him.

As regards WS: I do not claim that the mystery of his religious thought can ever be sounded. Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly. I ask the reader only to notice that the language which he gives to his ecclesiastics, from the haughty Bishop of Carlisle to the humble Franciscan friars, Laurence, Patrick, and their brothers, shows that the Roman doctrine, its liturgy and dogmas, were familiar to him, indicating that his youthful days had been passed among those who remained faithful to the ancient church. Measure for Measure is the key play here. It seems to me the work of a lapsed Catholic who is intimating that one day he may return to the church against his will. But perhaps I go too far in saying this. My point is just to remark that it was common knowledge in Stratford that the late Mr Shakespeare died a Papist, and that in this he was not so much converted as reconciled to the religion of his ancestors.

Unknown friends, let us put our religious cards on the table. My name is Robert Reynolds, called Pickleherring. I am by birth a Papist, by life abused, by copulation disappointed. Does this surprise you, sir? (I knew it would not surprise you, madam, bless you.) I think I have made no secret of my own birthright, right from the start. My being a Papist myself is why I have denigrated all fellow Papists throughout this black book. We deserve to be denigrated, reader, for Jesus Christ's sake. And when for example I said that about Nicholas Breakspear being the only Englishman who had sunk so low as to be made Pope, why, I was speaking of his noblest and proudest title, and the most true - that the Pope is the servant of the servants of God. Think about it, will you, when you have a moment?

For this comedian, your humble servant, I do not think my view of God is small. And when my own end comes I hope to pray with all the means that God has let me have. I pray on my feet, sir. A man may pray on his feet, on his knees, on his back, on his head, with his mouth, and with his bones (if they should come to hand, madam). There is no rule on how to talk to God.

Your humble servant - this useful civility and self-definition came first into England with Queen Mary, daughter of Henry IV of France, wife of King Charles I. The usual salutation before that time was 'God keep you!' or 'God be with you!' and, among the vulgar, 'How dost thou?' accompanied by a hearty thump across the shoulders.

Reader, I am your humble servant, but I still prefer old ways, so God be with you!

When William Shakespeare was dead his body was disembowelled and then embalmed for display. All that was mortal of him lay in state at New Place for two days and nights in a simple oak coffin of the English sort, that tapers from the middle like a fiddle.

I have my Aeolian harp hung up in the window. It plays fierce music with the wind of the great fire. The smoke of that fire lies over the city like a fog. There is darkness at noon. Many have already perished, consumed in the flames, or crushed by the falling buildings. The river is crowded with boats where others flee away. Even the people who live on London Bridge are fleeing away. The houses there are old and as dry as any tinder. If the wind should switch round to the north, then the flames will be blown across the Bridge and we are all done for. The fire will cross the river and that will be that.

I can feel the heat of the flames as I sit here and write by my window of the death of William Shakespeare.

* William Hart the hatter was buried eight days before WS.