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While William Shakespeare
himself lived and wrote in an era of peace and prosperity, the early
and middle decades of the sixteenth century could not have been more
different, with the government in turmoil as the monarchs of the
Tudor dynasty struggled for a stable rule and succession thereafter.
What made all of the Tudors, including Shakespeare's patron Queen
Elizabeth I, so vulnerable was the need to rule and reproduce within
the standard of legitimacy. Shakespeare as well as his audience
recognized this vulnerability and, oddly enough, the issue of
legitimacy crops up in certain of his plays, notably King
Lear, Richard
III, and King
John. Just as
Elizabeth and her sister Mary I who ruled before her had to come to
terms with their questionable legitimacy in different ways,
Shakespeare presented to his audiences in dramatic form the ways in
which legitimacy or the lack thereof was confronted and dealt with
and why certain efforts succeeded and failed. Shakespeare recreates
the legitimacy battles of the Tudor dynasty in his plays to
demonstrate that it is not illegitimacy that corrupts a person's
character but falsifying legitimacy and the betrayal of family ties,
and that legitimacy does not make a person good but virtue and
loyalty to one's country does.
In his first soliloquy in King
Lear, Edmund comments, “fine word,--legitimate!” (I,ii).
“Legitimate” is indeed a fine word, expressing an interesting
concept of what a person is and has a right to do, have, and be. The
Oxford English Dictionary lists multiple definitions for the term
“legitimate.” The top definition listed reads, “Of
a child: Having the status of one lawfully begotten; entitled
to full filial rights (OED Online “Legitimacy” A.1.a). A child
is considered legitimate, particularly in Shakespeare's world, if
they are conceived and born to two married parents. Legitimacy in
Shakespeare's time in regard to manner of birth defines an
individual's right to inheritance and, in the case of the monarchy,
succession to a royal title. However, legitimate can also be used to
mean, “conformable to law or rule, sanctioned or authorized by law
or right.” or, “normal, regular; conformable to a recognized
standard type” (A. 1. b.). Although in our time as well as in
Shakespeare's the idea of illegitimacy has the connotation of being
associated with immorality, “in the later Middle Ages... an
allegation of bastardy was primarily a weapon in struggles over
inheritance,” since inheritance laws favored children born within
marriage (Niell 273). The Elizabethan attitude towards legitimacy and
illegitimacy has much to do with what an individual inherits from a
parent, particularly from father to son. “The whole idea of
nobility rests on the assumption that men inherit at least an
inclination toward virtue or vice” from their fathers that
naturally makes them worthy of a physical inheritance. “If noble
birth signifies potential virtue, bastardy as a violation of natural
order implies moral degeneration” (Price 7-9). Legitimacy is not
merely a label associated with birth but a stigma assigned by others
in regard to one's legal and moral status, and this is clearly the
case in both the Tudor dynasty and certain of Shakespeare's plays.
The
history of the Tudor dynasty is a narrative of the long struggle of
each member of that ruling family to secure their claim to the
English throne by securing their legitimacy. The second Tudor
monarch, Henry VIII is remembered for his six wives. His constant
concern for his marital status was, although profoundly affected by
his romantic interests, driven by his desire for a legitimate heir,
especially a male heir, to inherit the throne after his death and
continue the family line. His first two marriages to Katherine of
Aragon and Anne Boylen each produced a healthy daughter, Mary and
Elizabeth respectively, but no surviving sons. It was his third wife,
Jane Seymour, who gave him the son he so desired, named Edward. In
order to secure the succession for Elizabeth and any of his future
sons by Anne Boylen, Henry altered Mary's official legitimacy when he
divorced her mother so she could not legally inherit the throne
(Hunt). When Anne Boylen failed to produce a healthy male heir, she
was arrested and executed for “purportedly for having committed
adultery with five men,” making it appear that “Elizabeth was not
only a bastard but was most likely not even a royal bastard.” An
“Act of Succession of July 1536 legally bastardized Elizabeth and
Mary, chiefly so that the expected children of Henry
and Jane Seymour would have no rival claimants to the monarchy ”
(Hunt). Mary
and Elizabeth's legitimacy was not purely a question of their
father's actual marriages
to their respective mothers but how he regarded his relationships to
these women and his need to protect the legitimacy of the heir he
eventually chose—he could not legitimize one of his children
without bastardizing the other two. By the betrayal of his ties to
Mary and Elizabeth, Henry VIII divided his family, and the two
sisters judged themselves and each other by their superficial labels
of legitimacy.
The
works of Shakespeare suggest that legitimacy should not be taken at
purely face value. In
King Lear,
legitimacy is not merely a matter of political opinion and legal
procedure but of society defines individual worth and character. The
play opens with a dialogue between the Earls of Gloucester and Kent
as Gloucester introduces his illegitimate son Edmund to Kent. Of
Edmund, Gloucester says, “this knave came something saucily into
the world before he was sent for, / yet was his mother fair; there
was good sport at his making,”. The term “saucily” describes a
child who is “impudent” or “'cheeky'”; however there is also
a connotation for “saucily” applying to someone who is “wanton”
or lascivious.” (OED Online “Saucy” 2.a.,b.). Gloucester says
he enjoyed his brief affair with Edmund's mother, but it
was her fault for getting pregnant and that Edmund was an unwelcome
surprise. Kent remarks, “I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue
of it being so proper.” Michael Niell comments that Kent's “banter
turns on a cruel pun, since to be a 'proper' person in
seventeenth-century England (as James Calder wood has pointed out) is
'to be propertied [...]to possess', while Edmund's alienation from
what Lear calls 'propinquity and property of blood' (I. I. I 14)
renders him an 'unpossessing bastard' (283). At their meeting Edmund
appears to Kent
to be as well-mannered as a nobleman.
Kent thinks it is a pity that Edmund is illegitimate, as though if
Edmund were legitimate and titled he would be entitled to Kent's
complete rather than partial regard. To Kent and Gloucester, Edmund's
illegitimacy devalues his worth as a person.
Although he does not say much
in the first scene, it becomes clear that Edmund disagrees with this
view. He says of himself, “my dimensions are as well compact, / My
mind as generous, and my shape as true, / As honest madam's issue.”
He can be just as good a person in character as the other members of
the royal court. However, other people refuse to acknowledge that
because of his birth. “Why brand they us /With base? with baseness?
bastardy? base, base?” To Edgar, legitimacy is only a label. Edgar
sees himself as equal to his noble peers, but they can only see the
“brand” of his illegitimacy that prevents him from having a
formal title and equal legal status. Edmund's “brand” is not
literal but cultural. In Shakespeare's world and in the world he
creates, the “begetting” of bastards “constitutes
an act of polluting mixture which renders the offspring in some sense
unnatural or unclean” (Niell 277). Bastards are viewed as unclean
because their origins do not conform to the standard of being
conceived within marriage but instead being the offspring of two
people who are not legally joined. Marriages are sanctioned by the
same laws that also govern inheritance and nobility, therefore a
child born outside of marriage cannot benefit from those laws. A
person who does not enjoy the benefits of being born within the law
is seen by those who are as a social unequal because he or she is a
material unequal. Edmund's goal, then, is to legitimize
himself and then gain the noble label required for his social
acceptance. Shakespeare's commentary on bastardy points to the idea
that what makes a bastard is not an innate abnormality but a communal
disregard for a person with abnormal relation to society.
In
spite of the intent to become legitimate, Shakespeare characters as
well as members of the Tudor family who seek to overcome their
illegitimacy become corrupt as they reject their family ties, and
this corruption is rewarded with destruction at the hands of divine
justice. Thematically
as well as historically, an individual cannot legitimize himself or
herself without destroying the reputation of others in their family.
As we have seen, bastardy as a violation of the natural order of
inheritance is a cause for moral and social disdain. On the other
hand, a similar violation is to reduce something legitimate to being
base, and to make a thing that is naturally base legitimate or
acceptable. Since this violates the natural, divinely sanctioned
order, this raises the need for divine retribution.
Richard
III
demonstrates a case of figurative illegitimacy through the character
of Richard, who becomes a usurping tyrant that slanders the
legitimacy of others to get what he wants. In the play, Richard is
physically deformed and considers himself “not shaped for sportive
tricks” that other people enjoy, “rudely stamped” by his
deformity, “And that so lamely and unfashionable /That dogs bark at
me as I halt by them,” as if the dogs sensed something unnatural in
him. Maurice Hunt claims,“Physically twisted, resembling the shape
of neither his mother nor his father, Richard feels like a bastard,
even though he is by all accounts legitimately born.
Self-disgustedly, Richard feels himself to be illegitimately
legitimate (or legitimately illegitimate)” (Hunt). To Richard, his
physical impairments are a label distinguishing him from his fellow
nobles and relatives in a negative way: a freak of nature that Hunt
suggests is similar to the cultural abnormality of the bastard. Like
Edmund, Richard's goal is a piece of property and a noble title to
ensure his legitimacy in the eyes of others: specifically, a
crown,since “coronation, as the sign of free acclamation by the
secular and religious authorities of the realm” supposedly “cuts
off any competing claims” and proves a monarch's right to rule
(Lane). Behind all of his other relatives in the succession, his
ascendancy is unnatural, and so Richard commits the unnatural deed of
betrayal of kin in order to become king, and he betrays his kin by
attacking their legitimacy: the morally illegitimate Richard turns
his legitimate relatives into bastards.
In
attacking the legitimacy of his relatives, Richard not only suggests
the legal implications of allowing bastard kin to assume the throne
but also implies that his relatives' bastardy makes them inhuman and
unworthy to rule. Richard becomes king of England after the death of
his brother Edward IV by proclaiming to the people that Edward and
his two sons, the eldest of which being Edward's successor, are all
illegitimate. Richard tells Buckingham to hint at Edward's “hateful
luxury /And bestial appetite in change of lust” that led him to
have carnal relations with a multitude of women, therefore
disqualifying the legitimacy of his two sons (). At a later assembly,
Buckingham dramatically tells Richard, “it is your fault that you
resign /The supreme seat, the throne majestical, [….] To the
corruption of a blemished stock” and he must become king to
preserve the legal as well as moral integrity of the throne. Once he
has the approval of the people, Richard orders the assassination of
his nephews who are at that time imprisoned in the Tower of London.
He summons an assassin, Tyrrel, and informs him that “two deep
enemies, /Foes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers/Are they
that I would have thee deal upon:/ Tyrrel, I mean those bastards in
the Tower” ( ). Richard may likely be referring to his two nephews
as “bastards” to keep in line with his own story. However, in the
rest of the line he refers to them indirectly as “two deep enemies”
and “Foes to my rest” because he is more concerned about how they
threaten his claim to the throne. Richard is so absorbed by the idea
of the illegitimacy of his kin that he has dehumanized them and
distanced himself from them as a relative, disavowing all familial
ties and obligations, seeking to kill rather than to protect them.
What makes Richard a unique villain is that he “thrives by an
ironic detachment from all the standards of traditional morality,
including the claims of the family” by undermining “the bonds of
natural love by his plots. Richard shares with the Vice his
consummate hypocrisy and his demonic sense of humor, both of which
exploit the morality of the family” (Price 90) Shakespeare's
presentation of Richard
III
is a commentary on the legal brutality of sixteenth-century European
politics: if someone wanted to steal something, all a person had to
do was prove a rival's illegitimacy. Maurice Hunt comments that by
the time of the Tudors, “this legislative method for 'proving' (or
'disproving') legitimacy had transparently become the tool of
political opportunists, often of the crassest stripe” (). As the
conclusion of Richard III unfolds, Shakespeare makes it clear that
Richard's falsifying of legitimacy and illegitimacy is a perversion
of the natural order, an order which must be restored.
After becoming king, Richard
continues this practice of slandering the legitimacy of rivals, this
time to counter the threat of Henry, the earl of Richmond, who would
later become Henry VII and founder of the Tudor dynasty. While
Richmond's claim to the throne comes from a line of marriages and
births of questionable validity,
according to Shakespeare it is Richard who is illegitimate as in
being outside of a moral standard, being an enemy of morality and an
usurper who murders his own family. Richmond's speech to his troops
alludes to this, as he not only calls Richard “A base foul stone,
made precious by the foil /Of England's chair, where he is falsely
set. ” Hunt states that “In this pejorative context, the word
'base' catches the overtones of figurative bastardy inherent in
Richard's own dehumanized conduct and his tacit self-appraisals and
condenses them in the mouth of his adversary” ( ). According to
Hunt, then, Henry knows that Richard has not legitimized himself by
his immoral or illegitimate behavior but he has proven his own
illegitimacy. However, there is additional evidence of Richard's
moral illegitimacy in the following lines, as Henry also calls
Richard “One that hath ever been God's enemy.” He tells his
soldiers, “Then, if you fight against God's enemy, / God will in
justice ward you as his soldiers” ( ). Richard, because of his
murderous behavior, has bereft himself of divine favor, and so there
is a divine sanction for Richmond, a man of more questionable literal
legitimacy than Richard's, to overthrow someone of moral
illegitimacy. Richard's attempts to slander Richmond are hence to no
avail, and Richmond defeats Richard in battle by divine sanction.
In this examples from
Shakespeare's works, it is clearly demonstrated that artificial
legitimacy is clearly corrupt and easily exposed. The historical
basis for these ideas can be traced back not only to cultural
perspectives on legitimacy but to the life of Mary I, who was the
next successor to Henry VIII after her brother Edward. Mary was the
daughter of Henry's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, who had been
divorced in favor of Anne Boylen. When Mary ascended the throne as
England's first female monarch, she made herself legally legitimate,
but then she smeared the legitimacy of her half-sister Elizabeth to
prevent her from threatening her own right to rule. Mary was
suspicious of Elizabeth since she represented a security threat,
considering at least one rebellion during her rule was intended to
depose her for Elizabeth (Loades 201). Undoubtedly, memories of the
cruelty shown towards her and her mother, Katherine of Aragon, as
well as jealousy poisoned her relationship with Elizabeth. Being the
only “legitimate” daughter of Henry VIII, Mary saw Elizabeth as a
reminder of her father's and Anne Boylen's sins, and she would not
have such “blemish'd stock” take the throne away from her:
Mary had said some time before
– even before her own marriage – that she did not want to
contemplate Elizabeth as her heir 'for certain respects in which she
resembled her mother (Anne Boylen).' By 1557 it seems that she had
convinced herself that Elizabeth was not really her father's daughter
at all but the child of one of Anne's alleged lovers. [A potential
noble husband] was far too good for such a bastard' (204).
Mary
was so estranged from her sister that she convinced herself that
Elizabeth was not related to her at all and, not being Henry VIII's
child, as she believed, she did not have the right to rule because
she did not have the sanction of royal blood. Elizabeth was held
captive in the Tower of London during part of Mary's reign and later
banished to remote country estates. By banishing Elizabeth, Mary
disassociated herself from the trauma of her past—erasing it as
much as possible—taking control of her life and securing her claim
to the throne. Although
she was well past childbearing age, Mary married Philip of Spain in
the hopes that she would produce an heir to prevent Elizabeth from
becoming queen after her.
While
Mary succeeded in taking the throne, her efforts to prevent Elizabeth
from becoming queen failed, and over time her own subjects began to
doubt Mary's legitimacy. Far from being a successful political and
personal maneuver, Mary's marriage to Philip complicated the politics
of her reign and increased rather than relieved the stress of her
personal life. In 1555 and 1557, her womb appeared to swell with what
appeared to be a pregnancy, but no child ever appeared (200, 204).
When she died in November 1558, “the most likely explanation is
that she died of cancer of the womb, a disease of which her false
pregnancies had been advance warnings (206-207).” In addition, “the
harvest failures of 1555 and 1556 had been followed by food
shortages, and then by epidemic disease.” The European war that
Philip had started went “from bad to worse and, in January 1558,
the ancient English enclave of Calais fell to a surprise French
attack” (204-205). In her increased affliction, Mary acquired “a
fierce determination to exterminate [religious] heresy” which would
remedy “all the ills that had afflicted England” (205). However,
her religious extremism only compounded her increasingly unpopular
rule. Mary's false pregnancies and the harvest failures may have been
a sign to her subjects of divine retribution against her strongly
Catholic rule, making it both spiritually and literally fruitless. It
may also have been a sign that Elizabeth had the divine sanction to
be England's next ruler, since Mary had committed the crimes of
betraying her own kin and also forcing England to return to the
rejected Catholic faith. Although Mary gave everything to prevent her
hated half-sister from becoming queen, “...towards
the end she had recognized the inevitable – her people would have
no one but Elizabeth. So her life ended in bitter failure...”
(207).
Since
an individual's betrayal of family ties to prove legitimacy is a
manifestation of moral corruption, therefore virtue by loyalty to
one's country and family is the manifestation of moral legitimacy or
virtue. Literal
legitimacy is not necessary to being a good person, just as Elizabeth
I realized that her own legitimacy had nothing to do with her
capability as a monarch. During her childhood, Elizabeth was
dismissed as a bastard because of the nature of her parents'
relationship, Henry having courted Anne Boylen while still married to
Katherine of Aragon (Hunt). Her legal bastardization was only a
confirmation of public opinion. Towards the end of his life, Henry
VIII wrote a will declaring that if his son Edward died without
heirs, then he would be succeeded by Mary, who in turn would be
followed by Elizabeth (Lane). It was the right of this will that gave
Elizabeth the right to succeed her sister in the eyes of the people.
On her ascension after Mary's death, “Elizabeth's counselors
advised her not to repeal the Act of 1536 which bastardized her, or
to proclaim her biological legitimacy” and claim the right to rule
instead on the basis of her father's will. “In effect, this
decision made at the beginning of Elizabeth's long rule kept her
bastardization official throughout her lifetime” (Hunt). Sow did a
technically “illegitimate” monarch become one of England's
greatest rulers? After her sister's chaotic reign, Elizabeth restored
the Protestant faith, and she defended Protestantism and the security
of her homeland from invasion by the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Furthermore, Elizabeth cultivated an image of virtue that overrode
her literal illegitimacy.
Part of the image of virtue
that Elizabeth projected to her subjects was her refusal to marry to
protect the integrity of the nation. Wheras Mary's marriage to Philip
of Spain made the domestic and foreign policy during her rule much
more complicated, Elizabeth's refusal to marry, particularly to enter
into a foreign marital alliance, was far more beneficial (Loads 209).
However, there was a spiritual message that she wanted to send to her
subjects:
When the House of Commons
petitioned her to marry in the spring of 1559, at which time she had
been on the throne barely six months, she replied ...'I am already
bound unto a husband, which is the kingdom of England, and that may
suffice you'.... She then showed her coronation ring, as the pledge
of that marriage, and concluded 'reproach me so no more that I have
no children, for every one of you, and as many as are English, are my
children and kinsfolks' (210).
Elizabeth used the image of her
being married to the kingdom throughout her reign, and these and
other measures did much to secure the approval of her subjects
regardless of her illegitimacy, making her, in their eyes,
legitimate. Loyalty to this metaphorical “husband” and “family”
– her kingdom and subjects – made up for the literal family that
had preceded her in death. It was not Elizabeth's background that
gave her the right to rule but the wisdom and strength with which she
governed. Elizabeth created for herself the identity of a “Virgin
Queen” who found figurative virtue in devoting herself to her
country, and hence she legitimized herself in the eyes of her
subjects.
Shakespeare's play King John
was written towards the end of Elizabeth's rule, the thematic focus
of it being the struggle for legitimacy as the right to secure the
succession as Elizabeth's death was drawing near and the question of
who would rule in her place was gaining interest. While King John and
his relatives destroy each other in the fight for legitimacy, the
illegitimate Faulconbridge comes out alive and on top in a manner
comparable to Elizabeth outliving her overly-concerned sister Mary.
Just as Elizabeth had more to gain for her kingdom by not marrying,
Faulconbridge embraces his illegitimacy because he has more to gain
from a bastard identity. What Elizabeth and Faulconbridge have in
common, that gives them the divine legitimacy that sanctions their
survival, is their acceptance of family ties and virtuous devotion to
England.
While
Elizabeth may have downplayed the questionable legitimacy of her
conception, Philip Faulconbridge chooses to embrace his identity. He
and his half-brother Robert enter King John's court to resolve an
inheritance dispute because, although Robert is younger, he has
inherited his late father Sir Robert Faulconbridge's estate because
he is the legitimate son. King John and his mother Eleanor see “a
trick of Couer-de-Lion's [Richard's] face” and, to save him from
the consequences of being dispossessed by the family that raised him,
offer to elevate him to the noble status of being “the reputed son
of Coeur-de-lion, / Lord of thy presence and no land beside,” which
he accepts. Faulconbridge is pleased with this change in fortune
because although he has separated himself from the family that raised
him, being an illegitimate royal still apparently makes him royalty.
Says he to Elinor's recognition of Richard's features, the Bastard
says, “I would give it every foot to have this face; I would not be
sir Nob [Sir Robert Faulconbridge] in any case” ( ). Richard Price
notes that “His decision in the first scene can be viewed in quite
a different light. After all, Richard I was in fact his father, and
so in taking his name, he is really accepting his parentage, not
denying it.” Furthermore, “Eleanor tests his moral inheritance
before accepting him as her grandson and ally, and he passes the test
when he displays the cavalier boldness of his father. He completes
the proff that he is heir to Richard's courage” and goes on “to
become the mainstay of the English army and John's rule” ( ). By
accepting his illegitimate ties, he shows his devotion to his birth
father's family, and that devotion earns him a type of moral
legitimacy.
Shakespeare plays up
Faulconbridge's embracing of his illegitimacy to heroic (and not to
mention comic) effect. On the battlefield in France, Philip meets the
Duke of Austria, who killed his father Richard I. When the duke sees
him and asks, “What the devil art thou?” , Philip retorts, “One
that will play the devil, sir, with you,” or in other words send
him to the devil ( ). Faulconbridge's constant reference to his
father's lion-like qualities (Richard I was known as “Couer-de-lion”
or “the Lionheart”) makes it obvious that he wants to follow in
the footsteps of his heroic parent. As he is taunting the Duke, he
says, “I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide, / And make a
monster of you.” ( ). Instead of
the fault being with Richard I for begetting an illegitimate son, the
fault is with Austria who killed the heroic king, and it is the
illegitimate son who delivers justice. Ultimately, Faulconbridge
avenges his father's death, and in a later battle with the French he
is also a heroic leader and described as “valiant” ( ).
Faulconbridge finds his personal as well as moral legitimacy in
serving his country and destroying the morally illegitimate villains
that fight against England. Price writes that Philip's “acceptance
of a tainted descent from Richard I may imply that virtu
is more important than a formally correct title” (131). Like
Elizabeth I, who ruled as the daughter of Henry VIII, Faulconbridge
may carry the stigma of illegitimacy but he wants to be remembered
for emulating his royal father and upholding and defending the
English realm, and his deeds and not his birth determine his true
legitimacy.
William
Shakespeare used his plays as a venue for demonstrating how the Tudor
monarchy's struggle for legitimacy succeeded in proclaiming
legitimacy through virtue and patriotism, and failed in the family's
internal betrayal and the falsified legitimacy of its members. No
laws passed or stigmas assigned determined the divine legitimacy of
its kings and queens, but rather betrayal or attempted betrayal of
the natural order of succession lead to divine punishment. What
ultimately mattered was that Queen Elizabeth I was a virtuous leader
and that England was safe in her hands, and when she died and was
replaced by James Stuart her legacy of moral legitimacy would
continue. The recognition of the true value of legitimacy was
important to Shakespeare because it was important to the people who
saw his plays. With a legitimate monarch on the throne, the nation
was stable, and with stability came the everyday prosperity of
England's people. That being said, legitimacy is a theme in
Shakespeare that can be understood by understanding how the issue
affected the Tudors and how the playwright wanted to respond to the
concerns of his patrons and his countrymen.
Works
Cited
Evans, G. Blakemore, and J.J. M.
Tobin, eds. The Riverside Shakespeare, Second Edition.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1997. Print.
Hunt, Maurice. "Shakespeare's King Richard III And The
Problematics Of Tudor Bastardy." Papers On Language &
Literature 33.2 (1997): 115. Academic Search Premier. Web.
6 Mar. 2013.
Lane,
Robert. ""the Sequence of Posterity": Shakespeare's
King John and the Succession Controversy." Studies
in Philology 92.4
(1995): 460-. ProQuest
Research Library. Web. 7
Mar. 2013.
"legitimate, adj. and n.".
OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. 5 April 2013.
Loades, David. The Tudor
Queens of England. London:
Continuum, 2009. Print.
Neill, Michael. “'In Everything Illegitimate:' Imagining the
Bastard in Renaissance Drama.” The Yearbook of English Studies.
23: Early Shakespeare Special
Number. 1993: 270-292. Web. 1 April 2013.
Pierce, Robert. Shakespeare's
Histories: The Family and the State.
Ohio State University Press, 1971. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The
Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Latus ePublishing. Kindle Edition.
"saucy, adj.1". OED
Online. March 2013. Oxford
University Press. 5 April 2013.
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