Equivocation

“One of the most intellectual, blistering, invigorating American plays of the 21st century . . . Jasson Minadakis' direction is spot on.”
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“No equivocating: The Bay Area premiere of Bill Cain's Equivocation is a hit ... fascinating, fulfilling entertainment for art lovers of all backgrounds. Cain packs his fast-paced story with amusing and gruesome real-life details sure to thrill literature and history experts ... Though historical, the show has a vivid, contemporary feel.”
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“One of the nation's most popular plays this season . . . Minadakis' buoyant Marin staging makes it easy to see why.”
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“If there's one thing this delightful and poignant reexamination of Shakespeare demonstrates, it's that the play's the thing, and Cain and Minadakis richly demonstrate the magic of theater by keeping nothing up their sleeves.”
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“The desire to speak the truth in difficult times is what stands at the heart of this marvelous, inventive, beautifully presented show ... A wonderfully sly mix of comedy, drama, literary observation and historical sleuthery.”
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“Equivocation is as close to theatrical perfection that one will see in this lifetime . . . sterling performances (99.7% pure genius) in Jasson Minadakis' brilliant, sinewy and stormy production.”
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“Equivocation confronts big issues with gusto, intelligence and a vitality that challenges the mind as much as it fires up emotions.”

“Magnificent. Powerful, mesmerizing . . . theatrical perfection. Classic theater at its very best.”

“One of the most intelligent, sizzling theatrical American plays in a decade.”

“FOUR STARS! Cain's intricate script is triply impressive - smart, funny and literary.”
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Glossary

By Margot Melcon

We don’t do current events. p. 3
Queen Elizabeth I established an edict against the writing or performing of any contemporary history for fear of how the royals would have been portrayed. Either admirably or disdainfully, the argument was that there should be no interpretation of the actions of the Court, that the Queen’s actions did not need commentary, even the approval, of the players.

I don’t want Fletcher. I don’t want Beaumont. I don’t want Jonson or Kyd. p. 3
John Fletcher (1579-1625) was born Rye, Sussex, the son of Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London and chaplain to the queen. Virtually nothing is known about him until 1606, when he is recorded as one of the group of literary men and wits who gathered at the Mermaid Tavern. This is where he likely met his most famous collaborator, William Shakespeare, along with Ben Jonson and Francis Beaumont. Fletcher's collaboration with Beaumont lasted from 1607 until the latter's death in 1616. Fletcher is likely to have collaborated with Shakespeare in two plays, The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613-16) and The Life of King Henry the Eighth (1613).

Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) was born third son of Francis Beaumont, justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Leicestershire. Rather than pursue his studies in law, Beaumont began writing and spending time at the Mermaid Tavern, befriending Ben Jonson. Beaumont met John Fletcher, perhaps through Ben Johnson, and their collaboration in playwriting became famous. They replaced Shakespeare around 1609 as playwrights for the King's Men, writing, in quick succession, no less than eight plays in four years. Beaumont married an heiress in 1613 and left the stage.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was born the posthumous son of a clergyman. He was educated at Westminster School and worked in his stepfather's trade, bricklaying. Jonson joined the theatrical company of Philip Henslowe in London as an actor and playwright on or before 1597. Commonly known to frequent the Mermaid Tavern, Jonson was often under suspicion by the court for the controversial views expressed in his plays as well as for his suspicious religious conversions. He wrote many lyric poems, masques, and satires (the most famous of which were Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair), and was convicted of murder and spent time in prison.

Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) was born in London, the son of Francis Kyd, a scrivener. A tailor by trade, little is known of him until he reached his thirties. He had some acquaintance with French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin, and to have done hack work in translating and in pamphleteering. He wrote Spanish Tragedy in 1590 and is credited with an early version of Hamlet, now lost. He had shared a room with Christopher Marlowe, and died in 1594.

He squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of the earth. p. 6
King Lear, III iv, sort of.

But if we can get through his comedies-don’t-have-to-be-funny period, we can get through whatever this is. p. 9
In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. "Comedy", in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. Shakespearean comedies tend to also include:
A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders
Separation and re-unification
Mistaken identities
A clever servant
Heightened tensions, often within a family
Multiple, intertwining plots
Frequent punning
Several of Shakespeare's comedies, such as Measure for Measure (c. 1603) and All's Well That Ends Well (c. 1601-08), have an unusual tone with a difficult mix of humor and tragedy which has led them to be classified as problem plays.

Hic est sanguinis mei. p. 17
This is my blood.

I don’t like theater… And I don’t like soliloquies. p. 22
A soliloquy is a literary device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings without addressing any of the other characters. Soliloquy is distinct from monologue (uninterrupted speech by one character who is either thinking out loud or speaking to another character) and aside (uninterrupted speech out loud to the audience).

I have never seen your plays, but I have heard them. Here at court. p. 40
The King’s Men performed not just at the Globe Theatre but also appeared at court dozens of times per year, to perform for their patron. In addition, the company toured on many occasions to Oxford, Leicester, and Dover among others. At any given moment, they were able to perform a full repertoire of plays, many written by Shakespeare, some also performed by Shakespeare.

The Law of Religious Uniformity saw to that. p. 40
The Act of Uniformity (1559) set the order of prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer. With this act Elizabeth I made it a legal obligation to go to church every Sunday or be fined 12 pence, a considerable sum for the poor. The act made up part of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in England instituted by Elizabeth I to unify the Anglican Church. Other acts concerned with this settlement were the Act of Supremacy 1559 (any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England; failure to so swear was treason) and the Thirty-Nine Articles (defining the position of the Church of England in relation to the Roman Catholic Church and dissident Protestants). Elizabeth was trying to achieve a settlement after thirty years of turmoil during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I, in which England had swung back and forth from Catholicism to Protestantism.

Benedicite Jesu et Mariae. p. 45
Blessed be Jesus and Mary.

Introibo ad altare dei. p. 59
I will go to the alter of God, part of the Tridentine Mass contained in the editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962. The beginning of Psalm 42.

They bet whether he could sneak the dirtiest word in the English language into Twelfth Night. p. 61
Twelfth Night, or What You Will, II, v, line 89

Before I’m in my winding sheet, I’d like to leave behind at least one play that was true. p. 62
A sheet for wrapping a corpse, a shroud.

You think Rome was founded by twins suckled by wolves? p. 72
According to the roman mythology, the founders of Rome were Romulus and Remus. Their mother was Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin, which meant she was a priestess and therefore forbidden to marry. The god Mars came to her in her temple and she conceived her twin sons, Romulus and Remus. At birth, the twins were placed into a basket and thrown in the Tiber River. The boys were found by a she-wolf, who fed them her milk. Romulus and Remus were discovered by a shepherd and brought to his home where he and his wife raised the boys as their own.

Rome is over, so is Wittenberg. p. 72
Rome, and Vatican City located within, is the global center of Catholicism. Wittenberg is a small town in Germany; the University there, Martin Luther taught and famously composed his Ninety-Five Theses that sparked the Protestant Reformation.

“Who is that which knocks? My Lord? O’ stay my Lord, I come.� p. 76
“Who's that which knocks? O stay, my Lord I come I know that call since first it made me know My self, which makes me now with joy to run Lest he be gone that can my duty show Jesu my Lord I know Thee by the Cross Thou offerst me, but not unto my loss.� This epitath was found in the papers of Sir Everard Digby, one of the Gunpowder Plotters, in the Tower after his death.

Edward Coke p. 79
Sir Edward Coke (1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634), was a seventeenth-century English jurist and Member of Parliament whose writings on the common law were the definitive legal texts for nearly 150 years. Born into a family of minor Norfolk gentry, Coke traveled to London as a young man to make his living as a barrister. There he rapidly gained prominence as one of the leading attorneys of his time, eventually being appointed Solicitor General and then Attorney General by Queen Elizabeth. As Attorney General, Coke famously prosecuted Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators for treason. In 1606, Coke was made Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, later being elevated, in 1613, to Lord Chief Justice of England. His unwillingness to compromise in the face of challenges to the supremacy of the common law made him increasingly unpopular with James I, and he was eventually removed as Lord Chief Justice in 1616.
Coke remained an influential political figure, leading parliamentary opposition to the Crown in the 1620s. His career in parliament culminated in 1628 when he acted as one of the primary authors of the Petition of Right. This document reaffirmed the rights of Englishmen and prevented the Crown from infringing them. Coke's enduring fame and importance rests principally on his immensely influential legal writings and on his staunch defense of the rule of law in the face of royal absolutism.

Mr Garnet, did you write a treatise – a learned treatise called – “On Equivocation�? p. 83
Equivocation is a form of deception that is not an outright lie. It was argued for in moral theology, and now in ethics, as a way to fulfill obligations both to tell the truth and to keep secrets from those not entitled to know them (for example, because of the seal of the confessional or other clauses of confidentiality). Equivocation allowed the speaker to employ double meanings of words to tell the literal truth while concealing a deeper meaning. Catholic theological thinkers and writers took up the argument in favor of equivocation and mental reservation. Though the concepts remained controversial within the Roman Catholic Church (which never officially endorsed or upheld the doctrines), the Jesuits came to favor these tactics for their obvious advantages.
Equivocation became notorious in England during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era when Jesuit agents penetrating England to maintain the Catholic cause were captured by the authorities and used these concepts in their legal defenses. Henry Garnet (c. 1555 – May 3, 1606), wrote a defense of Equivocation in 1598; Garnet was captured by the authorities in 1606 due to his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot. He used the same doctrines in his own defense, and was executed that year.

The scriptures say, “Let your speech be ‘yes, yes’ or no, no’.� p. 84
Matthew 5:37 – But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (King James Bible)

I have made a treaty with the Spanish to make sure that eventuality would never occur. p. 89
There were a number of reasons for antagonism between Spain and England during the late 16th century. England had broken with the Catholic Church in Rome, and discriminated against Roman Catholics in its realm, while the Hapsburg Empire, centered in Spain, was considered a loyal defender of the faith. Also, Spain had exclusive claim to the new world, which caused much jealousy in England, and many of the most notorious and pirates who preyed on Spanish galleons were protected by England. And England had supported the ongoing protestant rebellion in the Netherlands against Spain. Although diplomatic relationships were maintained for many years between the two countries, since neither wanted war, eventually the tensions descended into open conflict.
The Anglo Spanish War (largely an ongoing conflict, never actually declared as war) is most famous for the Spanish Armada, a failed attempt on the part of Spain to invade England. There were several other battles both before and after the Armada, most notably, Sir Francis Drake's famous raid of Cadiz, and Sir Grenville's last stand on the Revenge, and the successful raid on Cadiz in 1596. The Spanish also attempted a few other unsuccessful raids against England, and provided some support to the rebels in Ireland who provoked the Nine Years War in 1595. After the death of Philip II however, a peace treaty was negotiated in 1604.
Even after a peace treaty was made between Spain and England relations between the countries continued to be strained. Spain and England were on opposing sides of almost every European conflict over the next two centuries, and they also opposed each other over territory and trading rights in the new world. Hostility towards Spain was largely associated with British anti-Catholicism both in Europe and in the Americas, and incidents such as the Spanish inquisition and corruption of the Spanish aristocracy were often exaggerated within British culture to emphasize the dangers of popery.

Beagle, isn’t torture against English law? p. 90
Torture was in theory not permitted under English law, but in Tudor and early Stuart times, under certain conditions, torture was used. When Guy Fawkes was arrested for his role in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 he was tortured until he revealed all he knew about the plot. This was not so much to extract a confession, which was not needed to prove his guilt, but to extract from him the names of his fellow conspirators. By this time torture was not routine in England and a special warrant from King James I was needed before he could be tortured. The wording of the warrant shows some concerns for humanitarian considerations, the severity of the methods of interrogation were to be increased gradually until the interrogators were sure that Fawkes had told all he knew. In the end this did not help Fawkes much as he was broken on the only rack in England, which was in the Tower of London. Torture was formally abolished in England around 1640.

I forget the title… A good clean comedy. About twins. p. 94
Garnet is likely referring to Twelfth Night or What You Will, which Shag knows is not entirely clean. The twins in Twelfth Night are Viola and Sebastian.

I know your teacher from Stratford, Master Shagspeare. p. 95
Simon Hunt was master of Stratford grammar school from 1571 to 1575 after graduating from Oxford in 1568. He reportedly became a Jesuit in 1578, and died at Rome in 1585.

They’d make me Archbishop of Canturbury. p. 98
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief bishop and principal leader of the Church of England and the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. From the time of St. Augustine until the 16th century, the Archbishops of Canterbury were in full communion with the See of Rome and thus received the pallium. During the English Reformation the church broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church, at first temporarily under Henry VIII and Edward VI, and later permanently during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Archbishop of Canterbury was selected and appointed by the English monarch until the 20th century.

I vanquished them all. Essex. Raleigh. Spain. Popes. p. 128
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565 –1601), was a military hero and royal favorite of Elizabeth I, but following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599, he failed in a coup against the queen and was executed for treason.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 –1618) was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, and explorer. Raleigh rose rapidly in the favor of Queen Elizabeth I and was knighted in 1585. He was involved in the early English colonization of the New World. In 1591 he secretly married one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting without requesting the Queen's permission, for which he and his new wife were sent to the Tower of London. He was released and after Elizabeth’s death in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for 13 years, for allegedly being involved in the Main Plot against James I to overthrow him and replace him with his Spanish cousin Arabella. Raleigh was eventually executed in 1618.

And you know what he was busy doing? Buckingham. p. 129
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1592 –1628) was the favorite, claimed by some to be the lover, of James I. Despite a very patchy political and military record he remained at the height of royal favor until he was assassinated. He was one of the most rewarded and influential courtiers in all history.

After all I have done, there is no creature loves me and if I die, no soul shall pity me. p. 127
Richard III, V, iii, line 200

[Life] is a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. p. 148
Macbeth, V, v, line 26

England 1606

By Margot Melcon

England, 1606: some relevant history

Equivocation takes place in London, England, in the year 1606. The following brief history lesson presents relevant facts that will help orient you within the world of the play.

King Henry VIII
Henry VIII ascended the English throne in 1509 at the age of 17. He married his brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, just before his coronation. He was an observant and dedicated Catholic, who was declared Defender of the Faith by the Pope and who had written treatises against Protestantism. England had been a largely Catholic nation, but the seeds of reformation began brewing in the later half of the 15th century with Martin Luther’s treatises resisting the Catholic practice of indulgences, the rise of nationalism and common law in England, and the invention of the printing press and increased circulation of the Bible.

By the late 1520s Henry wanted his marriage to Catherine annulled, partially because Catherine had not produced a male heir, but also because he had recently become infatuated with Anne Boleyn. Pope Julius II had given special dispensation for Henry to marry Catherine (as she was his late brother’s wife), so when Henry asked the current Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage, he was refused.

Henry took his cause to Parliament and charged Catholics in England with violating praemunire, the law prohibiting papal jurisdiction in England against the supremacy of the monarch. He extinguished all papal power in England, dissolved the monasteries, and declared himself the head of the Church of England, which was, at first, closer to Catholicism than Protestantism. Little by little, England broke from Rome’s power. Henry was married to Anne 1533; she gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, three months later. The Pope responded to the marriage by excommunicating Henry from the Catholic Church and declaring Elizabeth a bastard.

Henry VIII died in 1547, and his 9-year old son (with his third wife, Jane Seymour) Edward VI inherited the throne. Edward—or, rather, his uncle who had near sovereign power—continued the assault against Catholicism and steered the Church of England toward Protestantism.

Edward died young and in 1553 Mary I, Henry’s daughter with Catherine and a Catholic, was proclaimed queen. Reformation legislation was repealed under Mary. She validated her mother’s marriage to Henry, legitimizing her claim to the throne. To secure the alliance with Rome and to produce and heir, she married Phillip II of Spain, though an heir was never conceived. Mary enthusiastically and violently persecuted Protestants, burning nearly 300 at the stake for heresy. She died in 1558 and was succeeded by Elizabeth I.

Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth became Queen at the age of 25. Fearing an encroaching Catholic Europe and determined to unify her country, the Protestant Elizabeth severed the communion with Rome that had been established by Mary I. In an attempt to introduce a lasting reform in England, Elizabeth proposed two bills in Parliament, known as the “Elizabethan Compromise.� The Act of Supremacy confirmed the Church of England as the official church with Elizabeth as the Supreme Governor. The Act of Uniformity called for mandatory attendance at Protestant services. Though these reforms were not as severe as previous attempts at legislation had been, Elizabeth embarked on a course of oppression and persecution of Catholics.

The Pope excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570, severing her subject’s allegiance to her, and leaving her vulnerable to Catholics within England and abroad who wanted her removed from the throne. Numerous plots to depose the Queen were discovered, including one involving Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic whom Elizabeth had imprisoned and eventually executed on the advice of her secretary of state, William Cecil. Mary’s claim to the English throne came through her grandmother, Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s eldest sister who had married James IV of Scotland.

Responding to threats against the monarch, Parliament passed laws prohibiting priests from saying mass and performing the sacraments of marriage, baptism, and extreme unction; in fact, just being a priest was considered treasonous and was punishable by death. One possessing Catholic paraphernalia, attending mass, or harboring a priest were against the law, and could be heavily fined. Catholics who refused to attend Protestant services—called recusants—were often fined so severely they lost their lands and fortunes or were driven into exile. Wealthy Catholic members of the gentry could afford the appearance of compliance, paying to continue to practice their faith and supporting the priests driven into hiding. The large numbers of Catholics who remained in England were forced to conform, go underground, or bend with the times through the remainder of Elizabeth’s reign and through the end of the century.

King James I of England, VI of Scotland
By the time of her death in 1603, Elizabeth had reigned for 45 years and the radical shifts in religious politics seemed near an end. As Elizabeth had no heir, both Protestants and Catholics considered James VI of Scotland (son of Mary, Queen of Scots) next in line for the crown due to his close blood ties to Henry VIII. With the reign of James I of England, Catholics had reason to hope for more tolerance, as his mother and his wife were both Catholic. Though James had hinted at easing the restrictions on the old faith and ending the persecution of priests, his promises never manifested.

A product of the reformation period, James was well aware to what lengths Catholic sympathizers would go to ensure one of their own ascension to the throne. Plots against him early in his reign made him increasingly suspicious, and instead of relaxing restrictions against Catholics, he embraced them with vigor. When a group of Catholics plotted to blow up himself, his family, and Parliament in November 1605, James was intolerant. Shortly thereafter, he required every citizen to take an Oath of Allegiance, denying the Pope’s authority over the king.

The Gunpowder Plot

By David Herber

Conspiracy — The seeds of discontent at the treatment of Catholics in England, which ultimately led to the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, were first sown in the late 1520s during the reign of Henry VIII. Henry had been declared Defender of the Faith by the pope and had written tracts against Protestantism. However, dissatisfied with the Pope's refusal to grant him a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon, Henry broke away from the See of Rome, extinguished all papal power in England, and executed his investiture as the head of the Church of England. This was followed by the methodical Dissolution of the Monasteries, under the supervision of Thomas Cromwell, which aided the English war chest and was instrumental in eroding the English power of the Catholic Church. Henry's Church of England was initially not Protestant, but remained closer to his traditional belief of Catholicism.

In the turbulent years that followed Henry’s death, England swayed back and forth on a theological pendulum. Henry's successor, his son Edward VI, steered the Anglican Church down the path of Protestantism, whereas his sister "Bloody" Mary I attempted to violently restore England to Catholicism through severe Protestant persecution, until Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, when the tide was again reversed.

Fearful of a now encroaching Catholic Europe, Elizabeth embarked upon a systematic course of repression and persecution of Catholics within her own country, in an attempt to ensure that there was no discontented populace which could assist a foreign invasion, or which could be seen as a beacon if a foreign invasion occurred. When the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, Elizabeth had all but extinguished the hopes for an end to persecution of those Catholics in England who saw Spain as their great ally. The previous year she had had her rival, the deposed and imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots, executed in order to prevent underground Catholic cells rallying to Mary’s cause and attempting to depose Elizabeth. Such activities as this had been only too evident in the Babington Plot of 1586 which uncovered Mary's coveting of the English crown and which was subsequently a main reason for her eventual execution. Mary's claim to the English throne came through her grandmother Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's eldest sister, who had married James IV of Scotland.

When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, there was disagreement about her right to follow Mary I. Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn, was according to some, not legally married, because Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon was not legal as it would not be ratified by the Pope (the reason Henry broke away from the Catholic Church). So, upon Anne Boleyn's execution for treason, Elizabeth was separately declared a bastard, and then removed from the succession by an act of the Privy Council. However, Henry placed her back in the succession, but never legitimized her.

Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, the Catholic strongholds in the north of England, who had been instrumental in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536/37 and the Norfolk and Northern Uprising of 1569, began sending envoys to both Phillip II of Spain and James VI of Scotland (the son of Mary Queen of Scots). It had become illegal to talk of the succession, yet James was commonly seen as Elizabeth's heir by both Protestants and Catholics, by virtue of closeness of blood to Henry VIII.

The Essex Rebellion of 1601 brought the names of many of those who were at the forefront of the Catholic cause to the attention of the Government, including that of Robert Catesby, who was later to become the leader of the Gunpowder Plot. The Catholics, relieved at the prospect that the son of a Catholic monarch had seemingly been guaranteed the throne after Elizabeth's death, had acquired from James the promise of toleration in the event that he did succeed Elizabeth. However, their embassies to Spain, dubbed the Spanish Treason, had been met with a lukewarm response by the Spanish Government, and in fact England and Spain signed a peace treaty soon after the last of these embassies had returned home.

When James eventually succeeded Elizabeth in 1603 as James I, there was initial celebration by the Catholic leaders, who under Elizabeth had been persecuted to such an extreme that any sign of Catholic sympathy risked the severest of penalties, including death. James, however, was not to be their savior. No sooner had the Hampton Court Conference ended — with no compromise being given to either the Puritan faction or the Catholics — than James re-introduced the harsh penalties for recusancy.

Within a few weeks of the Hampton Court conference which saw harsher penalties imposed on English Catholics, the five core members of the Gunpowder Plot — Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, Thomas Wintour, John Wright and Guy Fawkes — met together and swore an oath on the Holy Sacrament to blow up James and the Houses of Parliament when next the Parliament sat. Catesby was the charismatic son of Sir William Catesby, a prominent leader in the Catholic community who had been tried and imprisoned in 1581 for harboring Father Edmund Campion, the English Superior of the Jesuits. Thomas Percy was descended from the Earls of Northumberland, who had come to prominence in earlier Catholic uprisings involving Mary Queen of Scots, and now worked for his kinsman Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland. Wintour and Wright, also members of the gentry, had both experienced first-hand the severity of the anti-Catholic government. Fawkes was a soldier who had spent more than ten years fighting in the Low Countries under the flag of Spain in the regiment of English exiles led by Sir William Stanley, himself a self-imposed Catholic exile.

The conspirators first hired lodgings which were close to Parliament House, and began digging a tunnel that they hoped would take them under their target. Some modern theorists claim that authenticity of the tunnel story is dubious, and its brief mention in the plotters’ confessions never confirms its existence one way or the other. Popular belief, though, indicated that the tunnel soon became unusable due to water seeping in from the Thames, or that the thick walls of the Parliament buildings prevented further advancement, so a cellar was soon acquired by Thomas Percy within the Parliament buildings. In this cellar the conspirators placed 36 barrels of gunpowder which were carefully hidden by billets of wood and pieces of iron.

The exercise was becoming costly and more hands were required, so Catesby drew more accomplices into the inner circle of the plot, including his servant Thomas Bates, John Wright's brother Christopher Wright, and Thomas Wintour's brother Robert Wintour. In the ensuing months, Parliament's sitting was continually delayed, allowing Fawkes to return to Flanders to get more powder to replace the powder which had begun to spoil, and Catesby to organize further support (and, some claim, to meet with Jesuit priests, including leaders of the order such as Father Henry Garnet and Father John Gerard). John Grant, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Keyes, Ambrose Rookwood, and Catesby's cousin Francis Tresham were subsequently brought into the plot. Tresham was the son of Sir Thomas Tresham, one of the leading Catholics of the later Elizabethan period, and one who had suffered greatly for his faith at the hands of the government. Grant was the brother-in-law of Robert and Thomas Wintour, and Digby, Keyes and Rookwood were also disaffected members of Midland Catholic families. All but Fawkes and Bates were related either by blood or marriage.

On the 26th of October 1605, ten days before Parliament was due to sit, an unknown messenger delivered a letter to William Parker, Lord Monteagle at his house in Hoxton, outside London. It read:

"My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care for your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance of this Parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this advertisement but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow, the Parliament, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be contemned, because it may do you good and can do you know harm, for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the latter: and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you."

Monteagle had been a staunch Catholic whose ardor had cooled after he had obtained favor under the new regime. The "Monteagle Letter" was an attempt to warn Monteagle not to attend the opening of Parliament because of a great calamity that would consume it. Monteagle at once delivered the letter to Robert Cecil, James’ Secretary of State. Within hours, word was received by the conspirators that the letter existed. Catesby and Thomas Wintour immediately suspected that Tresham had written the letter, although Tresham convinced them that he had not been the author.

Over the next few days, the conspirators played a waiting game. Through their own efforts, and through information that found its way to them, they concluded that the letter had not alerted the government to their plans, and they continued with their actions. On the night of the 4th of November 1605, the day before Parliament was scheduled to open, Fawkes was caught in the cellar beneath the Parliament buildings with the powder. On his person were found the tools necessary to fire the powder train. He was immediately arrested and brought before the king. Over the next few days, Fawkes was tortured, until gradually he began to reveal details of the plot. At first he maintained the facade of John Johnson, servant to Thomas Percy, but in time he revealed his true identity and the names of his fellow conspirators.

In the early hours of November 5, 1605, news spread of Fawkes’ capture. The remaining plotters saddled their horses and left London for the midlands in twos and threes, except for Tresham who had decided to remain in London. The conspirators arrived in Dunchurch in Warwickshire and rendezvoused with a group of followers who had been gathered by Digby ostensibly as a hunting party. This group — which numbered about 60, although this figure varied depending on the source consulted — arrived at Holbeche House on the Staffordshire border in the evening hours of the 7th of November. Holbeche was owned by the recusant Littleton family who had been involved in many of the Catholic uprisings, as well as the Essex Rebellion, and it was to be the last stand of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators.

That evening, several of the plotters were injured by an accidental explosion which occurred while they were drying powder in front of an open fire. This accident lowered their morale even further. Between this evening and morning of the following day, several members of the group fled, while others still tried valiantly to rally support from the surrounding area. Just before midday on the 8th of November, the Sheriff of Worcester arrived with a posse of men and surrounded the house. After several attempts to have the conspirators surrender, a skirmish developed. Catesby, the two Wrights and Thomas Percy were all fatally wounded. The remaining known conspirators were apprehended (except Robert Wintour and Stephen Littleton who had fled), imprisoned in Worcester jail, and then transported to London to await trial. Four days after the siege at Holbeche, Francis Tresham was arrested in London and sent to the Tower of London. After spending two months on the run, Wintour and Littleton were eventually apprehended at Hagley House.

Thomas Wintour, the most senior of the plotters still alive, made his celebrated confession at the end of November. Conjecture exists today as to the authenticity of this confession, and it should be understood that the two primary sources from which most of the facts come down to us today come from this confession and the confession of Fawkes. By the 23rd of December, Francis Tresham had succumbed to a urinary tract infection and had died in the Tower. The mysterious circumstances surrounding this death still generate debate over Tresham's true role in the Gunpowder Plot, and whether he was in fact poisoned or whether he was allowed to escape.

The government now made extensive plans to track down the Jesuit priests, led by Henry Garnet, who they were still convinced were the masterminds behind the plot. Although all the plotters categorically denied any involvement by Garnet and his Jesuit colleagues, Robert Cecil was still trying to pin the blame on the Jesuits as justification for the Government’s severe anti-Catholic legislation.

Garnet was eventually captured at Hindlip, home of the recusant Thomas Habington, along with the Jesuit Edward Oldcorne and Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother who was skilled in the building of "priest holes". The information on Garnet's whereabouts was supplied by Humphrey Littleton, who had been with the plotters on the 8th of November, and was now trying to buy himself a pardon. This attempt was ultimately to no avail, as Littleton was eventually executed for complicity in the Plot.

On the day of Garnet's capture, the 27th of January 1606, the trial of the eight surviving conspirators began. None denied the charge of treason, and all were condemned to be executed. On Thursday the 30th of January, Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were executed in St. Paul's Churchyard. The following day, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes and Guy Fawkes were executed in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster. All eight men were hanged, drawn and quartered as was customary for traitors. Those who died at Holbeche were exhumed, and their heads removed to be displayed on pikes. Father Henry Garnet was executed on the 3rd of May 1606.

"Remember, remember the fifth of November.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot."

This poetic little rhyme, still popular among children today, continues to remind us why, on the night of November 5th, bonfires surmounted by cloth manikins or "Guys" are set alight in every town and village in Britain amongst a blaze of celebratory fireworks:

From The Gunpowder Plot Society http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/

Shakespeare

By

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon. The son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward IV Grammar School in Stratford, where he learned Latin and a little Greek and read the Roman dramatists. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior. Together they raised two daughters: Susanna, who was born in 1583, and Judith (whose twin brother Hamnet died in boyhood), born in 1585.

Little is known about Shakespeare's activities between 1585 and 1592. Robert Greene's A Groatsworth of Wit alludes to him as an actor and playwright. Shakespeare may have taught at school during this period, but it seems more probable that shortly after 1585 he went to London to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. Due to the plague, the London theaters were often closed between June 1592 and April 1594. During that period, Shakespeare probably had some income from his patron, Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first two poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). The fomer was a long narrative poem depicting the rejection of Venus by Adonis, his death, and the consequent disappearance of beauty from the world. Despite conservative objections to the poem's glorification of sensuality, it was immensely popular and was reprinted six times during the nine years following its publication.

In 1594, Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain's company of actors, the most popular of the companies acting at Court. In 1599 Shakespeare joined a group of Chamberlain's Men that would form a syndicate to build and operate a new playhouse: the Globe, which became the most famous theater of its time. With his share of the income from the Globe, Shakespeare was able to purchase New Place, his home in Stratford.

Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist of his time as well as an accomplished poet. In his poems and plays, Shakespeare invented thousands of words, often combining or contorting Latin, French and native roots. His impressive expansion of the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, includes such words as: arch-villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged, heartsore, hunchbacked, leapfrog, misquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolboy, stillborn, watchdog, and zany.

Shakespeare wrote more than 30 plays. These are usually divided into four categories: histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. His earliest plays were primarily comedies and histories such as Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors, but in 1596, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, his second tragedy, and over the next dozen years he would return to the form, writing the plays for which he is now best known: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. In his final years, Shakespeare turned to the romantic with Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, and The Tempest.

Only eighteen of Shakespeare's plays were published separately in quarto editions during his lifetime; a complete collection of his works did not appear until the publication of the First Folio in 1623, several years after his death. Nonetheless, his contemporaries recognized Shakespeare's achievements. Francis Meres cited "honey-tongued" Shakespeare for his plays and poems in 1598, and the Chamberlain's Men rose to become the leading dramatic company in London, installed as members of the royal household in 1603.

Sometime after 1612, Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to his home in Stratford. He drew up his will in January of 1616, which included his famous bequest to his wife of his "second best bed." He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later at Stratford Church.

Notes from the Playwright

By Bill Cain

Equivocation came together as a play while I was standing in the Tower of London, but it’s real origin was a few years earlier as I stood on 14th Street and Fifth Avenue and watched two other Towers fall.

But London’s Tower first.

I had taken a couple of years off from writing to teach Language Arts in a middle school in the South Bronx. I was always in awe of the kids’ writing. They were incapable of anything less than truth. There were times it felt like they were also incapable of complete sentences, capitalization and proper punctuation, but the writing itself – the sheer honesty of it - invariably knocked me to my knees. After a couple of years of awe and a whole lot of double negatives, I treated myself to a two-week trip to London to see some theater.

At the reconstructed Globe, I saw Mark Rylance’s company do Shakespeare as often as I could. I had directed the Boston Shakespeare Company for 7 years and had done most of the plays - many repeatedly - but the immediacy of the Globe was an absolute revelation to me. Seeing the plays done as they had been done exactly where they had been done made the past absolutely present.

Right across the river – walking distance – is the Tower. I had been there before, but hadn’t gone in recent trips, so I thought I’d stop by. In days gone by, the yeoman warders had done funny riffs on beheadings and dungeons, but this time – with Abu Ghraib in the immediate past – the darker events of the Tower were treated with more reverence. Even so, one disturbing element caught my eye. There was a sign over the rack that said something like – and I wish I had the exact words – something like no one was ever tortured in the Tower because of religion.

I know this is technically true. People were tortured because they were traitors, but, if you had not followed Henry 8’s religious predilection, you were – de facto – traitorous and, consequently, however you want to put it, you were in fact tortured because of your religion. This technically-true-but-profoundly-false official message set off alarms in my brain. This was about the time that it was becoming clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the weapons-of-mass-destruction based war both England and the United States were engaged in. This was especially distressing as the number of young men and women who were dying for that lie was mounting daily.

And I began to wonder about the relationship between the Tower and the Globe Theater.

The Globe was the official entertainment branch of the government at the time and I began to wonder what Shakespeare would be writing now if he were in the same position. If he were the government’s playwright now as he was then, what would he be writing in a time of terror?

And I knew I actually didn’t have to wonder about this a great deal because he was, in his lifetime, right in the middle of an act of terrorism and wrote a play that dealt with it.

When I moved on to the cells of the Tower, the first thing I saw in the first cell was an inscription chiseled into the wall by someone from Shakespeare’s time – a last statement from a prisoner of conscience who was about to be tortured to death for his religion. And then I realized that the walls of the cell were covered with such inscriptions. In fact, the walls in all the cells. And this knocked me to my knees.

And I knew what I wanted to write.

I wanted to write one word as true as a last wish hammered into a prison wall by a man trying to be true to his conscience in the last days of his life.

This effort has turned out to be not one word, but many. It turned out to be the play Equivocation. It is the story of “how to tell the truth in difficult times� – based on real events and real people of almost exactly 400 years ago – living in times very similar to our own.

When my two weeks were up, as soon as I got off the plane, I booked a flight back to London and spent many months reading about the period, learning every detail I could about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and walking what became the geography of the play – the path between the Globe and the Tower.

Now – those other Towers.

As I saw the Towers burning in the city I grew up in, the city that I love, I was so angry that all I wanted to do was answer destruction with destruction. Even then I knew that answering rage with more rage gets you nowhere. I knew that such a colossal act of anger could only be adequately answered by a tenderness equally as passionate, equally as committed. That also became the journey of Equivocation – from angry despair to something that I hope is at least somewhat better.

Henry Garnet in the play defines equivocation as “telling the truth in difficult times.� I don’t know that I have done that. I have tried, but, as Shag says, “Truth defies dramatic formula.� In any case, I hope this text allows us to explore the questions of our time by looking at another time - above the timeless question of what it means, finally, to be human in a time of inhumanity.

To see through the lies – private and public - to the astonishing truth that is hidden in plain sight before us.

To have the courage to tell the truth as well as sixth graders in the South Bronx do.

To embody all the possibilities of being human as fully as our actors do.

To carve a single word in a wall and let that word be as close to truth as is humanly possible.

To answer the question really being asked and to answer it with our lives.

Synopsis

By Catherine Foster

London, 1605. William Shakespeare (in the play spelled Shagspeare, or Shag) has just been made an offer he can’t refuse: King James I wants him to write a play about the recently foiled Gunpowder Plot. Shagspeare is leery: It’s dangerous for playwrights to write about current events. And this event—a plot by Catholics to blow up the king, his family and his Protestant court—has horrified the nation. Robert Cecil, the king’s ruthless chief advisor, gives Shag the king’s script, telling him to just add some dialogue—and witches. The king wants witches.

The rest of Equivocation is about Shagspeare’s struggle to write a play that will please—or at least not offend—the king. But as he gets deeper into it, the task gets more complex—for himself as an artist, a member of a theatre company and a moral citizen.

The four actors that make up Shagspeare’s theatre company, the King’s Men, play most of the other roles: themselves, conspirators, executioners and court officials as well as characters in two unnamed plays-within-the-play that we know as King Lear and Macbeth.

But while the King’s Men may have typical concerns of their singular profession—like not liking their parts—they have a bigger decision than most: whether to risk taking on this perilous play that could get them imprisoned or killed.

Shagspeare writes. His daughter, Judith (played by a woman), who is the company’s laundress, picks up his crumpled script rejects. Their relationship is strained; Shag still mourns the loss of Judith’s twin, Hamnet, years ago, and secretly resents her surviving instead.

As the actors perform the new script, it’s stiff, propagandistic. Logistical flaws make Shag and the actors wonder if the plot really happened the way the government says it did.

To find out more, Shag visits conspirator Tom Wintour, who’s recently been tortured on the rack in the Tower of London. Wintour reminds him of the repression Catholics have suffered and how James had promised toleration, then reneged. In a flashback, the actors morph into the conspirators discussing in anguish the morality of their plan, which would kill the innocent as well.

What Shag learns in the Tower convinces him to rewrite the play as a trial, where both sides have a say. When Cecil shows up, bearing a purloined copy of the script, Shag dogs him about the holes in the story. Cecil promises appalling torture if he doesn’t carry through with the original script. The playwright gets to see exactly what Cecil means as Wintour is disemboweled in front of his eyes. Broken, he agrees to write the king’s play.

Act II begins in court, with the trial of Father Henry Garnet, who was considered an instigator of the plot. Garnet, who wrote A Treatise of Equivocation, handles the hostile and tricky questions skillfully.

When Shag visits him in prison, he begs the priest to teach him to equivocate. “Here are my choices, lie or die. I don’t want to do either.� Shag also wants him to prove he wasn’t part of the plot. Garnet says he successfully eluded the all-knowing Cecil for 20 years and that if he had plotted to blow up the king, there would be nothing left of him.

Shag writes a new play, about a king who gets murdered. Then word comes that Garnet has confessed. Distressed that Garnet might have lied, Shag returns to the Tower. The priest tells him that the government twisted his words to fit their story.

Shag runs from the Tower to the premiere of his play at the Globe Theatre. The play legitimizes James, refers obliquely to the Gunpowder Plot, has witches and raises issues of ambition and lack of conscience that strike home. It is Macbeth. James, who is watching, is pleased; Cecil is not.

The company takes off for Garnet’s public execution, where the playwright and Cecil have one final confrontation.
Judith and her father have reconciled. In a soliloquy, she tells what her father did after Macbeth: very little original work. And the last four plays were very odd.

Interview with Bill Cain | 2:28

Equivocation Trailer | :44