Julius Caesar • 2013 - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

JULIUS CAESAR:
TREASON IN THE HOUSE OF TUDOR
In 1598 Robert Devereux, the
second Earl of Essex, sent a
letter to an acquaintance at the
royal court in which he queried, “When
the vilest of indignities are done unto
me, doth religion enforce me to sue?
Or doth God require it? Is it impiety
not to do it? What, cannot princes err?
Cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an
earthly power or authority infinite?”
The target of Essex’s indignation was Queen Elizabeth I, the
most popular Queen England had ever known—and Shakespeare’s
patroness. The indefinite answer to his speculation,
which any citizen of England could have given Essex
at the time, was that his sovereign’s power was irrefutable,
having been bestowed by a Divine magnate. By the light of
Elizabeth’s court, to have penned such words as Essex did
in his letter was a treasonous act.
By 1558 the English penchant for sedition had become
something of a national pastime. Sixteenth-century England
became the site of an unprecedented number of plots and
conspiracies against the Crown. Attempts were reported
so frequently and with such blatant
incompetence by their plotters
that some historians have
speculated that the government
had even fabricated some of the
cases. The participants in these
plots were viewed as malcontents,
consumed with envy, unable
to accept the life God had
ordained for them.
Elizabeth’s court was awash
in the intrigues of partisan politics.
In her youth she could curb
even the most rebellious with
flirtatious encouragement. Later,
confronted with an aging monarch
still clinging desperately to
the illusion of youth and beauty,
courtiers found that flattery and
backroom bargains were of-
JULIUS CAESAR
ten successful in getting their way with the queen. It was
certainly risky business considering that many noblemen’s
homes were filled with the eyes and ears of their rivals, but
the man who controlled the ear of the Queen had all England
within his grasp, and few men could resist the lure. Elizabeth
recognized their ploys and capitalized on her power
over them. She was a hands-on ruler, fully capable of stopping
any enterprise short with a word, or merely by refusing
to make a decision.
Treason against the Crown was viewed as an act that
threatened the very fabric of the established order, human
and divine. The punishment for treason or sedition was severe,
although not exorbitantly so for the period: hanging,
followed by castration and disembowelment, and finally
quartering. In order to bring conspiracies to light, agents
of the government often used torture—usually the rack—to
grind out confessions. Fear of detainment and questioning
was often strong enough to turn even the most inveterate
plotter into a stool pigeon.
Contributing to the treasonous nature of Englishmen at the
time was the Protestant Reformation instigated by Henry
VIII’s divorce of his Catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon. Thus,
Henry VIII broke ties with the Catholic Church and turned
Protestantism into the new heralded religion in England. To
Catholics, Elizabeth was a contemptuous heretic and an illegitimate
child because her Protestant mother, Anne Boleyn,
married Henry VIII after his divorce; she was therefore
deemed a usurper and unfit to rule. As a Protestant ruler,
The Family oF henry viii: alleGory oF The TuDor suCCession By luCas De heere
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