G.K. Chesterton: Brilliant Witness to the Truth

I've been reading my Sept/Oct edition of Gilbert, the Chesterton Society's magazine and came across this interesting statement in an interview with Shakespeare expert Fr. Peter Milward, S.J. The interviewer asked him, "As a Shakespearean scholar, what would you say is Chesterton's most interesting insight into Shakespeare?" His response:

Well, to begin with, Chesterton remarks in his book on Chaucer that the fact of Shakespeare's being a Catholic is "something that every Catholic by every sort of convergent common sense knows to be true." He proves this by emphasizing the indebtedness of the dramatist to Catholic tradition, or the ideal of Christendom, which was the very ideal of Chesterton shared with Belloc. Shakespeare isn't just himself alone, nor can he be understood by himself alone, as so many Shakespeare scholars try to do. He can only be understood in relation to the Christian past, and for him the Christian past was the Catholic past; there was no other.

I found this intriguing so I went to Joseph Pearce's book, The Quest for Shakespeare, to refresh my memory of what he says about Chesterton and Shakespeare. Chesterton believed there was a "chasm of difference" (Pearce's words) between Milton, the Protestant, and Shakespeare, the Catholic, and I think this emphasizes Fr. Milward's statement about the Catholic's connection to the past.  But let Chesterton explain:

Milton is possessed with what is, I suppose, the first and finest idea of Protestantism -- the idea of the individual soul actually testing and tasting all the truth there is, and calling that truth which it has not tested or tasted truth of a less valuable and vivid kind. But Shakespeare is possessed through and through with the feeling which is the first and finest idea of Catholicism that truth exists whether we like it or not, and that it is for us to accommodate ourselves to it....But I really do not know how this indescribable matter can be better described than by simply saying this; that Milton's religion was Milton's religion, and that Shakespeare's religion was not Shakespeare's.

Ah.....Catholics are connected to the truth from the very beginning -- the truths of the natural law from man's first footstep on the earth, through the search for truth by pagan philosophers like Socrates and the good doctor Hippocrates, through the chosen people of Israel, to the epitome of truth found in Jesus Christ and the Church he founded. We are not adrift on a sea of individualism, lost in our own egos, but are integrally connected to the truth throughout history as a baby is connected to his mother through the umbilical cord.

I thank God today for being a Catholic and for all my dear ancestors who passed on the faith so that I could rejoice in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament today. And thanks be to God for Catholic apologists like Chesterton who speaks as clearly as ever to our modern age if it cares to listen. He reminds us that truth, no matter how ancient, is ever new.

Shakespeare Was a Catholic!

Although no one really knows when Shakespeare's birthday is, it's celebrated this week on April 23rd. Recent scholarship on the bard has presented pretty convincing evidence that he was a recusant Catholic, i.e., refusing to participate in the state religion established by Elizabeth and paying for it through fines and other measures.

Henry VIII wasn't nearly as bold as Elizabeth, his illegitimate daughter by Anne Boleyn. He only made himself head of the Church. She authorized the complete destruction of the Mass including draconian persecution to force the English people to accept the bastardized version. The Shakespeare family (sometimes spelled Shakspere or Shackspeare) resisted. There is significant evidence that Shakespeare's father, John, and his mother were recusants their entire lives. William's daughter Susanna was also a recusant and it was to Susanna that he left his London property that was a house filled with priests holes and used for illegal Masses. A few years after Shakespeare's death a support beam in the house collapsed during Mass and about 90 people out of a congregation of some 300 were killed.

I'm reading Joseph Pierce's book, The Quest for Shakespeare, which is loaded with evidence that the Bard of Avon was faithful to Rome throughout his entire life. Pierce quotes a summary of evidence from scholar Hugh Ross Williamson that points to Shakespeare's Catholicism.

There are in [Shakespeare's] life, some certainties, some probabilities and some possibilities. It is certain that both his parents were open Catholics who suffered on account of their faith, so that the probability is that...he was brought up as any other cild would be in a devout Catholic home. If he went to school at five, it is certain that his first schoolmaster was a Catholic. It is also certain that from the age of seven to eleven he was taught by a Catholic who eventually became a priest and that among his schoolfellows was one who became both priest and martyr. If he remained at school till he was fifteen, his last master was a Catholic, whose younger brother was also a martyr. It is certain that he was married by a Catholic priest.

It is certain that, by reason of the Shakespeares' relationship with the great Catholic "cousinage" in the Midlands...he was affected by the Somerville plot and possibly on account of it left Stratford. It is certain that the object of his literary attack, Sir Thomas Lucy, was the chief persecutor of Catholics in Stratford. It is possible that Lucy ordered his imprisonment.

It is certain that his patron, Southampton, was a Catholic. It is probable that the martyr and poet, Robert Southwell, dedicated a volume of his religious poems to Shakespeare and it is possible that this influenced The Rape of Lucrece.

In London we have no record, from the parish "token" books, that Shakespeare ever attended an Anglican service, though the signatures of his friends and associates are there. On the other hand, we know that at some period he went to lodge in a family diplomatically immune from the penalties of non-attendance at church. We have no record, among his poems, of any mourning poem for Elizabeth I or praise of James I, such as his contemporaries profusely indulged in; this may be because no Catholics was likely to celebrate a persecuting monarch. His plays, however they are regarded, afford evidence of his understanding of Catholicism and, when considered carefully in their setting, suggest sympathy with it. It is possible that he owned a copy of Hall's Chronicle which he annotated in the Catholic sense: in any case, his bias in the historical plays is Catholic. It is certain that he was said to have "died a Papist" by an early writer and he was mentioned for his Papistry by Speed [John Speed, Protestant historian] during his own lifetime. We know that he bought, towards the end of his life, a notorious center of Catholic activity in London and installed in it a known and practising Catholic, who also witnessed his will.

What does all this amount to? Obviously there is not the same kind of "proof" that Shakespeare was a Catholic as there is that Cardinal Newman was a Catholic. But there is sufficient evidence on which to base a verdict.

I confess to being a Shakespeare fanatic. I've read the theories that the plays were written by Christoper Marlowe, Ben Johnson, Edward deVere, Roger Bacon -- but I'm convinced that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. My next book is going to be Clare Asquith's, Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. If you like who-dunnits, this real-life mystery story is riveting.