Clown: Fie, thou dishonest Satan!… Say’st thou that house is dark?
Malvolio: As hell, Sir Topas.
Clown: Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes…
Malvolio: I am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you, this house is dark.
Clown: Madman, thou errest. I say, there is no darkness but ignorance, in which thou art more puzzl’d than the Egyptians in their fog. (IV.ii.33-48)
Next the dramatist shows us the dishonesty of the situation from his own perspective. Malvolio asks for a test of his lucidity, and the Clown asks a question, to which Malvolio gives what would be, to any Christian scholar, the correct answer in terms of the teachings of their faith.
Malvolio: …Make the trial of it in any constant question.
Clown: What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?
Malvolio: That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
Clown: What think’st thou of his opinion?
Malvolio: I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.
Clown: Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness. Thou shalt hold th’ opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits… (IV.ii.52-63)
Thus, rather than maintaining the Christian teaching of the resurrection on the last day, the Clown chides Malvolio for not upholding the pagan teaching of Pythagoras concerning the transmigration of souls. Likewise, Campion, first during his days at Oxford and then at his conferences, was expected to provide answers which, by his view, were illogical and indefensible, but which accorded with the needs of the political powers of the day. The playwright thus demonstrates for us a world turned upside down, with clowns passing themselves off as men of learning, while men of learning such as Campion are pressed to deny what they believe to be true to serve political ends. I think the dramatist’s opinion about such proceedings is revealed early on in the scene, when the Clown dons an academic gown for his impersonation of Sir Topas:
Clown: Well, I’ll put it on, and I will dissemble my self in’t, and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown (IV.ii.5-7)
Campion’s Innocence or Guilt
As noted earlier, the English government wanted to convict Campion not for his religion but for treason against the Crown; specifically, for plotting the assassination or overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I. Despite questioning scores of witnesses under duress, they were unable to show any treasonable aspect in Campion’s speech, writing or activities during his English ministry. The first indictment drawn up against Campion stated that he “did traitorously pretend to have power to absolve the subjects of the said Queen from their natural obedience to her majesty,” with a blank space left farther down the indictment for the name of a prosecution witness who had been absolved as stated (Waugh p. 206-207).
No suitable witness could be found to testify against Campion to this effect, however, and so this count of the indictment was dropped. Eventually, witnesses were obtained, the chief being Anthony Munday, a journeyman writer and traveler who had presented himself to exiled English Catholics as a co-religionist. He accused Campion of having formed a conspiracy in Rome and Rheims in 1580 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, to encourage a foreign Catholic invasion and also foment a rebellion of English Catholics. The evidence brought forth to support these charges has been found wanting by the Dictionary of National Biography and The Encyclopedia Britannica. [13] Campion’s own writings deny such a charge. In the previously mentioned Campion’s Brag he is “strictly forbidden… to deal in any respect with matter of State or Policy” (Waugh p. 236). Simpson reports that Campion “determined, therefore, as far as he might, to confine himself to the merely religious aspects of the controversy… and to refuse to make himself an umpire between two high contending parties so far above him as Pope and Queen” (Simpson p. 274).
Religious Attitudes in Twelfth Night
If the passage cited alludes to Edmund Campion, one must also ask in what spirit is the allusion to be taken: as tribute or jeer. To properly answer the question, we should examine the religious leanings of the author indicated elsewhere in the play as well as in the other Shakespeare plays. Mutschmann and Wentersdorf see that “Sir Topas,” the pose of the clown Feste in the scene, “is of the same stamp as other Protestant ministers in Shakespeare’s plays and was conceived with the deliberate intention of creating an undignified and ludicrous impression” (329). The steward Malvolio, protagonist of the play, is portrayed as a Puritan with “overweening” pride, and given to vanity and foppery –all in the most unflattering spirit. In contrast, the priest who secretly marries Sebastian and Olivia, while appearing only in scenes IV.iii and V.i with a single speech, is depicted as someone we can confide in with complete trust. Indeed, the entire drama is steeped in sympathy toward the Catholic faith.
The comic knight Sir John Falstaff is also cited ( Mutschmann and Wentersdorf p. 345-349) as being a caricature of the Puritan type, leading a licentious life but counting himself among the saved. Significantly, the original name given to the character was Sir John Oldcastle, a 15th century Lollard who was executed during the reign of Henry V. The author was evidently compelled by authority, in response to objections by Oldcastle’s descendants, to change the character’s name to that of Falstaff. Interestingly, a rival play, Sir John Oldcastle, written by the same Anthony Munday who testified against Campion, was staged in 1599 and portrayed the historical figure of Oldcastle in a much more favorable light. Yet this same Munday is regarded as the author of the play, Sir Thomas More, which offers a highly favorable portrait of this Catholic martyr [14]. (In the play, More is condemned for refusing to lend his signature to certain unspecified articles; historically, these constituted King Henry’s Act of Supremacy, allowing them to assume supreme power over the Church in England.) Whether Munday wrote the play as author or copyist has been the subject of much debate [15]. One must conclude that Munday’s contribution to Sir Thomas More as author or copyist was made when Munday was an apparent Catholic, before his testimony against Edmund Campion Indeed, Munday’s later publications, including a pamphlet which detailed the execution of Edmund Campion and his companions, were aggressively anti-Catholic.
Campion and Gorboduc
The historical record offers other links between Gorboduc and the Campion allusions in Twelfth Night. There is the coincidence with the title of the latter play, for Gorboduc originally was intended for a single performance on Twelfth Night; that is, January 6, 1562 [16]. A second performance was given at Whitehall at the command of the Queen, on January 12, 1562. (The original performance of Gorboduc took place in the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London. ) Remarkably, the only known performance of TN during its author’s lifetime was at another Inn, the Middle Temple, as reported by Manningham in his diary: “At our feast we had a play called Twelve Night, or What You Will ” (Neilson and Hill p. 279). Such a performance would have been a private one, limited to those connected with the Middle Temple or invited by its members.
Yet another coincidence relates to one of the dramatists of Gorboduc — Thomas Norton, listed in the original edition of 1565 as the author of Acts l-III (Cauthen p. xxix). Norton played a prominent role on the English government’s behalf in the suppression of Catholics, traveling in 1579 as far as Rome, where he sought out damaging information about English Catholics living in the city. In 1581, he was one of the commissioners at the trial of Edmund Campion. The following year he complained to Sir Francis Walsingham about the nickname, “Rackmaster General,” that was being applied to him for his part in torturing Catholics (Simpson p. 266; Cauthen p. 80).
Concluding Thoughts
During the Feast of the Epiphany in Elizabethan times, which took place on January 6 and was commonly known as Twelfth Day, gifts were exchanged in commemoration of the gifts of the Magi. It was a holiday of feasting, celebration and revelry. This is the tradition usually associated with the origin of the name of the play Twelfth Night. On the other hand, if the playwright had allusions to Edmund Campion in mind, then a covert meaning for the title could have been intended. In this regard, one should recall the spirit associated with these revelries: that nothing is what it seems; that meanings are turned inside out. To quote Feste: “Nothing that is so is so” (IV.ii.9). Perhaps this spirit explains the paradox of a play which, on the face of it, is a boisterous, rollicking comedy, yet also contains allusions to that fateful time of Campion’s mission, and so serving as the playwright’s Ave Atque Vale for this tragic figure of the period.
Notes
1. H. Mutschmann and K. Wentersdorf, Shakespeare and Catholicism. 1969. 16-21, 329-351. Roland M. Frye, Shakespeare and Cristian Doctrine. 1963. Hugh R Williamson, The Day Shakespeare Died. London, 1962. 11-25.
2. Henry More, The Elizabethan Jesuits: Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu (1660). Trans. Francis Edwards, SJ. London, 1981. 43.
3. Evelyn Waugh, Edmund Campion. London, 1946.
4. Dictionary of National Biography. Eds. Sir L. Stephen and Sir S. Lee. Oxford, 1921. III, 851.
5. William Cardinal Allen, A Brief History of the Glorious Martyrdom of the 12 Revenend Priests: Fr. Edmund Campion and his Companions. 1584. Ed. H. Pollen, SJ. London, 1908. 10.
6. Francis Edwards, SJ, The Jesuits in England: from 1580 to the Present Day. Kent, 1985. 20.
7. Richard Simpson, Edmund Campion. London, 1848. 279-313.
8. All quotations of Shakespeare are taken from The Complete Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. Eds. W A. Neilson and C.J. Hill. 1942. 279.
9. Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex. 1565. Ed. Irby B. Cauthen Jr. Regents Renaissance Drama Series.1970. iii.
10. DNB, XVII, 585-589.
11. Exodus, III, 14 (King James). The phrase “I am that I am” also appears in Shakespeare’s sonnet 121, a particularly poignant verse about a good man unjustly perceived as an evil person. “Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed…”
12. The name “Persons,” sometimes rendered as “Parsons” in writings of the day, was pronounced with something of a Irish lilt, the first syllable rhyming with “fair.” According to Simpson (387), “Pearsons” might well stand as a modern rendering of the name. Also see DNB, III, 851.
13. DNB, III, 850-854; The Encylopaedia Britannica. 1973. 4, 721.
14. The play Sir Thomas More survived as a manuscript written largely in a hand identifiable as that of Anthony Munday, surfacing in 1727 in the possession of one Alexander Murray and his patron, the 2nd Earl of Oxford (of the Harley creation).
15. Sir Thomas More. Attributed to Anthony Munday. Eds. V. Gabrieli and G. Melchiori. 1990. 12-16.
16. The Diary of Henry Machyn. 1565. Ed. J.G. Nichols. London, 1848.