“I Would Give All My Fame For a Pot of Ale and Safety.” This is something that Will Shakespeare does not understand at the beginning of this week’s episode, as he falls prey to those pitfalls that all do when they gain success overnight. With fame comes fortune, and the illusion that your most outlandish acts will never catch up with you. Sadly, that is something Will has to learn the hard way. Funny how little has changed in 500 years.
Will gets a taste of success with his (stolen) production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and, oh yeah, his affair with young Alice. Drunk with success and naivety, Will goes one step further into Christopher Marlowe’s world. Given that Marlowe is both a double agent and into everything remotely eccentric in London, Will could not put himself in a more precarious position. Under the influence in a divination ceremony, Will sees his greatest fear, a fear he has desperately tried to stuff down since his arrival in London. It’s truly difficult to feel any sympathy for Will since he’s not been living in reality.
It’s up to his outlawed cousin and Alice to give him a dose of reality. If he is to serve his faith and family, Will should use his writing skills to aid the cause by appealing to the Queen herself. After all, every day Topcliffe tortures more and more Catholics for information on where to find Robert Southwell. He takes great pleasure in it, too. The more Topcliffe uncovers about the Catholic cause, the more violent and depraved he becomes. What’s worse, upon hearing of Southwell’s manuscript, Topcliffe zeroes in on his new target-writers. If only there was a new, influential playwright in town who would make the perfect tool…
Will has also been utterly naive in thinking that riding the middle of the line wouldn’t come back on the Burbage family. To that end Will effectively chooses Alice over Southwell, or as he prefers to think of it, choosing peace over anger. He even goes so far as to ask Alice to reconsider a marriage, all while yet again, stealing an idea for a play. If there was a remotely religious reference to quote here, it would be that man makes plans, and God laughs, as Shakespeare’s grand plans come to a screeching halt. So Topcliffe and Shakespeare come face to face, something I am curious to know if actually happened. Shakespeare can either write an anti-Catholic propaganda play to save himself and the Burbage family, or choose his own family and die on the spike (if that). Given how sound Will’s decisions have been in the last few weeks, I’m not optimistic about how this will turn out.
How much of Will’s plans do you think will actually come to fruition now that he has come to the attention of the most dangerous man in London?
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