By William, but not Shakespeare
A Forged Play and its Audience
By Kate Rowberry
It was the day after April Fool’s, 1796, and William Shakespeare had been dead for over a century and a half. However, every seat in Drury Lane Theatre was filled for the premiere of Vortigern, the Bard’s newly discovered play. The playbill, however, was shy to attribute Vortigern to Shakespeare.
Rightly so.
During much of the performance, the nineteen-year-old William Henry Ireland sat in the theater’s green room chatting with actress Dorothea Jordan, who played Vortigern’s daughter Flavia. By some farcical luck, he had made it this far. But Vortigern, also known as Vortigern and Rowena, would never be performed again in his lifetime.
Playbill for the 1796 production of "Vortigern" (source: NYPL).
Playbill for the 1796 production of "Vortigern" (source: NYPL).
Vortigern is a tragedy derived from the eponymous 5th-century king’s story as told in Holinshed's Chronicles. The Chronicles’ panoptic account of British history was consulted by Shakespeare—and by his teenaged forger. Starting in 1794, William Henry Ireland produced an arsenal of documents Shakespeare had purportedly composed or interacted with. He claimed the documents, collectively known as the “Shakspeare-papers,” were from a benevolent, anonymous gentleman. William’s forgeries besides Vortigern include but are not limited to:
a letter from Queen Elizabeth I to Shakespeare;
(top, authentic: National Portrait Gallery; bottom, forged: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
a love letter from Shakespeare to Anne Hathaway garnished with a lock of ‘his’ hair;
(source: Massachusetts Historical Society)
and a poorly wrought ‘self-portrait.’
(source: Britannica)
Academics and members of the general public alike believed the homemade Shakespeariana were authentic. But according to William’s 1805 tell-all—Confessions of William-Henry Ireland Containing the Particulars of His Fabrication of the Shakspeare Manuscripts—his forgeries were motivated by “no other than a fervent desire I had to afford satisfaction to Mr. Samuel Ireland,” his own father.
Samuel Ireland revered the Bard. He was an engraver with an all-consuming passion for the collection of antiquities, and he instilled a hagiographic understanding of the playwright in his son. William’s inclinations for forgery began when he and his father pilgrimaged to Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon. Samuel sought manuscripts bearing the Bard’s autograph and in the process encountered a man who teased that he had recently made “‘a roaring bonfire’” out of such papers. To this brutal news Samuel reportedly said, “‘My G-d! Sir, you are not aware of the loss which the world has sustained. Would to heaven I had arrived sooner!’”
Once back in London, William hoped to please his father. He used materials from the lawyer’s chambers at which he worked to forge a mortgage deed allegedly signed by Shakespeare. Samuel examined the deed “with the strictest scrutiny” and concluded it was real. The deed attracted onlookers to the Irelands’ Norfolk Street residence, and their attention, combined with Samuel’s newfound affection for his son, encouraged the young forger. Visitors posited that certain other Shakespearean documents must exist. William obliged.
William Henry Ireland, 1818 (source: National Portrait Gallery).
William Henry Ireland, 1818 (source: National Portrait Gallery).
Samuel Ireland, 1776 (source: National Portrait Gallery).
Samuel Ireland, 1776 (source: National Portrait Gallery).
Authentic autographs compared to William Henry Ireland’s attempts (source: Confessions).
Authentic autographs compared to William Henry Ireland's attempts (source: Confessions).
A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare-Papers by George Chalmers (source: Kate Rowberry, John Hay Library).
A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare-Papers by George Chalmers (source: Kate Rowberry, John Hay Library).
Mrs. Siddons and J. P. Kemble in the Dagger Scene from Macbeth by Thomas Beach, 1786 (source: MeisterDruke).
Mrs. Siddons and J. P. Kemble in the Dagger Scene from Macbeth by Thomas Beach, 1786 (source: MeisterDruke).
Of course, William’s attempts didn’t convince everyone.
There are few samples of Shakespeare’s handwriting, so William devised Shakespeare-esque penmanship based on the extant catalog: the twelve unique characters in the Bard’s name. On old-looking ink and paper, he employed a suspect orthography of doubled consonants and surplus final e’s, as in “Libbertye” or “holydayes.” In the introduction to an 1874 edition of Confessions, literary critic Richard Grant Wright deems these offenses “the spelling of no period of English literature.”
Overall, Wright dubs the forgeries “stupid and awkward performances,” and some of William’s contemporaries had similar, book-length qualms about his efforts. Edmond Malone, a Shakespearean scholar, published a 424-page take-down in early 1796, after the premiere of Vortigern. He attacks the “credulous partisans of folly and imposture” who, in his mind, issued judgments about the papers’ authenticity after positioning themselves as experts without actually having the requisite knowledge to do so. Antiquarian George Chalmers, who supported the papers’ authenticity, wrote two volumes in response to Malone’s conduct and conclusions. He accuses Malone of “turning his pens to lances” out of “free contempt” for the “Believers” but ultimately concedes that Malone’s conclusions—though not his methodology—were correct.
In the 2002 essay collection On Literature, the Italian polymath Umberto Eco encourages the idea of a community of inquiry, which is composed of individuals who together engage in the verification of truth through “slow, collective, public work.” William Henry Ireland’s forgeries summoned a divided group of scholars whose efforts did not amount to a proper community of inquiry. Malone, for one, threatened to release his unfavorable findings before Vortigern’s premiere, which would correct—or taint—the audience’s perception of it. At the same time, he was criticized for never having viewed the original documents, the text of which had been published and was for sale to the public.
Many other scholars accompanied Chalmers and Malone in the Shakspeare-papers conflict. Theater historian Walley Chamberlain Oulton published an anonymous pamphlet—in response to a skeptical letter between two other men—that suggests Vortigern faced opposition precisely because it would prove to be an authentic, grand production. For this reason, he wanted the public to have a fair chance to assess the play:
[W]e find one already has stood up as an oracle to foretel [sic] its fate, and damn the piece before it is played. But should not VORTIGERN be submitted to the public for their opinion? why be judged by an individual? Why fall under the condemnation of a SECRET tribunal? and be denied what is our country’s boast, a candid, OPEN TRIAL!
Malone, too, supports the right of the intelligent public “to judge for himself, uninfluenced by any authority but that of right reason, and the best information he can procure.” But how might a layperson interact with a community of inquiry or construct a relationship to a forgery?
William wrote Vortigern in his own hand over a two-month period, hurrying because he—“with my usual impetuosity”—told his father about the ‘discovery’ of the manuscript before he had written it. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a proprietor of Drury Lane Theatre, then inspected the manuscript. He agreed to stage the play, but he may have cared more about profits than authenticity.
Well-regarded actors John Kemble and Sarah Siddons, who were both cast in Vortigern, also harbored doubt about its authenticity. Due to their embodied knowledge of Macbeth, Hamlet, and other genuine Shakespeare plays, they had unique influence within the scattered community of inquiry.
Siddons eventually bowed out of her part in Vortigern, blaming illness, though she opined to a friend that the play was “a most audacious impostor.” On the other hand, Kemble exploited his circumstances to assert his negative appraisal of Vortigern. Besides lobbying unsuccessfully to premiere the play on April 1, he leveraged his lead role as Vortigern. During the only performance of Vortigern, Kemble humorously delivered a line: “And when this solemn mockery is o’er.” The previously polite and appreciative audience then, by William’s account, produced the “most discordant howl … that ever assailed the organs of hearing.” It took ten minutes for them to calm down again.
In The Limits of Interpretation, Eco theorizes a typology of the roles an individual may occupy in relation to a forgery: Author, Claimant, Judge. Authors are said to have made the forgery. Claimants—Chalmers’s Believers—argue for the forgery’s authenticity, while Judges reject its authenticity. A person can occupy multiple of these roles at once or sequentially. This theory of actants highlights the interesting slippage between roles that can occur: William Henry Ireland was Author, Claimant, and eventually Judge.
However, Eco’s theory of actants lacks a category for those who are uncertain about something’s authenticity, either because their opinion is hesitant or because they simply haven’t arrived at an impending conclusive judgment. Such individuals would be audience to Claimants’ and Judges’ arguments for and against authenticity. Therefore, the ordinary people who watched Vortigern highlight the potential existence of a fourth role to add to Eco’s theory of actants: Audience Member. This role would be occupied by those who are aware of or suspicious that something—a performance, an object, an identity—may be forged but who have yet to make up their minds.
As the suddenly condemnatory reaction to Vortigern suggests, people often exist in relation to a forgery before taking a strong stance about its authenticity. The role of Audience Member supplies a category for people to inhabit before they have decided about alleged (in)authenticity. But is Audience Member always an occupiable position? That is, aren’t people automatically rendered some form of Judge or Claimant upon contact with something?
Author Malcolm Gladwell opens his book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking with a description of the “‘intuitive repulsion’” that a set of experts experienced upon witnessing a suspected forgery that had been otherwise authenticated. Some people, it seems, bypass the role of Audience Member. But surely not everyone’s impulses are as quick or as trustworthy as those in Gladwell’s example.
Admittedly, most people approach a known forgery having already assumed the role of Judge. And something that is, without contest, regarded as authentic typically forces the role of Claimant onto those who interact with it. But the role of Audience Member, as brought to attention by Vortigern, extends the nuance of Eco’s theory of actants by creating space for nuance and degrees of commitment. For example, Chalmers likely occupied the role of Audience Member as he assessed the Shakspeare-papers. After he was firm in the belief that the papers were authentic, he became a Claimant. When it became clear that the papers were forged, he may have briefly been an Audience Member again before becoming a begrudging Judge.
But Audience Member is not only a pre-Claimant or pre-Judge position. The ordinary people who viewed Vortigern were likely Audience Members—doubly, of course—before the play began, and those who weren’t wholly converted to Judgedom by Kemble’s performance then may have become a Judge and remained an Audience Member. They may have felt it was probable Vortigern was not genuine but weren’t fully persuaded. The tentativeness of the Audience Member role thus provides a point of entry into communities of inquiry for those who are hesitant about their expertise or relevance in relation to the subject of inquiry. Therefore, adding this role to Eco’s theory of actants strengthens ’s applicability to the varied parties who interact with and may be affected by forgeries.
Furthermore, the Audience Member role allows Eco’s theory to more precisely recognize the subtleties and shifts in opinion that may develop as more conclusions are drawn about a forgery. The role, for instance, emphasizes the assurance of those who abandon it in favor of the position of Judge or Claimant. It also underscores the ironies of being too sure. Samuel Ireland—the father William so wanted to please—remained a staunch Claimant of the Shakspeare-papers, even when his son publicly admitted to the fraud to clear accusations that had begun to mount against Samuel himself.
