In “Merry Wives of Windsor,” did William Shakespeare satirize Sir Thomas Lucy, a great grandson of Thomas Richards alias Fermor?
Justice Shallow
Written sometime between 1596 and 1599, William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2, introduces the character of Robert Shallow, a tall, thin, elderly, and wealthy landowner and Justice of the Peace in Gloucestershire. As the story is told, Justice Shallow is raising a troop to fight against the rebellion in the north and meets with his old friend, Sir John Falstaff, a character introduced in Henry IV, Part 1. The scenes of the two gentlemen provide comedic relief to the drama.
Shallow reappears in Act I, Scene 1 of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and in the first twenty-four lines, Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans discuss their coat of arms:
SHALLOW Sir Hugh, persuade me not. I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it. If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire
SLENDER In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace and Coram.
SHALLOW Ay, Cousin Slender, and Custalorum.
SLENDER Ay, and Ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, Master Parson, who writes himself “Armigero” in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation— “Armigero!”
SHALLOW Ay, that I do, and have done any time these three hundred years.
SLENDER All his successors gone before him hath done ‘t, and all his ancestors that come after him may. They may give the dozen white luces in their coat.
SHALLOW It is an old coat.
SIR HUGH The dozen white louses do become an old coat well. It agrees well, passant. It is a familiar beast to man and signifies love.
SHALLOW The luce is the fresh fish. The salt fish is an old coat.[1]
Shallow then meets with Falstaff who accuses Shallow of killing his deer. With a story about stealing deer and the subsequent trial, threatened imprisonment, and a move to London, there is a belief that Shakespeare intentionally satirized Sir Thomas Lucy in the character of Justice Shallow. The opening conversation about the Lucy coat of arms, “three luces hauriant argent,” further reinforces the controversy.
Sir Thomas Lucy
Sir Thomas Lucy, the son of Sir William Lucy and Anne Fermor, with his long tenure in Warwickshire politics and as Justice of the Peace, may have had some association with the Shakespeares. William Underhill, who married as his second wife Dorothy Hatton, the sister of Sir Christopher Hatton, owned a house at Stratford-upon-Avon that became home of John Shakespeare, William’s father.
An indenture executed on 30 May 1568 has William Clopton, Esquire, of the first part, and Sir Robert Throckmorton, Sir Thomas Lucy, Edmund Plowden, Esquire, and William Underhill, Esquire of Newbold Revel, of the second part.[2] While Underhill was of no relation to the persons comprising the second party of the deed, Sir Lucy after this date would be distantly related to Throckmorton and Plowden. Sir Robert Throckmorton was the son of George Throckmorton and Catherine Vaux, the sister to Maud Vaux the wife Sir John Fermor. Sir Robert’s brother, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, married Anne Carew, and their son, Sir Arthur Throckmorton, married Anne Lucas, the daughter of Sir Thomas Lucas and Mary Fermor, the daughter of Sir John Fermor and sister to Anne Fermor, Sir Thomas Lucy’s mother. Edmund Plowden was the father of Edmund Plowden and another son Francis Plowden who was married to Mary Fermor, the daughter of Bridget Bradshaw and Thomas Fermor of Somerton, the brother to Sir John Fermor. Clopton’s grandmother was Joyce Horde whose niece Frances Horde married Thomas Fermor of Somerton.[3]
It is likely that Sir Thomas was not a well-liked person, but he was respected. As justice, he was obligated to enforce a Parliamentary act in 1581 to keep citizens obedient to the state religion, with new penalties and instituting commissions very unpopular with Catholics. His association with and execution of orders from Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, portrayed Sir Thomas as exceedingly harsh with recusants.
In 1591, John Shakespeare’s name was included in a list of recusants sent up to the Privy Council by Sir Thomas, with a second certificate signed on 25 September 1592. It has been argued if this “John Shakespeare” of Stratford-upon-Avon was the bard’s father. Evidence suggests that he was not, but rather another John Shakespeare who was a widower, Master of the Shoemaker’s Company, and who disappeared from town immediately after the list was submitted. As a widower, it would explain why the name of William’s mother was not listed on the recusant certificate.[4]
William Shakespeare: Poacher?
Perhaps the first mention that gives the “direct” association is from the early eighteenth century, and possibly earlier from the late seventeenth century. The story first related by Reverend Richard Davies, the rector of Saperton, Gloucestershire, and Archdeacon of Lichfield who died in 1708, was added to Reverend William Fulman’s biographical manuscript, and then documented in Nicholas Rowe’s The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare (1710).
Much given to all unluckinesse in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sr ___ Lucy, who had him oft whipt and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native country, to his great advancement: but his revenge was so great that he is his Justice Clodplate, and calls him a great man, and that in allusion to his name bore three louses rampart for his arms.[5]
He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this be was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely ; and, in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him. This, probably, the first essay of his poetry, is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter himself in London…[6]
Nothing is known of the ballad, but a few popular songs were attributed to Shakespeare. Joshua Barnes, an English scholar, heard an old woman singing a song during his stay at an inn sometime between 1687 and 1690. He paid the lady with a new gown, and she sang the first two stanzas, of which she could only remember from the song’s entirety.
Sir Thomas was so covetous
To covet so much deer
When horns enough upon his head
Most plainly did appear
Had not his worship one deer left?
What then? He had a wife
Took pains enough to find him horns
Should last him during life.[7]
The English Shakespearian critic, Edward Capell, came into the possession of another poem from a Mr. Jones who was born in 1613 near Stratford-upon-Avon and written in his old age, and Capell allegedly added the first two lines giving it more association to Sir Thomas.[8]
A parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse;
If lousie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
Then Lucy is lousie whatever befall it.
He thinks himself greate,
Yet an asse in his state,
We allow by his ears, but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lowsie, as volke miscalle it,
Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it.[9]
That Shakespeare and Sir Thomas had some minor animosity with each other may be based on some truth, but the amount of speculation and embellishment has obscured what is fact, and what is fiction. While Sir Thomas did introduce a Parliamentary bill “for the better preservation of game and grain” in March 1585, his deer park was in Worcestershire on his wife’s inherited property, almost fifty miles away from Charlecote and Stratford. He never owned a deer park and no chancery record in Stratford, Warwick, or the Star Chamber chronicling Lucy’s prosecution of Shakespeare for deer poaching can be found, although a Star Chamber case was prosecuted by his son in July 1610 eight years after the play was written. In 1828, the owner of Charlecote told a story to Sir Walter Scott that the incident occurred at Sir Thomas’ deer park at Fulbroke, of which Sir Lucy did not own, although it was acquired by Sir Thomas’ grandson.[10]
Coat of Arms
Twice, the opening lines of The Merry Wives of Windsor has the number of fish on the coat of arms as twelve, which supposedly is the best evidentiary proof; however, the Lucy shield had three luces.
Other families, like Way and Geddes, also had a coat of arms with three luces, and the Company of Stock Fishmongers were of “two luces in saltire argent.” Shakespeare may have been humorously pointing out “partible differences” between a coat with two fish, three fish, or twelve fish, a phrase the heralds used when describing their objections when granting the coat of arms to John Shakespeare on 20 October 1596. The acting copy of The Merry Wives of Windsor is taken from the Folio Edition of 1623 and the dialog about the coat of arms may have been added as there is no mention in the publications from 1602 to 1619.[11]
Shakespearian scholars and critics generally argue and agree that William did not cast his “nemesis” as a caricature in two of his plays, and strongly suggest Justice Shallow is William Gardiner, a Member of Parliament on bad terms with Francis Langley, the proprietor of the new Swan Theater. Gardiner first married Frances Wayte, the widow of Edmund Wayte, whose son, William Wayte, “swore the peace” against Shakespeare and Langley to appear in court on 29 November 1596.[12]
Be it known that William Wayte craves sureties of the peace against William Shakspere, Francis Langley, Dorothy Soer wife of John Soer, and Anne Lee, for fear of death and so forth. [Writ of] attachment [directed] to the Sheriff of Surrey, returnable on the eighteenth of [St.] Martin.[13]
And the coat of arms? Frances Wayte was the daughter of Robert Lucy, Gentleman, whose coat of arms bearing three luces haurient was quartered on Gardiner’s shield.
Another compelling theory starts with the idea that William Shakespeare never wrote the play, and that the true playwright was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Edward was the only son of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford and Margery Golding. When John died in 1562, Edward at the age of two became a ward of Queen Elizabeth and was sent to live with Sir William Cecil whose daughter, Anne, became Edward’s first wife when she was fourteen. Anne had originally been pledged to poet, courtier, and scholar Philip Sidney two years earlier, until Sidney’s father, Sir Henry Sidney, backed out of the marriage negotiations. Sir Henry’s wife was Mary Dudley, daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and they had another son, Robert Sidney. Robert and Edward were both quick-tempered members of Parliament and always at odds with each other, with one infamous argument occurring during a tennis match in full view of the French ambassadors. During the argument, Edward called Robert a “puppy,” and Robert retorted, “Puppies are gotten by dogs, and children by men.” As the argument escalated, Robert stormed off the court and challenged Edward to a duel. Queen Elizabeth intervened rebuking Robert of the “difference in degree between Earls and Gentlemen, the respect inferiors out to their superiors…” commanding him to call off the forbidden duel.[14] This incident may have been portrayed in Act 2, Scene 1 of Hamlet when Polonius references a “falling out at tennis.”
John Dudley’s lands had been attained for his role in preventing the ascension of Mary I. After losing the Duke of Northumberland title before his son could inherit it, Robert could not display his father’s earlier coat of arms consisting of twelve luces, the number of fish on the shield as mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor. This explanation would associate Shallow as Robert who replies, “It is an old coat.”[15]
Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” tracing the family history from 1420 to 1685, and “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh” following their 1685 arrival from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky.
[1] Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I, Scene 1, Lines 1-24.
[2] Howard, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, vol.1 (1874), p.42.
[3] Hord, Genealogy of the Hord Family (1898), p.22. John Horde (-1594) and Alice Bulkeley’s daughter Joyce Horde married Sir Edward Grey (1472-1528) of Enville, Staffordshire; their daughter Elizabeth Grey married William Clopton (-1560) and had issue, William Clopton.
[4] Stopes, Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries (1907), pp.31-32.
[5] White, The Works of William Shakespeare, vol.1 (1893), p.xxxvii.
[6] Rowe, Life of William Shakspeare (1832), p.3.
[7] Levi, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare (1988), p.35.
[8] “Thomas Lucy and Shakespeare’s Lost Ballad,” StrangeHistory.net. 09 September 2017.
[9] Campbell, The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare (1838), p.xx.
[10] Lee, “Lucy, Thomas,” Dictionary of National Biography, vol.34 (1885), p.249; Stopes, Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries (1907), p.41.
[11] Stopes, Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries (1907), pp.38-39.
[12] Hannigan, “Shakespeare Versus Shallow,” The Shakespeare Association Bulletin, vol.7 no.4 (October 1932), pp.174-182.
[13] Hotson, Shakespeare versus Shallow (1931), p.9.
[14] Looney, “ ‘Shakespeare’ Identified (1920), pp.294-297; Ward, The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604, From Contemporary Documents (1928), pp.165-177.
[15] “Unpacking Merry Wives of Windsor,” ShakespeareOxfordFellowship.org. 07 October 1999.
