Is Twelfth Night a Political Play?
The play’s character Olivia, mourning a father’s and brother’s deaths, and reluctant to marry, might easily remind them of their queen, Elizabeth I.
Olivia hides her face with a veil (1.1; 1.5); Elizabeth survived smallpox and hid her facial scars with thick makeup [2].
Olivia’s steward, Malvolio, might remind many of the late William Cecil, long-time advisor to Elizabeth and sometime spymaster [3].
Malvolio intercepts a letter - a forgery by Maria, designed to entrap him and bring about his downfall, which he believes contains a code - this would remind audiences of the downfall of Mary Queen of Scots (executed February 1587), accomplished in part by intercepted letters – some in code, some alleged forgeries - overseen by Cecil [4].
Mary claimed at her trial “That it was an easy matter to counterfeit the Ciphers and Characters of others” [5].
It was an old story: Londoners would have heard gossip and read about details of the letters and codes in pamphlets and the popular Holinshed's Chronicles.
The downfall of Malvolio and his mock-exorcism [6] would seem a kind of turnabout, Mary Queen of Scots avenging her downfall by Cecil, subverting the expected order [7].
Mary Queen of Scots was said to have conspired with Spain to invade and place her on England's throne. Elizabeth’s sister, Mary I of England, had been married to Phillip II of Spain; Spain and England, once linked by their monarchs’ marriage, became enemies [8].
In Twelfth Night, Viola and Sebastian, refugees from an enemy country, marry Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia of Illyria, as if to suggest that England’s rich and powerful should fall in love with and marry Spanish wives and husbands.
Such a political play may have worked best as a comedy associated with Lords of Misrule and the topsy-turvy Elizabethan Christmas-revels climax of Twelfth Night.
INDEX for posts in this series on the TWELVE DAYS of CHRISTMAS in Shakespeare’s time (and possible influences on the plays):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/12/twelve-days-of-christmas-in-churches-of.html
NOTES: All references to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu
[1] February 2, 1602 is the first recorded public performance of the play.
[2] In 1.5.235, Olivia removes her veil, and Viola, as Cesario, says, “Excellently done, if God did all.” Elizabeth was famous for wearing thick white makeup (which contained lead and which many now believe contributed to her death), but the practice of women wearing makeup was frowned upon in official sermons and gets a mention in another play’s “nunnery scene”:
HAMLET: I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. (3.1.154-156)
[3] William Cecil had served Elizabeth since the start of her reign, first made Secretary of State in 1558, later made Baron Burghley (1571) and Lord High Treasurer (1572–1598). His spymaster activities increased after the death of Francis Walsingham in 1590. William’s son Robert stepped in to fill his role after the statesman’s death in 1998, only a few years before Hamlet and Twelfth Night.
[4] After the trial of Mary Queen of Scots found her guilty of plotting against Queen Elizabeth, the penalty was to be death, and Elizabeth signed the execution order but allegedly asked William Ceil to wait. Without her approval, he pushed through the order and Mary was executed, which allegedly made Elizabeth very angry with him. But it’s hard to know if that was perhaps just a story to make her appear hesitant to have her cousin killed (like Hamlet hesitant to kill his uncle), and therefore more humane.
[5] Gary Schneider writes about the role of letters, forgeries, and codes in the “Casket Letters” and various plots against Elizabeth in which Mary Queen of Scots was implicated.
See Gary Schneider, “Propaganda, Patriotism, and News: Printing Discovered and Intercepted Letters In England, 1571–1600,” p. 53. 2019-11-22 Issue
Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019): The Journal of Epistolary Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51734/jes.v1i1.12
[6] Protestant critics of the age were strongly against the Catholic practice of exorcism, which they found to be superstitious and theatrical in order to make money from families of the victim of apparent demonic possession. See Stephen Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory, Princeton University Press, 2001.
[7] With its traditions of the “Lord of Misrule” and “Boy Bishops,” Twelfth Night revelry was very much about subverting the normal order of things.
[8] Philip II of Spain, widower after the death of to Elizabeth’s sister Mary I, was among those who proposed marriage to Elizabeth, which would have been very unpopular and problematic, in part because Henry VIII had divorced his first wife because he thought it biblically incestuous to have married his dead brother’s widow. Elizabeth was courted by others, and had various “favorites,” including the Earl of Essex who secretly married one of Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting without the queen’s permission, and later attempted a rebellion claiming Elizabeth’s key advisors had misled her. Essex was executed in February 1601, about a year before the first performance of Twelfth Night, so although Essex was beheaded, the line in the play, “Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage” (1.5.19) may have stung a bit for some, and may have been omitted from a performance before the queen herself.
IMAGES:
LEFT: Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots
circa 1560-1592
National Portrait Gallery, London
Public Domain via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/3f/20200718105440%21Mary_Queen_of_Scots_portrait.jpg
CENTER: (unknown artist) attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561–1636)
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
Date: after 1585
National Portrait Gallery, London
Public Domain via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/William_Cecil%2C_1st_Baron_Burghley_from_NPG_%282%29FXD.jpg
RIGHT: The Siena Sieve Portrait by Quentin Metsys the Younger (1543–1589)
Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, 1583
Pinacoteca Nazionale (Siena)
Public domain, via
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Metsys_Elizabeth_I_The_Sieve_Portrait_c1583.jpg
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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