Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare's England

by Rebecca Lemon

Under the Tudor monarchy, English law expanded to include the category of "treason by words." Rebecca Lemon investigates this remarkable phrase both as a legal charge and as a cultural event. English citizens, she shows, expressed competing notions of treason in opposition to the growing absolutism of the monarchy. Lemon explores the complex participation of texts by John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare in the legal and political controversies marking the Earl of Essex's 1601 rebellion and the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Lemon suggests that the articulation of diverse ideas about treason within literary and polemical texts produced increasingly fractured conceptions of the crime of treason itself. Further, literary texts, in representing issues familiar from political polemic, helped to foster more free, less ideologically rigid, responses to the crisis of treason. As a result, such works of imagination bolstered an emerging discourse on subjects' rights. Treason by Words offers an original theory of the role of dissent and rebellion during a period of burgeoning sovereign power.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book attempts to consider the twin issues of treason and law, privilege and prerogative, through a sample of literary texts (and plays) written c. the Essex Rebellion and the Gunpowder Plot. As a piece of literary criticism, it is interesting and takes a broad approach to other commentary on the subject. However, written in the immediate post-9/11 world, amid concerns over the encroachment of treason law into civil liberties, it is more polemic that a studied piece of history. It aims to draw attention to the problems posed by a state's reaction to treason and the effects on rights. In and of itself, this is entirely acceptable, but to make its point it makes entirely anachronistic - and incorrect - assumptions about the late Elizabethan/early Jacobean polity.

My primary issue with the book is that it is based on an absolutely flawed understanding of James I and his approach to politics. James said one thing - focusing on divine right monarchy because of the lack of parliamentary legality in his accession to the throne - but (aside from the odd temper tantrum) very rarely saw it through. In older historiography almost every quotation from him has been taken out of context: he took the Tacitean approach of stating one half of the argument first, before moving on to the crux of the matter. In this book, his style of rhetoric has not been analysed (or even allowed as plausible). As soon as it is taken into account, the notion of him being a tyrannical ruler fails and thus so does the argument of the book.

Furthermore, the latter half of the book focuses on the Gunpowder Plot and its consequences, and in so doing refers regularly to the first parliament of James I. Here the argument also fails. Issues are taken out of context: the Union debate is seen as a prerogative response to the Gunpowder Plot, for example (apparently first raised in 1606). This is nonsense: it was one of the purposes of calling parliament in 1604 and was raised in debate in a reasonably consistent manner throughout the duration (1604-10. As an aside, I'm not entirely sure that the author is aware that parliament met in 1604.). Admittedly, 1606-7 saw a greater intensity of debate, but this is because the commissioners for the Union were meeting then.

There is confusion over parliament's approach to laws against Catholics and the oath: almost every member pushed for greater persecution of Catholics - including suggesting taking away their children - and for the oath of allegiance. James was a calming force. Issues over the oath and other anti-Catholic measures only arose when anyone attempted to include sectarians/puritans/nonconformists in those measures. The oath issue had nothing to do with the prerogative in this instance.

There were issues of prerogative against privilege, as there always were in every parliament, before and after James. This was not new. This was no response to a threat of treason. Part of parliament's job was to raise issues where laws or the royal prerogative were detrimental to the commonweal. Hence why parliament spent a reasonably long time on issues of privilege (27% of the issues raised in the parliament) and grievances (19%). But at least some of this time was devoted to minor matters - arrest of members for debt, or individual patents. Parliament as a whole was balanced, as was James. When genuine issues were raised about prerogative actions - monopolies in the 1621 parliament, for example - they were at least partially rectified. To focus on a couple of trouble makers - Thomas Hedley and Thomas Crewe - is to cherry-pick information. In the entire six years of the parliament, Hedley made no speeches in favour of the crown on any topic. Ever, at all. Crewe, in all his scores of speeches, made one favourable speech (which was only seemingly so - he used it to filibuster). This, in modern politics, is something akin to saying that Nigel Farage's opinion on the EU is representative of the nation. Francis Bacon, the only other MP mentioned, was a courtier and, while not at that point a privy councillor, often played the role of unofficial government spokesman in the House. In the entire parliament, he only spoke in a negative way three times and often aimed to temper debate in the House.

Beyond this, there are issues that might be called pedantic but that show a lack of familiarity with the subject matter. Bate's case is spelled incorrectly, the term vicegerent is not understood, and 'godly' is misused. There are others. So, for literary criticism, this book is fine. For a sound understanding of the period and the issues, it is truly awful.