England╆s ╉Double Reign╊:

The Sword and the Rapier in

1 Henry IV and Hamlet

- - - -

Michael Ovens

Supervisor: Andrew Lynch

2012

Dissertation submitted to Medieval and Early Modern Studies in the School of

Humanities at the University of Western Australia in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours.

1

I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research, written in the full

knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism and documented accordingly, and

contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a

degree at any university. I consent to the publication of this document on the

internet via a UWA site.

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Contents

Abstract . . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter 1:

The Worthy Temper of the Sword in 1 Henry IV . . . 17

Chapter 2:

The Envenomed Point of the Rapier in Hamlet . . . 35

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . 54

Glossary . . . . . . . . . 58

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . 59

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Abstract: The presence of the rapier, explicit or implied, in 1 Henry IV and Hamlet

disturbs the representation of the broadsword as an aristocratic and chivalric

symbol. The broadsword had served as a symbol of the medieval knight’s honour,

virtue, and piety. The rapier, together with the duel of honour, offered the English

gentleman an alternative raison d'être for the exercise of arms which weakened his

claim to what was a predominantly martial chivalric heritage. A tension was created

between the symbolic properties of the sword, which the English gentleman claimed

as his chivalric heritage, and the physical exercise of the sword, which became

associated with the serving-man tradition of the sword and buckler. In I Henry IV,

Shakespeare constructs a contemporary Elizabethan imagining of England’s

chivalric past. Hal’s surpassing of both Hotspur and Falstaff represents the

emergence of the ideal of the English gentleman from the fusion of the traditions of

chivalry and civil courtesy, while Hotspur is constructed as a tragic hero flawed by his

lack of civil grace. In Hamlet, Shakespeare gives the rapier centre-stage. This

marginalises the broadsword within the play and diminishes its capability to act as a

symbol of the gentleman’s chivalric heritage. The Italian theory of the superiority of

the thrust over the cut further troubles Shakespeare’s evaluation of the broadsword

when compared to the rapier. In spite of, and in some ways because of, its superior

lethality in civil duels, the rapier is depicted as a tainted symbol associated with the

epidemic of deaths from duels in both England and continental Europe. In both 1

Henry IV and Hamlet, Shakespeare engages with and reflects on the conflicting

(re)appropriations of the sword as a symbol of upper-class identity through his

representations of the broadsword and the rapier.

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Introduction

For worms, brave Percy: fare thee well, great heart!

Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!

When that this body did contain a spirit,

A kingdom for it was too small a bound;

But now two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough: this earth that bears thee dead

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so dear a show of zeal...

(1 Henry IV, 5.3.88-96)1

The English gentleman of the latter sixteenth century had little in common with the

battlefield chivalry of Henry Percy. Although the ideal gentleman believed himself to be chivalric in his ╉great heart╊, he was in fact a chimera pieced together from the pieces of classical Greece, medieval England, and renaissance Italy. Competing

for space within this composite exemplar was the gentleman╆s desire to be "sensible╊ of the civil courtesy rippling from ╉the )talian nacion, whiche semeth to flourishe in ciuilitee moste of all other at this date.╊2 Arriving on English shores in

the middle of the sixteenth century, this Italian civil courtesy re-imagined the medieval knight╆s ╉first and true profession… of arms╊ as the means by which a

1 William Shakespeare, ╉The First Part of (enry the Fourth╊, Complete Works, ed. Jonathan Bate, Eric

Rasmussen, Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampshire: Macmillian, 2008. 2 William Thomas, The historie of Italie, London, 1549, sig. A2r.

5

╉good reputation╊, rather than a battle, could be won.3 The antiquated chivalric life gave way to a vibrant chivalric imagination able to inspire Edmund Spenser╆s epic The Faerie Queen, animate the latter-day heroism of Sir Philip Sidney, and invigorate the spectacle of Elizabeth╆s Accession Day tournaments. Although the

outcomes of the new civil courtesy were in many ways better met by the rapier

than by the broadsword, the chimeric gentleman could not lay the sword to rest

entirely: the White Arm had bred the very spirit of chivalry, serving as the knight╆s ancestral badge of rank and personal crucifix.4 The movement from broadsword to

rapier strained the relationship between the symbolic properties of the sword and

its practical qualities as a weapon. This tension manifested in an uneasy

ambivalence towards the representation of the broadsword in Shakespeare╆s dramatic text, especially when contrasted with the rapier.

In this dissertation I will examine the representations of the broadsword and the

rapier in 1 Henry IV and Hamlet. I have chosen these two plays because they

demonstrate how the representation of the broadsword changes in the presence

and absence of the rapier. In 1 Henry IV, the absence of the physical rapier allows

Shakespeare to depict the broadsword in its knightly splendour as a chivalric and

aristocratic symbol able to quash Falstaff╆s pedestrian appropriation. In Hamlet,

the broadsword is sidelined in favour of a gentleman╆s duel with rapiers that manifests the poison infecting the state of Denmark; however, the broadsword╆s brief depiction in the tale of ╉Priam╆s slaughter╊ ゅHamlet 2.2.395-459) and its

3 Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528), trans. George Bull, Middlesex: Penguin

Books Ltd, 1967, p. 57. 4 Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Sword, London: Chatto and Windus, 1884, p. xv-xxvi ; Mike

Loades, Swords and Swordsmen, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2010, p. 247 ; R. Ewart

Oakeshott, The Archaeology of Weapons, London: Lutterworth Press, 1960, p. 200.

6

curious absence from the ╉warlike form╊ of Old (amlet ゅHamlet 1.1.53)5 suggest a

symbolic value worlds apart from 1 Henry IV. By examining the representation of

the ╉double reign╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.3.66) of the broadsword and the rapier in these

two plays I hope to open up a new understanding of the sword in both Shakespeare╆s plays and the Elizabethan society in which they were introduced. Our society takes a fairly dim view of the medieval swordsman. Ser Vardis Egan, a

knight from the multi-award winning HBO series Game of Thrones, is so clumsy

that he strikes the very walls with his wild, brutish blows; 6 his ╉dance╊ is ╉the knight╆s dance, hacking and hammering.╊7 We can read in generalist books that the

medieval broadsword tipped the scales in excess of ten kilograms,8 that they were wielded as little more than glorified ╉can openers╊, and that it was ╉only when armor finally fell into disuse in the 1500s... that complex offensive and defensive systems of swordplay began to appear.╊9 The broadsword straddles an awkward

three-way divide between its historic value as the ╅queen of weapons╆, its symbolic worth as the emblem of a knight╆s chivalry, and its (perceived) practical insufficiency as a martial instrument, which has been likened to ╉carrying a piece of log and trying to wield it like a steak knife.╊10

5 William Shakespeare, ╉The Tragedy of (amlet, Prince of Denmark╊, Complete Works, ed. Jonathan

Bate, Eric Rasmussen, Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampshire: Macmillian, 2008. 6 ╉A Golden Crown╊, Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season, writ. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss,

HBO, 2012. 7 ╉Lord Snow╊, Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season, writ. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, HBO,

2012. 8 Paul Williams, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades, U.S.A.: Alpha, 2002, p. 20. More

knowledgeable authors, like the fencer Richard Cohen, are more conservative in their estimates – Cohen merely claims ╉well in excess of three pounds╊, or over な.ぬ kilograms – but are just as

dismissive. Richard Cohen, By the Sword : a history of gladiators, musketeers, samurai,

swashbucklers, and Olympic champions, New York: Random House, 2002, p. 14 . 9 Nick Evangelista, The Encyclopedia of the Sword, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995,

p.26. 10 ╉The Medieval Broadsword╊, Conquest, The History Channel, New York, July 6, 2003.

7

The reality is that the average broadsword weighed between one and two

kilograms and required a high degree of dexterity to use correctly.11 Superbly

designed to defeat the strongest armour of the early medieval period, the mail

hauberk, the broadsword continued to adapt and keep pace with developments in

defensive technology, transitioning into great swords and swords of war.12 Even

these two-handed swords were light and balanced enough to be used gracefully in

one hand.13 The surviving works of the medieval masters at arms require students

of the art to execute feints, thrusts, and rapid changes of direction with their

weapon. In order to execute these techniques, a swordsman requires a weapon

wholly inconsistent with many modern caricatures of the medieval sword.

The negative view owes a lot to the authors and fencers of nineteenth-century England. ╉The history of the sword is the history of humanity╊, wrote Richard F. Burton in 1884, but it is a history that many Victorian authors saw in reverse.14

Beginning with the sport of nineteenth-century small-sword fencing with masks and foils, a system ╉as nearly perfect as can be hoped for in an imperfect world╊,15

the history of the sword was traced backwards through increasing imperfection to the ╉rapier and point, the peculiar and especial weapon, offensive and defensive, of Southern Europe, Spain, )taly, and France,╊16 in order to ╉show clearly how tardy was the development of fencing.╊17 Medieval swordsmanship was hardly

considered an ╅art╆ at all, but rather a ╉rough, untutored fighting╊ which

11 Ewart Oakeshott, Sword in Hand: A History of the Medieval Sword, London: Arms & Armor Press, にどどな, p. なぬ. Original units )mperial, ╉between に.の lbs and ぬ.の lbs╊. 12 R. Ewart Oakeshott, The Sword in the Age of Chivalry, London: Lutterworth Press, 1964, p. 17 13 Mike Loades, Swords and Swordsmen, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword, 2010, pp. 167-71. 14 Burton, The Book of the Sword, p. xv. 15 Walter H. Pollock, Edward B. Michell, Walter Armstrong, The Badminton Library: Fencing, Boxing

& Wrestling, London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1889, p. 36. 16 Burton, The Book of the Sword, pp. xvii-xix. 17 Pollock, Michell, Armstrong, Fencing, Boxing and Wrestling, pp. 3-4.

8

╉represented faithfully the reign of brute force in social life as well as in politics╊ 18.

Walter Scott translated this belief into narrative in his novel The Talisman (1825),

where Richard the Lionheart severs an inch-and-a-half thick iron bar with his broadsword ╉as a woodsman would sever a sapling with a hedging-bill.╊ Saladin makes a modest show of being impressed before bisecting a light cushion and a

falling silk scarf with his scimitar, feats which Richard had only moments before

claimed impossible to achieve with his own sword.19

Shakespeare╆s audience, and Shakespeare himself, would have had a much different understanding of the broadsword and its relationship to the rapier.

English society was suffused with both swords and rapiers at the turn of the

seventeenth century; it had become an article of fashion among gentlemen to wear

a rapier with everyday dress 20 and a matter of honour to be skilled in its use.21 Below him, the gentleman╆s serving-man preferred to carry a broadsword –

typically a backsword22 - as he had done for centuries, typically paired with a

buckler which hung from its hilt or pommel. 23 Duels with rapiers among

18 Egerton Castle, Schools and Masters of Fencing: From the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century

(1885), New York: Dover Publications, 2003, pp. 3-5. 19 Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman (1825), Cosimo Classics, 2005, pp.327-9. 20 Tudor Royal Proclamations, eds. P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin, 3 vols., New Haven and London: Yale

University Press, 1964-9, vol. 1, no. 30. 21 Vincentio Saviolo, His practise, in two bookes, the first intreating of the use of the Rapier and

Dagger, the second of Honor and honorable quarrels, London, 1595, sig. P1r-P2v. 22 Loades, Swords and Swordsmen, pp. 164-5. Compare with the sword pictured in George Silver,

The Works of George Silver, comprising ╉Paradoxes of Defence╊ [Printed in 1599 and now reprinted] and ╉Brief Instructions upon my Paradoxes of Defence╊ [Printed for the first time from the MS. In the British Museum], ed. Cyril G. R. Matthey, London: George Bell and Sons, 1898, sig. E3v. 23 The earliest record we have for common-born men causing mischief with the sword and buckler

is a writ from the Edward I to the Mayors and Sheriffs of London in the thirteenth century, ╉enjoining them to punish all bakers, brewers, and other misdoers walking the City by night with swords and bucklers and assaulting those they met╊. Calendar of letter-books of the city of London:

A: 1275-1298, Reginald R. Sharpe, ed., 1899, fol. 127. URL: http://www.british-

history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33031 Date accessed: 20 April 2012.

9

gentlemen increased in both number and publicity from the 1580s,24 while the

aspiring students of the corporation of ╉four ancient masters of the noble science of Defence within the City of London╊, who controlled instruction in the English art of the broadsword and buckler, demonstrated their skills at crowded public

competitions in order to progress through the ranks from scholar to free scholar,

provost, and master.25 These competitions were often held at playhouses like Richard Burbage╆s ╉Curtain╊ and the (olywell ╉Theatre╊,26 as well as inns like the

Bell Savage and the Bull, both of which doubled as playhouses.27 It seems unlikely

that an audience who sat down to watch a spirited and skilful exchange of blows at

a corporation prize in the Curtain one week would be satisfied with a lacklustre or

clearly scripted theatrical fight the next, especially when many of the audience

would be proficient with either sword or rapier themselves.

It should thus come as no surprise to find Shakespeare investing deep meaning in

his swords beyond the level of simple satire. The sheer volume of technical

references within his plays – Falstaff╆s exaggeration of the buckler to target ゅ1

Henry IV 2.4.124-70), the hints of Spanish destreza in Thibault╆s ╉book of arithmetic╊ (Romeo and Juliet, 3.1.84-99),28 (amlet and Laertes╆ skilful exchange of weapons (Hamlet, 5.2.244)29 – suggests that his audience must have been at least

somewhat familiar with the exercise of swords. I contend that Shakespeare took

24 Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, pp. 245,

770; Markku Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 82-4. 25 BL Sloane MS 2530, fol. 21. See Jay P. Anglin, ╉The Schools of Defense in Elizabethan London╊, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1984, pp.393-410. 26 BL Sloane MS 2530, fols. 6, II, I2, 13, 33, 34, 44, 46. 27 Glynne Wickham, Early English Stages, 1300 to 1660, 2 vols., London, 1963, vol. 2, pt. 1, p.190. 28

William Shakespeare, ╉The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet╊, Complete Works, ed. Jonathan Bate, Eric

Rasmussen, Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampshire: Macmillian, 2008. 29 Charles Edelman, Brawl Ridiculous: Swordfighting in Shakespeare’s Plays, New York: Manchester

University Press, 1992, pp.184 .

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advantage of this familiarity to manipulate his weapons as symbols of chivalry,

civic courtesy, and social class.

With this in mind, it is worth remembering that the belted rapier worn in Hamlet

did not fashion a gentleman from a social void. He was crafted at least partly in

negative, defined by virtue of what he was not – ╉lowe╊. ╉) should thinke ゅmy Lordsょ that men of birth and quality will leaue the practise [of fencing with the rapier], when it begins to bee vilified and come

so lowe as to Barbers - surgeons and butchers, and such base mechanicall

persons.╊30

Confronted with unprecedented social mobility and an increasingly broad

definition of gentility, the English gentleman was keen to carve out his own social

niche.31 In 1583, after an unprecedented flurry of close to two thousand grants of

arms over the previous thirty years,32 Thomas Smith observed that ╉gentlemen… be made good cheap in England. For whosoever… can live idly and without manual labour and will bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman… shall be taken for a gentleman.╊33 Although the Elizabethan chivalric revival took place

relatively independently of the heraldic surge, when it eventually did occur the

broadened criteria for gentility necessitated a new understanding of the sword as a

symbol of the armigerous class.34

30 Sir Francis Bacon, The Charge Touching Duells, London, 1614, p. 6. 31 A.L. Rowse, The England of Elizabeth, London: Reprint Society, 1953, pp. 279-86. 32 Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, pp. 67, 754. 33 Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583), ed. L. Alston, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1906, pp. 39-41. 34 Arthur B. Ferguson, The Chivalric Tradition in Renaissance England, London: Associated

University Presses, 1986, pp. 67-8.

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The introduction of Italian civil courtesy in the middle of the sixteenth century

gave outward form to many of the inward changes that had been wrought by the

rise of the gentry. The Italian code of civility was primarily concerned with the

manner in which courtiers should conduct themselves in civil life and conversation in order to ╉purchase worthy prayse of their inferiours: and estimation and credit amonge theyr betters╊.35 Paramount was the emphasis upon surfaces and

appearances which were thought to reflect the inner life and virtues of an

individual; 36 civility was considered to be the ╉Outwarde honestie╊ which mirrored and projected the virtue of the soul, while the body and its accoutrements were as the ╉habyte and apparayle of the inwarde mynde.╊37 The

private life of an individual was considered secondary to his public life insofar as

reputation and honour were concerned, to the extent that if a person became aware of a conflict between the private and public lives of another then ╉[he] ought to satisfie rather others than [himself], and… giue place to the common custome.╊38

This emphasis upon the exterior displays of a gentleman╆s civil life indicated a significant change in the role that martial training played for the English gentry.

Warfare had been the medieval knight╆s business, and he would have learned to ╉[w]restle well and wield lance, spear, sword, and dagger manfully╊ in order to win ╉honour in wars╊39 which were decided by the strength of his mounted charge.

Although George Silver praised the ╉vantages and sufficiency of the short sword

35 S[imon] R[obson], The covrte of ciuill courtesie, London, 1577, title page. See Anna Bryson, From

Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England, Clarendon Press: Oxford,

1998, pp.107-11, 121-2. 36 Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England, pp.30-35. 37 Desiderius Erasmus, De Civilitate Morum Puerilium, Antwerp, 1526, sig. A2v; B2v. 38 Stephano Guazzo, The civile conversation, trans. George pettie and Barth. Young, London, 1586

sig. 25r. 39 Paulus Kal, In Service of the Duke (1460), ed. and trans. Christian Henry Tobler, Texas: The

Chivalry Bookshelf, 2006, p. 237 ; F. Warre Cornish, Chivalry, New York: Macmillan, 1908, p. 15.

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fight in battle… when men are clustering and hurling together╊ 40 and Baldassare

Castiglione maintained that ╉the first and true profession of the courtier must be that of arms╊41 well into the sixteenth century, developments in tactics and

technology had made the early modern battlefield hostile to the chivalric mode of

warfare. The year before George Silver penned his Paradoxes of Defence (1599),

martial theorist Robert Barrett wrote in The Theory and Practike of Moderne

Warres (1598) that

… it is rarely seen in our days, that men come often to hand-blowes, as in

old time they did: For now in this age, the shot so employeth and busieth

the field (being well-backed with a resolute band of pikes) that the most

valientest and skilfullest therein do commonly import the victories, or the

best, at the least wise, before men come to many hand-blowes.42

The common soldier, armed with pike and musket, had supplanted the knight with

his broadsword as the defining force of the battlefield. This is not to say that the

English gentleman had no place on the battlefield; Sir Robert Dudley wrote in awe

of the young gentleman Edward Stanley who stormed a breach at the fort of Zutphen alone and fought ╉first with his pike, then with the stumpes of his pike,

and afterward his sword, against at the least ix or x, and everie man either brake

his pike uppon his brest, or hit him with the shott of their muskett, yet would he not back a foot╊.43 Such heroics could be the ╉chiefe cause… [of] honour╊,44 but the outcome of the battle was no longer in the gentleman╆s hands.

40 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig. F1r. 41 Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, p. 57. 42 Robert Barret, The Theory and Practicke of Modern Warres, London, 1598, p.75. 43 Robert Dudley, Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, During his Government of the

Low Counrties, in the yeares 1585 and 1586, John Bruce, ed., New York, London: Johnson Reprint

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Training in the law had in fact supplanted military skills for anyone likely to serve

in the administrative affairs of the country.45 These romanticized skills became

chiefly the means for a gentleman to ╉win a good reputation╊ and to defend himself when ╉differences arise between one gentleman and another and lead to duels╊. 46

Perhaps a better example of the martially inclined English gentleman of the sixteenth century is the ╉Faire branch of (onor, flower of Cheualrie╊47 Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who thrust his pike into the gate of Lisbon, ╉demanding alowd if any Spaniard mewed therein, durst adventure forth in favour of his

Mistress to breake a [lance] with him.╊48 Essex╆s challenge contains little of the chivalric tradition of combat between champions in lieu of a pitched battle in order to ╉save the blood on either side╊ (1 Henry IV, 5.1.100). Although he wears the

trappings of chivalry, his goal is to win a good reputation and ╉pluck bright honour╊ ゅ1 Henry IV, 1.3.205) from his adversaries. Unsurprisingly, the bemused

Spaniards declined the challenge.

Although ╅Renaissance men╆ like Essex suggest that the Elizabethan gentleman was able to reconcile their ╉steelèd╊ ゅHamlet 1.1.72)49 chivalry with ╉the tune of the

Company, 1844, pp.427-ひ. Stanley╆s heroics were significant enough to attract a mention in William Campden╆s Annales; see William Camden, Annales or, the history of the most renowned and victorious

Princesse Elezabeth, late Queen of England: Contaying all the important and remarkable passages of

state, both at home and abroad, during her long and prosperous reigne, trans. R.N. Gene, London:

printed by Thomas Harper, 1635, p.295. 44 Dudley, Correspondence of Robert Dudley, p.427-9. 45 Ferguson, The Chivalric Tradition in Renaissance England, p.61-2. 46 Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, p. 57-8, 61-2. 47 Edmund Spenser, ╉Prothalamion╊, The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition, eds. Edwin Greenlaw, Charles Osgood, Frederick Padelford, Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1932-49, vol. 8,

p.261. 48 John Speed, The historie of Great Britaine : vnder the conqvests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and

Normans, their originals, manners, habits, warres, coines, and seales. With the successions, liues, acts

and issues of the English monarchs from Ivlivs Caesar, vnto the raigne of King Iames, of famous

memorie. London, なはぬに, p.ななひど. See also Ray (effner, ╉Essex, The )deal Courtier╊, English Literary

History, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1934, pp.7-36. 49 From Old (amlet╆s ╉steelèd pole-axe╊ in Shakespeare, Complete Works, modernised from the original ╉sledded pollacks╊. For a discussion of the meaning of the original phrase see David (aley,

14

time and outward habit of encounter╊ ゅHamlet 5.2.137-8), the latter sixteenth

century saw a rift grow between the symbolic properties of the broadsword, which

the gentleman claimed as his chivalric heritage, and its physical exercise, which

became predominantly associated with the serving-man tradition. The tradition of

plebeian swordsmanship had been smothered during the medieval period by the

exceptionally strong association of the sword with the chivalric knight. As the

chivalric life ebbed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the serving-man╆s tradition gradually came to the fore.

Interestingly, most of the evidence we have for swordsmanship among the lower

orders of society comes from official attempts to ban the practice. In 1281, Edward ) directed a writ ╉to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London enjoining them to punish all bakers, brewers, and other misdoers walking the City by night with swords and

bucklers and assaulting those they met╊.50 This was followed by a statute in 1285 providing ╉that none shall keep school for, nor teach the art of fence within the City of London under pain of imprisonment for forty days,╊51 which lead to the

imprisonment of the aptly named Roger le Skirmisour in 1310-なな ╉for holding a school for fencing and drawing young men together, sons of respectable parents, to the wasting of their property and injury of their own characters.╊52 This image of

the serving-man as a swaggering, machismo swashbuckler persisted even beyond

the eventual recognition of an organisation of English masters of defence in

╉Gothic Armaments and King (amlet╆s Poleaxe╊, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol 29., No. 3, 1978, pp.

407-13. 50 Calendar of letter-books of the city of London: A: 1275-1298, Reginald R. Sharpe, ed., 1899, fol. 127.

URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33031 Date accessed: 02 May 2012 51 ╉Statutes for the City of London ゅなにぱのょ╊, Statutes of the Realm (1810), 11 vols., London: Dawsons,

1963, vol. 1, pp. 102-4. 52 Calendar of letter-books of the city of London: D: 1309-1314, Reginald R. Sharpe, ed., 1902, fol.

cxxxiii. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33086 Date accessed: 02 May

2012.

15

1540,53 and the more troublesome swordsmen found themselves condemned in a

series of Vagrancy Acts which classed them as rogues and vagabonds, along with

players of interludes, bearwards, gipsies, and other undesirables. 54

The gentleman╆s receding relationship to the broadsword as a result of the

decreasing need for day-to-day exercise of battlefield skills was compounded by

the principles of the fashionable new Italian swordsmanship. The new Italian

swordsmanship was bound up intrinsically with the honour culture which

accompanied Italian courtesy and was predicated on a belief that the thrust was an

inherently superior form of offence to the cut. This belief rested on an anatomical

understanding of the human body moving in arcs (the arc of the shoulder, the

elbow, the wrist) and a geometrical understanding that a straight line covered a

shorter distance than a curved line. The thrust was thereby demonstrated to be a

faster attack than the cut, which was believed to make it an inherently superior

form of offence.55

This belief married well with the thrusting rapier, but diminished the value of the

cutting broadsword as an effective weapon.56 Often, this derogation was disguised

as contempt for the buckler which invariably accompanied the serving-man╆s sword: in First Fruits, which yield Familiar Speech, Merry Proverbs, Witty Sentences,

53 Sydney Anglo, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, にどどど, p. ぱ. See Anglin, ╉The Schools of Defense in Elizabethan London╊, pp. ぬひぬ. 54 Tudor Royal Proclamations, nos. 16-809, especially 16, 30, 274, 493, 542. 55 Giacomo di Grassi, His True arte of defence plainlie teaching by infallable demonstrations, apt

figures and perfect rules the manner and forme how a man without other teacher or master may

safelie handle all sortes of weapons aswell offensiue as defensiue: vvith a treatise of disceit or falsinge:

and with a waie or meane by priuate industrie to obtaine strength, iudgement and actiuitie. First

written in Italian by the foresaid author, and Englished by I.G. gentleman, London, 1594, sig.B3r-C3v. 56 )t is important to recognise that the distinction between a ╅thrusting rapier╆ and a ╅cutting sword╆ is not absolute. Almost every master, English and Italian, from the thirteenth to early seventeenth

century advocated a combination of cuts and thrusts with all weapons. Nevertheless, fencers of the sixteenth century drew a distinction between the ╉down right blows╊ of the sword and the ╉foyning╊ or thrusting play of the rapier.

16

and Golden Sayings ゅなのばぱょ, John Florio derides the buckler as a ╉clownish, dastardly weapon╊ which Englishmen use ╉[b]ecause they are vsed to them.╊57 This

is a strange thing for Florio to argue when only eight years prior the Italian master Giacomo di Grassi described the buckler as ╉a weapon very commodious and much used╊, a statement born out by other continental masters.58 It appears likely that

authors like Florio used the especially close association of the buckler with the

English serving-man╆s tradition of swordsmanship to belittle the common man╆s exercise of the broadsword without impugning the gentleman╆s symbol. This

careful manipulation of the broadsword as a symbol of both gentile and plebeian

class identity came to characterise the representation of the broadsword at the

turn of the seventeenth century.

Shakespeare traces the threads of this slender web with a delicacy that the often

polemic manuals, proclamations, and chronicles rarely achieve. Switching

metaphors, the texts that have been considered so far have the straight edges that frame the jigsaw puzzle of the Sword as it existed toward the end of Elizabeth╆s reign, but these edge pieces alone do not form a complete picture. It is the small,

irregular pieces – the contrast of ╉feathered Mercury╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 4.1.111) and ╉Mars in swaddling clothes╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 3.2.115), the ghost that strides ╉with martial stalk╊ ゅHamlet 1.1.75), the identity of the enigmatic Norman (Hamlet

4.6.81) – that, oriented within the larger pieces of history, allow us to fill in the

heart of the puzzle that is the troubled representation of the broadsword in Shakespeare╆s England.

57 John Florio, First Fruits, which yield Familiar Speech, Merry Proverbs, Witty Sentences, and Golden

Sayings (1578), as cited in Frances Yates, John Florio: The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare's England,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934, p. 32 58 Di Grassi, His True arte of defence, sig. L4r. The buckler could be used offensively as well as

defensively by striking the opponent with the boss or rim of the buckler.

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The Worthy Temper of the

Sword in 1 Henry IV

I will redeem all this on Percy╆s head

And in the closing of some glorious day

Be bold to tell you that I am your son,

When I will wear a garment all of blood

And stain my favours in a bloody mask,

Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it.

(1 Henry IV, 3.2.133-8)

Standing ╉furnished, all in arms╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 4.1.102) over the body of slain

Hotspur, the wounded but triumphant Prince of Wales presents the searing portrait of a chivalric knight ╉breaking through the foul and ugly mists╊ of time as the sun breaks through ╉base contagious clouds╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 1.3.135-ひょ. (al╆s metamorphic journey from tavern-slumming truant to ╉feathered Mercury╊ ゅ1

Henry IV 4.1.111) has formed a thick, if somewhat frayed, thread within the

tapestry of critical literature surrounding 1 Henry IV. Who exactly is this man at the

end of the play? Is he as his image appears – a chivalric prince who has defeated

his knightly opponent in a chivalric test of valour and martial prowess with his

broadsword? Or could this be nothing more than a façade wrought by a master of ╉linguistic agility╊ that is comparable to the agility of a rapier fencer?59 What of

59 Jennifer Low, ╉╉Those Proud Titles Thou (ast Won:╊ Sovereignty, Power, and Combat in Shakespeare╆s Second Tetralogy╊, Comparative Drama, Vol. 34, No. 3, Fall 2000, pp. 269-290.

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(otspur, (al╆s opponent – does he make ╉a religion of chivalric virtues╊,60 or is he more like ╉an early-modern [rapier] duellist╊ himself?61 The difficulty of characterising these two ostensibly ╅knightly╆ characters is perhaps best illustrated by the way Grace Tiffany was able to use (arold E. Toliver╆s description of (otspur╆s vision of honour as an ╉aggressive, individual dream, like those of

romance knights╊62 to suggest ╉some likeness between an early-modern duellist and the (otspur of [な (enry )V]╊.63 If we are even to hope to understand the significance of (al╆s metamorphosis for the Elizabethan audience we must tread very carefully indeed.

My ゅtentativeょ argument is that the ╉feathered Mercury╊ which stands over the fallen shapes of both Hotspur and Falstaff in the final act of 1 Henry IV is the ideal

of the English gentleman as he existed at the end of the sixteenth century, forged

from the fiery steel of chivalry and tempered in the graceful water of civility. First, I

will first sketch out the problems created by considering Hal to be wholly chivalric or wholly civil, concluding with evidence suggesting (al╆s characterisation as a

gentleman of mixed heritage. Second, I will argue that Hotspur is constructed as (al╆s flawed mirror, a demonstration of the superiority of the contemporary Elizabethan gentleman over the antiquated knight. Third, I will identify Falstaff

with both the plebeian tradition of sword-and-buckler fence and the civil code of

conduct that was adopted (and abused) by men across the breadth of the

Elizabethan social spectrum. Finally, I will slot these pieces together to illustrate

60 (arold E. Toliver, ╉Falstaff, the Prince, and the (istory Play╊, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1,

Winter 1965, p. 63-80. 61 Grace Tiffany, ╉Rank, )nsults, and Weaponry in Shakespeare╆s Second Tetralogy╊, Papers on

Language & Literature, Vol. 47, No. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 295-317. 62 Toliver, ╉Falstaff, the Prince, and the (istory Play╊, p. はば, my italics. 63 Tiffany, ╉Rank, )nsults, and Weaponry,╊ p. ぬどな, my italics.

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how 1 Henry IV casts the shadow of a physically absent rapier over its

representations of the broadsword in order to create a new symbol for the English gentleman and how this complicates Shakespeare╆s symbolic evaluation of the sword in Elizabethan society.

Regardless of his final nature, it is generally agreed that Hal is portrayed as a ╉truant from chivalry╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.1.95) within the first half of the play. He

engages with Falstaff in very un-chivalric word games, exchanging insults with the

corpulent knight as they casually give one another the lie. To ╅give the lie╆ to another man was, quite simply, to call him a liar, usually because he has made

some kind of remark that the giver of the lie thought was insulting or untrue. There

were many variations upon the lie – such as ╉Lies certaine╊, ╉conditionall Lyes╊, and the ╉Lye in general╊– but in most cases, being given the lie was considered

ground for a duel.64 Saviolo explains that this is because ╉it is thought that everie man is honest, just, and honourable untill the contrarie bee proved.╊65 Calling

another man a liar when both men were presumed honest until the contrary was proved created an impasse, and threatened both men╆s status as gentlemen.66 The

fact that Hal and Falstaff so easily give the lie to one another suggests both a

familiarity with and light regard for the code of civil courtesy, as well as indicating

the resilient nature of their friendship.

From Falstaff, Hal learns the kind of rhetorical flexibility that characterised the civil courtier. Toliver likens this ╉education╊ to the way a morality-play hero is able to overcome antitypes and ╉absorb… their strength╊; (al╆s robbery prank upon

64 Saviolo, His practise, sig. S3v-V1v. 65 Saviolo, His practise, sig. R4r. 66 Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England, p. 60.

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Falstaff enables him to take the older man╆s powers of linguistic agility for

himself.67 Shakespeare╆s audience would likely have identified this flexibility with the physical agility of the rapier fencer, helped along by a judicious use of analogy –

Falstaff derides Hal as a "tailor's yard", a "sheath", a "bowcase" and a "vile

standing-tuck╊68 (1 Henry IV 2.4.185-7), all of which double as degrading phallic

puns, while later in Henry V the Archbishop of Canterbury claims (al╆s tongue can ╉unloose╊ the ╉Gordion knot╊ of ╉any cause of policy╊ ゅHenry V 1.1.45-8).69

Jennifer Low and Grace Tiffany argue that (al╆s rhetorical flexibility persists beyond the first half of 1 Henry IV and that it is (al╆s ╉mastery of rhetorical possibility╊ which, ╉corporealised╊, allows him to defeat the comparatively inarticulate (otspur, who is ╉speaking thick╊ ゅ2 Henry IV 2.3.24)70 and would ╉rather hear a brazen candlestick turned… / [than listen to] mincing poetry╊ (1

Henry IV 3.1.127-35).71 However, neither Low nor Tiffany is able to account adequately for the strong chivalric notes that resonate within (al╆s character in the second half of the play. )n order to ╉redeem╊ his father╆s ╉good thought╊ so that he can be proud to call himself his father╆s son, (al promises to ╉wear a garment all of

blood / And stain [his] favours in a bloody mask, / Which, washed away, shall scour [his] shame with it.╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 3.2.130-8) There was, admittedly, a lot of bleeding involved in a civil duel, probably enough to ╉wear a garment╊ of it, but

67 Toliver, Falstaff, the Prince, and the History Play, pp. 70-74. 68 A ╉tuck╊ is the anglicised version of the estoc, a stiff and often edgeless thrusting sword of the

later medieval period. This weapon was to a certain extent similar in appearance and use to the

rapier, but adapted for a wholly different environment. 69 Camillo Agrippa's 1553 Treatise on the Science of Arms with Philosophical Dialogue, includes

several instructions for the rapier fencer to void his opponent's strike by pivoting away from the

blade and delivering a return thrust while leaning backwards and looking in the opposite direction

- an impressive feat of gymnastics as well as arms, and indicative of the kind of flexibility Hal's

rhetoric skill is being compared to. See Camillo, Agrippa, Fencing: A Renaissance Treatise, ed. and

trans. Ken Mondschein, New York: Ithaca Press, 2009. 70

William Shakespeare, ╉The Second Part of (enry the Fourth╊, Complete Works, ed. Jonathan Bate,

Eric Rasmussen, Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampshire: Macmillian, 2008. 71 Low, Those Proud Titles, pp. 284-5; Tiffany, Rank, Insults, and Weaponry, pp. 301-3.

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(al╆s battlefield injury ゅ1 Henry IV 5.3.1-なねょ and the earlier image of (otspur ╉dry with rage and extreme toil, / Breathless and faint, leaning upon [his] sword… / with [his] wounds being cold╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 1.3.30-54) suggests a more martial bent

for (al╆s thoughts. The idea that (al is ╉grounded in the mire of tavern dirt… a metaphoric infantryman╊ who is opposed to ╉(otspur, prince of honor, [who] is a horseman, a soldier on horseback, a chevalier╊,72 holds true for the first half of the

play, but by the time we reach the Shrewsbury battlefield, Hal has undergone a

radical transformation:

HOTSPUR: … Where is his son, The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,

And his comrades that daffed the world aside

And bid it pass?

VERNON: All furnished, all in arms…

… ) saw young (arry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed,

Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,

And vaulted with such ease into his seat,

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds,

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

(1 Henry IV, 4.1.98-115)73

72 Low, Those Proud Titles, pp. 281-2. 73 A ╅beaver╆, or bevor, is a piece of armour protecting part of the upper chest, the throat, and the

lower part of the face; however, Shakespeare may have followed other sixteenth-century authors in

confusing it with the visor of a helmet. This would explain how, in Hamlet, Horatio was able to see Old (amlet╆s face because the ghost ╉wore his beaver up.╊ ゅHamlet 1.2.238) The cuisses are plate

armour for the thighs.

22

It is as if Hal has become an image of the very man he sought to fight. Nor is this a

sudden about-face, for even as (al mocked (otspur as ╉he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife ╅Fie upon this quiet life! ) want work╆╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.4.80-2), he hints at their eventual similarity: ╉) am not yet of Percy╆s mind╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.4.80), he says, with its silent corollary of ╅But ) may yet be╆. )t is tempting to argue that perhaps this is another example of (al employing his ability to pick up another╆s language ╉in one quarter of an hour╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.4.4-22) – in this case, the speech, mannerisms and fashion that comprise the ╅language╆ of (otspur╆s chivalric heritage - but then we

would have to ask ourselves why Hal maintains this façade even after he believes

himself to be alone on the Shrewsbury battlefield, believing both Hotspur and Falstaff dead yet lamenting that ╉the earth that bears [(otspur] dead / Bears not alive so stout a gentleman╊ (1 Henry IV 5.3.93-4). Instead, it appears that the nature which he allowed ╉base contagious clouds / To smother up╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 1.2.132-のひょ was chivalric, part of the heritage of being the Prince of Wales. (al╆s challenge to (otspur to engage in single combat in order to ╉save the blood on either side╊ ゅ1

Henry IV 5.1.100) is magnanimous and issued in accordance with the chivalric

pattern; Charles Edelman remarks that this challenge imitated the challenges of John Lydgate╆s Troy Book and Caxton╆s translation of Raoul Lefevre╆s The Recuyell

of the Historyes of Troy, and that in pulling from these works ╉[Shakespeare] draws a parallel between Hal and another of the great chivalric models, perhaps the greatest in that… medieval chivalry looked to Troy for exemplars of the code.╊74

(owever, we should be wary of putting too much of an emphasis on (al╆s newfound chivalric heritage as there is evidence within the play to suggest that Hal

74 Edelman, Brawl Ridiculous, pp. 98-100.

23

retains the rhetorical flexibility learnt from Falstaff even after his ╉reformation╊ ゅ1

Henry IV 1.3.150). (al maintains a ╉princely tongue╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.2.58) throughout the rest of the play, prompting Vernon to remark of (al╆s challenge that he ╉never in [his] life / Did hear a challenge urged more modestly.╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.2.53-4) Hal

uses this tongue to lash Hotspur before their fight at Shrewsbury until the latter ╉can no longer brook [the former╆s] vanities╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.3.75) and engages him

in armed combat. The classical art of rhetoric was considered to be a form of battle often considered in terms of actual combat; in Cicero╆s De Oratore, Crassus tells his

companions Sulpicius and Cotta that

╉… there is to my mind no more excellent thing than the power, by means of oratory, to get hold on assemblies of men, win their good will, direct their

inclinations wherever the speaker wishes, or divert them from whatever he wishes… [For what] is so indispensable as to have always in your grasp weapons wherewith you can defend yourself, or challenge the wicked man, or when provoked take your revenge?╊75

If we are to imagine, as the Elizabethans did, rhetoric to be a form of combat, then

the encounter between Hal and Hotspur at Shrewsbury contains not one, but two

combats – one verbal, one physical. The verbal combat between Hal and Hotspur

begins as soon as they lay eyes on one another:

Enter Hotspur

HOTSPUR: If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.

HAL: Thou speak╆st as if ) would deny my name.

75 Cicero, De Oratore, trans. E. W. Sutton, 2 vols., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967, vol. 1,

viii.30-32.

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HOTSPUR: My name is Harry Percy.

HAL: Why, then I see

A very valiant rebel of that name.

(1 Henry IV 5.3.59-63)

Hotspur opens the exchange by identifying his opponent and himself even though

the two men had met previously and would likely have had no problem

recognising one another; in Richard II, Hotspur says

My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince

And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.

(Richard II 5.3.13-14)

(otspur╆s twofold identification appears to be more formal than practical, reminiscent of Malory╆s tournaments with their closed helms that conceal the combatant╆s identity.76 )f we are to take a hint from (al╆s ╉Thou speak╆st as if ) would deny my name╊ then (otspur╆s manner may have suggested that (al ought to be ashamed at his identification, alluding to (al╆s reputation as a ╉truant from chivalry╊. Whether (otspur actually assumed such a manner or not is open to speculation. The real purpose behind (al╆s interjection is to set-up the cutting

remark that follows – ╉Why, then ) see / A very valiant rebel of the name.╊ (al turns the tables on Hotspur by suggesting that it is he who ought to feel ashamed of his past; through his rebellion, it is (otspur who is now a ╉truant from chivalry╊. The twofold nature of the Shrewsbury combat serves to illustrate (al╆s position as an English gentleman blending chivalry and civility, sword and rapier. The

76 Edelman, Brawl Ridiculous, pp. 109-111.

25

broadsword which Hal carries through the play is, alone, insufficient as a symbol of

the new gentry when contrasted with a monument of the old knightly order like

Hotspur. In order to update the broadsword for the sixteenth century, Shakespeare

weaves in allusions to the duel with rapiers which functioned as a metaphor for

the linguistic flexibility that formed such a large part of the courteous civil life.

Although the spectre of anachronism flirts around the edges of this depiction of the sword, interpretations of the sword as ╉heavy and rigid╊, inferior to ╉the more modern military opponent, rapierlike and flexible,╊ have more in common with the Victorian perception of the regressive history of the sword than the complex

relationship of the sword to Elizabethan society. 77

That said, to what extent can we actually consider (otspur to be a ╉monument of the old knightly order╊? Despite my bald assertion, (otspur╆s identity as a chivalric knight has been contended on two grounds.78 The first is the nature of the

Shrewsbury combat itself; if we accept that Bolingbroke denied consent to single

combat between Hal and Hotspur79 then it is possible to argue that this combat had

more in common with a Renaissance duel with rapiers than a knightly challenge. The second is the question of honour; Shakespeare╆s audience would have likely drawn a parallel between (otspur╆s ╉aggressive, individual dream╊ of honour and the very individual concern of the Renaissance duellist, which may compromise

the characterisation of Hotspur as a chivalric knight. 80 Both of these contentions

have their merits, but are better explained by an exploration of the chivalric tradition than an appeal to the duellist╆s code.

77 Tiffany, ╉Rank, )nsults, and Weaponry,╊ p. ぬどに. 78 Tiffany, ╉Rank, )nsults, and Weaponry╊, p. ぬどな-3. 79 Edelman, Brawl Ridiculous, pp.102-3. 80 Toliver, ╉Falstaff, the Prince, and the (istory Play╊, p. はば.

26

Edelman argues that Bolingbroke forbids (al╆s challenge to single combat, noting that the Shakespearean ╉albeit╊ is much closer to the modern ╉however╊ than ╉although╊: And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,

Albeit considerations infinite

Do make against it.

(1 Henry IV 5.1.102-4)

Further, he notes that there is no break in Bolingbroke╆s thought as he continues ╉No, good Worcester, no╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.1.105). The single combat which Hal proposes is a substitute for open battle, ╉to save the blood on either side╊ ゅ1 Henry

IV 5.1.100); if the combat were to go ahead, then the rebellion would have occurred in a formal sense. This would be incongruous with Bolingbroke╆s offer of amnesty, and explains why he does not allow the combat to continue. However, we

should be careful of assuming that this means that the combat ╉bespeaks the more narrow and personal rivalry that was characteristic of the early modern duel.╊81 A

duel was defined less by personal rivalry and more by its role within civil courtesy

as a formal refutation of an insult through a display of arms, and could in fact occur

between complete strangers. Prior to the verbal sparring at Shrewsbury itself no

insult had passed between Hal and Hotspur. Hotspur could have construed the label of ╉valiant rebel╊ as an insult, but instead let the remark slip either through

choice or an inability to recognise the slight. Without (perceived) insult, the lie

could not be given, but the combat proceeds nonetheless. It would seem difficult,

81 Tiffany, ╉Rank, )nsults, and Weaponry╊, p. ぬどに.

27

therefore, to argue that the Shrewsbury combat occurred within the context of a

Renaissance duel.

Likewise, (otspur╆s concern for honour bears some resemblance to a civil duellist, but any similarities are outweighed by the differences. Where chivalric honour was

concerned with who had the greatest ╉name in arms╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.3.62), civil honour dealt with the right to have such a name at all. A gentleman╆s honour was not something which could be won ╉because man bringeth it from his mother╆s wombe╊; a man could only ╉preserve… it unspotted, except through some greevous offence or suspition, he loose[s] this good opinion.╊82 This is what Frank (enderson Stewart calls ╉horizontal honour╊, the gentleman╆s right to respect among his peers; in other words, his reputation. 83 In this regard, the duellist╆s conception of honour seems incompatible with (otspur╆s acquisitive desire for glory, his need to ╉pluck up drowned honour by the locks╊ (1 Henry IV 1.3.208). Even if we were to grant a resemblance between (otspur╆s individuality and the individuality of the duellist, asserting that this individualism is a Renaissance

anachronism within a feudal era combat puts the horse before the cart, so to speak.

The radical individualism which flavoured the Renaissance English conception of

honour was derived from the Elizabethan fascination with late medieval knight-

errantry.84 In other words, Hotspur does not so much resemble an early-modern

duellist as he does anticipate one; he is still very much a knight.

Yet the Shrewsbury combat nevertheless contains a profoundly tragic and

potentially anti-chivalric zero-sum factor. In chivalric romances, a kind of

82 Annibale Romei, The courtiers academie, trans. J[ohn] K[epers], London, 1598, pp. 78-9. 83 Frank Henderston Stewart, Honor, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994, p. 54. 84 Ferguson, The Chivalric Tradition in Renaissance England, pp. 31-6.

28

gregarious competition prevails which permits the winning of honour without

taking it from someone else. Why, then, does Hotspur insist on the acquisitive act of ╉pluck[ing] bright honour from the pale-faced moon╊ (1 Henry IV 1.3.205)? The

answer lies within an earlier scene in the play where Hotspur, Glendower,

Mortimer, and Worcester are dividing up England amongst themselves on a map.

When an argument between Hotspur and Glendower erupts over the impact of the

river Trent upon their lands, Hotspur exclaims

… )'ll give thrice so much land

To any well-deserving friend;

But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

(1 Henry IV 3.1.137-40)

It is Hotspur's unwillingness to "bargain" or give a hair's leeway to his adversaries

which forces the zero-sum nature of the Shrewsbury combat - since Hotspur will

not share his honour, Hal is forced to take it with Hotspur's life. This explains (in

part) why Hal tells dead Hotspur, "If thou wert sensible of courtesy, / I should not

make so great a show of zeal"; (1 Henry IV 5.3.95-6) if Hotspur had been more

courteous towards his adversaries, Hal may have been able to spare his life.

Hotspur's mores and actions represent more than mere selfishness, however;

within the panoply of chivalric virtues, they represent a lack of magnanimity – the

complex virtue inseparable from the service to the common good which formed

the overriding virtue of the knight-errant.85

85 See Margaret Greaves, The Blazon of Honor, London: Methuen & Co, 1964, p. 18.

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The primary vector for the transmission of chivalric values to Elizabethan society

was the figure of the knight-errant, the lonely knight who wandered the

countryside in search of adventure. The promise of personal justice and individual

responsibility inherent in the knight-errant╆s travels must have proved alluring to an England wracked by civil wars. 86 At the very least it served to fire the

imagination of Sir Thomas Malory, whose knights are a close fit in the mould of the

knight-errant. Sir Ector╆s eulogy for Lancelot provides a useful outline of the importance of individualism, magnanimity and love for the knight-errant:

Ah Launcelot, thou were head of all Christian knights… thou were never matched of earthly knight╆s hand. And thou were the courteoust knight that ever bore shield. And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever

bestrad horse. And thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever

loved woman. And thou were the kindest man that ever struck with sword.

And thou were the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights.

And thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among

ladies. And thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put

spear in the rest.87

Hotspur lacks not only the virtue of magnanimity, but his duty to love ladies as

well. We are given a singularly penetrating look into Hotspur╆s mind when he is alone with his wife, Kate, in the second act. Kate questions Hotspur as to why she has ╉this fortnight been / A banished woman from [her] (arry╆s bed╊ ゅ1 Henry IV

2.3.26-ばょ, confessing that she is fearful when she hears him ╉murmur tales of iron

86 Ferguson, The Chivalric Tradition in Renaissance England, pp. 31-36. 87 Sir Thomas Malory, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugene Vinaver, Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1947, pp. 1259.

30

wars╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.3.36) that bestir his sleep. Hotspur evades the question, and

when pressed for a direct answer he loses his temper:

Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not.

I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world

To play with mammets and to tilt with lips.

We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns, And pass them current too.╊ (1 Henry IV 2.3.80-4)

Only when (otspur is ╉a-horseback╊ will he ╉swear / [to] love [Kate] infinitely╊, echoing in negative Sir Ector╆s praise that Launcelot was ╉the truest friend to [his] love that ever bestrad horse╊; only through war and the pursuit of glory can (otspur╆s passions be stirred ゅ1 Henry IV 2.3.90-2). From this perspective, Hotspur

is a deeply flawed knight. He values courage and prowess as the guarantors of

justice and honour and possesses the knight-errant's radical individualism, but he

lacks magnanimity and an idealisation of love. Because of his own shortcomings,

Hotspur serves as a mirror to the deeply flawed prince of the first half of the play.

Where the two men - Hal and Hotspur - diverge is in their education. Hal learns

from the mock-schoolroom of the tavern to converse with his fellow man and to

wield language and wit with rapierlike agility, which he adds to his concealed

chivalric virtues to emerge as a portrait of the English gentleman. Despite his ╉blemish╊ of ╉speaking thick╊, (otspur is given the opportunity to receive this same education and undergo this same transformation. Hotspur's companions

Glendower, Mortimer and Worcester recognize that Hotspur is "not tempered to

attend" (1 Henry IV 1.3.241) to the "secret book" (1 Henry IV 1.3.191) of linguistic

31

subterfuge, and attempt to educate him in the art of rhetorical and intellectual

flexibility that Falstaff is busy imparting to Hal. They tell him that his impetuosity

may give him "greatness, courage, blood", but without temperance it leads to

"harsh rage, / Defect of manners, want of government, / Pride, haughtiness,

opinion and disdain", to which Hotspur flippantly replies "Well I am schooled.

Good manners be your speed!" (1 Henry IV 3.1.179-90)

)n acknowledging (otspur╆s potential to be as heroic as (al, we transform him from a caricature of a warlike knight to a tragic hero flawed by his hot temper and

brash manner. This is consistent with the positive nostalgia with which early-

modern England viewed its chivalric heritage - not as a remnant from a brutal,

warlike time dominated by the kind of duelling rogues that would continue to strut

the London streets into the sixteenth century, but as a time of great men who sadly

lacked the kind of 'roundness' that defined early-modern knights like Sidney. This ╅roundness╆ is the other part of the ╉courtesy╊ that (al wished (otspur to be ╉sensible╊ of. The ╉worthy temper╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 5.に.ひのょ of (otspur╆s sword comes not from civil courtesy, but from battle; where Hal shifts attention away from the sword by promising to ╉wear a garment all of blood╊ (1 Henry IV 3.2.136), Hotspur ╉intend[s] to stain [his sword] / With the best blood that [he] can meet╊ (1 Henry IV

5.2.95-7). For Hotspur, the sword becomes a complete emblem of his incomplete

chivalry.

)n contrast to the heroic image of (otspur ╉dry with rage and extreme toil, / Breathless and faint, leaning on [his] sword╊ (1 Henry IV 1.3.32-3) upon the battlefield of (olmedon, we are given the mundane ruin of Falstaff╆s ╉buckler cut through and through, [his] sword hacked like a hand-saw╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.4.124-

32

129). Falstaff╆s sword was physically indistinguishable from (otspur╆s sword - ╉battle╊ damage and cosmetic differences aside - but the addition of the buckler inverted the sword╆s symbolic value, transforming it from a knight╆s aristocratic emblem to a plebeian badge. The lower class associations of the sword and buckler makes intelligible (otspur╆s taunting characterisation of pre-reformation Hal as ╉that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 1.3.236) by linking

him, and Falstaff, to the tradition of ruffians, vagabonds, and serving-men who had

constituted the symbolic underclass of the sword during the medieval period.

These serving-men had a reputation for thievery, violence, and mischief; in 1547, a

proclamation was issue that

... commandeth that no serving man nor apprentice of any other person,

whatsoever he or they be, shall use hereafter such insolence and evil

demeanor towards priests, as reviling, tossing of them, taking violently their

caps and tippets from them without just title or cause, not otherwise to use them than as becometh the King╆s most loving subjects one to do toward

another...88

The antics of these serving-men would have provided Shakespeare╆s audience an immediately recognisable parallel to Falstaff. Despite his noble birth, this ╉horseback-breaker╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.4.184) is procured a ╉charge of foot╊ and identified with the same (1 Henry IV 3.1.399-404), becoming essentially pedestrian in contrast to (al╆s ╉noble horsemanship╊ ゅ1 Henry IV ね.な.ななのょ and (otspur╆s desire to meet his opponent ╉hot horse to horse╊ (1 Henry IV 4.1.127). As Mistress Quickly put it, ╉setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave╊ (1 Henry IV 3.3.86).

88 Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 1, no. 292.

33

That (al should learn civil conversation from a man who is ╉gross as a mountain, open, palpable╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 2.4.171-3) must seem strange unless we understand

that civil courtesy was not a code that unilaterally promoted peaceable relations between gentlemen; the flexibility of ╅civil╆ conversation could in fact be twisted to uncivil ends. Vincentio Saviolo, in the second part of His Practise which dealt with the matter of ╉Honor and honorable quarrels╊, describes the manner of ╉certaine undiscreet men╊ who ╉either stand or go in streets, so to stare and looke men passing by them in the fact… which breedeth such an offence unto some men so marked, that they cannot take it in good part╊. (aving caused offence, these quarrelsome men would then fan the flames of insult through speech, in one case claiming to look ╉because they had eies╊, provoking the other men to reply ╉[that] is the crowes fault, in that they have not picked them out.╊89 Speech was accorded a

central role in civil conduct, but its strict prohibitions (and the linguistic agility

required to observe them) provided broad scope for insult. The opportunity for

insult and injury raised by the code of civil conduct was in fact so great that some

writers claimed civil courtesy actually made for more quarrels. 90 The peculiar

blend of the medieval and Renaissance in 1 Henry IV allows Shakespeare to graft

the association of the sword and buckler with discourteous civility onto the

medieval pattern of the sword and buckler as a symbol of the common man in the

same way that the rapier is grafted onto the sword alone for Hal.

The swords of Hal, Hotspur, and Falstaff in 1 Henry IV may be physically similar, but they are symbolically disparate. (al╆s victory over the sum of his chivalric and (un)civil parts is reflected in the fusion of the symbolic values of his chivalric

89 Saviolo, His practise, sig. P3v-P4v. 90 Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England, pp. 114-131.

34

sword with the rhetorical flexibility of the civil rapier, which is contrasted with the ╅pure╆ symbols of the sword alone and the sword-and-buckler. There are four

different depictions of swords within the play. The first is the sword alone, which

functions as a symbol of (otspur╆s martial chivalry. The second is the rapier, which appears only through allusions to the duel with rapiers but represents the

courteous aims of flexible, civil speech that Hal attains upon his reformation. The

third is the Renaissance tradition of the sword and buckler, which is opposed to

the rapier and represents the discourteous incivility of sixteenth-century men,

both gentle and common. The fourth and final is the medieval tradition of the

sword and buckler, which is opposed to the tradition of the sword alone and represents the medieval commoner╆s unchivalric tendency for peacetime brawls and mischief. The shadow of the rapier does not oppose the sword alone but completes it, creating a hybrid symbol to match (al╆s hybrid character as the ╉feathered Mercury╊ (1 Henry IV 4.1.111) who is opposed to the purely chivalric ╉Mars in swaddling clothes╊ ゅ1 Henry IV 3.2.115).

35

The Envenomed Point of the

Rapier in Hamlet

LAERTES: ) will do╆t, And for that purpose )╆ll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank

So mortal I but dipped a knife in it,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare

Collected from all simples that have virtue

Under the moon, can save the thing from death

That is but scratched withal: )╆ll touch my point

With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,

It may be death.

(Hamlet 4.6.121-30)

Laertes╆ use of the word ╉gall╊ to indicate a physical injury evokes the close relationship between physical and verbal injury within the fashionable tradition of

civil courtesy that surrounded the rapier. An injury could be offered by ╉words or by deeds╊, but to the civil gentleman it was the word which did the greater harm.91

Being called a liar was considered so severe that the only way to repel the blemish on the questioned gentleman╆s honour was to challenge the offending gentleman to a duel. The particular sensitivity of the civil-minded translated to an association of

the rapier with the epidemic of deaths it inflicted in duels across Europe, which

91 [Anon], The booke of honor and armes, London, 1590, B2r.

36

resonates in the depiction of the rapier in Hamlet. In spite of the growing hostility

of official authorities to the duel, the rapier was considered to be an essential

accessory and emblem of the contemporary gentleman. The centre-staging of the

rapier in Hamlet displaces the broadsword from its own role as a symbol of the

armigerous class by invoking contemporary debates over the efficacy of the

broadsword as a practical weapon.

English fashions at the broad turn of the seventeenth century were notoriously

fickle, and sought their inspiration from a procession of foreign courts. Spanish,

French, and Italian costumes adorned the public body in turn, changing so fast that

the physician Andrew Bourd found himself naked with indecision;

I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,

Musing in my mind what garment I shall wear,

For now I will wear this, now I will wear that,

Now I will wear I can not tell what:

All new fashions be pleasant to me, ) will have them whether ) thrive or thee…92

These three capitols of fashion – Spain, France, and Italy – were also the home of

the three fencing traditions that most influenced the exercise of the rapier in

England. The rapier was in fact as much a fashion accessory as a weapon of self defence, and it was commonly believed that ╉he was held the greatest gallant, that

92 Abraham Mills, The Literature and the Literary Men of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols. New York:

Harper & Brothers, 1870, Vol. 1, p.94. See also Lewis Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England,

New York: Columbia University Press, 1902, pp. 79-80.

37

had the deepest Ruffe, and longest Rapier╊.93 Thus Osric, in describing the ╉six French rapiers and poniards╊, took pains to emphasise that ╉[t]hree of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of liberal conceit.╊ ゅHamlet 5.2.110-3)

Even the method of fencing with the rapier was subject to the whims of fashion.

George Silver bitterly observed that ╉Fencing… in this new fangled age, is like our fashions, everie daye a change, resembling the Camelion, who altereth himself into all colours save white; so Fencing changeth into all wards save the right.╊94 Despite

this inherent mutability, the three schools of fencing were united by their use of the rapier in civil conflicts; Silver╆s emphasis on the ╉Italian Teachers of Offence╊ should be read only as an idiosyncrasy of his professional rivalry with Vincentio

and Jeronimo Saviolo, and his comments taken as critical of the rapier in all its

contexts.95

When Silver thus condemned the )talian masters for teaching ╉Offence, not Defence╊, he resonated with the powerful association of the French rapier with death in Hamlet.96 Laertes, like his rapier, is constructed as French. His first words on stage are a request for ╉leave and favour to return to France╊, where his ╉thoughts and wishes bend╊ (Hamlet 1.2.51-7). His skill at fence is likewise praised

by a Norman (Hamlet 4.6.62-94), and he wagers ╉six French rapiers with their carriages╊ upon his duel with (amlet ゅHamlet 4.6.121-30).

93 John Stow, Annals or a Generall Chronicle of England. Begun by John Stow: Continued and

Augmented with matters Foraigne and Domestique, Ancient and Moderne, unto the end of this present

year, 1631. By Edmund Howes. Gent. London, 1637, p. 869. 94 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig. A3r. 95 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig. B1r. 96 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig. A5r.

38

At the time Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, French fashions were in the ascendancy,

their influence so powerful that by 1614 Sir Francis Bacon was lead to

(mistakenly) assert that it was from France that the tradition of the duel with rapiers ╉seemeth chiefely to have flowne.╊97 The duel had reached a particularly

vicious intensity in France by this time, with an estimated total of 6,000 to 10,000

deaths, or an average of 350 a year, under the reign of Henri IV (1553-1610).

Assuming a conservative estimate that only half of these duels were fought

between gentlemen, from a population of 100,000 gentlemen in France in 1560

Stuart Carroll has calculated an approximate of 175 deaths per 100,000 gentlemen

and puts this into context by comparison with the highest murder rate in the world

in the year 2000, which was just over 50 deaths per 100,000 in South Africa.98

The epidemic of French duelling-related deaths in the years leading up to 1600 lends support to the reading of the mysterious Norman╆s name according to the Second Quarto╆s spelling of Lamord, with its punning hint upon la mort, or ╉death╊. This French punning is echoed in the English pun on ╉Norman╊ in the next scene; ╉What man dost thou dig it for?╊ asks (amlet, and the gravedigger replies ╉For no man, sir.╊ ゅHamlet 5.1.98-ひょ The phrase ╉Upon my life, Lamord╊ ゅHamlet 4.6.81) also parallels (oratio╆s discussion of Old (amlet╆s ghost: Let us impart what we have seen tonight

Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

(Hamlet 1.1.162-4; my italics)

97 Bacon, The Charge Touching Duells, p. 25 98 Stuart Carroll, Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006,

pp. 257-61.

39

)n discussing the identity of Lamord, Margaret Fergusson has argued that ╉the ╉spirit╊ of Death, whether in the ghostly figure of Old Hamlet or in the figure of Lamord, sits upon the lives of all the characters in the play.╊99 I wish to extend Fergusson╆s argument by suggesting that one of the primary manifestations of this spirit is the murderous reputation of the rapier.

The efficiency of the duel with rapiers in ending another man╆s life was rarely questioned in Shakespeare╆s day. Even Silver recognised the potential for the rapier to allow men to ╉butcher one another here at home in peace╊, 100 but claimed this was ╉not by reason of their dangerous thrusts, nor cunningnesse of that )talienated fight, but in the length and unweildinesse thereof.╊101 The idea that the

rapier was too focussed on offence was frequently discussed by those in favour of

controlling or abolishing the duel, and received a mention in the 1562 proclamation ╉Enforcing Statutes of Apparel╊: … an usage has crept in, contrary to former orders, of wearing of long swords and rapiers, sharpened in such sort as many appear the usage of

them can not tend to defense, which ought to be the very meaning of

wearing of weapons in times of peace, but to murder and evident death, when the same shall be occupied…102

The ╉former orders╊ which the proclamation alludes to are, ironically, likely to be

the troublesome serving-men with their swords and bucklers. There is some truth to Lawrence Stone╆s condescending assertion that the sword and buckler ╉allowed

99 Margaret Fergusson, ╉(amlet: Letters and Spirits╊, in Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, eds.

Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman, Metheun: New York and London, 1985, pp. 300-304. 100 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig. A5r. 101 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig. C1r. 102 Tudor Royal Proclamations, no. 493.

40

the maximum muscular effort and the most spectacular show of violence with the

minimum threat to life and limb╊;103 while Stow tells us that great mobs of serving-men clashed at Ruffian╆s (all every weekend with a great clattering and swashing of bucklers, there were surprisingly few deaths from these brawls.

This outcome was not an accidental by-product of an ╉ineffective╊ combination of weapons, but the intentional product of an English tradition which discouraged

civil combats to the death. True skill did not involve slaying the opponent, but demonstrating one╆s valour and skill; as Silver argued, ╉yf both have the full perfection of true fight, then the one will not be able to hurt the other at what perfyt weapon so ever╊.104

This theme was given a historical treatment by Lodowick Bryskett, the author of A

Discourse of civill life (1606). Bryskett argues that ╉auncient╊ tradition held that honour should be proved through competition with one╆s rival against common foes, and that the direct confrontation of the duel of honour was a recent invention:

╉For in histories it is not to be found, that for revenge of injury, for want of

proofes, for points of honour, or for any such like causes, this wicked and

unlawfull kinde of fight, was ever granted or allowed in auncient time. For

when any difference or controversie fell out among men of honor which

might concerne their credit and reputation for matter of valor, they never

tried the quarrel by combat betweene themselves, but strove to shew which

103 Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, p. 242. 104 George Silver, The Works of George Silver, Sig.L3r. See also Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern

England, pp. 95-6.

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of them was most worthy honor, by making their valour well knowne in fight against their common enemies…╊105

Although many modern authors have seen the duel as the evolution of a medieval English tradition or as ╉chivalric honour gone rotten╊, contemporary authors like Bryskett explicitly contrasted the duel with English traditions like the trial by

combat.106 Unlike the trial by combat, which was introduced to England with the

Norman Conquest in 1066 and naturalised shortly thereafter, the duel was

considered to be a foreign phenomenon; according to Thomas Churchyard, writing in なのひぬ, it ╉scarcely was known, till our youth beganne to travel straunge Countreys, and so brought home strange manners.╊107 For the fashionable

duellists, the foreignness of the duel only added to its appeal; but for the self-

proclaimed English patriots, it went hand-in-hand with its murderous tendencies:

╉O )talie, the Academie of manslaughter, the sporting place of murther, the Apothecary-shop of poison for all Nations: how many kind of weapons hast thou invented for malice?╊108

Laertes thus embodies the foreign, murderous shadow of the duellist in England. (is ╉thoughts and wishes bend╊ to France ゅHamlet 1.2.51-7), where Death himself resides and offers a ╉masterly report╊ of his skill with the rapier (Hamlet 4.6.85-

94). Though ╉satisfied in nature╊, he is driven to slay (amlet by honour╆s demand

to ╉keep [his] name ungored╊ (Hamlet 5.2.174-82). The ╉contagion╊ which Laertes

105 Lodowick Bryskett, A discourse of civill life containing the ethike part of morall philosophie. Fit for

the instructing of a gentleman in the course of a vertuous life, London, 1606, pp. 66-8. 106 Sydney Anglo, Chivalry in the Renaissance, Woodbridge: Boydel Press, 1990, p.xiii. See Peltonen,

The Duel in Early Modern England, pp. 1-16, for an overview of the historiography. 107 Thomas Churchyard, Churchyards Challenge, London, 1593, p. 59. 108 Thomas Nashe, The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B. McKerrow, 5 vols., London: Sidgwick

and Jackson, 1988, vol. 1, p. 186.

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uses to ╉anoint [his] sword╊ is the drive to murder that lies behind the French

epidemic of the duel which plagues Shakespeare╆s England (Hamlet 4.6.121-30).

Laertes may be the darling of the fencing world, but it is Hamlet who slays Polonius, Laertes, and Claudius with the ╉bare bodkin╊ ゅHamlet 3.1.82) that, in turn, ends his own life. The morbid associations of the rapier inform (amlet╆s use of the rapier, but they do not define his character in the way they do Laertes╆. ) will suggest that (amlet╆s ╉continual practice╊ with the rapier since Act に of the play (Hamlet 5.2.142-4) represents the growth of the murderous revenge which

consumes him and ╉overthrow[s]… [t]h╆expectancy and rose of the fair state╊ of England (Hamlet 3.1.148-159).

Laertes╆ departure coincides almost exactly with the first stirrings of revenge in the ╉book and volume╊ of (amlet╆s brain (Hamlet 1.5.97-118). Save for Polonius╆ brief advice on love to Ophelia, the play moves directly from Laertes╆ departure to the introduction of the ghost and the revelation of Old (amlet╆s ╉foul and most unnatural murder╊ (Hamlet 1.5.29). In the final scene of the play, we learn that Laertes╆ departure to France coincided not only with Old (amlet╆s revelation, but young (amlet╆s practice with the rapier; speaking of the upcoming ╉passes╊ between Hamlet and Laertes, Horatio cautions the former of the odds:

HORATIO: You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET: I do not think so: since [Laertes] went into France, I have

been in continual practice; I shall win at the odds.

43

Revenge and the rapier are sown in the same field, but they share more than just

common roots; they are entwined in such a way that as one grows, so does the

other.

Hamlet is associated with the rapier five times over the course of the play. The first

time is when he asks Horatio and Marcellus to swear on his sword hic et ubique,

here and everywhere:

Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword:

Never to speak of this that you have heard,

Swear by my sword.

(Hamlet 1.5.175-8)

The chivalric tradition of swearing upon the sword is (amlet╆s thematic starting point. (ere, he is still of ╉noble mind╊; Laertes has only departed for France two

scenes earlier (Hamlet 1.3.85-91), and he has not yet been in ╉practice╊ of either revenge or the rapier for very long. Swearing upon the sword lays on (amlet╆s rapier the symbolic trappings of chivalry╆s association with virtue and justice and provides the audience a glimpse of the height from which Hamlet is to fall.

The next four connections of the rapier with (amlet chart (amlet╆s gradual decline into murderous revenge. The next time Hamlet draws his sword, he has found

Claudius at prayer. Although he has the opportunity to slay his uncle, he is able to

restrain himself, albeit for reasons that are less than noble; ╉Up, sword, and know

thou a more horrid hent╊ (Hamlet 3.4.91). The third time Hamlet draws he commits a ╉rash and bloody deed╊, slaying Polonius by accident; ╉) took thee for

44

thy better,╊ says (amlet, his mind on Claudius ゅHamlet 3.4.27-43). The fourth time,

Hamlet slays Laertes by accident as well ゅhis exclamation, ╉The point envenomed too!╊ ゅHamlet 5.2.266) indicating surprise that the blade was poisoned), but in anger this time; he is ╉incensed╊ with Laertes ゅHamlet 5.2.245). Finally, Hamlet

murders the defenceless Claudius with full knowledge of his actions; ╉venom, to thy work… Follow my mother.╊ ゅHamlet 5.2.266-72)

These five connections chart (amlet╆s continual decline into the spiral of murderous revenge which correlates with his ╉continual practice╊ at the rapier. From the chivalric act of swearing on the sword, to his self-restraint from

committing murder in the church, to the accidental murder of the innocent

bystander Polonius, to the accidental murder of Laertes while enraged, to the outright murder of Claudius, the rapier╆s presence in each situation lends its association with death to (amlet╆s downward spiral. Yet Hamlet is not left to die a murderous villain, but finds redemption through his

associations with England, chivalry, and soldiery in the final moments of the play.

If Laertes is associated with France, then Hamlet is associated with England; acceding to Claudius╆ request, he departs ╉with speed to England╊ ゅHamlet ぬ.な.なはばょ, while his dying words express regret that he ╉cannot live to hear the news from England╊ (Hamlet 5.2.303). (amlet╆s university schooling in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses, further associate him with

Protestant England (Hamlet 1.2.160-8).

England itself is constructed as the home of martial chivalry within Hamlet. The

contrast drawn by Shakespeare╆s contemporaries between the duel with rapiers and the medieval trial by combat is mapped onto England╆s traditional rivalry with

45

France, as the strong association of the duel with France elicits an equally strong

association of the medieval trial by combat with England. The trial by combat in

Hamlet is imagined as the special case of the single combat between monarchs,

which we have already seen in 1 Henry IV;109 because medieval warfare was

considered to be the extension of a personal conflict between two rulers, it could –

in theory – be decided by single combat. This is the context of the combat between Old (amlet and Old Fortinbras, who fought ╉by a sealed compact, / Well ratified by law and heraldry╊ ゅHamlet 1.1.96-7). The pairing of Old Hamlet with Old

Fortinbras is echoed with the return of the younger Fortinbras at the end of the play, with ╉th╆ambassadors of England╊ and a ╉warlike volley╊ of gunfire ゅHamlet

5.2.299-300). The idea of England becomes tied up with the martial-chivalric trial

by combat and opposed to the French association with the duel.

(amlet╆s association with England and the martial chivalric tradition follows a

pattern of estrangement and reconciliation. Although he is sent to England in the middle of the play, he never arrives; by this point in the play (amlet╆s ╉continual practice╊ with the rapier is well under way, and the tide of murderous revenge draws him away from the noble aspirations that are indicated by England. It is only

once his revenge is spent and he exchanges forgiveness with Laertes that Hamlet

reaches England – although in this case, it is England which comes to him in the

form of the Ambassador. Fortinbras offers the final words of redemption, claiming that (amlet was likely to ╉have proved most royally╊ if he had been given the

chance to be king (Hamlet 5.2.351-2). The symbol of (amlet╆s redemption becomes the ╉soldiers╆ music and the rites of war╊ ゅHamlet 5.2.333); Hamlet is not just

109 See page 22 of this dissertation.

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purged of the murderous association of the rapier, he is elevated to the status of

martial hero.

Yet (amlet╆s breed of martial heroism is clearly very different from the martial heroism of Hal in 1 Henry IV. Whereas Hal is a practical soldier, literally involved in

the business of warfare, Hamlet is a romantic soldier. The English gentleman of the

sixteenth century, it will be recalled, continued to imagine that his primary

profession was the exercise of arms in the service of his monarch.110 Although the

changing face of warfare had squeezed the gentleman from the battlefield almost

completely, the romanticised ideal of a fighting aristocracy persisted well into the

seventeenth century. It is with this romantic aspect of soldiery that Hamlet is

identified, rather than the more pragmatic soldiery which dominates 1 Henry IV.

Unlike 1 Henry IV, where the shadows and allusions of the rapier tempered without

destroying the symbol of the broadsword, the dominance of the rapier and the

idealisation of the romantic (rather than pragmatic) soldier-gentleman severely

compromises the symbol of the broadsword in Hamlet. The broadsword appears

only twice in the play: the first in the footsteps of Old (amlet╆s ╉martial stalk╊, the second in Aeneas╆ tale to Dido as recited by (amlet and one of the Players. The ghost of Old (amlet╆s ╉fair and warlike form╊ ゅHamlet な.な.のねょ, ╉[a]rmed at all points exactly, cap-a-pie╊ ゅHamlet 1.3.203),111 cuts a figure of martial chivalry that

would not be amiss on the Shrewsbury battlefield in 1 Henry IV. Old Hamlet is a

mature warrior who has found an equilibrium between his temper and his beliefs; though he is ╉pricked on by a most emulate pride╊ to engage in combat with Old

110 Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, p. 57. 111 Ie. Dressed in armour from head to toe.

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Fortinbras, their combat proceeds by the letter and order of ╉law and heraldry╊ (Hamlet 1.1.89-105). Even when roused ╉in an angry parle╊, he chose to take his anger out on the ice (Hamlet 1.1.68-73); the whimsical reader may even see in this

an element of the ╉auncient╊ tradition of pursuing a rivalry through competition with one╆s common enemies – in this case, the elements.112 Old Hamlet is even able to find time for love and the respectful treatment of women that the knight╆s calling requires; he tells his son that ╉his love was that of dignity╊ ゅHamlet 1.5.53),

and forbids Hamlet from seeking revenge on the Queen despite having every

reason to feel betrayed. Old Hamlet, in this regard, is much closer to the ideal

chivalric knight than 1 Henry IV╆s hybrid Hal or flawed Hotspur.

As a character constructed in the mould of chivalry, it would not be amiss to expect

Old Hamlet to carry a sword. For centuries, the sword had been a symbol of power and authority, the very emblem and fount of the knight╆s virtue and honour.113 The sword╆s two edges were associated with truth and falsehood, and its guard formed the shape of a crucifix.114 It represented respect, dignity, loyalty, courage, and

freedom,115 and was so entwined with a knight╆s honour that a thirteenth-century

preacher of abstinence could think of no more wounding insult than to tell the drunk that he ╉hath dronke away his sword, and thereby lost his honour.╊116 Given

the efforts to which Shakespeare has gone to present Old Hamlet as an exemplar of

112 I have interpreted Shakespeare╆s ╉sleaded pollax╊ to be a reference to a weighted poleaxe, a hafted chivalric weapon with a beak-like fluke balanced by a small, but heavy, hammer. See Haley, ╉Gothic Armaments and King (amlet╆s Poleaxe╊, pp. ねどば-13. 113 David Crouch, The Image of Aristocracy in Britain, 1000-1300, London: Routledge, 1992, pp. 145-

152. 114 R. Ewart Oakeshott, The Sword in the Age of Chivalry, London: Lutterworth Press, 1964, p. 25. 115 Burton, The Book of the Sword, pp. xv-xxvi. 116 As cited in J. D. Aylward, The English Master of Arms, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956, p.

7.

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chivalry, it could be expected that the ghost would carry what was historically the

very symbol of his ideal.

This expectation is upset when Horatio remembers Old Hamlet not with a sword in

hand but with the poleaxe with which he smote the ice. The pollaxe was a weapon

popular in late medieval and Renaissance aristocratic foot tournaments. This

certainly furthers the link between Old Hamlet and the chivalric tradition, but the

poleaxe has nothing of the sword╆s symbolic strength and timbre; if Shakespeare

was attempting to paint Old Hamlet in as chivalric a light as possible, as I have

argued, then the poleaxe seems a strange choice of weapon. Even stranger is the ╉truncheon╊ 117 which Old Hamlet carries when he appears in the flesh (so to

speak) to his son (Hamlet 1.2.199-215). This official baton carries overtones of

martial authority which does advance the construction of Old Hamlet as a hero of

martial chivalry, but it once again has nothing of the depth of meaning invested in

the sword.

My suggestion is that Shakespeare chose not to depict Old Hamlet with a sword

because of the symbolic disturbance caused by the dominance of the rapier and young (amlet╆s association with romantic soldiery. The Elizabethan gentleman was caught between the fashion and day-to-day exercise of the rapier and his

romanticised conception of himself as the inheritor of the chivalric tradition

exemplified by the broadsword. The rapier was expressly designed as a civilian

weapon, while the broadsword was adapted for the rigours of the battlefield.

Although the gentleman claimed the profession of military service to be the raison

d'être for his social class, he was increasingly occupied with civil matters. This

117 Truncheon; staff carried as a symbol of military authority. From William Shakespeare, Complete

Works, p. 1932.

49

tension between romantic ideal and pragmatic reality was exacerbated by the

ongoing conflict between the English and Italian masters at arms and the serving-men╆s vigorous use of the sword and buckler into the seventeenth century, which transformed the relationship of the rapier and the broadsword into an issue of

class: the rapier became the symbol of the gentleman, while the sword occupied a

troubled middle ground between gentle and plebeian.

The troubled nature of the broadsword implied by Old (amlet╆s lack of a sword is given positive form in the tale of ╉Priam╆s slaughter╊ recited by (amlet and one of the Players. The swords here are a far cry from the vessels of virtue found in

romantic literature. Priam, the hero-victim of the short tale, finds his weapon

unruly, more a liability than an asset: we find him

Striking too short at Greeks: his antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command.

(Hamlet 2.2.411-3)

His opponent, Pyrrhus, is a figure out of nightmare. Clad in ╉sable arms / Black as his purpose╊ and gored with the ╉blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons╊, he brutally murders the ╉reverend╊ Priam, ╉mincing with his sword [Priam╆s] limbs╊

(Hamlet 2.2.382-459).

The malevolent spirit of these swords owes some of its murderous taste to the

shadow of death which hangs upon the whole play, but the way in which they are

used suggests a clumsiness which contrasts with the dexterity of the passes with

rapiers between Hamlet and Laertes. The swords used by Priam and Pyrrhus are,

50

for the most part, largely ineffective as weapons; Priam is depicted as ╉[s]triking too short at Greeks╊, while Pyrrhus ╉in rage strikes wide╊ (Hamlet 2.2.411-414).

Even when Pyrrhus ends up hitting his opponent, his strokes have more in

common with the ╉Cylops╆ hammers╊ than a sword ゅHamlet 2.2.431).

The duel between Hamlet and Laertes, by contrast, is crowned by a dextrous and

advanced manoeuvre that could not have failed to impress Shakespearean

audiences. The left-hand seizure, by which the exchange of weapons is commonly

considered to take place, was a technique common to a number of rapier masters,

but it is Henri de Saint-Didier╆s instruction which is commonly referenced in the critical literature.118 The technique involved closing with the opponent and seizing

the hilt of their rapier with your left hand (dropping your dagger in the process if you were using oneょ, before twisting the weapon to free it from your opponent╆s grasp. The opponent╆s best recourse was to mirror the action and grasp your rapier╆s hilt and twist. Both men would thus lose their rapier and gain their adversary╆s, enacting a skilful exchange of weapons. )f this manoeuvre is indicative

of the skill of Hamlet and Laertes in general, then the actors playing their parts

would have had their work cut out for them.

The contrast between the dexterity of the rapier and the clumsiness of the sword

in Hamlet ties in to broader Elizabethan doubts over the efficacy of the sword

which prompted George Silver to write his defence of what he saw as the ╉true fight╊ of the sword.119 The Italian masters, whose techniques formed the basis of

the English exercise of the rapier, considered the thrust to be an inherently

118 For a brief discussion of the critical literature, see Edelman, Brawl Ridiculous, p. 184. For Saint-Didier╆s technique, see (enry de Saint-Didier, Traicte contenant les secrets dv premier livre svr

l'espee sevle, Paris, 1573, fol. 65v. 119 Silver, The Works of George Silver, sig.L3r.

51

superior form of offence to the cut, but the logical correlation that the thrusting

rapier was therefore an inherently superior weapon to the cut-oriented

broadsword only emerged in England well after the fact in the nineteenth century.

The appeal of romanticised martial chivalry meant that the English gentry could

not leave the sword behind entirely, but were forced to find some kind of

compromise.

On the surface of things, the compromise would be simple: all the gentry needed to

do was recognise that the rapier was the more lethal duelling weapon while the

sword was the more lethal battlefield weapon. The two weapons would then fall

within two separate worlds, voiding their conflict. While the benefits of superior

lethality for a battlefield weapon are fairly straightforward, the benefits of superior

lethality for a duelling weapon require an understanding that the deadly earnest of

the duel was intended to frighten gentlemen into civility; Churchyard wrote that

… for slaunders, naughtie reports in absence, and present spiteful speaches, men ought for the mayntenance of good name, sometimes use an lawfull

manner of correction (this spoken not of the scripture) for the sharpe

sworde makes a blunt blockhead beware how hee useth his tongue, and if

bold babblers were not snibbed for their [lawlessness], this world would be full of talkative merchants, and no man would care what he spoke…120

The idea that the duel promoted civility was born within the cauldron of ╅mad blood╆ which defined the vendetta culture of Renaissance Italy. The vendetta was

part of the greater Mediterranean culture of the feud which embodied a principle of compensation for insult or injury through a loose ╅eye for an eye, tooth for a

120 Churchyard, Churchyards Challenge, pp.58-9.

52

tooth╆ exchange. Whenever possible, however, the compensation sought was incrementally greater than the insult or injury received. This incremental increase, combined with a marketplace mentality where every ╅transaction╆ of insult or injury increased the chance of future ╅transactions╆, invariably lead to an escalation of vendettas and of the bloodshed they engendered. Not even death could stop the

progression of the vendetta, for the burden of vengeance would commonly pass on

to the closest blood relative of the victim. Within such a feuding culture, the duel

served a very practical purpose of limiting interpersonal violence. 121

Though England had shared in the broader European feuding culture prior to

1066, by the twelfth century the violent pursuit of aristocratic quarrels had been

forbidden.122 The feud thrived in and was engendered by a society with a weak

rule of law, but the ability of the post-Conquest English monarchs to enforce their

will across their relatively small realm proved inhospitable to a feuding society.123 Without the rampant interpersonal violence that had justified the duel╆s creation in the first place there was no practical reason for it to exist in England beyond the

dictates of fashion, and it was argued by some contemporary critics that the duel in

fact increased incidences of violence by encouraging a particular sensitivity to

insult among gentlemen.124 This meant that the rapier╆s superior lethality in a duel did not necessarily correlate to a superior worth as a weapon.

121 Edward Muir, Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta & Factions in Friuli during the Renaissance, Baltimore:

The John Hopkins University Press, 1993, pp.67-76. 122 Paul (yams, ╉Feud and the State in Anglo-Saxon England╊, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 40, No.

1, 2001, pp.1-43 ; John G. (. (udson, ╉Feud, Vengeance and Violence in England from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries╊, Feud, Violence and Practice: Essays in Medieval Studies in Honor of Stephen D.

White, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2010, p.45. 123 (udson, ╉Feud, Vengeance and Violence╊, pp.ねな-53. 124 Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England, pp.114-131.

53

The English gentry adopted the rapier after the fashion for all things Italian (and,

later, French) and sought to justify this as a pragmatic choice, but with only limited

success. The murderous spirit that hangs over Hamlet is testament to the troubled

relationship of the rapier to civil violence in England, where it arguably caused

more bloodshed than it prevented. Despite this, the rapier had become the Renaissance gentleman╆s badge of class in the same way that the sword had been the medieval knight╆s. The debate over the practical efficacy and symbolic value of the broadsword compromised its previous title as queen of weapons and emblem

of chivalry, setting up a slow decline in the social value of the sword. (amlet╆s much more rapid decline into a spiral of revenge and murder was driven on by the

contagion of the French death which anointed the rapiers within the play, a

contagion potent enough to lay up even Old (amlet╆s sword within the hospice of its scabbard.

54

Conclusion

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere Nor can England brook a double reign…

(1 Henry IV 5.3.66-7)

Throughout medieval and Renaissance England, the armigerous class – those

individuals entitled to bear a coat of arms – invested the sword with their honour,

authority, and ideals. Men would live, die, love, and pray according to the beliefs

and traditions embodied in three feet of steel, but as society changed so too did the

sword. The rapid introduction of the Renaissance rapier to late medieval England

created a unique situation whereby the English gentleman was torn between two

different social ideals by the ╉double reign╊ of the broadsword and the rapier,

together with all the values and traditions that these symbolically-charged

weapons entailed.

In 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare explores the sword within an Elizabethan perception of England╆s chivalric past. The broadsword is given centre stage in this play, dominating the on-stage exercise of arms and shaping the audience╆s perception of Hal, Hotspur, and Falstaff. As the protagonist of the play, Hal is aligned with the audience╆s perception of themselves as both inheritors of a chivalric past and individuals of their own age. His sword, like himself – for the two become one

within the agile wordplay of the text – becomes a fusion of the broadsword and the

rapier, mirroring the fusion of chivalric past and civil present.

55

(otspur is a much more ╅pure╆ character than Hal, but his single-minded devotion

to the sword and the battlefield arts of chivalry becomes his twofold downfall:

Hotspur not only falls short of ideal knighthood through his lack of magnanimity

and his neglect for love, he also falls short of ideal gentility through his lack of

gentle speech. Shakespeare avoids a construction of Hotspur and his chivalric

ideals as inherently flawed by portraying Hotspur as sadly lacking in the education

Hal received, turning the ill-tempered knight into a tragic hero and suggesting that Renaissance civility was the way to ╉complete╊ the ideal of the chivalric knight. The heroic warriors of 1 Henry IV are transformed into a murdering butcher and

an impotent old man with the centre-staging of the rapier in Hamlet. The

broadsword appears in only one scene within the text of the play, and even then it

is only a verbal picture rather than a physical depiction on-stage. Hamlet and the Player╆s recitation of the story of Priam╆s death describes Priam╆s sword as rebellious to his arm, while Pyrrhus╆ wild swings seem better suited to a butcher╆s cleaver than a sword. The ineffectiveness of the broadsword is only heightened by

the skilful passes between Hamlet and Laertes in the final scene of the play, which

culminates with an advanced disarm technique.

The rapier itself was the site of a great deal of debate over the role of civil violence

at the turn of the seventeenth century. The rising number of mortal duels in France

had thrown new wood on the fire of the English debate, with authors defending

and attacking the nature and perceived necessity of the duel. The duel was originally intended to minimize the impact of Renaissance )taly╆s feuding culture by restricting violence to individuals rather than families, while its lethal

consequences acted as a deterrent to the kind of uncivil behaviour which ignited

56

feuds in the first place. However, the relatively strong government in England had

proven inimical to the Mediterranean feuding culture, which resulted in a society

without a tradition of civil violence. Because of this, many critics of the duel saw

duelling culture as increasing, rather than decreasing, civil violence. This leant the

rapier an aura of murderous menace which Shakespeare exploited to further the

theme of revenge in Hamlet.

Shakespeare╆s contrast between the broadsword and the rapier in Hamlet reflected

a broader Elizabethan debate over the practical efficacy of the broadsword in civil

combat. The Italian masters, who introduced the art of the rapier to England and

founded the first rapier schools in London in the sixteenth century, maintained

that a thrust was an inherently superior attack to a cut due, in part, to the

geometrical truth that the straight line of a thrust covers a shorter distance than

the circumference of a cut. The corollary of this claim was the thrusting rapier was

therefore superior to the cutting sword, a conclusion that jarred with Elizabethan

nostalgia for their chivalric past. The civil gentleman could neither praise nor

condemn the practical exercise of the broadsword outright, creating a tension that

was not relaxed until the Elizabethan chivalric revival had begun to cool in the

later seventeenth century.

I have only been able to piece together the smallest part of the jigsaw puzzle that is Shakespeare╆s relationship to the sword in Elizabethan society, and there is much

work which still needs to be done in this little explored field. One topic which is

sorely in need of further analysis is the depiction of the buckler in both

Shakespeare and Elizabethan society. In the chapter on 1 Henry IV, I briefly sketched out the way Falstaff╆s use of the sword and buckler ties him to the

57

serving-man╆s tradition and suggested that criticism of the buckler provided Elizabethan society with a method of justifying the superiority of the rapier over

the broadsword without impugning the symbol of the aristocracy. A full discussion

of this topic would require a full dissertation in itself, but may hold answers to how

Elizabethan society attempted to reconcile the tension that I have outlined in this

discussion.

I like to imagine Shakespeare╆s relationship to the sword as that of a Rosetta stone

carved across two sets of Russian dolls. Each doll can be taken apart and

interpreted individually, but it is only through comparison with the other doll that

the full value of the set emerges. The more we understand the history of the sword,

the more we understand the literature of Shakespeare; and the more we

understand the literature of Shakespeare, the more we understand the history of

the sword. History and literature, literature and history; the two are one.

58

Glossary

Backsword – A single-edged cutting blade popular among common-born

swordsmen in medieval and Renaissance England.

Broadsword – A sub-category of swords characterised by broad blades and the capacity to deliver strong cuts. )ncludes the ╅knightly╆ sword and the backsword, but excludes the rapier.

Buckler – A small round shield gripped in the fist, usually made of metal. Typically

used for defence, but could be used like a steel fist to punch the opponent.

Knightly Sword – The sword popular among knights from the twelfth to

fourteenth century, possessing two edges, a sharpened point, and a cruciform

guard with a counterbalancing pommel.

Poleaxe – A hafted weapon typically as tall as the man wielding it, with a metal

head on one end that carried a beak-like fluke balanced by a hammer on the

opposite side of the head.

Rapier – A specialised civilian weapon originating from Italy in the sixteenth

century. Optimised to deliver dangerous thrusts, but still capable of deliver

wounding cuts.

Sword – A weapon with a long metal blade that can be either blunt or sharpened

with one or two edges, with a sharpened or rounded point and a guard for

protecting the hand. The blade can be used for cuts, thrusts, or both.

59

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