The Shakespeare Conspiracy

The Story Of Purim In The Works Of Shakespeare

By Jean Jofen

� 1985

Part VI

We find a passage in the Marprelate Tracts which inspired an entire play --- King Henry VIII.

This play was considered of varied authorship, until it was finally accepted as Shakespeare’s play into the First Folio in 1623. In Tract I Martin speaks of the Bishop of Canterbury":

"And do you know that after it is full sea (tide) there followeth an ebb? Remember your brother Haman. Do you think there is never a Mordecai to step to our gracious Esther, for preserving the lives of her faithfullest and best subjects, whom you so mortally hate and bitterly persecute?"

(Tract I, 69)

Passages in the play King Hanry VIII bring to mind different episodes in The Book of Esther.

Henry VIII: "Act I sc. ll takes piace in the Council Chamber. A noise within crying ‘Room for the Queen!’ Enter the Queen [Katherine] ... she kneels. The king riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by him.

Queen: "Nay, we must longer kneel. I am a suitor."

King: "Arise and take place by us. Half your suit. Never name to us; you have half our power. The other moiety ere you ask is given."

(Henry VIII, I, ii, 8f)

A similar scene is described in The Book of Esther:

Then said the king unto her: What wilt thou, Queen Esther? And what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom."

(Book of Ester, V, 1-3)

(Emphasis mine.)

Esther confides to the King that Haman has designated the 13th day of the 12th month to execute all the Jews of Persia and Media. But once an edict is given it cannot be rescinded, even by the King.

"... for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse."

(Book of Ester, V, 8)

(Emphasis mine.)

The only way this order can be rescinded is to write new letters:

King Henry:

"To every county

Where this is question’d send our letters with

Free pardon to each man that has denied

The force of his commission ..."

(Henry VIII, I, ii, 198)

Then the order is given:

"Let there be letters writ to every shire,

Of the King’s grace and pardon."

(Henry VIII, I, ii, 103)

We know from historic sources that the postal system in Persia was famous. The history of the postal services goes back to the early days of the great empires of the east, when the permanent maintenance of control over a wide area depended on rapid and frequent communication. "The post of the Persian empire under the successor of Cyrus is the first great example; the Macedonian successors of the Persian kings appear to have maintained, on a smaller scale, a similar service." What about the speed and the efficacy of mail in England? "The growth in intelligence and prosperity which marked the 17th century, soon led to deep dissatisfaction with the limited and somewhat inefficient services which prevailed [in England] under Elizabeth and James I. The reign of Charles I saw the first of the great postal reformers in the person of Thomas Witherings."

Letters, as we learn from Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and Romeo and Julliet, never arrived because some messengers died of the plague. Other letters were delivered to the wrong person (King Lear).

We have now at least one Shakespearean play in which a Bishop is likened to Haman, the same comparison that Marprelate made in The Tracts.

The Book of Esther begins with the account of the royal feast of Ahasuerus. Vashti, the queen, is sent for and refuses to come.

It is a similar wager which Petruchio makes with his friends to test the obedience of their wives:

"Let’s each one send unto his wife,

And he whose wife is most obedient

To come at fiest when he doth send for her

Shall win the wager which we will propose."

(The Taming of the Shrew: V, ii, 64)

As did Vashti, all the wives refuse to appear at their husbands’ bidding except Katherine.