Jennifer
van Alstyne
Wives and Daughters: Social
Acceptance and Agency in Chapman, Jonson, and Marston’s Eastward Ho
1> Eastward Ho is a 1605 city comedy staged
by the Children of the Queen’s Revels and written by George Chapman, Ben
Jonson, and John Marston. Written in response to Westward Ho, a city comedy by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, each
play examines the River Thames as natural boundary within the city of London. Eastward Ho, of some controversy due to
anti-Scottish rhetoric, revolves around goldsmith Master Touchstone, his two
very different daughters Gertrude and Mildred, and his apprentices Quicksilver
and Golding. The play utilizes anxiety over social issues like changing social
mobility and the beginning of the privatization of the family unit which will
cement itself during the 17th century in the urbanscape of London, presenting a
stage of comical relationships that reaffirm those anxieties towards a more
stable change.
2> The past decade or so has seen a resurgence of
interest in Jonson’s lesser studied works including articles on Eastward Ho from Emily Isaacson,
Theodora Jankowski, Shona McIntosh, David W. Kay, and Maren L. Donley[1]. Isaacson and Jankowski focus on the role of Quicksilver, Touchstone’s thieving
and manipulative apprentice[2]. In her article, Isaacson suggests that Puritan conduct books, popular during
this period, like city comedies, exemplify “anxieties about the family.” And,
as Puritan conduct books were not only directed at the male head of household,
they sought to reinforce hierarchical and patriarchal ideals within the “nexus
of household relationships.” Isaacson argues that the servant role, after
Northrop Frye’s dolosus servus, is
central to the city comedy. Jankowski argues that The Royall King and the Loyall Subject and Eastward Ho! revolve around discussion of the way class roles were
changing in 16th and 17th-century England by looking at socio-historical class
models like that of Tillyard and Lovejoy[3]. New
classes emerging during this time disrupted the known ideas of “gentleman” and
questioned the emergence of large numbers of people in new trades that did not
fit into the old system of class stratification. McIntosh on the other hand,
focuses on the uncertainty over social mobility but mentions the women only
tangentially to their male counterparts[4]. She
discusses the different types of redemption in Eastward Ho and The Alchemist
(1610).
3> Kay and Donley discuss the relationship between
Quicksilver and Touchstone. Kay examines Eastward
Ho as a Calvinistic double-morality play in which honor and prosperity is
restored through crime and imprisonment by examining Touchstone and
Quicksilver’s roles as performance and satire. Donley takes a closer look at
Quicksilver’s repentance in prison. Like Isaacson and Jankowski, Kay focuses on
Quicksilver and Touchstone, although he notes that typical “citizen” traits
such as jealousy, cuckold, moneylending, and hypocritical Puritanism are
granted to Security rather than
Touchstone. I would suggest that this allows the Touchstone and his family to
rise through the marriages of his daughters. Kay is one of the few critics that
talk about the female characters[5].
Kay even notes that Gertrude’s “role is frequently ignored in critical
discussions,” and that she may be the “true prodigal” in the play[6].
That being said, Kay’s article is largely about Gertrude’s role as satire, and
my research focuses on her role as agent necessary to solidify the family’s
upward social mobility[7].
4> Richard Horwich notes similarities between
Shakespeare's Hamlet (1603, 1604-5,
1623) and Jonson’s Eastward Ho based
on a number of things: both plays are set in a corrupted world, they contain
characters named Gertrude and Hamlet, and both comment on the death or loss of
chivalry. Horwich notes several specific situations in which Eastward Ho directly comments upon or
parodies Hamlet, noting that
“Touchstone and Golding do literally what Hamlet conceives of his mother doing
only figuratively: they arrange one wedding to take advantage of food remaining
from another,” (223). Horwich’s argument revolves largely around the male
figures, noting both Gertrudes are considered “dupes,” (224) but also suggests
the Gertrude of Eastward Ho might be
revisionary, alleviating some of the blame of Shakespeare’s Gertrude.
5> While Liz Schafer’s chapter focuses on female
directors of Ben Jonson plays, she notes a substantial history of the staging
of Eastward Ho involves women despite
Jonson’s occasional reputation for at worst, misogyny (155). She even noted,
perhaps to Horwich’s disdain, that Charlotte Ramsay Lennox removed all of the Hamlet jokes and removing the more
repudiating lines and characters in her production of Old City Manners (1775)[8].
That Eastward Ho has seen a high
number of female directors and adapters suggests they too saw at the heart of
this, a female play of reunification and regeneration. Schafer recounts a long
history of feminist adaptation of the play and, while her own criticism
discusses the women involved in the resurgence of this play, it also suggest
the need for the continuation of feminist criticism in this field.
6> In Eastward Ho, upward mobility is achieved through the actions and
decisions of female characters who are essential in both maintaining stable
definitions of hierarchical social rank and in bringing about rank change for
themselves and their families. This definition is achieved by three actions:
women accept or reject their own social stations through marriage; women also
accept or reject their relationships and the social status of other women; and lastly, that women must
forgive the men in their lives for grievous wrongs, thereby solidifying the
family unit as per societal Elizabethan norms. In the patriarchal
society of Eastward Ho, men’s class mobility
is made possible by their female relatives in a way that gives the women agency
in their outcome. Women’s
actions serve to reify the roles outlined by societal norms—being a faithful
wife, a good daughter, and to have their male relations accepted in larger
political and economic society—as desired by their characters and obtained
through a variety of choices and actions[9].
7> Of the anxieties
expressed, the play ends in contentment among all characters, and Quicksilver
alone on stage implores the audience be content as well. In the epilogue, he
says: “Oh, may you find in this our pageant here, / The same contentment which
you came to seek,” (V, epilogue, 6-7)[10].
This contentment not only refers to the play as entertainment, but to normative
social hierarchical behavior as well because of its placement at the conclusion
rather than the introduction and because it is spoken by Quicksilver who
represents a character who conforms through crime and repentance. The
contentment achieved by class-improvement refers not only to the characters of Eastward Ho, but to the audience that
watches as well whom Quicksilver addresses. And, while the play reports at the
end to warn the audience of potential dangers of trying to exceed one’s social
standing, the characters have all managed it by the end of the play with little
or no damage to themselves or the outside world.
8> Utilizing Susan Amussen’s work for structure, my
research is broken into three parts based on her understanding of class and
gender in order to examine the interpersonal relationships through a varied
lens. Amussen proposes that family was not only the “fundamental economic unit
of society; it also provided the basis for political and social order...the
family served as a metaphor for the state,” (1). And while the family unit as
we know it today didn’t become a private relationship until later in the 17th
century, the family must be examined within a social sphere. The metaphor
Amussen refers to then is only clear when examined at “different levels of
social organization — from family, to village, county, church and state,” (2)
in order to understand how society worked[11].
Gender and class are hierarchical systems that are intertwined: class
hierarchy, dealing with property, title, and the moral reflection of worth that
comes along with it is equally as dependant upon gender hierarchy[12].
Amussen says, “wives were subject to their husbands, so women were subject to
men, whose authority was sustained informally through culture, customs and
differences in education, and more formally through the law,” (3) but also that
women, particularly wealthy neighbors and mistresses, can have authority over
men. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the systems which might be
analysed through the information provided in Eastward Ho: family relationships, local society, and state or
national trends.
Family Relationships
9> Family is integral to Eastward Ho, as it revolves around the Touchstones and their economic and social relationships in London as their daughters pave the pathway for upward mobility. In this section, I discuss Touchstone in relation to his two daughters, Gertrude and Mildred. Touchstone describes his daughters to the audience in the opening act[13]:
Family Relationships
9> Family is integral to Eastward Ho, as it revolves around the Touchstones and their economic and social relationships in London as their daughters pave the pathway for upward mobility. In this section, I discuss Touchstone in relation to his two daughters, Gertrude and Mildred. Touchstone describes his daughters to the audience in the opening act[13]:
“[…]
have I only two daughters, the eldest of a proud ambition and nice wantonness,
the other of a modest humility and comely soberness. The one must be ladyfied,
forsooth, and be attired just to the court cut and long tail. So far as she ill
natured to the place and means of my preferment and fortune that she throws all
the contempt and despite hatred itself cast upon it.” (I, i, l. 96-104)
10> At the start of the play, Gertrude is engaged to be
married to Sir Petronel Flash, a newly minted knight. Touchstone and his wife,
Mistress Touchstone, represent two different opinions of this match, as well as
different opinions about the wider national issue of social mobility muddled by
the practice of purchasing titles.
11> Touchstone devises an experiment to find out which
marriage, Gertrude’s or Mildred’s, “thrives the best, the mean or lofty love,”
(I, ii, 194) but what he believes makes for a good marriage, the basis for the
test, is unusual but understandable because of his economic role as
merchant-citizen. Touchstone’s negative opinion of Gertrude’s manner is made
clear, but his view of Mildred, at least the qualities he suggests make her a
good candidate for wife, are about her appearance rather than temperament. He says,
“She is not fair, well favoured or so, indifferent, which modest measure of
beauty shall not make it they only work to watch her, nor sufficient mischance
to suspect her,” (I, i, 171-4) meaning she is not so beautiful she’ll be
seduced away by another man, nor is she ugly enough to warrant self-fulfillment
through an illicit affair. It seems the main things of import to Touchstone are
fidelity and loyalty. Economically, this would make sense as Touchstone
represents the introduction of merchant-citizen and the structure of the
apprentice-master relationship is played out through his daughters as well. The
bifurcation in personality between Golding and Quicksilver is equivalent to the
differences between Gertrude and Mildred. Both Quicksilver and Gertrude seek
upward mobility, but Quicksilver has made grave legal errors and Gertrude’s
error in judgement was based in naivete.
12> While Golding hints in Act I that Sir Petronel Flash
likely does not have a castle, it is unclear until Act II in which Flash confesses
to Quicksilver[14].
“Alas, all the castles I have are built with air, thou know’st,” (II, ii,
246-7) he says when Quicksilver attempts to offer him a loan on behalf of
Security. The references to Flash’s castle as “Eastward,” (244), of “air”
(247), “enchanted,” (256), and “invisible” (257), as well as its association
with “smoke,” (244) and the “sun” (253) help to evoke the sense that the
castle, like Flash’s title, is built out of smoke and mirrors. Flash says, “the
sun being outshined with her ladyship’s glory, she fears he goes westward to
hang himself,” (253-5). While the sun in this situation parodies Petrarchan
idolization, Flash recognizes that Gertrude’s albeit temporary happiness in
gained position and title, her dream of being a country lady fulfilled, is
brighter than the sun. The passing of time with the sun’s movement, follows her
rather than the other way around, but he also suggests that glory will be
extinguished upon the discovery of Flash’s lies, associated here with the
“hanging.” And, while the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, van
Fossen also notes that “westward” is another allusion to the gallows at Tyburn
when Quicksilver suggests Gertrude will “return and follow his [the sun’s]
example,” (258). However, this is an underestimation of Gertrude’s will and
character; by seeing only the frivolity in Gertrude’s quest for ladyship, the
men disregard her strength and resolve.
13> When Gertrude is introduced, after Touchstone’s
negative description, she is connected with a variety of material things
representing the mode of dress of upper class women prompted by her tailor
Poldavy. Gertrude expresses that her understanding of aristocratic women is
based on these items, “I must be a lady. Do you wear your coif with a London
licket, your stammel petticoat with two guards, the buffin gown with the
tuftaffety cape, and the velvet lace,” (I, ii, 17-20), referring to a
headdress, ornamental and embroidered cloth, and tufted taffeta. She envisions
a city dame eating cherries only at “an angel a pound,” (23) referring to the
cost of the cherries rather than the quality. And, while Gertrude speaks
directly to Mildred, even offering “when I am a lady, I’ll pray for thee,”
(50), the person she relies on for answers is the lecherous tailor Poldavy who
makes use of Gertrude’s naivete. In response to one question he says, “Here was
a fault in your body, but I have supplied the defect with the effect of my
steel instrument, which, though it have but one eye, can see to rectify the
imperfection of the proportion,” (61-5), a phallic euphemism suggesting he may
correct women’s appearance through the disguise or costume of dress, and
sexually as well.
14> Most of Gertrude’s advice on being a lady comes from
men who, like Poldavy, have ulterior motives and likely do not know themselves.
While Touchstone warns Gertrude modesty is essential, Flash tells her “Boldness
is good fashion and courtlike,” (I, ii, 86), but it isn’t just contradictory
advice Gertrude receives that promotes naivete. No one accurately corrects her
misunderstanding of both what is said and what is misheard as when Flash
discusses a match of balloon, a game involving a large inflated leather ball,
which she mishears as baboon. Van Fossen notes this as “wildly intemperate
sexual behavior.” Even Mistress Touchstone revels in her daughter’s upward
mobility suggesting she “would ha’ dubbed you myself,” to Flash (117-9) and
calling Gertrude her “lady-daughter” (124). Gertrude makes statements and asks
questions about aristocratic life but it is both the lack of response and lack
of understanding the motivations of people around her that results in her
ignorance of her own position after marriage.
15> Mildred, like Golding with the master-servant bond,
represents unwavering faith in the role she plays in relation to her father. “I
am all yours: your body gave me life, your care and love happiness of life; let
your virtue still direct it, for to your wisdom I wholly dispose myself,” (I,
ii, 186-9). Mildred’s attempts to steer Gertrude’s traits, her acceptance of
her father’s proposed marriage to Golding, and her forgiveness of Gertrude
results in the stability of not only her own marriage, but Gertrude’s,
Winifred’s, and Sindefy’s as well. When asked if she prefers the costly
garments Gertrude aspires to, Mildred replies
“I
have observed that the bridle given to those violent flatteries of fortune is
seldom recovered; they bear one headlong in desire from one novelty to another;
and where those ranging appetites reign, there is ever more passion than
reason: no stay, and so no happiness. These hasty advancements are not natural.
Nature hath given us legs to go to our objects, not wings to fly to them.” (II,
i, 69-77)
16> For Mildred it seems
observation, rather than Gertrude’s statement-question method of figuring one’s
place in the world, is key to the status quo both she and Golding find
acceptable. What appears as lack of ambition, especially when contrasted with
Gertrude’s obsession with being a lady, seems at first stagnant but in this statement
suggests it is not advancement Mildred finds fault with, but rather the hasty
passion with which people pursue it. Mildred’s advancement follows the steady
trajectory she if not aspires to, does not oppose, resulting in marriage to a
dedicated apprentice of her father who gains political and economic stability
when released from that service role.
Local Society
17> In terms of local society as
lens, the three interpersonal relationships I address are Golding as political
representative in relation to both Touchstone and Mildred, followed by a
discussion of Sindefy and Gertrude. While Quicksilver and Golding begin as
Touchstone’s apprentices, neither man ends up that way by the end of the play.
Apprentices, as Isaacson notes, were “in both a learning and service
relationship” (64), and Touchstone’s release of Quicksilver for fault and
Golding for virtue, removes the constructed outlines of that formal working
relationship. And while Golding represents a dedication to learning, duty, and
honor, he also shows a lack of passion both in his work and in his relationship
with Mildred: “you shall want nothing fit for your birth and education; what
increase of wealth and advancement the honest and orderly industry and skill of
our trade will afford in any, I doubt not will be aspired by me,” (II, i,
87-9). While contemporary ideals might want for a more pronounced ambition in
the workplace, a complete lack of ambition in the Jacobean-era, as exemplified
by Golding, is an extreme.
18> As a wealthy
merchant-citizen, Touchstone encompasses two worlds without belonging to either
of them, but Golding gains upward mobility without intention. Golding, like
Mildred, represents a lack of ambition, a dedication to work, and a
comfortability with the status quo. Isaacson says, “Golding seems never to have
any higher ambition than being an honest member of this adopted family, though
he keeps finding himself rewarded for his hard work and honesty,” (77) which
results in a variety of promotions on the first day of his freedom: deputy to
the alderman and election to the Common Council. Beyond Golding’s own success,
however, the promotions also change Touchstone’s understanding of those
positions and their role in his own economic security, saying he “shall think
the better of the Common Council’s wisdom and worship while I live...Forward,
my sufficient son, and as this is the first, so esteem in the least step to
that high and prime honour that expects thee,” (IV, ii, 75-70). Touchstone
feels his experiment is validated by Goldings political success and, by calling
him a “sufficient son,” the master-servant bond is released by the elimination
of the apprentice contract and solidified anew by the marriage contract between
Golding and Mildred, both of which Touchstone attributes to his own credit[15].
19> Touchstone vehemently opposes Gertrude’s ambition, but the
smallest glimpse of upward mobility in Golding results in a foreseen trajectory
of continued social mobility Touchstone delights in:
“I
hope to see thee one o’ the monuments of our city, and reckoned among her
worthies, to be remembered...and thou and thy acts become the posies for
hospitals, when thy name shall be written upon conduits, and thy deeds played
i’ thy lifetime, by the best companies of actors and be called their getpenny.
This I divine. This I prophesy.”
(IV,
ii, 79-89)
20> Touchstone likens Golding to great political and
charitable figures of the day. I suggest that there is no way to tell if
Golding achieves promotion solely through his own merit, or if the placement of
this announcement after Gertrude’s wedding allows room for the possibility that
Golding’s new connection to the aristocracy, purchased or not, promoted his
name to the council for consideration. And, while Golding is the catalyst for
the legal forgiveness of Quicksilver, Flash, and Security, I wonder if the task
would have been important if Mildred hadn’t taken the mission upon herself
first.
21> There is some support to the idea that Gertrude’s
marriage has a wider reach than her own family, certainly resulting in agency
through the power of gossip. Mistress Fond and Mistress Gazer are citizen’s
wives, of Touchstone’s class, who watch Gertrude’s departure for Flash’s castle
upon her marriage. In their only scene, the women discuss Gertrude’s match in
terms Gertrude herself must have spread: “O she’s married to a most fine castle
i’ th’ country, they say,” (III, ii, 22-3). Mistress Fond’s use of the pronoun
“they” also suggests Gertrude’s speech act of announcement and promoting her
husband’s title through gossip is successful, as had they heard from Gertrude
herself, “she” would have been used instead. The gossips also suggest similar
naivete in their thinking about castles, titles, and aristocracy , likening
Flash to medieval romantic heroes: “they say her knight killed [the giants] ‘em
all, and therefore he was knighted,” (25-6). The gossips say only ten lines
between them, but their role in proving Gertrude’s ability to paint a portrait
of her own marriage, her husband’s gallantry, and the romantic life she heads
to as a country lady allows for our understanding of how Gertrude got her naive
understanding of Flash. The family is only able to find stability after Flash
is jailed and then forgiven. It is the social aspect of gossip that creates
acceptance, even weaves lies in favor of stability, in which the Touchstones
and their daughters can gain upward class mobility through scandal but also
social forgiveness and acceptance[16].
22> Sindefy, Quicksilver’s mistress, is utilized in the
plot by Quicksilver who inserts her into Gertrude’s new household as a
gentlewoman, but he does not recognize Sindefy’s ability to rise above her
station as mistress, saying “these women, sir, are like Essex calves: you must
wriggle ‘em on by the tail still, or they will never drive orderly,” (266-7).
Referring to women as cows, as well as the sexual innuendo of “wriggle ‘em,”
does not account for Sindefy’s ultimate friendship with Gertrude[17].
While she is aware of her position, and gladly accepts her role, it is doubtful
Security or Quicksilver could have predicted the social elevation from mistress
to “gentlewoman of the country, new come up with a will for a while to learn
fashions,” (II, ii, 195-7) would stick. And yet, from the moment Gertrude
accepts Sindefy into her household, she is exactly what she is pretending to
be, encompassing the role for her own benefit[18].
23> It is Sindefy who accompanies Gertrude on her coach
trip eastward, and when Touchstone welcomes her back with proverbial snide
remarks on her failed marriage, Gertrude reveals herself to be a strong-willed
woman despite humiliation, especially when her mother tells her to kneel,
“Kneel? I hope I am not brought so low yet; though my knight be run away, and
has sold my land, I am a lady still,” (IV, ii, 134-6). Gertrude’s stubbornness
might appear to some as ridiculous, but in this scene Gertrude stands up to a
father who seeks to humiliate her further, and a mother who has transitioned
from pushing her daughter towards an unexamined match to attempting to force
Gertrude into physical submission. Isaacson suggests that by Touchstone casting
Gertrude out of the house, “Touchstone risks his public reputation in this
moment, since he is admitting to his inability to control the members of his
household, but this is the price he must pay in order to keep...the noble
portion of his family intact,” (77). Noble in this sense, would refer to
morality rather than hierarchy, but it is through this action, Gertrude’s
separation from both her husband and family, that she is granted the ability to
find her own moral center.
24> Sindefy, who might have returned to Quicksilver upon
returning to the city, and again upon finding Gertrude is to be cast onto the
street, remains showing a sisterly bond was formed perhaps through betrayal by
men, a loyalty Gertrude reciprocates when imagining their future. When Gertrude
asks her if she has ever heard of such happenings to a lady and her servant,
Sindefy responds, “Not I, truly, madam; and if I had, it were but cold comfort
should come out of books now,” (V, i, 4-5). Such calamity is unimaginable in
their understanding of how life ought to happen that comfort is found in each
other, even if Gertrude has little understanding of Sindefy’s own past because
their bond is based on a lie constructed by Quicksilver. Getrude sells her
jewels and gowns and even considers selling her title, “I’m sure I remember the
time when I would ha’ given a thousand pound, if I had had it, to have been a
lady,” (73-5). And while she does not wish to sell her title, she has some
economic brilliance in the suggestion of leasing it, “I would lend it— let me
see— for forty pound in hand, Sin; that would apparel us; and ten pound a year;
that would keep me and you, Sin, with our needles, and we should never need to
be beholden to our scurvy parents” (80-5), and by extension, the men who
control the money. While this isn’t a feasible plan, Gertrude envisioning a
world in which she could keep herself is far from her original understanding of
her place as woman. Her generosity towards Sindefy who has shown a great deal
of loyalty, proves a noble character that needed a catalyst of necessity and
independence in order to emerge and for this reason, marriage to Sindefy is
part of Quicksilver’s repentance, solidifying her once pretend role of
gentlewoman.
State
25> With a wider scope of Eastward Ho at the level of state, analysis revolves around two
things: how Winifred subverts social commentary on expeditions to the new
world, and how the final acts of forgiveness create stability for the social
relationships at the play’s end. Gertrude’s eastward journey to the country and
Flash and crew’s eastward journey to Virginia end without reaching their
respective destinations. Each of the major characters wash ashore in a location
particular to their crime: Security who has gone after his wife, lands at Cuckold’s
Haven, Winifred finds herself at Saint Katharine’s which van Fossen notes is a
“reformatory for fallen women,” and the rest of the lot land on the Isle of
Dogs which at the time was a “refuge for debtors,” (32). Each location outside
of the city reflects the actions of the characters who land there, but also
comments on the roles each play in the wider narrative.
26> Several of the voyagers capsize in the storm and wash
up on the Isle of Dogs; their expedition to Virginia is an avenue by which we can
look at state relations. On the Isle of dogs, Flash, who speaks French,
attempts to communicate with two gentlemen who remark on the foolhardy decision
to begin such an expedition during a storm. Further, they humiliate Flash for
his purchased title when Gentleman 1 says, “Farewell, we will not know you for
shaming of you. I ken the man weel; he’s one of my thirty-pound knights,” (IV,
i, 196-8). Gentleman 2 goes further to say, “he stole his knighthood o’ the
grand day for four pound, giving to a page all the money in ‘s purse, I wot
well,” (199-200). The view of the newly minted knight on foreign land
reinforces the perception of purchased titles, even outside of the country.
Beyond that commentary about Flash, and the idiocy of setting out during a storm,
the legitimacy of a Virginia expedition is also questioned. Van Fossen says in
his introduction that “during this period the name ‘Virginia’ might mean a
place anywhere from Florida to Newfoundland,” (18). This is significant because
after the failed colony at Roanoke, Sir Walter Raleigh had only a limited
amount of time to establish a colony in the new world in order to maintain his
right[19].
As such, “the Virginia venture is central not only to both plots of the play
but also to the sophisticated social commentary which provides much of its
sharpest humor and many of its most serious implications,” (17). The failure of
this venture represents that social commentary, and Winifred, the only woman on
the expedition, revises that narrative by returning home and convincing her
husband she’d never left.
27> Parallels to Eastward
Ho can be made to Shakespeare’s As
You Like It (1599), particularly in reference to what Winifred refers to as
“woman’s wit, and fortune” (IV, i, 281). Winifred washes up on Saint
Katharine’s, but she is not taken for an adulterous by the Drawer who cares for
her after the boat capsizes, nor does anyone find issue with her presence as
sole woman on the boat. She even awakens to find “a gentlewoman’s gown, hat,
stockings, and shoes,” (IV, i, 104-5), the modes of dress discussed earlier
about Gertrude as the costume or outward appearance of a lady, and receives the
confidence of the Drawer who brings her back to his tavern so she may return
home unseen at which point she asks to be left with her wit. This may refer to
lines from Shakespeare’s As You Like It,
performed in the year or two before Eastward
Ho,
“Or else she could not have the wit
to do this: the
wiser, the waywarder: make the doors
upon a
woman's wit and it will out at the
casement; shut
that and 'twill out at the key-hole;
stop that, 'twill
fly with the smoke out at the
chimney.”
(V, i, 160-5)
(V, i, 160-5)
—a play which also features a character named Touchstone,
although Shakespeare’s Touchstone is a court jester[20].
Winifred’s wit creates a further disparity between herself and her husband,
Security the usurer because he has followed and capsized himself in the fitting
Cuckold's Haven, so Winifred has ample time to return home and claim she’d
never left. Winifred revises the narrative of the journey itself, as well as
the narrative Security believes to be, and indeed is, true.
28> While Winifred returns home, the rest of the
traveling party is taken into custody at Golding’s order and the men, including
Security, go through moral transformation in the enclosed space of the prison.
It is Golding who acts as go-between, as the only character with enough social
trust to trick Touchstone, won over only by Quicksilver’s song of “Repentance,”
into witnessing that transformation. Critics like Isaacson and Donley have
attributed this act of forgiveness to Golding’s machinations, but the scene’s
appearance after Gertrude’s discussion with Mistress Touchstone to, “Go to thy
sister’s, child; she’ll be proud thy ladyship will come under her roof. She’ll
win thy father to release thy knight, and redeem thy gowns, and thy coach, and
thy horses, and set thee up again,” (V, ii, 177-81), suggests Mildred’s agency
if not over her father, certainly her husband. Golding, of self-stated no
ambition, shows an unusual amount of loyalty to his previously fellow
apprentice. It is Mildred who helps relay the message of Golding’s faux arrest
and, while Touchstone’s response to his “virtuous” daughter is, “Away, sirens,
I will immure myself against your cries, and lock myself up to your
lamentations” (V, iv, 7-8), I suggest Mildred’s agency lies in Golding’s plot
through her own decision to forgive her sister which happens offstage. As such,
rather than emphasizing Golding’s agency, the repentance which most matters to
the security and stability of the relationships and social standing of
Touchstone’s family lies with Gertrude’s apology and Mildred’s forgiveness and
the strength of that sisterly bond.
29> Eastward Ho results
in five reaffirmed or created marriages who have resolved or forgiven each
other’s errors. It is by separating actions of the female characters into
various levels or lenses of analysis that their agency becomes more pronounced.
The women in this play utilize tools like acceptance of marriage, speech act
and gossip, and controlled forgiveness, to solidify their relationships and the
positions of their husbands on the political and economic sphere. And while
they are given fewer lines, and some significant acts of forgiveness like that
of Gertrude and Mildred happen offstage, the offerings I have proposed give new
understanding to their overall agency within the text. While Gertrude, Mildred,
Winifred, and Sindefy are given stock personality traits—ambition on the marriage
mart, contentment with the status quo, unhappiness within a marriage,
prostitutes—it is through their shared dedication to each other, and to finding
stability and happiness within their relationships, that ultimately extends
that stability to the men in their lives as well.
_____
Works
Cited
Amussen, Susan Dwyer. An
Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England. Columbia UP,
1988.
Chapman, George, et al. Eastward
Ho. Edited by R.W. van Fossen, Manchester UP, 2006.
Donley, Maren. “The Mechanics of Virtue: Quicksilver’s
‘Repentance,’ and the Test of Audience, and Social Change in Eastward Ho,” Renaissance Drama, vol. 41, no. 1/2, pp. 25-55.
Gibbons, Brian. Jacobean
City Comedy. Routledge, 1980.
Horwich, Richard. “Hamlet
and Eastward Ho,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900,
vol. 11, no. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, 1971: 223-33.
Isaacson, Emily R. “Indulgent Masters and Sleights of Hand:
Servants and Apprentices in City Comedy,” Ben
Jonson Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, 2015: 62-82.
Jankowski, Theodora A. “Class Categorization, Capitalism,
and the Problem of ‘Gentle’ Identity in The
Royall King and the Loyall Subject and Eastward
Ho!” Medieval & Renaissance Drama
in England, vol. 19, JSTOR, 2006, pp. 144–174.
Kay, W. David. “Parodic Wit and Social Satire in Chapman,
Jonson, and Marston’s Eastward Ho!.” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 42,
no. 3, 2012, pp. 391–424.
Kay, David W. and Suzanne Gossett. “Eastward Ho,” The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben
Jonson Online, 2012.
Leggatt, Alexander. Citizen
Comedy in the Age of Shakespeare. U of Toronto, 1973.
McIntosh, Shona. “Space, Place and Transformation in Eastward Ho! and The Alchemist,” The Idea of
the City: Early-Modern, Modern, and Post-Modern Locations and Communities. Cambridge
Scholars, 2009, pp. 65-78.
Schafer, Elizabeth. “Daughters of Ben,” Ben Jonson and Theatre: Performance, Practice, Theory. Eds. Richard
Cave, Elizabeth Schafer, and Brian Woolland. Routledge, 2005, pp. 155-77.
Shakespeare, William. "As
You Like It." The Norton Anthology.
2nd ed. Eds. Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. W.W Norton, 2008, pp. 377-444.
_____
Notes:
[1] R. W. van Fossen states in his
introduction that, “until quite recently, by far the greatest portion of the
published commentary on Eastward Ho
has been preoccupied with the question of its collaborative authorship,” (1). This
makes Isaacson, Jankowski, and Kay’s work particularly relevant to my own
because it moves beyond that focus.
[2] Leggatt
notes that while financial trickery is essential to New Comedy, “comes about
largely through the work of Thomas Middleton...Jonson is often cited as the
prime influence,” (see note on 10).
[3] The
Great Chain of Being: The History of an Idea (1937) argues for a chain of power and intelligence on a
scale of nothingness to God, suggesting humans were able to touch both the
world of the spiritual higher powers because of their ability to examine the
senses, as well as love and reason, but the can also lower themselves through
sin to the level of animals.
[4] That being said, she does propose a
rather astute observation that both Eastward
Ho and The Alchemist are set
during plague time in which the playhouses are closed, which might be
considered another level of stagnancy beyond social mobility.
[5] Gibbons chose Eastward Ho the example for Jacobean city comedy in his
introduction because of its “characteristic atmosphere and texture” representative
of the plays of the genre (8). However, in the several pages he dedicates to
the play, Gibbons mentions Touchstone’s daughters once, and does not even
provide their names: “Corresponding to the two apprentices are the goldsmith’s
two daughters; one is humbly earnest and modest, the other vain, empty-headed
and licentious,” (9). That the plot of a play largely about women and marriage
can be described without discussing either shows the need for continued
research in this field.
[6] This would make Leggatt’s comment
that “by far the subtlest and most elaborate parody of the standard prodigal
story is to be found in Eastward Ho,”
(47). But, while he analyzes Quicksilver’s behaviour as “copybook
prodigal—spendtrift, drunken, roistering, and scornful of all good advice,” his
analysis of Gertrude is that she “certainly is a fool, and has none of
Quicksilver’s wit.” By noting her character as “more amusing than offensive,”
“a child indulging in pre-Christmas fantasies, and lording it over her less
imaginative playmates,” (49) Leggatt sees Gertrude’s same basis in naivete as
I, but fails to recognize her agency in setting the social moves in motion.
[7] In Kay and Gossett’s new edition of
The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson,
Gossett includes a detailed “Textual History” and analysis of Eastward Ho in which she focuses on “the
play’s creation and political impact.” Gertrude is mentioned three times,
largely in relation to printing mistakes. Kay’s “Stage History,” on the other
hand, pointedly notes changes in characterizations of Gertrude’s character in
productions by Nahum Tate, David Garrick, and Charlotte Lennox.
[8] Old
City Manners (1775) written by Charlotte Lennox,
was adapted from Eastward Ho. Schafer
notes in the prologue, George Coleman suggests the original play had become “by
time perhaps, impair’d too much.” Lennox’s adaptation chose to remove the most
characters like Slitgut, and highlight the romance lacking from the original
play. Of course, highlighting the romance might make Lennox’s adaptation fit in
less with the genre of citizen comedy, which is typically underplayed as per
Leggatt.
[9] This may well be true for other
Renaissance Dramas. Certainly female agency has been addressed in plays like
Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew (1592)
and Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring
Girl (1607).
[10] The epilogue is unassigned in the
original, but Van Fossen notes all modern editors attribute the epilogue to
Quicksilver (36).
[11] Amussen’s study examines gender and
class through examination of five Norfolk parishes in order to emphasize the
importance of analysing both national trends such as wage increases between
1500-1620, population growth, and inflation, as well as local ones (8-9).
[12] Amussen defines gender as “the
process by which meaning is given to the perceived biological differences
between women and men, a process which turns biological facts into social
relationships,” (4).
[13] That a male opinion of the female
characters is presented before the introduction of the characters shapes our
understanding of how those women are viewed by their father. This fits with
Touchstone’s many instances of proselytizing particularly at the end of his
speeches.
[14] Golding refers to this by saying,
“Pray heaven the elephant carry not his castle on his back,” (I, i, 163-4),
which refers to a common British image, “Elephant and Castle,” derived from the
Hindu tradition of Howdah. For more, see van Fossen’s note to the text and R.
Withington’s “A Note on Eastward Ho,
i, ii, 178” in Modern Language Notes,
1928).
[15] Van Fossen notes of Golding and
Mildred, “they and their marriage are as much the objects of ridicule in the
play as are Sir Petronel and Gertrude and theirs,” (30). Their lack of passion
aligns with a mariage de raison.
[16] I would also argue that gossip in
this sense is gendered as a female mode of communication, and thus, an aspect
of female agency.
[17] This assertion that women must be
controlled by men might also be taken back to Poldavy’s sexual reference to his
needle with one eye. Quicksilver’s likening women to chattel that must be
guided by both sexual control and forceful modification (Poldavy through
appearance, Quicksilver through drive).
[18] Sindefy’s name is equally as
contradictory as her position as both mistress and gentlewoman. Van Fossen
notes that “The name suggests (1) one not only sinful but defiantly so; (2)
ironically, one who defies sin,” comparing her to Win-the-Fight in Bartholomew’s Fair. Sindefy’s social
rank changes from mistress of an alcoholic apprentice attempting to disrupt
society to wife of a reformed man attempting to right his wrongs by improving
the lives of societal outcasts. This change solidifies Sindefy as one both
accepting of her sins, acting to change her station, and achieving social
mobility through female friendship.
[19] Van Fossen also notes that between
1589 and 1602, Raleigh made five failed attempts to find and ‘relieve’ Roanoke
(17).
[20] Shakespeare’s Touchstone also
proselytizes regularly, and like the Touchstone character of Eastward Ho, has the ability to
understand and comment upon others. The Touchstone character of As You Like It acts almost as precursor
to Gertrude’s relationship in that he marries Audrey, whom he finds to have
sought the match because she wishes, like Gertrude, to become a courtly lady.
_____
Jennifer van Alstyne is a Peruvian-American poet and
scholar. Her work has been published in numerous journals, including The
Citron Review, COG, Crack the Spine, ELKE, The Foundling Review,
Paper Nautilus, Stonecoast Review, Sweet Tree Review, and Whiskey
Traveler. She holds an M.F.A. from Naropa University where she was the Jack
Kerouac Fellow, and is currently a graduate fellow in English Literature and
Cultural Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
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APPOSITIONS:
Studies in Renaissance / Early
Modern
Literature and Culture,
ISSN: 1946-1992,
Volume Ten (2017): Artefacts
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