Shakespeare’s London

and the
Dark Lady of the Sonnets

Compiled by
John Kean
William Shakespeare and the Dark Lady

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) grew up in Stratford-upon-

Avon, in the county of Warwickshire, and went on to become
arguably the greatest writer and playwright in the English
language. Yet little is known of his life apart from a few key
dates salvaged from church registers and public records.
Shakespeare and his wife Anne had three children and one
grandchild but no great-grandchildren. While Anne and the
family remained in Stratford, Shakespeare spent a good portion
of his life in London, writing and working in the theatres.

Many myths and mysteries surround Shakespeare, but one of the

most compelling concerns the identities of the two muses to
which his 154 sonnets are addressed. Sonnets 1 to 126 speak to a
“Fair Youth”, while the remaining 28 concern a “Dark Lady”.
The sonnets were published in full in 1609, almost certainly
without the author’s permission, so it is not known how widely
Shakespeare intended them to be read. Also, it is not known
how much literal truth lies in them – are they autobiographical
or mere fancy, fiction or nonfiction? Most scholars seem to
accept that the Fair Youth was probably either Henry
Wriothesley (pronounced “rosely” or
“rizzly”), 3rd Earl of Southampton,
or William Herbert, 3rd Earl of
Pembroke, both of whom were
handsome young men and
patrons of Shakespeare.
However, the identity of the
notorious Dark Lady remains
a hotly debated topic, even four
centuries after Shakespeare’s death.

The “Chandos” portrait (1610) by John Taylor

is thought to depict William Shakespeare
1
In Black Sonata you will pursue the Dark Lady’s hidden
movements through Shakespeare’s London, collecting clues to
her identity. The game features the most compelling candidates
and tries to be as faithful to history as possible. This document
gives background details on the Dark Ladies of Shakespeare’s
world, as well as the few London locations where we know he
spent time. It is not intended to be a full and accurate
biography, but rather to pique interest in Shakespeare’s life, the
culture of the times, and to add depth to the experience of
playing Black Sonata.

Sonnet 145
Those lips that love’s own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate”
To me that languished for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that, ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
“I hate” she altered with an end
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heav’n to hell is flown away.
“I hate” from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying “not you”.

Since the sonnets were apparently published

without Shakespeare’s input, we do not know
in what order they were intended to be read.
Number 145 may actually be a very early
sonnet addressed to Shakespeare’s wife, Anne
Hathaway, due to the pun on her name in
line 13. If so, she must initially have spurned
him before accepting him. 2
Anne Whateley & Anne Hathaway
The first of the Dark Ladies, Anne Whateley may never have
existed. In 1582 the Episcopal register at Worcester records that
a marriage licence was granted to “Wm Shaxpere” to marry
“Annam Whateley” in the village of Temple Grafton. The same
month, William Shakespeare, aged 18, married Anne Hathaway,
aged 26, of Shottery. Some authors have claimed that
Shakespeare was in love with one girl, Whateley, but was
forced to marry another, Hathaway, because she was pregnant
to him; Shakespeare’s lost love, Anne Whateley, would then
form the model for his Dark Lady.

However, most scholars now attribute Whateley’s existence to a

clerical error, since the spelling of names was notoriously fluid
at the time – Shakespeare himself spelled his own name
differently in every one of his half dozen surviving autographs.

WJ Fraser Hutchison This portrait, painted in

claimed this portrait
depicts Anne Whateley,
but it is probably
Girolamo Casio by
Giovanni Boltraffio.
2010 by Roger Brian
Dunn, is based on a 1708
sketch by Nathaniel
Curzon that is thought to
depict Shakespeare’s wife,
Anne Hathaway.

3
London Bridge
From Roman times until the 19th Century, only one bridge ever
spanned the Thames in London, though it was destroyed and
rebuilt several times. The London Bridge known by Shakespeare
was completed in 1209 and was crowded with some 200
wooden buildings of up to seven stories tall that all but blocked
the road and overhung the river on each side. London Bridge
was a thriving centre of commerce, especially for mercers and
haberdashers. A prominent feature of the southern gatehouse
was the spiked heads of executed criminals, dipped in tar and
boiled to preserve them. Because of the congestion, crossing the
bridge could take over an hour, so the wealthy often elected to
use the bustling water taxis that crossed the river directly from
locations such as Falcon Stairs.

Sonnet 127
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on Nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland’ring creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

This, the first of the Dark Lady sonnets, establishes the

persistent theme of “blackness” in the Lady, initially in
complexion but later in actions.
4
Shoreditch
Shakespeare probably arrived in London in the late 1580s, aged
in his mid twenties, leaving his older wife and three children
behind in Stratford. At the time a thriving industry of playhouses
existed outside the city walls, particularly in Shoreditch to the
north east of the city. It was there, in 1576, that the actor and
joiner James Burbage built one of the first permanent dedicated
theatres in England. The aptly if unimaginatively named
“Theatre” hosted a number of important acting troupes including
the Lord Chamberlain's Men, to which Shakespeare became
connected as an actor and playwright. James Burbage’s son
Richard was a key member of the troupe and became famous for
his titular role in one of Shakespeare’s plays, Richard III, written
c.1592.

Some remains of The Theatre have been found on New Inn Yard
in Shoreditch. The other major theatre of the time, The Curtain,
lay approximately at the site of the current Horse & Groom pub
on Curtain Road.

Shoreditch, from the “Agas” map of London c.1560.

5
Winnifred Burbage
Winifred Burbage (c.1570 - 1642) was
the wife of Richard Burbage, one of the
most famous English actors of the late
16th and early 17th centuries, with
whom she had at least eight children.
After his death in 1619 she married
another actor, Richard Robinson. Little
else is recorded about her, and even her
maiden name is unknown. Her known
association with Shakespeare and We have no likeness for
her compatible age are the only Winnifred Burbage, or for
characteristics that make her a many of the other Dark Lady
candidates, so the cards in Black
candidate for the Dark Lady.
Sonata use contemporary portraits
of other Elizabethan women.

Sonnet 143
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In púrsuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant’s discontent:
So run’st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I, thy babe, chase thee afar behind.
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind.
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

The domestic metaphor of this sonnet might suggest

that the Dark Lady has children. Or perhaps it is just
a metaphor.
6
Clerkenwell
In Elizabethan England, all theatre productions were controlled
and censored by the Master of Revels, deputy to the Lord
Chamberlain. All new plays and troupes had to pass his inspection
before they were permitted to be shown to the public. During
Shakespeare’s career the Master was Edmund Tylney (1536 - 1610)
and the Office of the Revels was based in St. John's Priory,
Clerkenwell. Shakespeare would have visited Clerkenwell often
throughout his career. Under Tylney the Office became
increasingly concerned with censorship, and increasingly corrupt.

Sonnet 130
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head;
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

This sonnet gives the most complete physical

description of the Dark Lady, with dark eyes, brown
or tan skin, and black hair. Shakespeare makes much
of this because blonde hair and bleached white skin
were considered the epitome of beauty at the time.
7
Lucy Morgan
Considerable uncertainty surrounds the identity of Lucy Morgan,
who was a minor lady in waiting in the court of Elizabeth I.
Records of royal gifts of expensive cloths to “Luce Morgan”
suggest that she was for a time favoured by the Queen, but it
appears that she was dismissed from court in 1582. Lucy Morgan
has been synonymised with a prostitute known as “Black Luce”
who subsequently appeared in Clerkenwell and ran a very
successful brothel there for many years. The connection between
courtly Lucy Morgan and notorious Black Luce has been much
debated, but not so hotly as her race, for Black Luce was also
known as “Lucy Negro”. Men and women of African descent were
not unusual in Elizabethan London, as attested by Shakespeare’s
Othello. They may even have been a familiar sight in court,
especially as musicians and entertainers. At the time, however, the
terms “black” and even “negro” did not necessarily imply race, but
rather dark hair and complexion, so the ethnicity of Lucy Morgan
and/or Black Luce cannot be resolved from her name alone.
Black Luce was a tenenat of William
Henslowe, the owner of The Rose
theatre which competed with
Shakespeare’s Globe. In
addition, her Clerkenwell
brothel was close to the Office
of the Revels, which
Shakespeare must have visited
many times in his career. These
facts, together with her
colouring, appear to constitute
the main evidence for Lucy
Portrait of a Black Woman Slave Morgan and/or Black Luce
by Annibale Carracci (c. 1580). being Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.

8
 St Paul’s
In the 1530s when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries,
the buildings around St Paul’s Cathedral were seized by the
Crown and afterwards sold mainly to printers and booksellers.
As a result, by Shakespeare’s time the area around St Paul’s had
become the major centre for book production and retail in
England and indeed Europe. Extensive analysis of his writings
has identified a large number of contemporary books that
Shakespeare must have read, and it is highly likely he would
have purchased these at St Paul’s.

Sonnet 138
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not t’have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Interestingly, this sonnet suggests an age disparity

between the poet and the Dark Lady, though it is
not clear who was the older. Does the Lady call him
young by comparison to herself, or is this another
of her obvious lies?
9
Jacqueline Field
French Huguenot refugees Thomas and Jacqueline Vautrollier
arrived in London around the same time that Shakespeare
was being born in Stratford. Thomas probably worked as a
printer’s servant until 1570, when he established his own press
in Blackfriars and soon became one of the most respected
printers in London, pioneering the printing of handwriting
books and sheet music. In 1579 Vautrollier apprenticed
Richard Field (1561 - 1624) from Stratford, who may have
known Shakespeare from school. In 1584 a scandal caused
Vautrollier to flee to Edinburgh, leaving the London
operation to be run by his wife Jacqueline (c.1540 - c.1611)
until his return in 1586. Field took over Vautrollier’s business
after his master’s death in 1587, and two years later married
the much older widow Jacqueline as well. They had a son to
complement the two grown up ones from her first marriage,
and Jacqueline died in 1611, aged around 70.

Among the many works published

by the Fields were Shakespeare’s
poems Venus and Adonis (1593)
and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
Shakespeare and Field probably
knew each other from Stratford,
and later from Blackfriars (see
p. 20). Jacqueline was
undoubtedly a smart and
capable woman, and may have
had a dark complexion from her
Huguenot background. However, This portrait by François
she was also significantly older Clouet is of another French
than Shakespeare, by about two Jacqueline: J. de Rohan,
decades. Marquise de Rothelin
(c. 1520–1587).

10
Eastcheap
The Boar's Head Tavern on Eastcheap
features in several historical plays by
Shakespeare, particularly Henry IV,
Part 1 (written c.1596), though it
wasn’t actually around at the time
the play is set. The Boar’s Head
was established before 1537, but
was destroyed in 1666 in the Great
Fire of London. After rebuilding, it continued operation until
the late 1700s. When the building itself was demolished in
1831 the boar's head sign from 1668 was kept, and is now
installed in the replica of Shakespeare's Globe theatre in
Bankside.

Sonnet 135
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;
More than enough am I, that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will
One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

Readers of the time would have known that

“Will” could be a slang term for both the male
and female genitalia. Hence this very bawdy
sonnet is also a pun on Shakespeare’s own name.
11
Elizabeth Vernon
Elizabeth Vernon (1572 - 1655) was one of the chief ladies-in-
waiting to Queen Elizabeth I, and mistress of Henry Wriothesley,
3rd Earl of Southampton. They married in 1598 after Elizabeth
became pregnant, earning the censure of the Queen. The couple
subsequently produced at least four children.
Southampton (1573 - 1624) was the patron
and dedicatee of Shakespeare’s poems Venus
and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He
was unusually effeminate, apparently
bisexual, and thought by many to be the
Fair Youth to whom Shakespeare addressed
his first 126 sonnets. The argument for
Elizabeth Vernon being the Dark Lady
therefore rests on her known pre-marital
affair with Wriothesley and on the love
triangle implied by the sonnets. Elizabeth Vernon, c. 1590.

Sonnet 133
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
Is’t not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed;
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed.
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward,
But then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail.
Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;
Thou canst not then use rigor in my jail.
And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

Sonnets 133 and 134 reveal that the Dark Lady was having an
affair with the Fair Youth of Sonnets 1 to 126, creating an intimate
love triangle that caused the poet considerable anguish. 12
Cornhill
The Royal Exchange on
Threadneedle Street opened in
1571, becoming the world’s first
shopping mall. Its arcade
accommodated more than two
hundred shops and several
thousand businessmen.
Shakespeare would almost
certainly have shopped there,
since he lived for a time nearby Cornhill, showing the Royal
in the parish of St Helen’s, Exchange as added later to the
Bishopsgate (see p. 15). “Agas” map of London c.1560.

Sonnet 134
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st, to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet in good faith some say, that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the pow’r to make love groan.
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone;
And to be sure that is not false, I swear
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face;
One on another’s neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

Here the poet contradicts himself, saying that

there is actually nothing black about the Lady
except for her deeds. Perhaps the Lady was fair
haired after all?
13
Penelope Rich
Lady Penelope Rich, née Penelope Devereux (c.1562-1607)
was the daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex. With
golden-hair and dark eyes, Penelope was considered one of
the beauties of Elizabeth's court. She was married in 1581 to
Robert Rich, later to become 1st Earl of Warwick, and they
had seven children together. The marriage was unhappy, and
by 1595 she had become the mistress of Charles Blount, 8th
Lord Mountjoy and later Earl of Devonshire, with whom she
had a further five children. Rich abandoned her in 1601 and
after obtaining a divorce in 1605 Penelope and Mountjoy
married but were banished from court. Both died shortly
afterward.

The case for Penelope Rich

being Shakespeare’s Dark
Lady seems inspired by the
fact that she had previously
been celebrated in a series of
sonnets by Sir Philip Sidney
in 1591. It has also been
asserted, apparently without
evidence, that Shakespeare
may have fathered
Penelope’s child, supposedly
stillborn in May 1594. At the
time Shakespeare was Portrait, believed to be
patronised by Henry Penelope Devereux c. 1581.
Wriothesley, with whom
Penelope corresponded and
whose mistress, Elizabeth
Vernon, was Penelope’s
cousin.

14
Bishopsgate
In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family
home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St.
Helen's, Bishopsgate. This is known because his name appears
in the parish register for tax evasion. It was here that he
probably penned Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, and The Merchant of Venice. The first mention of the
sonnets dates to 1598, suggesting that Shakespeare had
composed at least some of them while living here, though it is
not known if this includes the Dark Lady sequence.

Sonnet 128
How oft when thou, my music, music play’st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless’d than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

Clearly, the Dark Lady was an accomplished player of

the virginals (an early keyboard instrument), which
may point to Aline Florio or Emilia Lanier who both
came from musical families. However most upper class
young ladies of the day received instruction on the
virginals, so this may equally well apply to many other
candidates. It has also been speculated that “jacks” may
be a pun on Jacqueline Field’s name.
15
Emilia Lanier
Aemilia Bassano, later to become
Emilia Lanier (1569-1645) was
born in Bishopsgate. Her father
was a Venetian court musician
for Elizabeth I, but died when
Aemilia was seven years old.
She was sent to live with Susan
Bertie, Countess of Kent, who
furnished her an excellent education.
Soon after her mother’s death in 1587, Portrait of Emilia
Lanier by
Aemilia became the mistress of Henry
Nicholas
Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (1526 – Hilliard.
1596), who was 45 years her senior.
Hunsdon was a first cousin to the Queen
and held the post of Lord Chamberlain. He patronised
Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, but not
until well after Aemilia became pregnant and the affair ended. In
1592, Aemilia married her cousin, the court musician Alfonso
Lanier, and gave birth to a boy (presumably Hunsdon’s son).
The marriage was an unhappy one according to her physician
and astrologer, Simon Forman, who also treated Marie
Mountjoy (see p. 19).

In 1611, Lanier published a volume of proto-feminist poetry,

Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, becoming England’s first woman
poet. When her husband died in 1613 she ran a school, but lost
students after being arrested over a rent dispute. Lanier died at
the age of seventy-six and was buried at Clerkenwell.

Lanier has been suggested as the Dark Lady because she was
undisputedly musical, married and bold, all qualities suggested
by the sonnets. Her Venetian ancestry may have given her a dark
complexion, and her poetry provides a possible link to
Shakespeare. Indeed, one author has even suggested she wrote
Shakespeare’s works.
16
Aline Florio
Aline Daniel was born in Somerset,
probably in the early 1560s, where
her father was a music master. Her
brother John became a composer,
while her brother Samuel was a poet.
In 1580, Aline apparently married
John Florio (1553-1625), a noted
linguist of Italian descent and friend
of her brother Samuel. Like Shakespeare, Portrait of an anonymous
John Florio was patronised by both Henry English lady, c. 1618.
Wriothesley and William Herbert, the two
leading contenders for the Fair Youth of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Indeed, it has been suggested that Florio is the true author of
Shakespeare’s works. John and Aline had three children
between 1585 and 1589. Very little else is known about her,
but much has been speculated.

Sonnet 152
In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn;
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost;
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see.
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured eye,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.

The broken bed-vows of this sonnet clearly imply that

the Dark Lady was married.
17
Liberty of The Clink
In December of 1598, and following a dispute over rental,
Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men demolished The Theatre
and transported the timbers to the south bank of the Thames where
they erected a new venue, which they called The Globe. Areas
surrounding the City of London were then known as Liberties since
they were not subject to many of the city regulations. The new Globe
theatre was situated in the Liberty of The Clink, home to the
notorious prison of that name but also to The Rose theatre which was
owned and operated by rival Philip Henslowe and whose main
playwright was Christopher Marlowe. There were also up to 23
brothels in the area, all licensed by the Bishop of Winchester.
Shakespeare moved to live here in 1599, as evidenced by another
note for tax evasion. Here, he probably wrote Julius Caesar, Hamlet,
and Twelfth Night.

Mary Fitton
Mary Fitton (1578-1647) was a prominent
maid-of-honour to Elizabeth I. She was
under the care of the powerful Sir William
Knollys, 1st Earl of Banbury (1544-1632)
whose love for her was unrequited.
Instead, Mary conducted a number of
scandalous affairs with members of the
court. She bore a stillborn son to William
Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, had two Portrait of Mary Fitton,
children to the married Vice-Admiral Sir c. 1595.
Richard Leveson, and later bore another
son to Captain William Polwhele, one of Leveson's officers. Mary
married Polwhele, and after he died in 1610 she remarried John
Loughler. Her ghost is said to haunt Gawsworth Old Hall in Cheshire.
Mary Fitton might be the Dark Lady if William Herbert is the Fair
Youth. However, there is no evidence that she ever met Shakespeare,
though she may have been acquainted with William Kempe
who was an actor in Shakespeare's troupe. 18
 Cripplegate
Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 and was succeeded by James I,
formerly James IV of Scotland, who was an enthusiastic supporter of
the theatre. The new King patronised Shakespeare’s troupe, who
renamed themselves The King’s Men.
The plague epidemic of 1603-04 prompted the closure of London’s
playhouses. Shakespeare moved to Cripplegate, where he rented
rooms from Christopher Mountjoy, a French Huguenot and maker of
fashionable ladies’ headpieces called ‘tires’. The neighbourhood of this
house on Silver Street was destroyed in 1666 by the Great Fire of
London, and again by heavy bombing in WWII. Little now remains
except a stone slab at the end of Noble Street, marking with skull and
crossbones the site of the former churchyard of St Olave’s which is
thought to have stood directly opposite the Mountjoy house. While
residing in Cripplegate, Shakespeare probably wrote Measure for
Measure, Othello, and possibly King Lear.

Marie Mountjoy
In May 1612 Shakespeare made a deposition in
a court case against Christopher Mountjoy by
his son-in-law and apprentice, Stephen Bellott,
who claimed that Mountjoy had not paid the
dowry owed him for reluctantly marrying
his daughter Mary. Shakespeare confirmed
that he was living in the house in 1604 when
the girl’s mother, Marie (c.1566 – 1606), asked
him to convince Bellott to marry Mary. The Portrait of an unknown
English lady.
Mountjoys were protestant refugees who had
fled persecution in France in the 1570s. Christopher was apparently
much older than Marie, and is thought to have had a mistress. Marie,
herself, was apparently conducting an adulterous affair with a local
cloth merchant to whom she had at one stage fallen pregnant.
The evidence for Marie Mountjoy being the Dark Lady consists of her
Mediterranean heritage and the darker skin thus implied, her unfaithful
marriage, and her known close association with Shakespeare as
19 they shared a house for some time.
Southwark
In 1607, Sonnet 132
Shakespeare’s
Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
younger brother Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Edmund died and Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
was buried St Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain;
Mary Overie, And truly, not the morning sun of heav’n
now known as Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east,
Southwark Nor that full star that ushers in the ev’n
Cathedral. Doth half that glory to the sober west,
Edmund had As those two mourning eyes become thy face.
O let it then as well beseem thy heart
been an actor like
To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace,
William. By then And suit thy pity like in every part.
the theatres had Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
re-opened after And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
the latest plague
epidemic and At a stretch, the references to mourning in this
Shakespeare may sonnet might relate to the death of Shakespeare’s
have been living only son in 1596, or to that of his younger brother
back on the south in 1607. More likely, the Dark Lady was mourning
some loss of her own, or Shakespeare was seeing
side of the river
her contemplate ending their relationship.
near The Globe.

Blackfriars
In 1608, the year that Shakespeare’s mother died, the Kings Men
took over the indoor theatre at Blackfriars. James Burbage had
purchased part of the old Blackfriars priory a dozen years earlier and
converted it into a theatre, but its use was blocked by a petition
from local residents. The objection seems to have dropped by 1609
when performances began. Thereafter the King’s Men utilised
Blackfriars in winter and The Globe in summer. The company
thrived, and through a series of lucrative investments Shakespeare
became relatively prosperous. One of his investments was the
purchase of the old Blackfriars gatehouse in 1613, though it appears
he never lived there but instead leased it out to one John
Robinson. 20
Jane Davenent
Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) was a
noted poet and playwright. His parents,
John and Jane Davenant, ran The
Crown Inn in Oxford. William was said
to have acknowledged Shakespeare as
his father, though he may well have
meant his literary mentor rather than his
biological sire. However, some authors
have imagined Shakespeare stopping off
at the Crown Inn on his way between
Anne Hyde (1637-1671),
London and Stratford and there
one of the first
conducting a tempestuous affair with commoners to marry the
the Dark Lady of that establishment. heir to the English throne.
Jane Davenant died in 1622.

Sonnet 147
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desp’rate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

The final sonnets in the sequence become ever more

anguished and despairing. The Dark Lady is now described
as “black as hell” – quite a transformation from earlier
sonnets where her blackness was limited to her complexion
21 and not her behaviour.
Publication and death
On 20 May 1609, publisher Thomas
Thorpe released a booklet entitled “Shake-
speare’s Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted.”
The opaque dedication to a “Mr W.H.”
has sparked controversy and speculation
ever since, though it was signed by “T.T.”
(the publisher) rather than Shakespeare.
Indeed, it is thought highly likely that the
publication was not authorised by
Shakespeare at all and we know nothing of
his reaction to it.
William Shakespeare retired to his home, New Place, in Stratford in
1611, where he died five years later, aged 52. Two of his associates,
John Heminges and Henry Condell subsequently compiled together
36 of Shakespeare’s plays, which were published in 1623 as the so-
called “First Folio”. Without this, many of the plays would have
been irretrievably lost. This heroic feat is commemorated with a
memorial in the former churchyard of St Mary Aldermanbury on
Love Lane, near where the two men lived.
With Shakespeare died the secret
of the Dark Lady. And thus began
the search to identify her, a quest
that has continued for four
centuries and very likely will
never be resolved (except by a
successful game of Black Sonata).
Whether she was a real person, an
amalgam of several, or a creature
of pure invention, the Dark Lady
will lurk forever in the shadows
behind Shakespeare’s words. Portrait of a Woman,
probably Susanna
Lunden (1599–1628) by
Peter Paul Rubens.
22
Selected sources
Bryson B (2007) Shakespeare: The World As Stage. HarperCollins.
ISBN 978-0-06-074022-1.
Burl A (2012) Shakespeare's Mistress: The Mystery of the Dark Lady
Revealed. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4456-0217-2.
Hopkins Hughes S (2000) New Light on the Dark Lady.
Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, 22 September 2000.
Shakespeare W (1609) Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1041
Stirling S (date unknown) Shakespeare’s Lovers: The Dark Lady.
The History Vault, Issue 6.

The Globe theatre

(originally mislabelled)
from Wenceslas
Hollar’s Long View of
London, 1647.

© Side Room Games LLC, 2018 Version: 20181019

All material used in this booklet is in the public domain except the image of Anne
Hathaway (p. 3), which is © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and used with permission.

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