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Not Just the Tudors
Shakespeare's Male Muse: A Mystery Solved?
00:44:45
Could a long-hidden miniature painting unlock the mystery of Shakespeare’s most intimate poetry?
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- [00:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit with a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own recent two part series A World Torn, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward/subscribe.
- [00:32]
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- [02:30]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Today I'm thrilled to share with you a new discovery that could revolutionize our understanding of Shakespeare's most intimate poetry and the dangerous liaisons of the Elizabethan court. Hidden away in a private collection, a small oval portrait has been keeping its secrets for more than four centuries. A beautiful, androgynous youth stares out with piercing blue eyes, auburn ringlets cascading over delicate shoulders, hands caressing their own hair in a gesture so intimate it takes your breath away. The figure wears jeweled bracelets and a single pearl earring, deliberately blurring the line between masculine and feminine in a way that would have set court tongues wagging. This is no ordinary portrait. It is not only likely the work of the greatest portrait painter of the Elizabethan age, but this stunning young person depicted with such tender intimacy may be none other than the beautiful courtier who just may have been the mysterious Mr. W.H. to whom Shakespeare's sonnets were dedicated. Indeed, could this be the very master mistress of Shakespeare's 20th sonnet, his most homoerotic poem? The miniature also cryptically reveals in the symbols of playing cards a story of broken hearts and betrayed intimacy. Why has someone deliberately painted over a red heart with a black spade? Was the portrait a gift to a secret lover? Was it returned in anger? Dare we imagine that this spade is not a spade at all, but a spear, Shakespeare's own device? Joining me today are two brilliant art historians, the two brilliant scholars who made this extraordinary discovery. Dr. Elizabeth Goldring, Renaissance scholar at the University of Warwick, and Emma Rutherford, one of the world's leading experts on portrait miniatures. I've spoken to them together before on not just the Tudors, in an episode called A Tudor Mystery, the Girl who Could Be Queen, in which they revealed their amazing discovery of a portrait of Arbella Stewart that is well worth revisiting. But today, we're going to be talking about how they've now unravelled a mystery that connects the dangerous world of Elizabethan court politics with the most intimate chambers of the human heart. It's a story of beauty and desire, of art and politics, and of secrets hidden in plain sight for more than 400 years. The evidence is extraordinary, the implications are scandalous, and the story is absolutely captivating. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and this is not just the Tutors From History hit. Well, Elizabeth and Emma, you seem to have done it again. The pair of you are an absolute powerhouse. Where did you come across this wonderful portrait miniature?
- [06:10]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Well, I received an email out of the blue about a year ago from someone who had read my biography of Hilliard and whilst having a clear out, had stumbled across this miniature and wrote to me, sent a photo and asked if I thought it could possibly be by Hilliard. And obviously I was pretty excited to receive that email. Since my book came out, I have regularly received emails from people who have discovered all sorts of things in the attic or under the bed, but quite often they're not Hilliards. But this, I could tell from the photo was going to be something special. And given the wonderful working relationship Emma and I have had, I got Emma involved straight away. And for the last year or so we have been researching it and having the most wonderful journey of discovery. And it has taken us places that I don't think either of us ever would have dared to dream. But it really is a fabulous work of art and one that potentially has extraordinary implications for all sorts of things. Elizabethan literature, Hilliard's career. It really is an amazing object.
- [07:17]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I love the idea that someone found this on a clear out. I mean, I find cobwebs and broken Christmas ornaments, but they found an Elizabethan miniature.
- [07:27]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
I know. I wish I would stumble across something like this the next time I'm having to clear out, but I think that is the amazing thing about miniatures, because they are so small. Unlike an oil painting that hangs on the wall and possibly doesn't move for many, many years, miniatures can get tucked away in drawers or cupboards or what have you, and can be forgotten about.
- [07:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes, I suppose that's true because they're so small. So you've given us a bit of a clue there. Do you think this really is the work of Nicholas Hilliard? And what makes you certain that this could be this extraordinary portrait artist of the Elizabethan age?
- [08:08]
Emma Rutherford
We're in no doubt that this is by Hilliard. As soon as we started work on it, we involved Alan Derbyshire, who's also been on your podcast before, who is one of the world's leading conservators of portrait miniatures and has a very, very good knowledge of Nicholas Hilliard's techniques. So we took it along to him and got it under the microscope and out of the frame, and he was able to confirm absolutely 100% this was Hilliard's work. But who else is there at this point in the early 1590s who could paint something like this? It's Hilliard.
- [08:44]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I mean, what's the sort of thing that gives it away for the, you know, non experts listening to this? I include myself, of course.
- [08:52]
Emma Rutherford
Well, Hilliard really did have a very specific technique and this miniature has a lot of Things that are classic signature Hilliard. So at this point, he was just introducing a new background to his miniatures, which is this folded velvet curtain where he uses this wet and wet technique to put very, very wet red paint onto the background instead of the brilliant blue that we associate with his miniatures. And then he uses a dry brush to drag through that wet paint to create folds in the velvet. His lace work is incredibly three dimensional. In raking light, it looks like a doily. I mean, it really is extraordinary. And that was present on this miniature. His use of gold paint and just the way that the features are constructed, every stroke on that miniature is signature Hilliard.
- [09:43]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's extraordinary. So tell me about the image. Who and what do we see in the portrait?
- [09:50]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Well, as you mentioned in your introduction, it's a very attractive youth with long auburn ringlets, blue eyes, wide set eyes, fair skin. The sitter is depicted in head and shoulders. Looking very directly at the viewer. The sitter clasps a lock of hair to the breast or chest in what I think would clearly have been understood as an erotic gesture by Elizabethan viewers. Miniatures, of course, by definition, are very private, very personal images, but I think this one is especially so. It really has, to me, at least, the look and feel of an image that possibly was designed to be seen by one person only, really for one person's eyes only. It really does feel like a love token, something very personal exchange between two people and not necessarily intended ever to be seen by anyone else. I don't know if it struck you that way as well, Emma.
- [10:50]
Emma Rutherford
Yeah, absolutely. One of the most amazing things about this miniature is the way the sitter is presenting themselves. I never would have imagined I would be looking at a miniature where I wouldn't initially be able to tell the gender from the Elizabethan period. You know, it's not something that one comes across. And we don't know of any other miniatures really, where androgyny is conveyed to this extent. And of course, that makes you think, because miniatures are always given away, there's always a recipient for a miniature. They're very rarely painted for the person themselves who's represented. You start to think, well, this should be made for a wife or a fiance or a female lover. So this person who's presenting themselves as very androgynous, who is this for? And of course, we consulted a lot of costume historians to try to work out the gender. But it is extraordinary how it just stopped us in our tracks to not be able to tell the gender just seems absolutely extraordinary. It's such A basic thing, because normally.
- [11:51]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Masculine and feminine in Elizabethan society were very clearly delineated, very clearly marked, weren't they?
- [11:59]
Emma Rutherford
Yes, absolutely. And particularly in miniatures, which we usually commissioned at the time of a betrothal, because you are presenting yourself as a future husband or wife, so. Yes, absolutely.
- [12:10]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what does this reveal to us, then, about ideas of gender and masculine and feminine in the period?
- [12:17]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
With this miniature, there is a real sense of role playing. And to a certain extent, all portraits are about roleplay and the sitter performing a particular role. But I think this is an extreme example of that phenomenon. I think it's difficult to look at it and not get the sense that the sitter is playing with boundaries, is sort of pushing the boundaries of what the conventions of the time were and performing some sort of role for the eyes of the intended recipient.
- [12:50]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes, because as you've said there and before, this is intended really for an audience of one. Because, I mean, the question I want to ask you is, how would people of the time have read this? Would they have read it as beautiful or transgressive or both? But actually, I suppose the real question is, how would the intended audience have read it?
- [13:11]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Yes, I think that's right. It is very unusual in that respect. I mean, most miniatures weren't intended to be seen by huge numbers of people and wouldn't have been seen by huge numbers of people. But this is an unusual example of one that really is intended for, at least initially, for an audience of one, which puts it in a special category for all sorts of reasons.
- [13:32]
Emma Rutherford
And you have that gesture that we've mentioned of the hand. If you look at that hand going through the hair, the way it's caressing the hair, which is sort of gathered in the elbow, there's something so sensual about that. And that's absolutely deliberate. You know, this is, as Elizabeth has said, this is a miniature with erotic connotations.
- [13:53]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And held to the breast as well, that hair.
- [13:55]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Emma, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the earliest extant example that we have of a Hilliard sitter adopting that pose. It becomes something that crops up a bit more frequently in the early 17th century in other Hilliard miniatures and also in miniatures by Hilliard's most celebrated pupil, Isaac Oliver. But I think at the time that this was painted in the early 1590s, quite possibly Hilliard had not portrayed a sitter adopting this pose. And it would have been something revolutionary, I think, and probably. Well, just stunningly new and novel, as well as being highly erotic. Yeah, absolutely.
- [14:38]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And what about the mysterious use of playing card imagery. What does that mean? And, you know, what does the heart signify? What makes you think it was deliberately obliterated?
- [14:50]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Well, just in case anyone doesn't, it might be worth just reminding everyone that it was standard practice for Hilliard and other miniaturists of the period who were painting watercolours on vellum to affix the vellum to an ordinary playing card just to create basically a stiff enough work surface on which to paint. And there is some scholarly debate as to whether or not Hilliard's choice of card was. Was significant. Well, was it a choice or was. Did he just grab whatever happened to be to hand, or did he, for example, use hearts for the backs of miniatures intended as love tokens? I think there's debate about that, but certainly there is a school of thought that would say that he deliberately chose hearts for images intended as love tokens. This miniature was originally painted with a heart card on the back. What we discovered when we were in Alan Darbyshire's studio, the scene that Emma vividly evoked at the beginning of our chat, what we discovered, to our absolute amazement when the miniature came out of the frame and out of its protective gloss, was that the heart on the reverse had been painted over at some point in black with a spade, what appears to be a spade, maybe a spear. And this was something none of us had come across before. Not Emma, not me, not Alan. And collectively we've looked at quite a few miniatures. So it really was a memorable moment in the studio, I think it's fair to say.
- [16:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And what do you think it means?
- [16:27]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Apparently, Alan tells us there's no way to determine at what point in the miniature's history it was painted over or by whom. So we are verging into speculation here. But somebody obviously went to a lot of effort to deface the back of the miniature. And I think it's hard not to look at that and read it as you've broken my heart, someone's gone to the trouble to obliterate that heart and paint it over. But of course, that is pure speculation. I mean, Emma, you may have more to add.
- [17:01]
Emma Rutherford
Well, as you were saying, this is just something we've never seen before. I mean, because playing cards are sort of repurposed for miniaturists use at this period, you very occasionally get a suit changed from red to black. So someone's colored in the red as black, but that's coloring in this felt like an act of vandalism, really. And clearly there is some age There, the ink is a little bit rubbed so you can still see that heart underneath if you look closely. But as Elizabeth says, we'll never be able to know exactly when this was done. But why would somebody do this where they weren't connected to the sitter? And why would somebody do this in more recent times? That wouldn't really make any sense. There's no reason for that. And so if it is somebody whose heart has been broken by the sitter and they have forced it out of a gold locket that it would have been presented in and got to the back and vandalized it in this way, it felt a little bit like when you break up with a boyfriend and you send them back their jumpers and the letters and the. You know, it felt like quite a passionate act. And I think if your listeners can see the image, you can see how passionately that heart has been blacked out.
- [18:16]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Getting miniatures out of their frames or locket settings isn't straightforward. I mean, someone clearly was pretty determined to spoil the back of the miniature. And as Emma says, you get a real sense through time and through the centuries when you turn the miniature over in your hand and see this reverse of someone had a very passionate reaction, had a very strong violent reaction to something which we can only speculate about. But it's just utterly fascinating and, you know, unprecedented amongst other miniatures of the period that we've looked at.
- [18:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes, and I'm struck by the fact that this spade or spear has a very sharp point. There's something quite violent and ruthless about it. So let's talk about the sitter, then. We've talked about the painter. It's extraordinary. You've discovered another miniature by Hilliard. But this is not the end of the discoveries. So the second reveal is the subject of the portrait. Who do you think the mysterious sitter is? Tell us about them.
- [19:22]
Emma Rutherford
Well, for many, many reasons, which I think we'll go into, we think this is the third Earl of Southampton. There are other miniatures or another miniature of Southampton by Hilliard, dating to 1594, which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum. And he was vain enough to have many, many portraits painted of himself. So we know what he looked like. And I think Elizabeth has discovered other reasons why we think it's Southampton.
- [19:51]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Well, in addition to the visual evidence of the many, many accepted surviving portraits of Southampton, there's a fair bit of documentary and literary evidence that helps to flesh out our sense of what he looked like in the 1590s. So we know, for example, from the eyewitness account of Queen Elizabeth's 1592 Summer Progress Visit to Oxford, where Southampton was one of the young men who greeted her. That as of the summer of 1592, he did not yet have any facial hair. I think the quote, the actual quote is something about not yet having down on his face. And so lots of written clues like that pieced together with the surviving body of visual evidence in the form of accepted portrait, long accepted portraits of Southampton. It's all consistent with what we're looking at in this newly discovered miniature. There's certainly no down on the cheeks of this sitter. And hence we think that this is a depiction of the 3rd Earl of Southampton in the early 1590s, at some point before his 21st birthday, which seems to be the occasion celebrated and marked by the 1594 miniature in the Fitzwilliam Museum that Emma mentioned a moment ago, which is also by Hilliard.
- [21:11]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And it's interesting, given that we've been talking about the gender presentation of the sitter. If this is Southampton and he is young and that's identified by his lack of facial hair. I remember talking to Sir Nor Malcolm about his work on sodomy in early modern Europe and how that boys up until the age of 21, which is how they were thought of, were almost regarded as a separate gender category. And the line absolutely was whether they were able to grow a beard or not, which happened much later than it does today. So tell me about Southampton. What's his reputation? What's his behavior? Who is he? What's he like?
- [21:55]
Emma Rutherford
Well, yeah, we have a lot of documentary evidence about Southampton and his personality and his looks. We know he was very vain. Elizabeth very early on found a wonderful quote about him getting into a scuffle at court and the delight of onlookers when some of his luxurious long hair was pulled out in this brawl. So we know a fair bit about him. We know that he had thought to have had male lovers around this. We know that he refused to marry his guardian, who's Burghley's choice of Bride in 1590, for which he incurred a fine. So there's a lot of speculation about his sexuality and how that's reflected in the way he chose to present himself at court.
- [22:39]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And his hair was unusually long for the period, wasn't it? And famously so, as you've just indicated.
- [22:45]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Absolutely. And he was known, it's clear from written sources, he was known for his vanity, for the pride he took in his looks. The very first literary work dedicated to him, and there were many was a retelling of the myth of Narcissus, who obviously falls in love with his own image. And this is just one of many literary references that point to Southampton. Clearly having had a reputation for being rather vain, he was also much admired for his beauty. Many contemporary writers in the early 1590s comment on just how astonishingly beautiful, how lovely he was.
- [23:24]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And the pierced ear. That's sufficiently unusual to have been an indicator as well, isn't it?
- [23:29]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Well, earrings take off at the English court in the 1570s, and certainly some men did have a pierced ear. It would have been unusual for a man at the Elizabethan court to have had both ears pierced. And men who had a pierced ear did attract some criticism from some puritans like Philip Stubbs took a pretty dim view of men wearing baubles. But you do see from lots of portraits, miniatures as well as oil paintings and great from the 1580s and 1590s and later, gentlemen wearing typically having one pierced ear, typically with a fairly simple pendant pearl drop.
- [24:10]
Emma Rutherford
But the bracelets that he's wearing, although we know of other royal portraits of men wearing bracelets, these are pearl bracelets. And the dots on them that would have been silver highlights, which have now tarnished and gone black. But we couldn't find another example of a man wearing pearl bracelets. And then the black silk cord around this sitter's neck is also we can't find any other examples of a man wearing this black silk cord that was typically something that women wore. And on the end of that black silk cord, quite typically tucked into the bodice, would have been a portrait miniature. So sometimes miniatures were painted with a sitter wearing this black silk cord, knowing that the recipient's miniature was the one tucked into there their bodice. But those two pieces of jewelry are much more in the feminine camp than anything that we can find in portraits of men of this period.
- [25:13]
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- [25:56]
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- [26:35]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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- [27:10]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
You've also discovered a trail. When it comes to provenance, you've got quite an extraordinary chain of ownership that links the portrait back to Southampton himself, haven't you? Tell me about that.
- [27:20]
Emma Rutherford
We can't say too much about the provenance because the family wished to remain anonymous and private. But of course we don't just go on facial features and somebody looks a bit like somebody else. Provenance plays a major, major part in identification of a sitter, and we were lucky in this case to be able to see that the provenance of this miniature did indeed connect with the Southampton family.
- [27:45]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Just a miniature somehow returning to the sitter? Yes.
- [27:49]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So in what circumstance would that happen? Isn't that unusual for a portrait like this to be returned to a sitter's possession?
- [27:59]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Yes. And yet it is consistent, it seems to us, with the unusual marking on the back. Again, we can't say definitively at what point the heart was painted over, but the idea of someone in anger purposely besmirching the back of the miniature would seem to be consistent with it being returned in a fit of pique, in anger with a broken heart. What have you to Southampton, who had obviously been the sitter and the person who had gifted it to whoever it was gifted to in the first instance.
- [28:38]
Emma Rutherford
And miniatures are quite performative objects in themselves. We know that visiting diplomats to different countries would hand over a miniature of Elizabeth and there would be a great sort of performance in Hoo Ha and tears and kissing. And I think that the perceived directness of miniatures, that it almost felt as though the miniature held a little bit of the soul of the sitter. You know, they're very different works of art to oil paintings. So the fact that this miniature has remained in the Southampton line rather than in the recipient's line, suggests that the return of the miniature, if that is indeed what happened, was quite a major moment in the life of this miniature.
- [29:20]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So how did you move to identifying what that major moment might have been or thinking about who might have returned.
- [29:29]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
It once we had established that the miniature seemed to date from the early 1590s and to be a depiction of Southampton, Obviously the next step was to think about what was happening in Southampton's life at that moment in time. As Emma mentioned, he was at that stage a ward of Lord Burleigh, and Lord Burleigh was pressuring him to marry his granddaughter, something which Southampton resisted and ultimately was forced to pay a 5,000 pound fine to Lord Burleigh for doing. And that was obviously an enormous amount of money in those days. And it was also around this exact time that Southampton began to attract literary tributes. So I mentioned Narcissus being the first literary work that was dedicated to him. But it was also around this time that William Shakespeare sought the patronage of Southampton. So in 1593, Shakespeare dedicated Venus and Adonis to Southampton. And the following year, 1594, Shakespeare dedicated the Rape of Lucrece to Southampton. And what's interesting about those dedications is that the 1593 dedication is very standard in terms of invoking all of the usual tropes of a poet approaching a nobleman. By 1594, the dedication for the Rape of Lucrece is no longer formulaic and generic, seems much more familiar, and suggests that these two know each other by this point in time. And, of course, many books and articles have been written about the nature of the relationship between Shakespeare and his patron, Southampton. And there are an awful lot of unknowns in this story, but clearly they were in some contact with one another in the early 1590s. And, of course, Southampton has often been suggested as possibly the beautiful young boy, young man to whom many of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed. And it seems that many of those sonnets were probably written in the early 1590s. The theaters were closed for significant portions of time between 1592 and 94 because of outbreaks of plague and the need to try to limit the spread of the disease. And so Shakespeare certainly would have had time during those years to be his mind and his pen to sonnets. But there are other reasons as well to think that the sonnets date from those years. Sonnet 16 refers to my pupil pen, which suggests that these are early works. So clearly Shakespeare and Southampton were in some form of contact around the time that this miniature was painted by Hilliard. And I think once you've made that connection, it's very difficult not to think about Sonnet 20 and the Master mistress of Shakespeare's affection. And it was around this time that we got in contact with Professor Sir Jonathan Bate, who is obviously one of the great Shakespeare scholars, because we wanted the input of a literary scholar on all of this. And he was very enthusiastic. And the story just got more and more exciting from that point forward.
- [33:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Shall we remind listeners of some of those key lines from Sonnet 20? So we have a woman's face with nature's own hand painted. Hast thou the master mistress of my passion, A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted with shifting change as is forced woman's fashion. And there's also a man in hue or hues in his controlling, which steals men's eyes and women's souls. Amazeth. So those are the famous lines that have suggested in this Master Mistress that it is not simply a woman to whom Shakespeare is intending his words of love. And therefore the possibility arises that it is a man or a. A man woman. Someone whose gender is perhaps less binary.
- [33:52]
Emma Rutherford
Yeah, I think that's correct. I mean, but there are other areas in which the pronouns. It's very clear that this is a man addressing another man, but it is a man who is presenting sometimes as a woman or certainly as androgynous. Elizabeth and I discovered fairly recently that in the 18th century, and then of course, later in the 19th century, the pronouns were changed so that it was. The author was absolutely addressing a woman, not a man. So I think that there's been an attempt to almost disguise this, that these passionate lines are to a man from a man.
- [34:36]
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- [35:04]
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- [35:47]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Do you think, from what we've just looked at and the descriptions you've given of the portrait, is there a possibility that Shakespeare could have been responding directly to this specific image?
- [35:59]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
I think it's definitely a possibility. I mean, it's one of those things that I don't think we can ever answer with certainty, but There are many interesting things about Hilliard, but one of the things that has always struck me as particularly interesting is the way in which his work seems to have resonated with contemporary poets in a way that hadn't happened for an artist at the English court since Holbein, who was also much celebrated by contemporary poets. But you've got Arthur Gorgeous, Henry Constable, John Donne are all writing poems celebrating Hilliard or specific Hilliard miniatures. We know that Hilliard in the 1580s chatted about miniatures with Sir Philip Sidney. Sidney then goes on to introduce the word miniature into the English language. Normally, limning was the term that was used in English in the 16th century. So there's this interesting way in which hilliard is embedded in the world of poets and poetry in a way that no other painter at the late Elizabet Elizabethan court is. Lots of late Elizabethan poets are incorporating Hilliard and in some cases specific works by Hilliard into their poetry. Constable, for example, writes a sonnet all about a Hilliard miniature of Lady Penelope Rich, who is obviously the Stella of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophelan Stella sonnet sequence. So in some ways I think it would be surprising if Shakespeare Spear hadn't in some way been inspired by a Hilliard miniature and worked in some references to a Hilliard miniature into his own poetry. But of course I don't Think we can ever know for certain? That's just speculation. And, of course, poetry. It's not. You know, I'm not suggesting that it's necessarily that if our recently discovered miniature. Is invoked in some way by Sonnet 20 or other of the sonnets. I'm not suggesting that it's anything so straightforward. It's just as a literal. But I think there is a way in which it may inform. Potentially may have informed some of the sonnets.
- [38:15]
Emma Rutherford
I mean, Shakespeare is very, very aware of miniatures. And uses them as devices in his plays. So we're beginning to look at quite an interesting collaboration almost between Shakespeare, Hilliard and Southampton.
- [38:28]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Something that is perhaps worth mentioning going back to what we were talking about earlier with role playing. We know that Southampton loved going to the public theaters. There are contemporary accounts from court correspondents describing him as going to the theater sometimes every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Of course, men were playing all the roles, including the parts of female characters. And so I do think there is. If we accept that this is a miniature of Southampton. Possibly intended for Shakespeare's eyes. I think then there's something very interesting potentially going on. With the fluidness of the sort of conventional dress.
- [39:17]
Emma Rutherford
I think what's interesting is thinking about Shakespeare's audience. Who are falling in love with Juliet. Knowing full well that this is a young man playing a beautiful young woman. And I think that idea of gender, this miniature seems to show that in paint in a way that we just haven't seen anywhere else. So I think that sort of encapsulates what was going on on the stage in this miniature.
- [39:43]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And even more so, I mean, you think of Twelfth Night. You think about all the plays that Shakespeare will write. Where there's a deliberate play with boys who are girls who are dressed up as boys. You know, there's a deliberate play with this. And a confusion in many of Shakespeare's plays. As yous like it, for example. Again, so let's just play Devil's Outcome for a second. You brought Professor Sir Jonathan Bate in to consider whether this could be a connection in paint between Shakespeare, Southampton and Hilliard. And I think we probably ought to talk about the use of initials, Mr. W.H. that is related to Shakespeare. But are there other contenders for Shakespeare's affection? I mean, who else has been suggested as being the master, Mr. Mistress of his passion? And why, amongst those contenders, if there are some, does Southampton stand out?
- [40:46]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
I think usually there are said to be two contenders, one being Southampton, obviously. And the other is usually said to be William Herbert Thurdale. Of Pembroke. However, there are no surviving images of Pembroke that suggest that he looked anything like the sitter in our miniature. So I think it was actually Sidney Lee in the old Dictionary of National Biography, which obviously was a great late Victorian academic undertaking. It was Sidney Lee who first suggested William Herbert, third of Pembroke, as a contender. Well, initially, Lee suggested he was the only contender for the young man of the Sonnets. This was when Lee was on volume H of the Old Dictionary of National Biography. By the time, a decade or so later, he got to the end of the Alphabet, he had concluded that Southampton was the only sensible contender. And I believe later editions of the old DNB quietly amended his very enthusiastic support of Pembroke in the H volume, but without explicitly drawing attention to that fact. And there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of firm evidence pointing to Herbert as the young man of the sonnets. There is no, as I understand it, no documentary or other evidence that connects Shakespeare and Herbert in the early 1590s, when it seems that Shakespeare began writing the sonnets. Now, of course, it's not impossible that the sonnets are inspired by more than one young man. It may be that Shakespeare began writing the sonnets with perhaps Southampton in mind in the early 1590s and still working on them in the late 1590s, perhaps was at that stage more influenced by another model, perhaps the Earl of Pembroke. But I think the interesting thing is that whereas we know without doubt, thanks to the dedications for Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece, that there is a connection between Shakespeare and Southampton in the early 1590s, there's nothing comparable to link Shakespeare and William Herbert of Pembroke at that date.
- [43:09]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What about the initials the Mr. W.H. presumably that was where Leigh was starting from. Oh, this is William Herbert. Clearly we've identified.
- [43:21]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
I mean, again, these are questions to which I suspect we will never have definitive answers. But there is a recent Ish school of thought which suggests that the H is a misprint. So, slightly to back up the Mr. WH that we're talking about, this is a printer's one sentence preface to the 1609 printed edition of the sonnets. So the sonnets are probably been written as early as the early 1590s, circulating in manuscript, as was the convention of the time, are then first printed in 1609. The printer prefaces this edition with one sentence which, if you removed the reference to Mr. W.H. from that one sentence, it would sound as though he is speaking about the author. It would sound as though he was speaking about Shakespeare. And therefore, it has recently been suggested that perhaps this is a typo. He subcontracted the actual printing to someone else. Was it meant to say to Mr. W.S. we will, I think, never know.
- [44:32]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Is it a dedication, though, this first line in this 1609? I don't.
- [44:37]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
I wouldn't. Well, I guess it depends on how you read.
- [44:40]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
How you read it, I suppose.
- [44:41]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Yeah. And what your definition of a dedication is. But this is certainly not. I mean, it's a pretty brief sentence. Okay.
- [44:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
This isn't quite the smoking gun that perhaps it's been suggested to be before.
- [44:51]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
That is my feeling.
- [44:53]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what we have building up here is a picture of this relationship between the foremost portrait painter of the Elizabethan age, Nicholas Hilliard, which you are certain it's Hilliard? You're certain it's Henry Wriothesley, third of Southampton, depicted there. And it absolutely makes sense. It all lines up. And then there's this very strong suggestion that really the only serious contender, if there is one individual that can be picked out to be the master mistress of Shakespeare's passions, is Southampton. And suddenly the gender ambiguity of the picture, the fact that it is such an intimate portrait, the fact that it's intended for one person, seems to make this all glimmer. And a possibility is raised that this is an exchange between Southampton and Shakespeare himself, which then was returned to Southampton when perhaps their association ended. What do we know about the end of the relationship between Shakespeare and Southampton?
- [46:02]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Well, we don't really know anything concrete, but Southampton did eventually marry in 1598. He married Elizabeth Vernon. So we speculate that moment might be when the miniature was returned to him, whether it was returned by Shakespeare or another, if it wasn't Shakespeare who was the intended recipient. But if the person to whom Southampton originally presented this miniature was a male admirer, a lover, what have you, his marriage to Elizabeth Vernon would seem to be a logical moment in time, perhaps for that object to have been returned in anger and in hurt, particularly, I.
- [46:44]
Emma Rutherford
Think, as she was pregnant at the time of their marriage. And that's him then, following a conventional life as husband and father. But, yeah, I mean, looking at this miniature from the front, it's Southampton. It's androgynous. It's someone with perhaps a knowledge of the gender fluidity of the theatre. But turning it over and seeing this spear or arrow on the back, I think a lot of people I've spoken to have been surprised that Shakespeare's coat of arms has incorporated a spear into it. And of course, he puns on his name all of the time, usually in a very smutty fashion. But I think you can read this as a spear and it's what it isn't is a club or a spade. So it's not somebody trying to change the suit of the cards, which is something obviously that we've considered. So, yes, Sir Jonathan Bate was very excited by the front of this miniature, by the portrait, but when we showed him the back, he really did gasp.
- [47:43]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Because that coat of arms was only granted to the family in 1596. It's pretty new at the time of Southampton's marriage. It's something, as you say, Shakespeare makes a lot of reference to. And if listeners examine the picture of this, I think it's very hard not to conclude that this looks like the tip of a spear with all that that implies.
- [48:10]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Exactly. Yes, that was certainly our feeling.
- [48:13]
Emma Rutherford
But we really, you know, this is the very first. This miniature is totally unpublished, totally unknown, and it was framed. So the owner, when they brought it to us, had no idea that, that this was on the back of the miniature. Absolutely none at all. So we really are at the beginning of the investigation of this miniature. And I think what Elizabeth and I are looking forward to is other commentary and other academics getting involved in what this miniature really represents. So that's so exciting.
- [48:39]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's a heart stopping possibility. I am finding myself really moved by the suggestion that we might see Here a late 16th century broken heart and that that broken heart might be none other than William Shakespeare's. How extraordinary a thing you have discovered. You two are a force of nature. Thank you so much for all the work you do to uncover these mysteries. It's absolutely incredible and I'm so grateful for you, for the way that you are pushing the field forwards and sharing these delicious, wonderful discoveries that are so rigorously researched and so beautifully presented with all of us. Thank you.
- [49:25]
Dr. Elizabeth Goldring
Thank you. It's a pleasure to chat about these things with you always.
- [49:30]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. Thank you also to my researcher, Max Wintool, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to Amy Haddo, who edited this episode. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetorsistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on Not Just the Tutors from History Hit.
- [50:06]
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