Endgame by Omid Scobie

Author:Omid Scobie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

10

The Men (and Women) in Gray

Royal Courtiers and the Struggle for Power

The courtier’s final aim is to become his prince’s instructor.

—Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier

A prince’s court

Is like a common fountain, whence should flow

Pure silver drops in general, but if’t chance

Some curs’d example poison’t near the head,

Death and diseases through the whole land spread

—John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

When the showy, obsequious courtier Osric appears in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet inquires whether his friend and confidante, Horatio, knows the young Palace aide. As Osric ingratiatingly introduces himself, Hamlet, in a wry aside, asks Horatio, “Dost know this waterfly?” Osric then shares the details of the King’s wager—a duel refereed by Osric that eventually causes Hamlet’s death—while the prince haughtily toys with the courtier, forcing him to agree with everything he says, despite intentionally contradicting himself. One minute Hamlet says he’s hot, the next he is cold, and Osric zealously concurs both times. With a touch of a sneer, the prince scolds the aide for not wearing his hat like a proper courtier: “Put your bonnet to its right use. ’Tis for the head.”

Shakespeare’s gentle mocking of Osric would have easily landed with his Elizabethan audiences. During Queen Elizabeth I’s reign in the sixteenth century, the stereotypical courtier dressed extravagantly to signal their wealth and position in the court. The women literally assembled their outfits, attaching puffy sleeves to bodices and draping elaborate skirts over hooped petticoats known as farthingales. With long, frizzy hair swept up from the forehead into hair helmets and elaborate buns, necklaces, and dangling earrings, female courtiers dazzled like cockatiels. But they were often outdone by the men. Adorned in cloaks, decorative doublets with ruffled collars (think: a gaudy, snug jacket topped by a frilly dog collar cone), ballooning knee-length trousers, tight hose, and, of course, a flamboyant hat, male courtiers were the peacocks of the Elizabethan court.

Colorful, noisy, and always hovering, Queen Elizabeth’s advisors and hangers-on were also the insects of the House of Tudor, hence the bard’s reference to a waterfly. Like Osric, they buzzed around the monarchs and their advisors, flitting here and there from situation to situation like bugs, carrying messages, refereeing duels, and doing their bosses’ bidding. They were the waterflies who dropped in to deliver troubling news; the butterflies who fluttered through the palace, with whispers and scandal providing the uprush of air for their wings; the bees who pollinated the rumor mill and guarded the nest; and the flies who fed on the waste from their devious schemes.

Minus the doublets and farthingales, a courtier’s work profile and behavioral traits haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. To this day, modern courtiers retain similar responsibilities and perform comparable tasks to their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century predecessors. Current members of the court still diligently guide, protect, and serve their monarchs, often with great skill and even some of that old Elizabethan flair. But instigating and umpiring Palace duels also remain part of the job description, though leaks and press releases have now replaced daggers and swords.

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