England in the Age of Shakespeare by Jeremy Black

Author:Jeremy Black [Black, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780253042323
Google: Lx7UDwAAQBAJ
Published: 2019-07-19T05:45:55+00:00

And I, for winking at your discords too,

Have lost a brace of kinsmen. (V, iii)

Mercutio was the most important of these kinsmen. That he is not a Capulet or a Montagu provides some of the interest in his fate and pushes friendship to the fore.

Central government lacked the facilities, techniques, and understanding to oversee officials in an effective fashion. Disobedience, disaffection, and corruption characterized much government business. Office was widely seen as a source of personal and family profit, and financial irregularities flourished as officeholders sought to profit from those they dealt with and from the funds under their control, as with corruption, tax farming, and the awarding of monopolies of production, importation, or sale. Thus, the potential for power created by notions of sovereign authority and arising from the resource base could not be realized by government. Instead, it was necessary to turn to the compromises and exigencies of partnerships between sovereigns and others, principally the social elite but also within government as a whole. As a result, there was no “big bang” of new forms of government or a Tudor “Revolution in Government,” other than in the very important sphere of the Church (where the Crown, in the 1530s, essentially took over much of the papal position, established total control, and ended monasticism). Meanwhile, the administration of justice remained a key element of government, albeit one that, as earlier, had to respond to social and other changes. This process interested such writers as Shakespeare,13 as well as providing the means and vocabulary for a range of social and political ideas and practices.14

Given the social and cultural context, it is unsurprising that there was little in the way of a distinct bureaucratic ethos. Concepts of fidelity and clientage and attitudes of status, all characteristics of the aristocratic social system, illuminated policy and provided much of the texture of administration. This was in a situation in which social rank, patronage, and inheritance, in combination, defined merit, led to appointment and promotion, and greatly affected marital choices.

Custom was a key guide to rights and practice, one that was important at all levels of the community.15 For example, the relationship between host and guest is repeatedly seen in Shakespeare’s plays, and the duties of being a host often take a major part in the action and the remarks made. Macbeth’s personality is shattered by his murderous failure as the host, first, of Duncan, his monarch and patron, and, later, of Banquo, his friend and companion in arms. Pericles begins with a total failure of royal hospitality on the part of Antiochus. Guests, however, could themselves be problematic. This was notably and dangerously so with Don John in Much Ado About Nothing but sometimes to comic effect, as with Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night.

The failings of government and of human conduct as a whole, a duality captured in Measure for Measure, contrasted with assumptions about the value of order and the possibilities for improvement, notably by public action.16 Looking back to classical

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