SOURCE: Brown, Carolyn E. “Duke Vincentio of Measure for Measure and King James I of England: ‘The Poorest Princes in Christendom.’” Clio 26 (fall 1996): 51-78.

[In the following essay, Brown suggests that while Shakespeare used the character of Duke Vincentio to comment on King James I's abilities as a ruler, he also used his character to analyze the idea of divine monarchy in general.]

Scholars have proposed that Shakespeare was political in the sense that his plays reflect and comment on the crucial governmental issues and figures of his day, that his plays contribute to “pressing problems about prerogative, power, and authority.”¹ It has been argued that Measure for Measure, in particular, reflects on James I and his political doctrines and actions. In fact, it is recorded that the play was performed before James in 1604 during the Christmas festivities. Critics have seen parallels between passages in the play and in James's book on his philosophy about governing—the Basilicon Doron. Shakespeare's fictional character of Duke Vincentio also embodies some of the characteristics of the ideal ruler that James delineates in his book and some of James's own character traits, such as his dedication to virtue and chastity, his reclusiveness, his scholarly nature, and his discomfort with crowds. Because the play was performed for James and because the male protagonist seems a mirror image of James and his model ruler, numerous scholars interpret the play and its main character as a tribute to James and his conception of government, as a dramatic presentation that was meant to entertain and please the king.² Although much of the new historicism underscores the subversiveness of Renaissance literature, some new historicists—Jonathan Dollimore and Leonard Tennenhouse, in particular—continue to see the play as a validation of not only James but also the Tudor doctrines of monarchy.³

Other critics are more skeptical of Shakespeare's intentions and suggest that he may be counseling or educating his king on proper governing procedures. Some go so far as to suggest that Shakespeare is covertly criticizing, even demystifying, James's rule. While James touted his virtue, moderation, and piety, the reality of his life and rule was anything but praiseworthy. G. P. V. Akrigg contends that any contemporary of James, and I think we could include Shakespeare, could not “but note a painful discrepancy between theory and practice.”⁴ Although Shakespeare's Measure for Measure appeared relatively early in the new monarch's government—twenty months into his reign—James's indiscretions when he ruled Scotland were well known in England by the time he ascended the throne. Moreover, his political blunders once he became king of England were so similar to those he had exercised as magistrate of Scotland and so conspicuous, especially in comparison to Elizabeth's previous shrewdness and governmental acumen, that he very early developed a poor reputation in England—as early as Shakespeare's writing of Measure for Measure. The often irreverent stage did not spare James. An English agent in Scotland noted that his faults were such common knowledge “that the very stage players in England jeered at him for being the poorest prince in Christendom.”⁵ Roy Battenhouse contends that to think that Shakespeare was uncritical of a king who was “termed ‘the wisest fool in Christendom, and whose version of Divine Right has been lamented by modern historians, seems to predicate of Shakespeare either a lack of insight in areas of political theory, or else a merely opportunist concern to feather his own nest through sycophancy.”⁶ Charles Swann believes that “there is no reason to expect the play to have a simple or coherent ideological position” and that we should “expect that the play will need decoding; it is not unfair to expect that there will be two (or more) levels of meaning.”⁷

Several critics have attempted to decode the play and to detect the covert criticism of James and monarchy hidden under a surface meaning that Shakespeare meant to please the king and his supporters.⁸ A few critics have seen direct parallels between the last act of the play and a specific event during James's reign that occurred in December of 1603—only a year before the performance of Measure for Measure. This was the prosecution of the conspirators of the Bye plot (including Sir Walter Ralegh), for whom the king staged a public execution, one which he secretly did not intend to enact. He made each offender prepare for death and approach the scaffold—twice. Only at the last moment were they reprieved. Shakespeare has his duke in act 5 plan a spectacle as elaborate and self-enhancing as James did, with both rulers showing their astute appreciation of the art of self-promotion and image enhancing. Josephine Waters Bennett argues that Shakespeare means for his duke to be a tribute to the king and to embody “James's love of stratagems” and a “fondness for dramatics.”⁹ More recently, Craig A. Bernthal has explored the similarities between the historical event and Shakespeare's last act, but he argues that Shakespeare means to “demystify James's actions” by displaying his duke as an ordinary man who resorts to “elaborate theatrical fakery” in order to project a “mightier image” of himself and the state.¹⁰

While I agree with Bernthal that Shakespeare is undermining James's theatrical exercise of power, I look at the parallels from another perspective and at parallels yet to be explored. Shakespeare is drawing analogies between the situation of act 5 of his play and the actions of his king in order to question an abuse of power—an exercise of cruelty and of partisan power based on personal preferences, one that protects those whom James likes for the most heinous crimes, and abuses his critics and those whom he dislikes for less egregious offenses. On a subtextual level, Shakespeare does not present his duke as an ideal monarch but as a flawed human who administers arbitrary and often cruel sentences. Critics have noted that Shakespeare makes his duke echo some of James's sentiments about slanderers. Battenhouse, for example, clarifies that “James was very sensitive on the matter of slander against princes. In 1585 he had persuaded the Scottish parliament to pass an Act, making slander a treasonable offense punishable by death.” Battenhouse argues that Shakespeare means for his duke's forgiveness of Lucio to provide a model of behavior for his king in his treatment of defamers, illustrating the virtues of mercy and toleration.¹¹ Other scholars note James's “concern,” “harsh reaction”—if not “over-sensitivity”—to the subject of slander. Some argue that Shakespeare justifies James's reaction by making the slanderer Lucio unpardonably offensive and irreverent and that he meant to delight James in Lucio's exposure.¹² While James's aversion for calumny certainly was an issue, there was another dimension to the situation that caused public concern and that has not received attention from scholars—the inequity between James's treatment of those who criticized him and to whom he, consequently, took a dislike, and of more serious offenders against the state. It is this controversy that Shakespeare explores, making fictional Lucio's situation in some crucial ways mirror that of Sir Walter Ralegh—a parallel that has never been thoroughly explored. He undermines his own king's political actions by undermining the Duke's treatment of Lucio and Angelo.

Because Shakespeare is approaching topical issues in his play—issues political in nature and, thus, necessarily delicate and potentially dangerous to him personally and professionally—he has to be acutely subtle, especially since the play was performed before James himself. On one level, consequently, Shakespeare makes his duke into a tribute to divine kingship, of which James was an adamant proponent. Many critics have read the Duke in such terms, viewing him in almost allegorical dimensions as a god figure in his omniscience and omnipotence. For these critics, the Duke's treatment of Angelo is just and appropriate: the Duke's superior understanding permits him to detect Angelo's flaws and to counteract his nefarious schemes and, thus, bring the play to a happy ending; the Duke is justified in forgiving Angelo since technically he has not committed a crime. Shakespeare, likewise, makes the Duke's treatment of Lucio pleasing to both king and many others in his audience: the Duke looks justified in squelching virulent delineations of a wise leader, and he appears magnanimous in ultimately forgiving a slandermonger who would maliciously besmirch a man of stainless reputation. Certainly James promoted similar images of himself in his pursuit of his detractors.

But Shakespeare writes another level of meaning, one that has contributed to the perception that Measure for Measure is a problem play. Swann argues that James “could watch the play and have his views of kingly authority confirmed” while the more skeptical could see the subtext. Marilyn Williamson concurs that “all of the reservations about Vincentio's conduct are subversive elements.”¹³ These subversive elements can make the Duke's handling of his subjects perplexing, if not troublesome. He can be read as excessively lenient to Angelo while harshly severe to Lucio. Shakespeare has written a subtext that mirrors the discontent that many of James's subjects felt with his administration of justice. Under the facade of touting the virtue of divine kingship, Shakespeare is actually disputing it, and he is drawing parallels to his own king.

From the play's beginning, Shakespeare intimates that the Duke is showing Angelo preferential treatment. As the Duke contemplates his enigmatic political move of leaving his kingdom, he admits that the “ancient lord” Escalus is the best qualified to rule in his absence: the “worthy” Escalus knows the “science” of governing and is so “enriched” in his particular knowledge of Vienna's government that he is without parallel.¹⁴ Nonetheless, the Duke “with special soul / Elect(s) (Angelo) our absence to supply” (1.1.17-18), a young man with no experience of the world, not to mention of governing, who concedes himself that he needs “some more test made of (his) metal, / Before so noble and so great a figure / Be stamp'd upon it” (1.1.48-49). Shakespeare impresses us with a case of favoritism: the Duke “elect(s)” or personally prefers the unseasoned young man over the better candidate for the job; and his decision is made with “special soul,” with excessive emotions, feelings, and close attachment for Angelo, not with reason. Given the Duke's regal stature, the theological meaning of the word “elect” can apply, with Angelo being seen as one of the “Elect,” one of the lucky recipients of temporal blessings over the sometimes more deserving candidates.¹⁵ The Duke claims that he has “drest (Angelo) with our love” (1.1.19), an expression that indicates he gives Angelo the position as a way to show his special feelings for him. The incongruity between Angelo's lack of experience and the magnitude of the gift that the Duke grants him underscores the Duke's partiality for Angelo, for he gives him unlimited power to do whatever his replacement wishes: Angelo's “scope is as (the Duke's) own / So to enforce or qualify the laws / As to (his) soul seems good” (1.1.64-65). That Angelo is a favorite who has received a position for which he is unsuited becomes more obvious once he assumes command of Vienna and abuses his power, introducing a reign of terror. Ignoring the hardened criminals such as murderers, he pursues the relatively venial—like Claudio and Juliet—and the bawds. Although Angelo oppresses his subjects and although characters repeatedly lament the deputy's severe and unmerciful actions, the Duke allows Angelo to continue in his terror. The Duke seems more concerned with pleasing a favorite than with protecting his subjects from unnecessary and extreme punishment.

Because Angelo has not been chosen for his governing expertise or for his scrupulous character, he gets himself into political trouble. While the Duke never elucidates why he assumes the persona of a friar and haunts “dark corners” (4.2.156), the disguise allows him to keep a close eye on Angelo, to “behold his sway” (1.3.43), and to assist him when necessary. He is always near at hand to protect his deputy and to disentangle him from any difficulties. The Duke, for example, overhears Isabella tell her brother of her horror at being propositioned by Angelo to give up her chastity in exchange for her brother's life. He learns of Angelo's depravity, of his being “guiltier than him” he tries (2.1.21), and of his “bidding the law make curtsey to (his) will” (2.4.174). And yet he defends his deputy to Claudio: “Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt (Isabella); only he hath made an assay of her virtue, to practice his judgement with the disposition of natures” (3.1.160-63). The mendacity and implausibility of his excuse underscore the Duke's feeble attempts to get Angelo out of a difficult situation and to protect him. In fact, he more often defends than criticizes his deputy. When Lucio, for example, complains about Angelo's “crabbed” (3.2.95) nature and claims the deputy should show “a little more lenity to lechery” (3.2.94), the Duke comes to his replacement's defense: lechery “is too general a vice, and severity must cure it” (3.2.96). Likewise, when the Provost criticizes Angelo, calling him a “bitter deputy,” the Duke rebukes the Provost: “Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd / Even with the stroke and line of his great justice” (4.2.76-78). Shakespeare suggests that his duke may devise the bedtrick not only to save Claudio but also to assist Angelo, as he prevents him from corrupting the law to satisfy his desires and, instead, has him unknowingly do what is legal—consummate his bond with his fiancee, Mariana. While the Duke's substitution of another prisoner's head for that of Claudio can be read as a selfless act of saving Claudio's life, it can also be interpreted as another attempt to protect Angelo, as the Duke prevents Angelo from committing a brutal act. The Duke, in other words, ensures that Angelo, in spite of himself, technically commits no wrongs and breaks no laws.

During the mock trial in act 5, Shakespeare once again allows us to sense that his duke assists Angelo rather than promotes the innocent like Mariana and Isabella and, thus, perverts the judicial process. He reassures his deputy that he will ultimately shelter him from serious harm: “Shall we thus permit / A blasting and scandalous breath to fall / On him so near us?” (5.1.125-26). He informs Angelo that his “near(ness)” to him or his close kinship with him (OED [Oxford English Dictionary] adv. (FN2) 3) compels the Duke to serve as his shield from danger. The Duke tells Angelo's accusers of his partiality for the deputy: “Think'st thou thy oaths, / Though they would swear down each particular saint, / Were testimonies against his worth and credit, / That's seal'd in approbation?” (5.1.241-44). He swears that Angelo enjoys his ruler's “credit” and “approbation”—his personal influence, trust, confidence, and approval (OED “credit” sb. 6, 9a; “approbation” 3)—which outweigh the cogency of the accusations. Angelo is “seal'd” or protected by the sovereign's royal prerogative. He is “well-warranted” (5.1.253), ensconced in his superior's authority to protect him from “blame or legal responsibility” for his actions (OED “warranted” sb1 7). Although there is irony to the Duke's words as he leads the unsuspecting Angelo to a public debunking, there is also some truth to his vows. While shaming his replacement, he ultimately does protect him: “Methinks I see a quickening in his eye. / Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well. / Look that you love your wife; her worth, worth yours” (5.1.493-95). He marries him to the woman with whom he has slept so that he is not “guiltier than him” he tries; he conducts a sham trial that “quits”—absolves or delivers—him of the serious charges against him; and he “quicken(s)” him or gives him life again, saving him from “the very block / Where Claudio (would have) stoop'd to death” (5.1.412-13). Angelo almost seems rewarded for his crimes because he is a favorite.

Shakespeare deviates from his sources in order to address some of the controversial characteristics of his own king. The Duke's protecting and lavishing power on an unqualified favorite, for example, is an enhancement of Shakespeare's sources, where the rulers show no such partiality. David Calderwood argues that James was noted for his predisposition for surrounding himself with male favorites and was warned that his policies with his minions were causing his “good fame” to fall into “decay, and his crown and authorities to be put in question.” He bestowed great titles and gifts on them and allowed them to rule in his absence as he engaged in his favorite sport of deer hunting. He was admonished for “placing unfitt men in offices.”¹⁶ For example, James Stuart, James's second favorite in Scotland, enjoyed an undeserved rise to power and riches: he became the Duke of Arran; governor of the castles of Stirling and Edinburgh, the two principal forts in Scotland; Provost of the city of Edinburgh; and Lieutenant General and Lord Chancellor. It was not long before James's British subjects had their first favorite, with James duplicating his unpopular behavior in Scotland: while excelling only at hunting, hawking, bowling, tilting, and gambling, Philip Herbert, according to Francis Osborne, was made a “knight, a baron, a viscount, and an earle (of Montgomery), in one day.”¹⁷ Such practices, and the men who benefitted from them, were held as objects of contempt by James's subjects: Anthony Weldon claims these minions “were so hated by being raised from a meane estate, to overtop all men, that every one held it a pretty recreation to have them often turned out”; William Robertson states that “the public beheld, with astonishment and indignation, (Arran) educated as a soldier of fortune, ignorant of law, and a contemner of justice, appointed to preside in parliament, in the privy council, in the court of session, and intrusted with the supreme disposal of the property of his fellow subjects.”¹⁸

Because James, like Shakespeare's Duke Vincentio, chose favorites not based on their knowledge of government nor on their character but on his fondness for them, and because he was noted for his foolish generosity, he inevitably attracted men, like Shakespeare's Angelo, who lacked good character and governing skills, and, consequently, abused their positions of power. A commentator states that these favorites “war unworthelie promotit to digneteis above thair capaceties and mereits, and thareby licklie to scurge the poore.”¹⁹ According to Osborne, the Earl of Montgomery was a brutal man, “intolerable cholerick and offensive, and did not refraine, whilsest he was chamberlaine, to break many wiser heads than his owne.”²⁰ But it is the Earl of Arran, James's second favorite in Scotland, and Arran's exercise of power that most resemble Shakespeare's Angelo and his reign of terror, similarities that allow for the possibility that Shakespeare modeled his character of Angelo partially on Arran. Robertson claims “there is not perhaps in history, an example of a minister so universally detestable to a nation, or who more justly deserved its detestation” than Arran.²¹ Sir James Melville explains that James left his kingdom to be ruled in his absence by Arran, who executed justice partially and cruelly, making “the whole subjects to tremble under him … daily inventing and seeking out new faults against divers” subjects, condemning them to death for inconsequential actions.²² James, like Shakespeare's duke, allowed the governmental abuse, more concerned with pleasing his favorites than with protecting his subjects.

His partiality became even more conspicuous when he excused his favorites, as well as the friends of his favorites, of all degrees of crimes, including murder. Calderwood states that he was severely condemned for such protection, for treating his favorites' crimes with “impunitie and oversight,” for allowing these “enemeis of the truthe (to be) favoured and overlooked.” He received constant criticism for his “neglect of justice” and “granting remissiouns” to the guilty.²³ One commentator advised James against such partiality: “The dewtie of all, Prence, Magistrat, and King, is equallie to do justice to all men, ever having respect to the caus, and not to the persone; for geve a juge sall have mair respect to freyndship then to the equitie of the caus, the jugement is corruptit.”²⁴ One example centered around Archbald Douglas, who was involved in the murder of James's father and whom James protected nonetheless: after James conducted a mock trial that exonerated the accused man, Douglas “was not only taken in favour by the King, but sent back to the court of England, with the honourable character of his ambassador.” Robertson cites this as one of the many instances in which the king gratified “his courtiers at the expense of his own dignity and reputation.”²⁵

The protection of one favorite in particular—the Earl of Huntly—created the most damning situation for James while he was king of Scotland. Huntly and some other Papist earls engaged in a conspiracy with Spain to unseat James from the Scottish throne and to assist the King of Spain to enter England through conquered Scotland. Queen Elizabeth had intercepted a messenger who carried the letters of treason from Huntly and his cohorts, and, thus, their guilt was irrefutable. But when Huntly went to see his king privately and begged for forgiveness of him and his cohorts, James soon set them at liberty and did not punish them. He later pardoned them of all offenses, restoring them their lands, goods, and houses. Queen Elizabeth expressed her exasperation at his partisan handling of the affair: “Your leniency astonishes me, beyond words. … I smiled to see ‘how childish, foolish and witles a tool you were in the hands of these three traitor lords. You have actually let them turn a bill of treason into a bill of credit. … For your owne sake play the King and let your subjects see you respect your self.”²⁶ Once Huntly had his freedom, he got himself into more trouble by killing the popular Earl of Murray, whom Robertson describes as “a young nobleman of such promising virtues, and the heir of the regent Murray, the darling of the people.”²⁷ Although the king promised to pursue the crime with all rigor of the law, he followed his usual pattern of protecting a favorite. Calderwood clarifies that James advised Huntly to submit to being charged, “assuring him he would incurre no danger.”²⁸ And, indeed, James kept his promise: he not only protected Huntly from a sentence but also exempted him from the formality of a public trial. The ministers cried out from their pulpits and so stirred up the people's outrage at injustice that they converged on the King's lodging, calling each other to arms, and so terrified him that he had to flee for safety.

All of this resembles the great lengths to which Shakespeare has his duke resort in order to protect Angelo, who was also willing to kill a young man “of such promising virtues” and who would have warped his power into serving his private desires of becoming a “virgin violator,” if the Duke had not prevented him. He allows his duke's behavior to be as distressing and problematical as the actions of his own king and encourages his audience to question such a biased display of power. The critics of Shakespeare's Duke lodge complaints similar to those of James's critics. Samuel Johnson, for example, claims that “Angelo's crimes were such, as must sufficiently justify punishment … and I believe every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared.”²⁹

Another aspect to the controversy surrounding the king's exercise of partisan power is the inequity of punishment, especially as it applied to those whom James perceived as his critics. Samuel R. Gardiner explains that James was most pleased with those who “took care not to wound his self-complacency” and “whoever would put on an appearance of deference, and would avoid contradicting him.”³⁰ But if someone dared to question him or, worse yet, criticize him, he could be very displeased. William Roughead describes James's aversion to criticism: he “was not prone to forgive them that trespassed against him.”³¹ John Hill Burton states that “where his own sacred person came into question, all vestiges of mercy fled from his heart, and nothing was too heavy a retribution to him who had been guilty of sacrilege against God's viceregent on earth.”³²

Robert Pitcairn describes, for example, “cold-hearted and vindictive, nay, sanguinary” judicial proceedings instigated by the king in 1601 against a man for exhibiting the king's portrait on the public gibbet, an act that the king interpreted as “dishonouring and defaming of his Majestie”: James had the man executed for what Pitcairn labels “an offence of so trivial a nature, probably originating in pure accident or inadvertency or at most a foolish jest of the officer.”³³ Robertson explains that while James was king of Scotland, the clergy in general and the Ministers of Edinburgh, in particular, “inveighed daily against the corruptions in the administration,” and James responded in various ways—banishment, removal from their posts and confiscation of their movable goods, criminal prosecutions for slander, sedition, and treason.³⁴ James called Andrew Melvil, for example, before the privy council to answer for unfavorable comments he made about the king during his sermons at St. Andrews. Calderwood explains that the king pursued him rigorously, taking the depositions from only “his greatest mislykers.” To escape the king's rage and the possibility of death for treason, Melvil had to seek refuge in England. Such harshness and partiality provoked even more criticism of James, which he, of course, denounced as slander yet again. Calderwood describes Robert Bruce's sermon that denounced the king for “winking at” excommunicated papists (a reference to Huntly and his rebellious crew) while the king “was incensed against (men), nather enemie (s) to God nor the king.” Rollock's sermon chided the king for “letting loose of Barrabas and condemning Christ” and prayed “God to give the king a remissioun for all the remissiouns he had givin to murtherers.”³⁵

That Shakespeare was evoking this controversy that plagued James's Scottish rule is betrayed by the similarities between Angelo's impunity and that of James's favorites, and between Lucio's harsh fate and that of James's critics. Although Lucio's character is as far removed as it possibly can be from that of a religious man, Shakespeare makes Lucio's situation similar to that of the ministers in that he and they were persecuted because they affronted their ruler's inflated ego while murderers, traitors, and criminals were absolved of their transgressions. While the Duke grants Angelo his freedom, he relentlessly pursues Lucio, determined to publicly expose and condemn him because Lucio has offended him.

But the Bye plot that Bennett and Bernthal have seen mirrored in act 5 of Shakespeare's play underscores James's inequitable exercise of power even more pointedly. It made a marked impression on James's British subjects since it occurred early in his reign as king of England. Because James had been receptive to English Catholics, they were disappointed when he did not follow through on his promises, and some developed a plot to kidnap him and release him after he agreed to his promise of toleration. The conspiracy never became formulated enough to pose a threat, William McElwee calling it a “silly conspiracy” with “no substance in it at all,” which “the government could almost have afforded to ignore.”³⁶ But James pursued the conspirators ruthlessly. The primary conspirators were dealt with summarily and hanged while the obliquely involved members (Sir Griffin Markham, Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Cobham, and Sir Walter Ralegh) endured a long trial and were found guilty. During his testimony, Lord Cobham implicated Sir Walter Ralegh, who, historians contend, was only tangentially involved in the plot. Historians suggest that he was guilty only insofar as he probably knew about the scheme and did not report it. Nonetheless, James had the state attorney, Edward Coke, relentlessly pursue Ralegh. James stacked the jury as well: most of the eleven commissioners appointed to try Ralegh were predisposed against him. Stephen Greenblatt contends that Ralegh was found guilty of treason based on a “tissue of circumstantial evidence.”³⁷ Along with the true conspirators, he was condemned to death. Even prior to this travesty of a trial, James had treated Ralegh poorly: he took away his venerable position as Captain of the Guard, his fine London house, and his chief source of income.

James seems to have disliked Ralegh for several reasons. James's mind had been poisoned against Ralegh by Sir Robert Cecil and Henry Howard, who both disliked Ralegh and presented him unfavorably in their secret correspondence with James before he became king of England. Henry Howard, in particular, presented Ralegh as unhappy with the prospect of James becoming king and, according to David Harris Willson, suggested that Ralegh, Cobham, and Northumberland “were James's sworn enemeies, who would rather see him buried than crowned.”³⁸ Ralegh also had made an unfavorable comment to the king upon his ascendancy, one that suggested that James was not as universally loved by his English subjects as James believed. John Aubrey states that “Sir Walter was never forgotten nor forgiven” for his statement about James's inability to distinguish his friends from his foes.³⁹ Moreover, he and Cobham had questioned the large number of Scottish favorites that James brought with him upon his ascension. James interpreted all of this as slander, and he pursued Ralegh and Cobham (although the latter to a lesser degree) with the same virulence that he showed the ministers who dared to question him.

Ralegh was not a well liked man; in fact, Gardiner calls him “the most unpopular man in England.”⁴⁰ He was so disdained that crowds gathered, despite the risks of contracting the plague, to curse and jeer at him as he was escorted from the Tower to Winchester. But James's unfair pursuit of Ralegh became obvious to many of James's new subjects, and the same criticism he had received while king of Scotland for his inequitable administration of the laws soon greeted him as king of England. James's tool for tyrannic power, Edward Coke, pursued Ralegh so mercilessly and found him guilty on such scanty evidence, and Ralegh, according to observer Dudley Carleton, “answered with (such) temper, wit, learning, courage, and judgment” during his trial that even the biased jury's views changed.⁴¹ Osborne claims that “some of his jury (were), after he was cast, so farre touched in conscience, as to demand of him pardon on their knees.”⁴² Greenblatt states that “Ralegh's courage and eloquence had transformed a populace ready at the start literally to tear him to pieces into a crowd of admirers shocked at the harshness of the verdict.”⁴³ The situation had backfired on James: he had hoped to remove what he considered an ungrateful, unpopular subject whom he disliked, but instead he had unwittingly made Ralegh into a martyr and a symbol of flagrant injustice. It made James's subjects question his rule even more seriously, for the public response to Ralegh's trial was, according to Gardiner, “the first signal of the reaction which from that moment steadily set in in (sic) favour of the rights of individuals against the State.”⁴⁴

But the travesty of justice did not end here. James created a memorable spectacle for his subjects, a spectacle to advertise his special kind of clemency. The minor players—Markham, Cobham, and Grey de Wilton—were to be executed. Ralegh's execution was scheduled for the following Monday. After expressly ordering that a bishop give them their last rights, James had each conspirator endure the same fate one at a time: he had them placed on the scaffold, had them take their leave of family and friends, had them say their prayers, and then had them prepared for the block. He had arranged for an inconspicuous man—a Scotch groom of his bedchamber—to attract the attention of the sheriff at the last minute and to deliver a note from James requesting that the execution be suspended until the men were more spiritually prepared for their deaths. He constructed the letter so that the condemned men would perceive no hope of suspension of the death sentence and chose the most obscure man to deliver the letter for the same purpose. After a few hours respite, the men endured the same spectacle before they were at last told of their reprieve. There was almost a fatal slip-up when the groom could not get close enough to the scaffold to attract the sheriff's attention and had to scream for recognition. James had carefully choreographed this spectacle to lead up climactically to the great, suspenseful moment when he would forgive the conspirators, blazoning his merciful nature. James situated Ralegh in a prison cell that allowed him to see the whole puzzling scene from his cell window and did not send Ralegh's reprieve until a few days later. Ultimately, James pardoned Markham and imprisoned Ralegh, Cobham, and Grey. In a letter to John Chamberlain, Dudley Carleton describes the crowd's mixed reaction to the spectacles: when the sheriff proclaimed the king's mercy, “there was then no need to beg a plaudite of the audience, for it was given with such hues and cries”; but earlier when the executioner held up the head of one of the executed major conspirators and cried “God save the King,” “he was not seconded by the voice of any one man but the sheriff.”⁴⁵ The silence was shocking and embarrassing for the king and might have suggested that James's subjects were less than impressed and, instead, were disturbed by this strange show. During the Easter festivities of 1604, James, however, only made the injustice more glaring: Robert Lacey states that “when King James rode through the gates of the Tower … the great fortress had been entirely cleared of prisoners, all pardoned and released as an act of Easter mercy with the exception of three—Ralegh, Cobham, and Grey.”⁴⁶ Soon Grey was pardoned. It was quite obvious that Ralegh and Cobham's punishment was not comparable to their crime—a crime, ultimately, of offending the king.

The similarities between this puzzling topical event and Shakespeare's last scene are striking. It seems that Shakespeare deliberately contrived his scene to highlight the controversial aspects of this particular event. While this spectacle revealed James's understanding of the value of theatrics in government, as scholars have noted, this certainly was not the overriding concern of the spectators. Rather it was the king's misuse of his power to punish whomever he wished, to conduct business on the basis of tastes and distastes—a pattern he had notoriously established in Scotland and that Shakespeare chooses to question. Shakespeare embodies these concerns in his contrast of the Duke's treatment of Lucio with that of other characters. Lucio does not appear in Shakespeare's sources, and, like the Duke, is largely of Shakespeare's own creation. Lucio is obviously based on the Vice and Braggadocio character types. But he may be based also on an actual person. While Bernthal draws parallels between Angelo and Ralegh, “whose guilt was not proved but whose innocence (like Angelo's) was never conclusively established,”⁴⁷ the parallels between Lucio and Ralegh are more striking. Shakespeare may have modeled Lucio on the infamous Sir Walter Ralegh, with whom he shares some similar character traits and a similar situation of having offended the magistrate and suffered immeasurably as a consequence.

While there is not a one-to-one correspondence between Ralegh and Shakespeare's character, Lucio evokes several of the historical figure's admirable qualities. Ralegh was a favorite at Elizabeth's court, a celebrated soldier, a poet, and a historian—all in all, a man of some insight and intellect. Although there are no textual indications that Lucio has literary talents, there are, however, suggestions that he has experience as a soldier and knows about current military actions: he discourses with the two Gentlemen, who are soldiers, about the likelihood of war with Hungary (1.2.1-18), and laments that the Duke has not engaged him in the military service he was promised (1.4.50-52). Although his proclivity for bravado makes his self-characterizations suspect, his assertion of “know(ing),” “lov(ing),” and being an “inward” (3.2.127;145;155) of the Duke may not be a total fabrication. That he is the only character who suspects the Duke is doing more than he professes—that “his giving out were of an infinite distance / From his true-meant design” (1.4.54-55)—allows for the possibility that he is an insider of the court, like Ralegh, one who, as Lucio says, “knows the very nerves of state” (1.4.53) and who was once a favorite of the Duke. His keen observations about Angelo's “crabbed” and “ruthless” (3.2.110) nature also indicate that under his bawdy innuendo lies a sharp intellect.

Lucio shares as well some of Ralegh's less reputable and flamboyant qualities. Gardiner declares Ralegh “was regarded as an insolent and unprincipled wretch, who feared neither God nor man” and “was too apt to treat (others) with the arrogance and scorn which they seldom deserved”; Otto Scott states his “arrogant personality … made him widely unpopular” and he was “held to be completely contemptible”; Lacey declares he had a “reputation for inconstancy” and “could turn on those he called his allies over such trifles.”⁴⁸ Certainly, the insolent and unprincipled Lucio is capable of the same untrustworthy behavior, as Mistress Overdone reports that Lucio informed on her and caused her arrest. Ralegh also could be flippant and irreverent (a character trait that got him into trouble with James), and Lacey cites an instance where he made a derisive comment about the corruptive practices in parliament and offended Sir Robert Cecil, who considered it a slander on a respectable body.⁴⁹ It is a similar irreverence that marks the language of Lucio and that gets him into the Duke's bad graces. Ralegh, like Lucio, also had a flamboyance about him; Greenblatt calls it “self-dramatization” and “an awareness of the histrionic sensibility.”⁵⁰ It was these powers of theatrics that made him so compelling during his trial and that enabled him to win the hearts even of his enemies. This same flare for theatrics gets Lucio into trouble in the last scene when he cannot be deterred from revealing and enhancing Friar Lodowick's indiscretions, creating his own spectacle of unveiling the friar.

While Lucio is unlike Ralegh in that his principal offense is labeled slander, not treason, both suffer from having incited the anger and antipathy of their rulers and, consequently, enduring abuse. Shakespeare, moreover, makes Lucio's punishment seem as gratuitous and unjust as Ralegh's. Undoubtedly, Lucio takes license with the Duke's character, for which he is accused of slander, such a flagrant crime, especially during King James's reign, that it was constituted as treason and punishable by death. But Shakespeare does not make Lucio's characterization of his ruler as clear a case of calumny as the Duke would have it seem, nor does he portray Lucio as clearly deserving punishment. First, by not clarifying whether Lucio recognizes the Duke in the disguise of a friar, Shakespeare allows for the possibility that, in fact, Lucio does know of the Duke's “mad, fantastical trick” of “usurp(ing) the beggary he was never born to” (3.2.90), a phrase that some scholars have read as Lucio's recognition of the Duke's mendicant friar status.⁵¹ Lucio's words, then, can be read as more than just pointless defamation of character: they can be read as his attempt to impress upon an absent ruler, whom he recognizes, the need to “return” (3.2.167) and save the life of a young man, who would be executed for the forgivable crime of “untrussing” (3.2.173): “Why, what a ruthless thing is this in (Angelo), for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that is absent have done this?” (3.2.110-12). Second, while Lucio's language is incorrigibly laced with bawdiness and irreverence, which make his voice offensive, he in his own inimitable way actually praises his ruler. He, for example, distinguishes the icy cold, brutal Angelo from the Duke, whom he characterizes as a humane, merciful man, who tempered the letter-of-the-law with his heart and tolerance for human foibles: before “the Duke would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand”; “his use was to put a ducat in (a beggar's) clack-dish”; “he would mouth with a beggar though she smelt brown bread and garlic” (3.2.113-15;122-23;177-78). Like King James, the Duke is over-sensitive to the issue of slander, so fixating on the surface bawdiness and impertinence that he cannot recognize the deeper significance of Lucio's words. He, in fact, is so preoccupied with pursuing what he perceives as slander that it is Lucio who has to say “but no more of this” (3.2.164) and try to return to the more important subject of Claudio's fate.

Shakespeare also attenuates the potentially libelous content of Lucio's characterization by making his Duke at times seem to fit Lucio's description of a shady character more than he does the Duke's ideal picture of himself as a sagacious ruler. Given all of the parallels between James and Duke Vincentio, moreover, some in Shakespeare's audience might not have perceived Lucio's statements as that slanderous or far from the mark. What Lucio says about his duke meshes with some of the disreputable qualities of King James. Lucio characterizes the Duke, like King James, as maintaining a public persona that contradicts his real nature. While the Duke likes to be known for his wisdom, as James was noted for his superior learning, Lucio says he “would be drunk” (3.2.124); “had a feeling for the sport” (115) or lived a licentious life and would “eat mutton” (175) or was acquainted with prostitutes; and had “dark deeds darkly answered” (171) and “would never bring them to light” (172) or was not known for revealing offenders of the law but, rather, for concealing them. This last characteristic may be an allusion to an actual event, for the Earl of Arran, one of James's favorites, was involved in the “dark deed” of getting a woman pregnant. But the circumstances were more heinous than those of Claudio's indiscretion because the Countess of March was married. Calderwood explains that the king “cover(ed) this adulterous fact” by easily obtaining a divorce for the countess and quickly marrying Arran to her. Calderwood also clarifies that the king's favorites were thought to corrupt him by “giving him all the provocatiouns to dissolute life in manners that was possible, by licentious companie, by interteaning of their owne harlots in his presence.”⁵² The gossip was that whoredom was more frequent in Scotland than princely activities. Weldon contends that another criticism was that James “drank very often,” that he “was excessively addicted to … drinking.”⁵³

The play is so problematical, in part, because of our reaction to the punishment characters receive in the last scene. Shakespeare makes many in his audience react to Lucio as the spectators of the trial reacted to Ralegh. That is, while we at times dislike Lucio for his many flaws and insolence, his wit and humanity win many of the audience over to his side. James himself complained that “at the arraignment at Winchester, … by (Ralegh's) wit he turned the hatred of men into compassion for him.”⁵⁴ In a play in which “severity” and heartlessness are so revered, Lucio distinguishes himself as the one character who consistently shows sensitivity: he, for example, is the only character who actually takes action to try to save Claudio's life, convincing Isabella to plead with Angelo and prompting her on the best approach; he, moreover, expresses sympathy for Isabella and tries to console her when the Duke makes her believe her brother is dead—“I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes so red: thou must be patient” (4.2.150-51). He shows more humanity than any of the saintly protagonists, including Isabella, who can garner no sympathy for even her brother. William Lawrence, for example, argues that Shakespeare distresses moralists by making Lucio “with all his faults” win “the sympathy of the audience far more than does Vincentio, with all his virtues.”⁵⁵

Shakespeare underscores the unfairness of Lucio's fate, juxtaposing it to that of two other characters—Angelo and Barnardine—who in some ways are more sinister than Lucio. Like Ralegh, Lucio seems singled out. If the Duke had not intervened and protected Angelo, the deputy would have been guilty of serious crimes. While Isabella speaks hyperbolically, there is some truth to her characterizations when she denounces Angelo as the “wicked'st caitiff on the ground” and a “pernicious” “arch-villain” (5.1.56;60;91). Yet he goes free. Shakespeare, likewise, introduces the self-professed murderer Barnardine into the play to highlight the inequity of the judgment Lucio receives and the governmental controversy of his own day. Like Angelo, Barnardine is a malefactor. He unashamedly admits to his crime of murder, and the Duke describes him as a “reprobate,” a “rude wretch” “unfit to live or die,” “careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come” (4.2.73;80;63;141-42). Although he shows not one shred of contrition, the Duke acquits him of his “earthly faults” (5.1.481). Shakespeare makes the Duke's actions as questionable as those of James on Easter of 1604 when he gave blanket pardons to all criminals in the Tower except those who had not paid due homage to his divine character. To allow murderers and pernicious characters to go free while the more humane character is condemned because he has offended his ruler strikes us as unfair, as it did James's subjects. Critics of Shakespeare's Duke echo James's detractors of his treatment of Ralegh. Richard S. Ide, for example, argues “if Barnardine the murderer can be forgiven completely, why not Lucio? … The genesis of the Duke's punitive animus against Lucio seems clear: it is personal and partial.”⁵⁶ Shakespeare undermines the sacrosanctity of kings by having his duke duplicate James's questionable actions of perverting justice to reward his friends and to punish not criminals, but those who dared to criticize him. Shakespeare has his duke act like James, who declined power when it was not to his liking but who abused it and assumed more than his due when it served his selfish needs.

Another one of James's troubling qualities accentuated in the Bye spectacle was the king's exercise of cruelty. McElwee describes James's strange contradictory behavior: he could be “a gentle, peace-loving, friendly soul. But thenceforward any threat to his kingship, any calling in question of his sovereignty … would bring out in him not only an irrational self-assertiveness, but also at times a streak of vindictive cruelty which were beyond his own control.”⁵⁷ In recording the Bye event, Dudley Carleton noted the strange, contrived dramatic effect, referring to the prisoners as “actors” “playing their parts” and to the scaffold as the “stage.”⁵⁸ Carleton's unusual description seems to suggest his dissatisfaction with the King's insensitive playing with terrified prisoners as though they were pawns or puppets in a macabre dramatic production. Some subjects may have detected that the King's attempts to advertise his mercifulness were excessive, almost as though he were using clemency as a screen for something else—for his cruelty. Some modern historians have questioned the merciful nature of his actions during this spectacle. Lucy Aikin, for example, condemns James: “Previously to the arrival of the tardy respite, the unhappy prisoners were made to undergo … all the terror and all the ignominy of the scaffold;—nothing was spared them of the last scene but the axe and the halter, and in comparison to the misery to which they were reserved, even these might have been regarded as mercies.”⁵⁹

In his dramatic portrayal of this topical event, Shakespeare reveals this cruelty and makes it disturbing, as he prompts his audience once again to question a monarch's—and, in particular, James's—abuse of power. Like James, the Duke makes everyone think that characters are dead or are going to die, makes them endure a gruesome spectacle of an impending execution, perilously delays the reprieves until the last moment, and has the most inconspicuous man—the Provost—do the key maneuvering behind the scenes. Just as James suspended the prisoners' death sentence for a few hours but refused to give them any hope of a reprieve, Shakespeare has his duke delay the news about Claudio's safety and refuse to put a swift end to the characters' torment. Angelo is scared with the prospect of his death; Mariana is pained with the possibility of her groom being killed; Isabella is made to think her brother is dead and that she may be partially responsible for the imminent execution of Angelo; and both women are so tormented that they get on their knees to beg for mercy. Scholars voice complaints about the Duke's behavior that echo those of James's critics: Marvin Rosenberg, for instance, calls the Duke's scheme “diabolically plotted, a great cruel spectacle.”⁶⁰

James's inhumanity toward Ralegh, in particular, is reflected in the Duke's treatment of Lucio. James protracted Ralegh's agony by dealing with him last, making him watch the drawn-out proceedings from his prison cell and hope that the same leniency given to the other prisoners would be shown to him. Dudley Carleton imagines the effect on Ralegh: “Raleigh, you must think, … had hammers working in his head, to beat out the meaning of this stratagem.”⁶¹ McElwee calls James's treatment of Ralegh a “streak” of “unimaginative callousness,” “a meanness of spirit of which even James's own son would not be able to forgive.”⁶² According to Gardiner, Ralegh himself denounced what he called “the cruelty of the law of England,”⁶³ and it was, indeed, cruelty that James showed him. Shakespeare's Duke, in a similar fashion, saves Lucio until the very end. He makes Lucio hope that the same “apt remission” (5.1.496) that the Duke shows murderers and corrupt governors will be shown to him—but, of course, he will not be so lucky. Likewise, James also seems to have delayed the reprieve of Ralegh in order to make him sink into more humiliating depths, making him think that if he begged for mercy he would receive a reprieve, which the king, harboring his secret vendetta against the man, never intended to show him. Lacey explains that Ralegh “despatched a series of grovelling letters to James, to Cecil, to the Privy Council, desperately seeking the help of anyone he thought might help him.”⁶⁴ James made Ralegh despair so much that, in July of 1603, Ralegh tried to commit suicide. Similarly, Shakespeare has his duke maneuver Lucio into shaming himself as he begs before the whole court for forgiveness: “If you will hang me for it, you may: but I had rather it would please you I might be whipped” (5.1.503-04).

The Duke looks merciful in that he ultimately states that he forgives Lucio. Likewise, the Duke looks benevolent as he lifts the death sentence hanging over Angelo and Barnardine's heads. But his kind of forgiveness is as questionable as was James's. Lacey claims that James showed a “droll style of mercy” (313). What this describes is an established pattern of threatening subjects with the most frightening and severe sentences possible and letting them languish under them, and then relieving the sentence or canceling it all together. Often the new sentence, though, was more inhumane than the original one. Lacey explains that James had the lord chief justice, “as if he had been briefed by James,” meticulously describe the “grisly sentence” that faced Ralegh after he was found guilty of treason, delineating graphically the being drawn through the streets on a hurdle, the hanging, the disemboweling, and the quartering. Lacey clarifies that such an action was gratuitous: “Sir Walter Raleigh could reasonably expect that he would, as a knight, be spared the gory details of this ritualized torture” (307). The action was especially gratuitous considering that James did not intend to enforce the execution. The king's brand of remission was no better: he consigned Ralegh to the Tower for thirteen years with a suspended death sentence hanging over his head and consigned Cobham to the Tower for fourteen years. Ralegh was finally executed in 1618. Once Cobham was given his freedom, the strange kind of mercy did not end. Osborne explains that he was given “such a liberty as only afforded him the choyce of a place to starve in, all his land being formerly confiscate. … He died in a roome, ascended by a ladder, at a poore womans house in the Minorities, formerly his landeresse, rather of hunger, then any more naturall disease.” Osborne condemns James as worse than “infidells, who ever deemed it lesse injustice to take away life, then the meanes to maintaine it.”⁶⁵ Such a technique allowed James to exercise a kind of sadism while concealing it under a facade of altruism.

Shakespeare has his duke display the same misuse of power to aggravate subjects' pain and has him betray this ghoulish delight in his own words: he compares himself to fathers who bind “up the threatening twigs of birch, / Only to stick it in their children's sight / For terror, not to use” (1.3.24-26). Both James and the Duke seem to terrify subjects, threatening them with the prospect of a punishment that they sometimes do not deliver, making them agonize as they wait for the blow. The Duke, likewise, conceals his cruelty with neat tricks of prestidigitation and seeming benevolence: he, for example, brings Claudio back from the dead. But his love of inflicting torment compels him to punish even his favorite, Angelo. While throughout the play he shows favor to his deputy and protects him, the Duke, nonetheless, persecutes him under the guise of kindness: he forces Angelo to marry a woman whom he does not love, and he so publicly humiliates him and impugns his character that the demoralized Angelo “crave(s)” death “more willingly than mercy” (5.1.474).

Lucio, though, suffers the most, and his fate is similar to Ralegh's. Although the Duke first states that he “find(s) an apt remission in (him)self. / And yet here's one (Lucio) in place I cannot pardon” (5.1.496-97) and proceeds to condemn Lucio to marry a “whore” and then “be whipp'd and hang'd” (5.1.511), the Duke ultimately says he forgives his defamer: “Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry (the woman he has impregnated). / Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithal / Remit thy other forfeits.—Take him to prison, / And see our pleasure herein executed” (5.1.516-19). The Duke appears to be the embodiment of mercy and magnanimity as he not only forgives a rogue for slander but also “remit(s)” or pardons (OED v. 1) his other crimes, and demands only that he marry the mother of his child. And he often receives critical approval for such charitable actions. But even if this is the full extent of Lucio's punishment, it seems unfair that in a crime-ridden society where “corruption boil(s) and bubble(s)” (5.1.316) only Lucio is made to pay for his misdemeanors.

The Duke's actions and language are ambiguous, furthermore, and he may conceal cruelty under a merciful veneer, as James did with Ralegh. While the Duke claims to forgive his accuser, the word “remit” can carry an opposite meaning to that of granting a pardon: it can mean “to send a person back to prison or to other custody; to recommit” (OED v. 10). Moreover, his language contains references to imprisonment and punishment, with the verb “executed” carrying the designation not only of carrying out an action (OED v. 1) but also of inflicting capital punishment upon a person or putting him to death in pursuance of a sentence (OED v. 6). The Duke's slippery word choice, then, allows him to convey two diametrically opposite messages at once. He can be saying that while he forgives Lucio for his slander, he will imprison and punish him, nonetheless, for his other offenses. What helps to give credence to such a reading is that previously when the Duke refers to inflicting punishment, he concatenates it with “pleasure,” as he does here: he, for example, instructs Angelo to “punish (his accusers) to (his) height of pleasure” (5.1.239). Lucio seems to understand that the Duke has more chastisement in mind for him than simply marriage: he exclaims that “marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, / Whipping, and hanging” (5.1.520-21). Lucio makes the argument that marriage to a whore is comparable to the most severe punishment, as if he is trying to plead with the Duke to cancel the sentence of “death / Whipping and hanging.” When the Duke responds to Lucio's plea, he betrays that he has equivocated in his previous response and, that, in fact, he has not forgiven his defamer as he first stated: “Slandering a prince deserves it” (5.1.521). With his duke's evasive language, Shakespeare, then, allows for the possibility that the Duke's last judgment of Lucio is no more merciful than his first: Lucio may go to prison not just to marry Kate Keepdown but also to endure a more physically painful fate. The Duke makes characters suffer needlessly and gratuitously, and, as some of James's own subjects complained, he treats them as his puppets in a carefully staged play of the Duke's own devising.

Shakespeare is evoking more of James's cruel behavior in some of his duke's other actions. James's fascination with pain and the macabre revealed itself during the witch hunts and trials, which he promoted and in which he actively participated. McElwee states that James attended some examinations, “gripped in a sort of fascinated horror” and actually conducted some of the questioning.⁶⁶ His gratuitous involvement in questioning the accused suggests that he enjoyed the interrogations, the inflicting of mental anguish. But what was most disturbing was his fascination with physical torture. He personally witnessed some of the tortures and, according to Scott, even “suggested new tortures to the examiners, who were surprised that was possible.” Scott also describes James's attendance at a trial and punishment: he went into “the depths of the stone dungeons. There he watched, fascinated, as the examiners approached the accused, stretched naked on stones if a woman and shackled upright if a man, with their instruments. He heard the screams and the stories and was caught into the drama. Bending over the culprits, he put questions himself and suggested ways to break their resistance.”⁶⁷ During the witch hunts, he permitted, according to Willson, “gross indignities and horrible torture,” which resulted in him being “accused of sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain.”⁶⁸

Certainly, the Duke's interrogating of Mariana and Isabella in act 5 echoes James's questionable interrogations, as the Duke consigns them to prison and to the prospect of torture. There is also a macabre quality about the Duke's lurking around the cells of the prison in the disguise of a friar. In fact, he is acting very much as James did with the witches who were being persecuted. Although the Duke calls himself a solicitous father, “minister(ing)” (2.3.7) to victims' needs, he is intent on experiencing their physical and mental torment. He conducts needless and merciless interrogations of Juliet and Claudio, for example, and witnesses their physical and emotional pain as prisoners in the jail. In fact, he heightens their torment as did James, leaving them more despondent than when he arrived. Although Juliet is reconciled to her sorrow and sins when the Duke enters her prison cell, after his interrogation she is left cursing life as a “dying horror” (2.3.41). Likewise, critics have noted that the Duke's counseling of Claudio in the prison cell contains more despair than consolation, more references to death than life-after-death. His visiting the “dejected” Mariana for years in a “moated grange,” which seems like a prison, strikes us as strange and similar to James's questionable visits and interrogations of arrested women suspected of being witches. Shakespeare permits us to feel that his duke distorts his power and divinity into a perverse gratification of others' pain.

At the play's end the Duke seems like “pow'r divine” (5.1.367). But Shakespeare punctures holes in the saintly facade by allowing his audience to be “in the know,” to be privy to the Duke's preparations for the spectacular denouement in act 5 and not to be impressed by them. He debunks the inviolability of kings by allowing us to witness the Duke's numerous blunders and near catastrophes that lead up to the wonder of act 5. The Duke's “close calls” resemble those of James with the groom of the bedchamber, who almost did not deliver the reprieve for the Bye conspirators in time. Shakespeare makes his audience's as well as his characters' reactions to the last act mixed, just as the audience of the Bye plot felt ambivalent. On one level, Shakespeare has written a reading of his Duke as the embodiment of the ideal ruler, and the Duke has evoked the praise of many scholars and audiences, who applaud him, as did the witnesses to James's forgiveness of the Bye conspirators. Shakespeare wrote this reading into his play in order to protect himself, and this must have been the way James himself viewed it. But at the same time, Shakespeare makes it impossible to applaud all of the Duke's actions, and some of them leave us as disturbed and puzzled as James's subjects must have felt about his questionable exercising of power. Weldon states that “the world was never satisfied with the justice” administered to the Bye conspirators.⁶⁹ Shakespeare, likewise, makes many in his audience forever dissatisfied with his duke's sense of justice, a response that results in Measure for Measure being seen as a “problem” play. Shakespeare has his characters' reactions in the last act reflect some of our own reactions. Rather than voicing their gratefulness and admiration, they are relatively mute—especially Isabella, whose conspicuous silence detracts from a happy ending. This evokes the embarrassing silence of the witnesses to James's hanging of the major Bye conspirators. Shakespeare seems to mean their silence to indicate a discomfort with the Duke's actions and to make the audience uncomfortable as well.

Shakespeare disabuses us of the godliness of rightful rulers by portraying his duke as a prevaricator and schemer, not a Solomon or Christ, as the Duke deludes other characters into believing. What we see is not a divine ruler but someone intent on creating a divine image. Part of Shakespeare's divesting the monarchial role of godliness would have been his ability as well to dupe King James. Since, as Weldon claims, James was facetiously labeled “the wisest foole in Christendome” (2: 10) by some of his subjects, Shakespeare, in showing that this epithet is appropriate and that James could be fooled into thinking the play glorified him, was dispelling the illusion of kingly omniscience. He was showing that monarchs are not godlike and do not by nature have divine insight into affairs; they, like James must have been with Measure for Measure, are susceptible to duplicity and hollow forms of flattery. Moreover, the form of the play reflects James's and perhaps monarchs' nature in general—inspirational and noble on the surface but disturbing and imperfect beneath the surface.

Notes

1. Jonathan Goldberg, James I and the Politics of Literature: Jonson, Shakespeare, Donne, and their Contemporaries (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 1983), 239. See also Alvin B. Kernan, “Shakespearian Comedy and its Courtly Audience” in Comedy from Shakespeare to Sheridan, ed. A. R. Braumuller and J. C. Bulman (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1986), 100; Robin Headlam Wells, Shakespeare, Politics and the State (London: Macmillan, 1986), 1.

2. Consult, for example, the following: Thomas Tyrwhit, Observations and Conjectures Upon Some Passages of Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1766); George Chalmers, A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in Shakespeare-Papers (London: T. Egerton, 1797); Charles Knight, Studies in Shakespeare (London: C. Knight, 1849); David Lloyd Stevenson, “The Role of James I in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure,” English Literary History 26 (1959): 188-208; Josephine Waters Bennett, “Measure for Measure” as Royal Entertainment (New York: Columbia UP, 1966); Brian Rose, “Friar-Duke and Scholar-King,” English Studies in Africa 9 (1966): 72-82; J. W. Lever, “Introduction” to the Arden edition of Measure for Measure (London: Methuen, 1976); Goldberg, James I and the Politics of Literature.

3. Jonathan Dollimore, “Transgression and Surveillance in Measure for Measure” in Political Shakespeare, ed. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1985), 73; Leonard Tennenhouse, “Representing Power: Measure for Measure in its Time” in The Forms of Power and the Power of Forms in the Renaissance, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1982), 153-54.

4. G. P. V. Akrigg, Jacobean Pageant or the Court of King James I (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1962), 227.

5. Quoted in David Bevington, Tudor Drama and Politics: A Critical Approach to Topical Meaning (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1968), 13.

6. Roy Battenhouse, “Measure for Measure and King James,” Clio 7 (1978): 194.

7. Charles Swann, “Lucio: Benefactor or Malefactor?” Critical Quarterly 29 (1987): 62.

8. Consult the following: Herbert Howarth, “Shakespeare's Flattery in Measure for Measure,” Shakespeare Quarterly 16 (1965): 34-36; Battenhouse, 197-98; Louise Schleiner, “Providential Improvisation in Measure for Measure,” PMLA 97 (1982): 234-35; Cynthia Lewis, “Dark Deeds Darkly Answered: Duke Vincentio and Judgment in Measure for Measure,” Shakespeare Quarterly 34 (1983): 276; Swann, 59; and Marilyn Williamson, “The Comedies in Historical Context” in Images of Shakespeare: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the International Shakespeare Association, 1986, ed. Werner Habicht, D. J. Palmer, and Roger Pringle (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1988), 188-200.

9. Bennett, “Measure for Measure” as Royal Entertainment, 98, 99.

10. Craig A. Bernthal, “Staging Justice: James I and the Trial Scene of Measure for Measure,” Studies in English Literature 32 (1992): 256, 263. Consult also Swann, 61, and Anthony B. Dawson, “Measure for Measure, New Historicism, and Theatrical Power,” Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 336.

11. Battenhouse, 201-2.

12. Consult, for example, the following: Elizabeth Marie Pope, “The Renaissance Background of Measure for Measure,” Shakespeare Survey 2 (1949): 71; Ernest Schanzer, The Problem Plays of Shakespeare (London: Routledge, 1963), 125; Bennett, “Measure for Measure” as Royal Entertainment, 88-91; Rose, 78; Stevenson, The Achievement of Shakespeare's “Measure for Measure” (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1966), 148; Lever, “Introduction” to the Arden edition, xlix; John E. Price, ‘“Back-wounding Calumny: The Subject of Slander in King James's Basilikon Doron and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure,” American Notes and Queries 22 (1984): 99-101; and M. Lindsay Kaplan, “Slander for Slander in Measure for Measure,” Renaissance Drama 21 (1990): 23-53.

13. Swann, 63; Williamson, 197.

14. Arden edition of “Measure for Measure,” ed. J. W. Lever (London: Methuen, 1976), 1.1.3-13. All subsequent citations to Shakespeare's work are from this edition and will be hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.

15. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford UP, 1971), “elect” v. 2 and 4; “special” adj. 2b; “soul” sb. 3a. All subsequent citations will be hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as OED.

16. David Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1843), 3:653; 5:140.

17. Francis Osborne, “Traditional Memoyres on the Raigne of King James the First” in The Secret History of the Court of James the First, ed. Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1811), 1:220.

18. Anthony Weldon, “The Court and Character of King James” in The Secret History of the Court of James the First, ed. Sir Walter Scott, 2:10; William Robertson, The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI, 2d ed. (London: A Millar, 1759), 2:105.

19. Unknown author, The Historie and Life of King James the Sext (Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1825), 188.

20. Osborne, 1:222.

21. Robertson, The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI, 2:106.

22. Sir James Melville, Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhill 1535-1617, ed. A. Francis Steuart (New York: Dutton, 1930), 283.

23. Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, 5:471, 454, 140.

24. The Historie and Life of King James the Sext, 245.

25. Robertson, The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI, 2:121.

26. Letter “Elizabeth to James VI” (January 1593-4) in The Warrender Papers, vol. 2, ed. Annie I. Cameron and Robert S. Rait, The Publications of the Scottish History Society, Third Series, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1932), 19:222.

27. Robertson, The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI, 2:176.

28. Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, 5:148.

29. Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. Walter Raleigh (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952), 80.

30. Samuel R. Gardiner, History of England (London: Longmans, 1895), 1:49.

31. William Roughead, The Rebel Earl and Other Studies (New York: Dutton, 1926), 41.

32. John Hill Burton, The History of Scotland (London: Blackwood and Sons, 1873), 5:384.

33. Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland; Compiled from the Original Records and Mss., with Historical Illustrations (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1833), 7:349.

34. Robertson, The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI, 2:75.

35. Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, 4:11; 5:115, 359.

36. William McElwee, The Wisest Fool in Christendom: The Reign of King James I and VI (New York: Harcourt, 1958), 119-20.

37. Stephen Greenblatt, Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles (New Haven: Yale UP, 1973), 114.

38. David Harris Willson, King James VI and I (New York: Oxford UP, 1967), 73.

39. John Aubrey, Aubrey's ‘Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clark (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1898), 2:187.

40. Gardiner, History of England, 1:88.

41. Quoted in Thomas Birch, ed., The Court and Times of James the First (London: Colburn, 1849), 1:20.

42. Osborne, 2:161.

43. Greenblatt, Sir Walter Ralegh, 1.

44. Gardiner, History of England, 1:138.

45. Quoted in Birch, ed., The Court and Times of James the First, 1:31.

46. Robert Lacey, Sir Walter Ralegh (New York: Atheneum, 1974), 316.

47. Bernthal, 262.

48. Gardiner, History of England, 1:89; Otto Scott, James I (New York: Masson / Charter, 1976), 271; Lacey, Sir Walter Ralegh, 269.

49. Lacey, Sir Walter Ralegh, 270.

50. Greenblatt, Sir Walter Ralegh, 115, 122.

51. Consult, for example, the following: Nevill Coghill, “Comic Form in Measure for Measure,” Shakespeare Survey 8 (1955): 23-24, and Carolyn E. Brown, “Measure for Measure: Duke Vincentio's ‘Crabbed Desires,” Literature and Psychology 35 (1989): 66-88.

52. Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, 3:593, 658.

53. Weldon, 2:3.

54. Quoted in Greenblatt, Sir Walter Ralegh; 2.

55. William Lawrence, “Measure for Measure and Lucio,” Shakespeare Quarterly 9 (1958): 443.

56. Richard S. Ide, “Shakespeare's Revisionism: Homiletic Tragicomedy and the Ending of Measure for Measure,” Shakespeare Studies 20 (1988): 122.

57. McElwee, The Wisest Fool in Christendom, 54.

58. Quoted in Birch, ed., The Court and Times of James the First, 1:30-31.

59. Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of King James the First (London: Longman, 1822), 2:175.

60. Marvin Rosenberg, “Shakespeare's Fantastic Trick: Measure for Measure,” Sewanee Review 80 (1972): 68.

61. Quoted in Birch, ed., The Court and Times of James the First, 1:31.

62. McElwee, The Wisest Fool in Christendom, 122.

63. Gardiner, History of England, 1:123.

64. Lacey, Sir Walter Ralegh, 309.

65. Osborne, 1:156.

66. McElwee, The Wisest Fool in Christendom, 71.

67. Scott, James I, 210-11.

68. Willson, King James VI and I, 105.

69. Weldon, 1:340.