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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
In 1614 Charles Boscard published at St Omer The Life and Death of Mr. Edmund Geninges Priest, Crowned with Martyrdome at London, the 10. day of November, in the yeare M.D.XCI, a book which John Hungerford Pollen called ‘the most sumptuous, artistic, and, typographically speaking, the most interesting literary monument to our martyrs which our poor persecuted church was ever able to set forth’. This beautiful little book's most striking feature is a set of twelve handsome engravings by Martin Bas of Douay, one before each chapter illustrating an episode in the martyr's life. It also harbours an important allusion to King Lear, and hence to William Shakespeare.
1 On this book, see Hungerford Pollen, John, ed., Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs, 1584–1603 (London: Catholic Record Society, Vol. 5, 1908), pp. 205–7;Google Scholar Allison, A. F., ‘Franciscan Books in English’, Recusant History (Biographical Studies) 3.1 (April, 1955): pp. 16–65;Google Scholar Rogers, David, ‘A Note on the “Life” of St. Edmund Gennings’, Recusant History 17.1 (May 1985): pp. 92–95;Google Scholar Allison, A. F. and Rogers, D. M., The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English Counter-Reformation between 1558 and 1640 (2 Vols., The Scolar Press, 1994), v. 2. p. 9.Google Scholar
2 Godfrey Anstruther, O.P. The Seminary Priests. A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales 1558–1850. I Elizabethan 1558–1603 (Ware: St Edmund's College and Durham: Ushaw College [1968]), pp. 128–29.Google Scholar
3 Halliwell-Phillips, J. O.. Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. 2nd edition (London: Longmans Green and Co.), 1882.Google Scholar Halliwell-Phillips gave no reason for thinking the old play of King Leir is being referred to. He did, however, think that ‘He hath applause’ referred to a performance. He also thought there were ‘at least two old plays on the subject’ of King Lear.
4 Schrickx, Willem, ‘“Pericles” in a Book-List of 1619 from the English Jesuit Mission and Some of the Play's Special Problems’, Shakespeare Survey 29 (1976): pp. 21–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 On the dating of Harsnett's book, see Brownlow, F. W., Shakespeare, Harsnett, and the Devils of Denham (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993), pp. 185–87.Google Scholar
6 Harbage, Alfred, Annals of English Drama, 975–1700, revised by Schoenbaum, S. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964), p. 54.Google Scholar
7 Foakes, R. A. and Rickert, R. T. (eds.), Henslowe's Diary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), p. 21.Google Scholar
8 Arber, Edward (ed.), A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554—1640 (London: Privately printed, 1875–77), 2.649 Google Scholar: ‘Edward White Entred alsoe for his Copie vnder th[e h]andes of bothe the wardens a booke entituled / The moste famous Chronicle historye of LEIRE kinge of England and his three daughters vjd C’
9 Arber, 3.289. ‘Simon Stafford. Entred for his Copie vnder th[e h]andes of the Wardens A booke called ‘the Tragecall historie of kinge LEIR and his Three Daughters &c.’ ‘As it was latelie Acted.’ The note follows the entry: ‘John Wright. Entred for his Copie by assignement from Simon Stafford and by consent of Master Leake, The Tragicall history of kinge LEIRE and his Three Daughters / PROVIDED that Simon Stafford shall haue the printinge of this book.’
10 Donald M. Michie, A Critical Edition of The True Chronicle History of King Leir And His Three Daughters, Gonorill, Ragan and Cordelia (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991), 4ff., prints and summarizes this material.
11 Greg, W. W., ‘The Date of King Leir and Shakespeare's Use of Earlier Versions of the Story’, The Library 20 (1940): p. 379,Google Scholar cited by Michie, 5. Greg also observed that there were five plays entered that day. Of the other four, only The History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, was published the same year. Another, David and Bethsaba, exists in an edition of 1599. No editions survive of the other two, Robin Hood, and John of Gaunt, and they were probably never printed.
12 Murphy, John L., Darkness and Devils (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1984), pp. 119–34.Google Scholar
13 5.3.312–14, 320–21. Quotations from King Lear are from the Arden edition by R. A. Foakes (London: Nelson, 1997).
14 See Sisson, C. J., ‘Shakespeare's Quartos as Prompt-copies, with some Account of Cholmeley's Players and a New Shakespeare Allusion’, Review of English Studies 18 (1942): pp. 129–43;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Murphy, Darkness and Devils, pp. 93–118, and Jensen, Phoebe, ‘Recusancy, Festivity, and Community: the Simpsons at Gowlthwaite Hall’ in Region, Religion and Patronage: Lancastrian Shakespeare, edited by Dutton, Richard, Findlay, Alison, and Wilson, Richard (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 101–20.Google Scholar One more detail can be added to this evidence of Catholic interest in Shakespeare. In 1616 when the St Omer press issued a selection of Robert Southwell's published work, the unknown Jesuit editor changed the superscription of Southwell's introductory letter ‘To his loving cosin’ to read ‘To my worthy good cosen Maister W.S.’ Since his text was based on the 1602 edition of Saint Peters Complaint, and he consulted no Ms sources, the alteration must have been his own. Devlin, Christopher, The Life of Robert Southwell, Poet and Martyr (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1956), pp. 269–72,Google Scholar thought W.S. was William Shakespeare, and took the alteration seriously enough to produce genealogical evidence showing that Southwell could have called Shakespeare his cousin. Whether Southwell and Shakespeare were in any sense cousins or not, there is no reason at all for believing that Southwell ever addressed his letter to anyone called ‘W.S.’ Nonetheless, if, like several modern writers, someone at St Omer in 1616 thought that the prefatory matter of Saint Peters Complaint referred to Shakespeare, that is further evidence of interest in Shakespeare at St Omer.
15 I have argued this point in more detail in ‘“Richard Topcliffe” Elizabeth's Enforcer and the Representation of Power in King Lear’ in Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare, edited by Dutton, Richard, Findlay, Alison, and Wilson, Richard (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 161–78,Google Scholar showing that even the story of Gloucester and his sons has aparallel in Richard Topcliffe's activities.
16 Foakes, pp. 119–21, summarizes the evidence for this conclusion.
17 As Caroline Spurgeon discovered, Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), p. 339,Google Scholar the reiterated image of King Lear is of a tormented human body.
18 Pollen, p. 107.
19 Mrs Wells was also condemned to be hanged. At the last moment she was reprieved, but kept in prison at Newgate, where she died eleven years later in 1602. The other priest present at the Mass, Polydore Plasden, three laymen, and a third priest, Eustace White, were all killed the same day as Gennings and Wells, but at Tyburn.
