Shakespeare Magazine 07

The Essex Plot
Neither Shakespeare nor any of his friends
faced trial or were imprisoned. Elizabeth’s
Privy Councilors did not see Shakespeare or
his fellow players as a threat, or they would
have been tried as co-conspirators. Despite the
conclusion of the authorities, there are two
more facts that give this myth extended life.
The first: Richard II was censored.
In 1608, the fourth quarto printing of
Richard II debuted and the front page read:
“With new additions of the Parliament Scene,
and the deposing of King Richard”. The scene
referred to, the deposition of the King, had
never before been printed. Though the Crown
did not see Shakespeare as a threat, the missing
deposition scene still intrigues.
Compared to Shakespeare’s other works
from 1595 and 1608, the construction of the
scene is much closer in composition style to
writings from 1595, indicating the scene was
written for and excised from the original text.
The Lord
Chamberlain’s
Men had every
reason to avoid
offending the
Crown.
At Shakespeare’s time, and until 1968, plays
to be presented on the London stages were
subject to inspection and censorship. In 1595,
the Master of Revels, Edmund Tilney, was
responsible for these matters. Staging the
deposition of a king in front of a fickle mob
could have been politically if not physically
dangerous; a likely reason for Tilney to insist
Shakespeare cut the scene. While Tilney’s
interference would have been in accordance
with his duty to Queen Elizabeth, no known
record exists of Tilney’s work on Richard II.
The fourth quarto printing of 1608, with
the restored deposition scene was the first
printing of Richard II after Elizabeth’s death.
It may well be that the fears of the scene’s
troubles died with Elizabeth, but this is merely
speculation.
With the deposition scene’s absence
possibly solved, only one aspect of the myth of
the seditious Shakespeare remains: Elizabeth’s
quote itself. On 4 August, Queen Elizabeth
SHAKESPEARE magazine 45