PLEASE NOTE. Since writing this, I have learned exactly who Monsieur Le Doux was, and it certainly was not Christopher Marlowe. I have left this chapter in place, however, partly for historical interest, and partly as an excellent example of confirmation bias in action! The Merry Wives part still applies.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

According to some experts, A Midsummer Night's Dream may well have been written for the marriage of Sir George Carey's daughter, on 19th February 1595/6. (1) Sir George was the son of Lord Hunsdon (whose 'Chamberlain's Men' performed Shakespeare's plays) and had himself probably been, with Marlowe, a member of what is known as the 'School of Night'. As the engagement dated only from the late Autumn of 1595, the play would have been written during the winter of 1595/6, while Le Doux was at Burley on the Hill. He left Burley for London on 25th January, (2) and would therefore have been in good time to deliver the play just when it was needed, to be ready for performance at Carey's home in Blackfriars on the day of the wedding.

Two points are perhaps worth making about this date:

First: meteorological support for it comes in a letter written that summer (16th June 1595) by Lady Ann Bacon to her son Anthony, in which she reports "the weather here very boisterous, with wind, hail and rain". (3) Titania's complaint that "The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts / Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose" (II.1.107-8) had, therefore, a very topical note!

Second: the play has several lines echoing Marlowe's unfinished Hero and Leander (4) which, although of course written by then, was not published until some 3 years later.

• Theseus's warning to Hermia, about enduring "the livery of a nun,/ For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,/ To live a barren sister all your life,/ Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon" (I.1.70-74), could echo words of the de-frocked nun with whom Le Doux was involved in a passionate affair while at Burley. (5)

• Players came from London (almost certainly the Lord Chamberlain's Men - including Shakespeare?) to perform Titus Andronicus. It was well presented, (6) but there were several locally produced shows too, some players of which may well have achieved immortality as Peter Quince's "crew of patches, rude mechanicals".

• Theseus's enthusiasm for hunting is certainly similar to that of Sir John Harington who, according to Jaques Petit, went out hunting every day and owned about thirty or forty horses, together with at least a similar number of pairs of hounds. (7)

These are relatively insignificant, however, compared with the fact that Shakespeare apparently gives his audience, within only half a dozen lines or so (IV.1.106-113), a precise location for where the play was actually written. It again concerns hunting to hounds.

Theseus: ... Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Hippolyta: I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear
With hounds of Sparta.

If so, we are looking for a location which is:

• in a good area for hunting, and

• the highest point (the 'mountain's top')

• to the east of a valley ('the western valley')

• connected somehow with the name 'Cadmus'.

Leicestershire and Rutland have always been considered the true home of English hunting. The landscape there is particularly suited to this pursuit, especially in the east, which at the time of writing is still the territory of the Cottesmore Hunt, with the Belvoir to the north and the Quorn to the west. In the middle of the Cottesmore's area lies the Vale of Catmose (Cadmus?), and, though by no means a 'mountain', easily the highest point overlooking the Vale of Catmose from the east is the very hill on top of which stood the Haringtons' stately home - Burley on the Hill. This was, of course, the place where Le Doux spent that winter, and to which the Lord Chamberlain's (i.e. Shakespeare's) own Players apparently travelled over a hundred miles to give a single performance that Christmas. The odds against all of this happening by chance, of course, must be enormous.

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Although it is clear that we are more likely to notice those things we want to see, what I find intriguing about this theory is that so many hunches do immediately find facts to back them up. (9)

Quoting William Urry, (10) A. D. Wraight tells of a story from the Canterbury of Marlowe's childhood which involved the hiding and transporting of someone in a laundry basket. (11) Such a scene, of course, features in The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which Falstaff is concealed and removed from Mistress Ford's house in the same way. The discovery of Monsieur Le Doux, however, reveals even closer links with this play.

Hotson's conclusion that it was first performed at Whitehall Palace on 23rd April 1597, celebrating the election of five knights to the Order of the Garter, is widely accepted. (12) Among these knights was Sir George Carey, who had now succeeded his father as Lord Hunsdon, had become Lord Chamberlain, and was now, therefore, the patron of 'Shakespeare's' players. The fifth person elected, but blatantly not invited to this event, was Frederick, Duke of Württemberg, who apparently "kept pestering Elizabeth about an alleged promise she had made him that he would be elected".

A bit of sub-plot which really has little to do with the main story of The Merry Wives involves Sir Hugh Evans and Doctor Caius taking revenge on the Host of the Garter Inn for tricking them into nearly fighting a duel. It concerns a German Duke whose arrival, predicted by Bardolph and eagerly anticipated by the Host, no one else knows about (and who doesn't even turn up); and the stealing by three 'Germans' of some horses owned by the Host. There is very little doubt that the missing Duke is intended to be the absent Duke of Württemberg.

But what about the lost horses? To answer that, we need to look at the Duke's friend, and Governor of the port of Flushing in the Low Countries, Sir Robert Sidney. He spent much time and effort in 1597 asking to be allowed to deliver the Garter to the Duke personally, but without success. (13) He had been out of luck the previous year too, when no fewer than sixty-three horses belonging to his men had gone missing, and he had had difficulty in getting anyone else to compensate him for having to replace them. (14)

It is therefore quite certain that Shakespeare was taking this opportunity to have a satirical dig at Sir Robert as 'mine Host of the Garter'. What might be the reason for his wanting to do this, and how might he have found out about these confidential things in the first place?

The reason for doing so is very easy to find, if it is Christopher Marlowe that we are talking about. In Flushing in 1592, and probably working under cover, Marlowe had been accused of illicit coining and, unable to say what he was really doing, was packed off back to England, under guard, as no more than a common prisoner. And by whom? Sir Robert Sidney. After 'interrogation' by Lord Burghley, however, he had of course been fairly quickly released. (15)

How did he know about the horses? Well, we know they went missing some time between 6th May and 9th August 1596. (16) We also know, from a letter written by Le Doux, that he was in Middelburg, less than 4 miles from Flushing, on 22nd June, the exact mid-point between the two dates. (17) Which is more, he was in the service of two 'Germans' - Baron Zeirotine (in his passport, 'a nobleman of Germany', (18)) and the Baron's right-hand man, Henry d'Eberbach. It is presumably unlikely that they were involved in the actual disappearance of the horses, but they are almost certain to have known what happened, especially if those responsible really were German, as is quite possible.

Before leaving the Merry Wives, it is worth mentioning one more item, again involving Parson Hugh Evans. In Act III Scene 1, while preparing to fight Doctor Caius, he sings a song to keep his spirits up, which is in fact Christopher Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd to his Love. Far from cheering him up, however, it plunges him deeper into melancholy. "Mercy on me!" he says, "I have a great dispositions to cry" - a strange emotion for such an occasion - and he then starts to get the words mixed up with those of another song. These are from a hymn based upon Psalm 137, perhaps the most famous song of exile ever written:

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