All you Shakspearean scholars probably already know all about this, but it was new to me.

Shakespeare's primary source for 'Romeo and Juliet' was an Italian tale translated into verse as 'The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet' by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in 'Palace of Pleasure' by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Shakespeare also likely read the three sources on which Brooke's poem and Painter's story were based, namely, 'Giulietta e Romeo', a novella by the Italian author Matteo Bandello, written in 1554; a story in a collection called 'Il Novellio', by the widely-popular fifteenth-century writer Masuccio Salernitano; and the 'Historia Novellamente Ritrovata di Due Nobili Amanti' (A Story Newly Found of two Noble Lovers), written by Luigi Da Porto and published in 1530. So much is generally well known.

But there may well have been allusions to real events much closer to his own time and with which his audience were familiar. Da Porta'a telling of the story gave the names of the rival families as Montecchi and Capuleti (Montagues and Capulets) of Verona, but Shakespeare's audience would have been more familiar with the recent feud between the Danvers and Long families of Wiltshire. This was no mere local disagreement: the menfolk of both families were knights, courtiers and major landowners, and accordingly their feud came to the attention of the highest people in the land, including the queen. 

(The following quoted letters and reports are all taken from state papers).

The origin of the feud between the families is unknown but it came to a head in the early 1590s when some of the Long servants carried out a robbery on a Danvers' property "provoking their ire". Then, in another incident a fight broke out between groups of servants of the two families in which one of the Danvers' servants was killed by a Long servant. Sir John Danvers, in his capacity as a Justice of the Peace, charged four of the Long servants with murder but the Longs managed to get them all acquitted. It was generally held that Sir John was of a peaceable, 'even-tempered' disposition; but this was far from the case with his wife and two sons, Charles and Henry, who were bent on revenge. Letters were exchanged between members of the Danvers and Long families, and in a letter to Sir Charles Danvers, Henry Long threatened that "... whensoever he next met him he would untye his poyntes [ie pull his breeches down] and whip him with a rod calling him asse, puppie, ffoole & boye" (strong words indeed). 

The Danvers family had been pushed too far. On the night of 4 October 1594 Sir Henry Long and some of his friends and family were dining at the house of a Mr Chambyrs in Cossam, Wiltshire, when the Danvers brothers, "broke in with seventeen or eighteen of their followers", and in the resulting mêlée Henry Long was killed.

From the inquest: "Before William Snelling, coroner of our lady the Queen within the liberty of her town of Cossam, on view of the body of Henry Long Esq., there lying dead and on the oath of twelve men, presented that a certain Henry Danvers, late of Cirencester, Kt., and others, not having the fear of god before their eyes, did on the 4th October, between the hours of 11 and 12 of the same day, at Cossam, with force of arms, viz., swords, &c, did assault the aforesaid Henry Long, and the aforesaid, Danvers, voluntarily, feloniously, and of malice prepense, did discharge in and upon the said Long a certain engine called a dagge [a type of pistol], worth 6/8, charged with powder and bullet of lead, which Danvers had in his right hand, and inflict a mortal wound upon the upper part of the body of Long, under the left breast, of which he instantly died, and that immediately after the felony they all fled."

The Danvers brothers fled first to Titchfield, where their friend Henry Wriothesley the Earl of Southampton sheltered them at at his country seat. After three days in hiding they then went to Calshot Castle, near Cowes on the Isle of Wight, before escaping to France where they eventually joined the French army of Henry IV and served with distinction. It all made for a shocking scandal: the knights were guilty of murder and of treason for flying abroad, and accordingly they were outlawed and their property forfeited.

Now, returning to Will Shakespeare...

In 1592 the London theatres had all been closed down because of the plague and Shakespeare had left London. In an attempt to gain patronage he wrote several poems which he dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. By 1594, the year the Danvers/Long feud came to a head, Shakespeare had established a close connection with the Earl possibly even living for a while at his house at Titchfield, where briefly in October the Danvers brothers had been holed up. At the Earl's house Shakespeare would certainly have encountered another in his entourage, John Florio, who was the author of an Italian/English dictionary ('A World of Words') and who was the Earl's tutor in Italian. Shakespeare and Florio were both literary men and may well have become good friends, and it is almost certain that it was Florio who helped Shakespeare with the original Italian sources for the Romeo and Juliet story. Florio, from first-hand experience, had knowledge of the Danvers/Long incident as it is recorded that the Sheriff of Wiltshire, when passing over the river Itchen in the ferry in hot pursuit of the two Danvers brothers encountered, "one Florio an Italian, and one Drewell, a servant of the Earl of Southampton", who, both acting loyal to their master, "threatened to throw the Sheriff overboard". 

In Spring 1595, just a few months after the Danvers/Long incident, the London theatres reopened. 'Romeo and Juliet' is thought to have been completed in 1595 and though it is not known when the first performance was, it first appeared in print in 1597. The play is set in Verona but the servants all have English names and Shakespeare's audience would almost certainly have made the connection about feuding Wiltshire families.

Are there, I wonder, any other likely references to well-known contemporary events within Shakespeare's plays?

That's your hat-trick, MM - I know nothing about the Danvers and Long families. Extremely interesting research! Thank you.

MM wrote:

 Are there, I wonder, any other likely references to well-known contemporary events within Shakespeare's plays?

Yes - lots. Off the top of my head - and it's too late tonight to go into detail - there's the equivocation theme in Macbeth and the reference in the famous Porter scene to "Farmer" - refers to Jesuit priest, Father Garnet, who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Garnet went under the alias of Farmer and used the right to "equivocate" as part of his defence - this caused much hilarity amongst Londoners at the time.

Richard III, notorious hunchback, general evil schemer and Machiavellian villain, was possibly a reference to Robert Cecil - who had a deformed back.

The great comic scene when Cleopatra asks for details of Antony's new bride, Octavia, is possibly based on the interview between Elizabeth and the Scottish ambassador, Sir James Melville. Elizabeth quizzed the amused Scot for information about her rival's looks and musical ability. Like Cleo, she insisted that the other queen was vastly inferior on all counts. Melville needed all his diplomatic tact in that interview, as did the hapless messenger in Antony and Cleopatra.

Scrappy post - sorry - but too tired to write any more or look up quotations.

Just remembered the unfortunate Doctor Lopez who was accused of trying to poison the queen. He was a Jew who had converted to Christianity: he may have been in Shakespeare's mind when he wrote The Merchant of Venice. Lopez was found guilty.

I always remember how terrible his death was: the crowd of Londoners howled with laughter when, during the terrible execution ritual, he gasped out that he loved the queen as much as he loved Jesus Christ. Dreadful business.

And there's a reference to Mary, Queen of Scots in A Midsummer Night's Dream - the bit about a mermaid. Also possibly refers to the queen's visit to Kenilworth in 1575. Will explain that tomorrow. Got to go to bed now!

Since once I sat upon a promontory
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the seamaid’s music?

Just woken up and thought of Elizabeth I's declaration: "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" This  early drama contained political dynamite - the deposition scene which was not printed in the first three editions of the play. The Earl of Essex commissioned a London performance in order to rally the city to his cause on the eveof his rebellion. Elizabeth's remark shows she was under no illusion to the real meaning of such plays. But, as the play unfolded, Shakespeare was clever enough to turn audience sympathy towards Richard.

No time now, but this is an interesting new topic - hope it takes off.

Temperance, if you read this, I seem to recall you mentioning something on another thread that the play about Richard III may have worked on two levels (well no, you did not put it thus) but there was something about it being the story* of King Richard III but that it also had veiled references to a noble of the time which the audience might possibly have picked up on.  Sorry I haven't been through all the other threads to find it - have been a little subpar these last few days after my shingles vaccination.

* As has been stated on the website numerous times I do realise it is the Tudor version of the "story".

Thanks for all those references, Temp, fascinating stuff isn't it?

Further to the theme of feuding families in 'Romeo and Juliet'; while violent feuds were not uncommon in Elizabethan England, a secret marriage between offspring of the contending houses does seem to have been unusual. However there is one such that I've found, and interestingly it is also bound up with the Danvers/Long feud.

A close friend and ally of the Danvers family was Sir James Marvin of Fountell in the neighbouring county of Hampshire (although he had lands in Wiltshire too), and as was the way of things the Marvin family and their servants sided with the Danvers in their feud with the Longs. Similarly Walter Long had married (1593) Catherine Thynne, the sister of Sir John Thynne of Longleat (whose descendents would become the Marquesses of Bath) and accordingly the Thynnes were also drawn into the feud, but on the Long's side. There were several violent street affrays in the years 1589-92, at Salisbury, Hindon, and Marlborough amongst other places, between large groups of followers of the Marvin and Danvers families on one side and the Thynne and Long families on the other, in which several men suffered serious injuries and there was damage to property. These fights were very widely known at Court because of the consequent very bitter Star Chamber cases (in which each side accused the other of starting the affrays) and which gave rise to a Privy Council Commission representing the (in)effective intervention of the Crown (and perhaps echoed in Prince Escalus' call to peace in the play).

Sir James Marvin had only a daughter as heir (she married a William Audley) and so his hopes for the succession of his estate rested on his daughter's children, including his grand-daughter, Maria Audley. Sir James' last will (dated 1600) clearly states that his chief estate at Fountell was to go to his grand-daughter (ie Maria) "and her husband of his [sic] choosing", rather than to his eldest grand-son, Mervin Audley, who had already received other substantial grants and lands. In the early 1590s (when Maria was just into her teens) there was, so it seems, already a suitor of high birth lined up; a "Mr Manners", who was probably Francis Manners, the Earl of Rutland and a cousin of William Cecil. In the years 1590-95 the young earl was at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 

John Thynne had a son, Thomas Thynne, who in 1594, aged sixteen, was also a student at Oxford's Corpus Christi College, having been there about two years. On the Thursday in Whitsun week, Thomas rode with two friends to a supper given by some of the Marvins at the Bell Inn at Beaconsfield, a staging-inn on the road to London. (The hosts would seem to have been a different branch of the Marvins to the line of Sir James, and so, while they were certainly related to him and knew of the long-running feud with the Thynne family, they themselves seem not to have been closely involved in it). At the supper Thomas and Maria met for the first time. One, John Marvin, Thomas Thynne's "very familiar friend" (again, he's not of the direct Marvin line, and I guess it's through him that the three lads got an invite to the party) stated later that Thomas had never seen Maria before he met her at Beaconsfield. Thomas was sixteen, Maria probably just a year or two younger. They talked, drank and supped at the Inn, and then later the same evening they were married in an upper chamber by one Welles, a minister who was brought in, and without the knowledge of the Thynne family. The lovers parted the next morning to return to their normal lives (she at home, he at Oxford university) and though they maintained communication through messages carried by friends, they kept their marriage largely secret for many months. 

The parallels with the play are clear enough. However unlike in the play Maria's mother was not only present at the clandestine marriage but had encouraged the young pair to marry immediately if they liked one another. Certainly the impulse to marriage seems to have come from Maria and her mother (her father's attitude is not known) and Maria's letters (preserved in the Thynne archive) clearly show she was smitten by young Thomas. But if her parents were pleased with the match they knew the Thynnes would be outraged - which they were when they finally found out some months later. 

The aftermath was not however the tragic one of the play with resultant reconciliation of the warring factions. Instead there was a long-drawn-out wrangle with a case in the Court of Arches (a 'peculiar' ecclesiastical court) over the validity of the marriage. It was eventually acknowledged in 1601, but contrary to the expressed hopes of the Marvins, it did not reconcile any of the houses in friendship.

Temperance wrote:

Elizabeth I's declaration: "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" This  early drama contained political dynamite - the deposition scene which was not printed in the first three editions of the play. The Earl of Essex commissioned a London performance in order to rally the city to his cause on the eveof his rebellion. Elizabeth's remark shows she was under no illusion to the real meaning of such plays.

The Essex Rebellion and the Irish dimension is intriguing. In 2012, as part of the BBC’s ‘cultural olympics’, and 2 years after his seminal A History of the World in 100 Objects, the then director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor presented another superb series for Radio 4 called Shakespeare’s Restless World. Episode 7 called Failures in the Present looked at the contemporary image of Ireland.

The main point seems to be that, although wars in Ireland consumed massive amounts of the public exchequer and although Essex' army for his expedition to Ulster was the largest army ever assembled in London, Ireland itself was always off-stage in Shakespeare's plays and Irish people themselves (with the sole exception of Captain Macmorris in Henry V) were conspicuous by their absence in the lists of dramatis personae. For those unable to access BBC iPlayer content then here is a transcript of the program.

Vizzer wrote:

Temperance wrote:

Elizabeth I's declaration: "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" This  early drama contained political dynamite - the deposition scene which was not printed in the first three editions of the play. The Earl of Essex commissioned a London performance in order to rally the city to his cause on the eveof his rebellion. Elizabeth's remark shows she was under no illusion to the real meaning of such plays.

The Essex Rebellion and the Irish dimension is intriguing. In 2012, as part of the BBC’s ‘cultural olympics’, and 2 years after his seminal A History of the World in 100 Objects, the then director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor presented another superb series for Radio 4 called Shakespeare’s Restless World. Episode 7 called Failures in the Present looked at the contemporary image of Ireland.

The main point seems to be that, although wars in Ireland consumed massive amounts of the public exchequer and although Essex' army for his expedition to Ulster was the largest army ever assembled in London, Ireland itself was always off-stage in Shakespeare's plays and Irish people themselves (with the sole exception of Captain Macmorris in Henry V) were conspicuous by their absence in the lists of dramatis personae. For those unable to access BBC iPlayer content then here is a transcript of the program.

As someone far from being clear on Shakespeare's works, I put this as a question, could it be that the Irish dimension, as you call it Vizzer, was too close to the current policies and shifting religions of the day, and as no one knew what the result might be he - WS - thought it better to leave these problems alone?

This is a superb article from Professor James Shapiro:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/what-ish-my-nation-shakespeare-s-irish-connections-1.2619173

Shapiro mentions the "extraordinary moment...the only time in his plays that breaks theatrical allusion and directs playgoers' attention away from the make-believe world of his play to the real world outside the theatre" - that moment in the final act of Henry V:

But now behold,
In the quick forge and working-house of thought,
How London doth pour out her citizens!
The mayor and all his brethren, in best sort,
Like to the senators of th'antique Rome
With the plebeians swarming at their heels,
Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in;
As by a lower but loving likelihood,
Were now the General of our gracious Empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword
How many would the peaceful city quit to welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,
Did they this Harry.

As Shapiro points out in his excellent book, 1599, "scratch the surface" and the analogy of the triumphant Henry V and a victorious Essex is actually very troubling. Henry was an anointed king: in contrast, Essex, like Caesar, was a popular military hero feared by his rivals,  men who sought the victor's overthrow because they believed he wanted to be crowned king - or emperor. William Camden noted how the Earl wished "nothing more than to have an army under his command" and he recorded his fear that Essex "entertained some monstrous design, especially as he showed his contumacy more and more against the Queen that had been most bountiful to him."

Shapiro adds that "...the politics of Henry V are so inscrutable" that it is difficult to know for sure what Shakespeare (clever old Wobbleweapon) is saying or not saying. Nowhere is the play more "slippery" (Shapiro's lovely word) than in its description of Essex returning from Ireland "with rebellion broached on his sword."

What is interesting is that after it was "sundry times played" by the Chamberlain's Men in 1599, a copy of the play was "stayed" or delayed, and then, having undergone extensive cuts, was finally rushed into print in 1600 in a stripped down version which eliminates all mention of Essex, Ireland, Scotland, collusion between Crown and Church and anything else that might remotely cause political offence. This sanitized version was twice reprinted before the fuller, original version finally appeared in the 1623 portfolio. Looks like the company panicked and, in the light of unfolding events, was trying to cover its tracks.

PS Henry V was performed once before James I - they presumably definitely cut the bit about "weasel Scot" in Act I!

LiR, I wonder if you are thinking about some remarks on this thread, near the bottom of page one?

https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t388-elizabeth-i-and-heirs


I mentioned how Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson got into really hot water with he authorities over the lost play Isle of Dogs. Will try to find the relevant post. Unlike Shakespeare - who was a master of the "slippery" ambiguous allusion - Nashe and Jonson  skated regularly over very thin ice - and in 1597 actually crashed through it. Freezing cold rather than hot water, I suppose - it was certainly freezing in the Marshalsea prison where Jonson ended up!


EDIT: Here is my old post:

This has got me wondering whether The Isle of Dogs (1597) could possibly be connected with all this.

Dogs, a satire written by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, caused the authorities to panic - really panic. This piece, performed in July 1597 at the Swan by the Earl of Pembroke's Men, was described as being "stuffed with seditious and slanderous matter", and it contained such dynamite that it seemed for a while that all the London theatres would be closed down.

Jonson ended up in the Marshalsea and Nashe had to leave London - fast. Some of the actors were also imprisoned for several months.

The play was suppressed so ruthlessly that no copy of it survives, but it apparently criticised - dangerously - certain members of the administration.

What is interesting is that it is mentioned - connected with Francis Bacon - in the Alnwick manuscript:

Alnwick manuscript


"A manuscript in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle contains a number of minor works by Francis Bacon, and seems once to have been associated with Bacon himself, who served as Essex's secretary in the 1590s. A surviving outer sheet ... lists a number of writings which the manuscript once contained, and includes the entry: 'Isle of doges frmnt | by Thomas Nashe inferior plaiers'. While the 'fragment' itself has long since disappeared, the inscription appears to suggest that the piece had once been of interest to Essex and his circle" (Donaldson, Life 120; see Critical Commentary below).

One last allusion from me - the famous mention of Marlowe's death:“When a man’s verses cannot be understood,” the clown Touchstone says, “nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.” Lovely play on "reckoning" there - refers to the Deptford tavern bill that Marlowe and his companions were fighting over. That was the official story anyhow.

All a bit like a brilliant plot line from Line of Duty - Marlowe was in all probability eliminated by the corrupt anti-terrorist security forces with whom he may have been working. He'd become a bit of a liability. But then again, he may have been a Catholic double agent who had to be "removed" for genuine security reasons.

Temperance, the thread you link can't be the one I'm thinking of because it seems to have comments dating from 2012 and I didn't join Res Hist until 2013. I'll have to look back through my old posts to find the one I'm thinking of.  Nonetheless thanks to you, MM et al for this information which I hadn't been aware of before.  I knew of some of Shakespeare's plays being influenced by "Plutarch's Lives" but hadn't really appreciated the influence of the family feuds in England during his lifetime on the playwright's work.

Nielsen wrote:

I put this as a question, could it be that the Irish dimension, as you call it Vizzer, was too close to the current policies and shifting religions of the day, and as no one knew what the result might be he - WS - thought it better to leave these problems alone?

Yes – it’s about appreciating not just what someone includes in a work but also what is omitted. The geographical locations of Shakespeare’s plays make for an interesting case study in this. The settings for his plays are sometimes very famous such as Scotland for Macbeth, Denmark for Hamlet and Venice for Othello. In fact Hamlet and Othello both have their locations mentioned in their full titles. And if one were to say ‘The Merchant’ (and nothing else) then many would immediately know that the merchant in question traded in the same Italian city as the aforementioned Othello soldiered. Similarly we know which Greek city Timon was benefactor of, which Levantine port Pericles was prince of and also which English town The Merry Wives hailed from.

In the case of Troilus & Cressida then the location is strongly suggested in the first of those names (i.e. Troy). By contrast Romeo & Juliet is a false friend in this because the setting is not in Rome but, as the Prologue immediately informs, is ‘in fair Verona‘. And needless to say that’s also the city where The Two Gentlemen are from. Educated guesses will tell one that Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus are set in Rome while Antony & Cleopatra is set in Rome and Egypt. It also goes without saying that the English History plays from King John thru to Henry VIII are varyingly set in England, Wales and France. Less famous perhaps but still relatively well known would be the facts that King Lear and Cymbeline are set in ancient Britain while A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set in Athens.

Only real Shakespeare buffs, however, are likely to know the exact settings of The Taming of the Shrew (Padua), Much Ado About Nothing (Messina), The Winter’s Tale (Sicily and Bohemia), Twelfth Night (Illyria), Measure for Measure (Vienna), All’s Well That Ends Well (France), Love’s Labour’s Lost (Navarre) and A Comedy of Errors (Ephesus). Finally there are semi-fictitious locations such as the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. One might be tempted to think that it refers to Shakespeare’s native Warwickshire and his mother’s maiden name (Arden). It is, however, believed to refer to the Ardennes Forest on the continent where France, Luxembourg and Belgium meet. The name of the character Orlando is also an Italianisation of the Frankish name Roland. It seems that Shakespeare was being deliberately ambiguous and playful here. Then there is the island in The Tempest which is unnamed but is almost certainly meant to be Bermuda which was struck by a hurricane in 1609.

As can be seen there is no play set in Ireland but neither are there any plays set in the Netherlands which are geographically closer to England than Ireland is and also very much closer to London. The political situation in Ireland is well known but the position in Netherlands was not dissimilar. The price for having gained English support against the Spanish during the Dutch Revolt was that the towns of Brill and Flushing as well as Fort Rammekens were ceded to England*. Thus English forces during Shakespeare’s time were not just active in Ulster but also in Zeeland. Seemingly that relationship was also considered too politically sensitive for Shakespeare to bother messing with. Easier to set a play in a far-off Italian city state, few of whose citizens might be on hand to even see the piece let alone take umbrage at any perceived misrepresentation, political clanger, cultural howler or other faux pas.

*Coincidentally the towns and forts would be ceded back to Zeeland in 1616 the year of Shakespeare’s death.

Very good points Viz ... and he doesn't have many Irish characters either. The only one I'm aware of is MacMorris, the Irish captain in 'Henry V', who in stereotypical fashion is depicted as a belligerent 'oirish' drunk who almost starts a fight with another captain and then, rhetorically, asks, "What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal." 'Henry V' was likely written in 1598/99 and its first performance was probably in the spring of 1599 because the Chorus, while making reference to Essex's 1599 campaign in Ireland, includes no sense that it would eventually end in disaster. (Essex's campaign began in late March and was scuttled by late June, strongly suggesting that the play was first performed during that three-month period).

Shakespeare's plays as a whole contain only a scattering of other Irish references, but nearly always derogatory, rather xenophobic, and in much the same way that moors/ethiops/jews, or indeed foreigners generally, are mentioned: for example the cheap Irish joke in 'The Comedy of Errors', where the servant, Dromio, tells his master about a kitchen wench who is so fat that "she is spherical, like a globe", and that he "could find out countries in her". He finds Spain in her hot breath, Scotland in the barren palm of her hand, and England in the chalky cliffs of her forehead. But when Antipholus asks, "In what part of her body stands Ireland?" Dromio replies, "in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs." (then as now 'bog' was slang for a toilet, especially those of the rather more unsavoury type). No doubt this Irish slur got a huge laugh in Elizabethan London ... indeed it probably still does whenever it's performed in London today.

Shakespeare's allusions to 'the Irish' or 'Irishmen', few though they are, are nearly all concentrated within a very narrow period of time that almost exactly coincides with England’s nine-year war in Ireland; a bitter campaign that came to an end only a few days after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, with the 'final' victory of Lord Mountjoy over O’Neill, but only after a very brutal and expensive war.

As the Irish Times article mentioned above by Temp says, England at this time had no standing army so potential soldiers had to be rounded up from across the land, with some dragged out of inns, playhouses, their homes and workplaces, and even as they came out of church. I've seen it stated elsewhere in military histories that about 50,000 men were packed off from England’s villages, towns and cities between 1590 and 1602. This (as Temp's reference says) is a large number from a population of only four million: it's the equivalent of about one out of every 100 English people, or roughly one out of every 50 English men - or an even higher percentage, perhaps something like one in 20, of those in their 20s and 30s, ie Shakespeare's generation - being forcibly conscripted for service in Ireland. Military service in Ireland was much feared, given the high casualty and mortality rates and how poorly equipped the conscripts were to fight in these campaigns: there were several mutinies of conscripts (brutally put down) and a popular proverb of the time was: "Better be hanged at home than die like dogs in Ireland."

In more ways than one Ireland in the late 1590s was perhaps Elizabethan England's 'Vietnam'.

Temperance wrote:

... there's the equivocation theme in Macbeth and the reference in the famous Porter scene to "Farmer" - refers to Jesuit priest, Father Garnet, who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Garnet went under the alias of Farmer and used the right to "equivocate" as part of his defence - this caused much hilarity amongst Londoners at the time.

 
Although I knew about Henry Garnet's role in the Gunpowder Plot and knew that he'd operated under various different alliases, his mention in Macbeth was news to me, as was his 'equivocation' defence.

Here's the relevant quote from Macbeth:
SCENE III. Enter a Porter. Knocking within.
PORTER: Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Belzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins enow about you; here you’ll sweat for’t. [Knocking.] Knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock! 

And yes at his trial Garnet was announced to the court (with King James present, although hidden from public view) as, "Henry Garnet ... otherwise Whalley, otherwise Darcy, otherwise Roberts, otherwise Farmer, otherwise Philips". 

His defence of the practice of equivocation in his 1598 book, 'A Treatise of Equivocation (originally titled A Treatise against lying and fraudulent dissimulation), and his attempted use of it at his trial, was also all new to me. However Shakespeare's mention of it in Macbeth, while alluding to Henry Garnet, is surely also self-mocking, no? As you have said in other posts above (albeit not using the exact 'e' word), Shakespeare was himself a master of equivocation - the deliberate double meaning - whether that be for simple humour or as a major plot device. Indeed the same play, Macbeth, hinges on the prophesy that, "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him". ... but does that mean the wood/forest of Birnam itself, of just the wood (ie the cut branches) of the wood of Birnam?

I'm not sure how Henry Garnet was viewed generally in London immediately after the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. He was condemned as being party to the plot only on the basis that he'd learned about it through the sacred rite of the confessional and accordingly he felt he could not speak of what he had learned to a third party. That he didn't speak out (and also being a Jesuit) certainly condemned him in the eyes of the law as being an accessory to the plot, and so he was sentenced to the full gruesome punishment of being hanged, drawn and quartered. However many ordinary people, and not just Catholics, may have felt that his sentence was unjust: although a Catholic he was nevertheless an ordained priest and he, supposedly, only learned of the plot through the confessional and thence, or so he claimed, he tried to persuade the supplicant (Catesby, the plot's ringleader) against ever carrying out the act. 

Some historians (eg Antonia Fraser) reckon he was spared the full torment when the sympathetic London crowd at his execution pushed forward to pull on his legs and so end his suffering at the first hanging stage. Others (eg Alan Haynes) however reckon that, in accordance with King James' orders, he was made to suffer the full penalty right to the bitter end.

I've just come across this, also in 'Macbeth', concerning the witches in Act 1, scene 3:

First Witch: Where hast thou been, sister?
Second Witch: Killing swine.
Third Witch: Sister, where thou?
First Witch: A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
'Give me,' quoth I:
'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail, 
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do....

There was a ship, the Tiger, that finally returned to England on 27 June 1606 after a disastrous voyage to the Eastern Mediterranean during which she was plagued by bad weather and mis-fortune, including many of her crew (London men mostly) being killed when she was attacked by Barbary pirates. 

A few lines further on the First Witch goes on to say: 

Weary se'n nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.

The real ship was at sea 567 days, the product of 7x9x9.

And talking of ships, in 'The Merchant of Venice', (Act 1, scene 1) Salarino says:

What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
I should not see the sandy hourglass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats
And see my wealthy Andrew docked in sand,
Vailing her high top lower than her ribs
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
And see the holy edifice of stone
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,

This might be a reference to the San Andrés, a Spanish galleon that ran aground in Cádiz in June 1596 after a surprise attack under the command of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. The ship was subsequently captured by him, renamed the St. Andrew and incorporated into the Royal Navy. However, upon arriving in England later that year she only just escaped running aground in the Thames Estuary. Then the following year in October 1597 when returning from the Essex-Raleigh military expedition in support of the Netherlands, Essex pointedly refused to allow her to sail close past the Goodwin Sands, for fear she would again run aground. The Goodwin sands are also specifically mentioned, again by Salarino (Act 1, scene 3):

Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wracked on the narrow seas. 
The Goodwins I think they call the place—a very dangerous flat, and fatal.

Meles meles wrote:

Temperance wrote:

... there's the equivocation theme in Macbeth and the reference in the famous Porter scene to "Farmer" - refers to Jesuit priest, Father Garnet, who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Garnet went under the alias of Farmer and used the right to "equivocate" as part of his defence - this caused much hilarity amongst Londoners at the time.

 
Although I knew about Henry Garnet's role in the Gunpowder Plot and knew that he'd operated under various different alliases, his mention in Macbeth was news to me, as was his 'equivocation' defence.

King Ferdinand of Navarre in Love’s Labours Lost would seem to fall into a similar bracket.

The chronology of the play is problematic. In it the audience is acquainted with the characters of Ferdinand, King of Navarre and the Princess of France. The back story is that Ferdinand of Navarre is also in possession of Aquitaine. The king of France has sent the princess to negotiate Aquitaine’s return. An ensuing love story then develops between the royals and also between members of their respective retinues.

There was a king of Navarre named Ferdinand which was during the 1510s about 100 years before Shakespeare was writing the play. That Ferdinand, however, did not possess Aquitaine. Indeed, at no time in history has Aquitaine been a possession of Navarre. That said - the crowns of Navarre and France were in personal union with each other during the first half of the 14th century i.e. 200 years earlier again. Yet during that era Aquitaine was a duchy in personal union with the crown of England and thus outside the direct realm of France. A problem upon a problem.

Returning to the reign of Ferdinand in the 1510s, then at that time the counties of Limoges, Perigord and Turenne (on the boundaries of Aquitaine) were possessions of John of Albret who was married to queen Catherine of Navarre. If you’re puzzled as to why the queen of Navarre was married to John of Albret rather that to king Ferdinand then the reason is that there were 2 rival Navarres at that time. Ferdinand had defeated Catherine and John in battle and had annexed all of Navarre south of the Pyrenees which was the bulk of the country. He thus added the title King of Navarre to his existing titles of King of Aragon, King of Sardinia, King of Sicily and King of Naples. In short Ferdinand was the consort of Isabella of Castille, co-founder of the embryonic Spanish state and sponsor of Christopher Columbus' voyages of exploration and the nascent Spanish empire. Ferdinand the Catholic (to give him his nickname) was an unlikely romantic hero for an Elizabethan playwrite writing barely 10 years after the time of the Great Spanish Armada. His Navarre was the larger of the 2 and is sometimes called Upper Navarre.
 
The other Navarre was Catherine’s smaller Lower Navarre to the north of the Pyrenees. The 2 Navarres settled into a state of permanent partition never to be re-united. And it was almost certainly Lower Navarre which 90 years later Shakespeare had in mind as the setting of Love’s Labours Lost. At that time Lower Navarre was ruled by the Bourbon Henri III who in 1589 had succeeded to the throne of France as Henri IV. As a Protestant he received considerable opposition from the Catholic League in France both before and after his accession.
 
Through Henri’s accession, however, Lower Navarre now found itself again in personal union with the crown of France. Henri’s wife was Margaret of Valois (la reine Margot from the eponymous novel by Alexandre Dumas) and it is perhaps her character who corresponds with the Princess of France in the play. The concept of the return of ‘Aquitaine’, therefore, could be seen as representing the return of equilibrium to France – perhaps an end to sectarian conflict which Henri and Margot sought to achieve. The St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Protestants in Paris, for instance, had marred their wedding celebrations in 1572. Later the pragmatic Henri is said to have claimed that ‘Paris is well worth a mass’ when deciding to officially convert from Protestantism to Catholicism in 1593 around the time the play was written.

Having a nominally Protestant king in Paris and an officially Protestant state (Navarre) so far south in western Europe and right on the border with Spain, had been politically advantageous for Queen Elizabeth’s England. Henri’s subsequent conversion was seen as a betrayal of this state of affairs. By using the name of Ferdinand (the Catholic) as king of Navarre can be seen as Shakespeare perhaps having a bit of a dig at Henri here. The fact that Ferdinand's love for the Princess of France remains unresolved in the play can also be seen as something of a rebuke. Shakespeare himself is said to have been influenced by Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene published slightly earlier. In the Fifth Book of that epic poem, the character of ‘Sir Burbon’ makes an appearance and is almost certainly intended to represent Henry of Navarre. He is depicted as being a well-meaning but flawed knight. Burbon is questioned by another knight Sir Artegall as to why Burbon has ‘forborne your own good shield’ (i.e. put it aside in favour of another):

That is the greatest shame and foulest scorne,
Which unto any knight behappen may
To loose the badge, that should his deedes display

Sir Burbon ‘blushing’ explains that he was forced to. He says that he had indeed been given a shield with ‘His deare Redeemers badge upon the bosse’ by the knight who first dubbed him, and that he had born it ‘longwhile’ and fought many battles against the tyrant Grandtorto. But he says that the more battles he won the more his shield did ‘enui’ (annoy) many and that his ‘cruell enemies’ just increased in number all the more. He had hoped, therefore, that by putting aside his shield the multitude would allow him to approach his ‘ladie’ who was ‘wondrous faire’ and ‘richly clad in roiall robes’. He laments, however, that despite this ‘she by force is still from me detayned’. Artegall is unimpressed by the sob story which to him smacks of dishonour. Burbon pleads:

For yet when time doth serve,
My former shield I may resume againe:
To temporize is not from truth to swerve,
Ne for advantage terme to entertaine,
When as necessitie doth it constraine

Sir Artegall agrees to help and buckling up, charges into Burbon’s enemies ‘with all his powre and might’. He then himself discovers that these enemies are indeed so numerous and flock around him ‘as a swarme of flyes upon a birchen bough doth cluster’, that he finds himself assaulted ‘with terrible allarme’ and is ‘forst … backe to retyre’. On this episode, however, the poem concludes:  

Witnesse may Burbon be, whom all the bands,
Which may a Knight assure, had surely bound,
Untill the love of Lordship and of lands
Made him become most faithlesse and unsound

In short – both Spenser and Shakespeare were trying to give Henri the benefit of the doubt. Burbon’s defence that ‘to temporise is not from truth to swerve’ can be seen as being the flipside of Henry Garnet’s ’right to equivocate’. In other words, the poets didn’t want to go too hard on Henri because they knew that deep down he was indeed protestant but they were still disappointed in him nonetheless and couldn’t openly agree with his assertion that ‘Paris is well worth a mass’.

Temperance (on 12 May 2019) wrote:

Just woken up and thought of Elizabeth I's declaration: "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" This early drama contained political dynamite - the deposition scene which was not printed in the first three editions of the play. The Earl of Essex commissioned a London performance in order to rally the city to his cause on the eve of his rebellion. Elizabeth's remark shows she was under no illusion to the real meaning of such plays. But, as the play unfolded, Shakespeare was clever enough to turn audience sympathy towards Richard.

During the Privy Council's inquisition that culminated in the trial and subsequent execution of Essex following his abortive uprising, the Lord Chief Justice investigated The Chamberlain's Men theatre company as to their potentiallly treasonous involvement in putting on the Richard II play at The Globe theatre the day before the rebellion. The interrogation of Augustine Philipps - he was one of the principal actors of the Chamberlain's Men and on this occasion he seems to been acting as their spokesman - is recorded in State Records as quoted below. However the question remains why him? Why wasn't it Will Shakespeare or Richard Burbage called for questioning? This was, after all a matter of the play's content touching on a case of high treason. Anyway here's Philipps' personal testimony under oath, although effectively made on behalf of the whole theatre company (just note that the clerk at the examination perhaps rather confusingly records Philipps' account of the events in the third person):

On Friday last, Charles Percy, Sir Jocelyn Percy, and the Lord Monteagle [friends of Essex and later shown to be part of the conspiracy] with some three or four more, spake to the players in the presence of this examinant [Philipps] to have the play of the deposing and killing of king Richard II, promising to give them 40 shillings more than their ordinary [ie 40s extra on what they'd make just from ticket sales] to play it. They [the theatre company] were determined to have played some other play, holding that the play of King Richard to be so old and long out of use that they should have small or no company [ie they wouldn't get much of an audience] but at their [Essex's friends'] request this examinant and his friends were content to play the play that Saturday and have their 40 shillings more than ordinary for it, and so they played it accordingly.
[signed] Augustine Philipps.

Knowing how politically charged the whole play was - and Essex's followers had apparently insisted that the heavily-censored 'deposition scene' be played in full - Shakespeare and his colleagues were lucky to get away with such a rather lame excuse that basically boiled down to, "honest your lordship, we didn't want to but we needed the cash: that's show-business". No further action was taken against them, either individually or as a company, despite widespread outrage at Court. However on 24 February 1601, the evening before Essex's execution, they were commanded to Whitehall to perform before the Queen herself - presumably she wanted to make sure the players fully understood that she knew that they had favoured Essex and that their continuance as a theatre company was on her suffrance alone. The evening must have been highly charged, not just because the queen and her government had recently survived a rebellion, but because the insurrection had been led by the queen's own charismatic former favourite ... now destined for a rendez-vous with the executioner's axe early on the following morning. I can't find what Shakespeare and company performed on that particular evening, though I rather suspect they didn't do 'The Life and Death of King Richard the Second'.

Temperance wrote:

Macbeth

When we were up north last week we saw this program trailed on BBC Alba.

Sar Sgeoil (Classic Tales) Macbeth

I hadn't appreciated (or had forgotten) that, with the play, Shakespeare was pandering both to King James' Scottish heritage and his obsession with witchcraft in one spectacular production. It does seem that Scotland is in need of an equivalent of the Richard III Society – only for Macbeth. As with Richard, however, opinion is divided. The program also goes into some depth on Queen Gruoch - the real life Lady Macbeth. It's packed full of fascinating detail. One thing I learned is that the received spelling and pronunciation of Dunsinane (stress on the first syllable) is down to the Bard. He needed it to rhyme with 'bane'. Both the Gaels and the Scots, however, pronounce it as Dunsinnan (stress on the second syllable).