Emilia Bassano was born in London to Margaret Johnson and Baptista was generally acknowledged as Johnson's domestic partner, and the father of the child. In his will, Baptista referred to Margaret as "my reputed wife", a hedged statement that might conceivably have been related to religious differences; however, Margaret's will clearly identified Baptista as her husband. Margaret Johnson apparently had close relationships with members of the radical Protestant movement, which might have complimented the (possibly radical) Jewish viewpoint coming out of the Bassano side of the family. (60) Emilia was christened at St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, the London neighborhood where foreign musicians and theatre folk lived, on January 27, 1569. (61)
There is a court document given below showing that Emilia's uncles had a confrontation with the authorities in which they were described as being "black" in skin color and of talking back sharply to the sheriff.
"On 22 September 1584, John Spencer, a former Sheriff of London asked by the Crown to account for his behavior towards Arthur, Edward I and Jeronimo II Bassano, 'which were committed to ward [prison] for their misdemeanor', twice went out of his way to point out that neither he nor any of his fellow law officers knew the identity of the men they were arresting." The occasion was a street skirmish caused by the blocking up of a street by the authorities, which angered the residents who began dismantling the blockage. "At this point the Bassanos came near to the site and stayed talking and looking at the work until they too were ordered to leave. "They eft soons very obstinately refused,' saying to Spencer, "This is the Queen's ground and we will stand here.' When told that if they would not depart 'by fair means' they would be sent to ward, 'one of them a little black man who was booted answered in a very despiteful manner, saying, "Send us to ward? Thou were as good (be the words with reverence named) kiss our etc", and another of them being a tall black man said, "Sheriff Spencer, we have as good friends in the court as thou hast and better too." (62)
While the documents may seem innocuous, it is absolutely critical to understanding the Shakespearean literature. The passage shows that though the Bassanos, swarthy Sephardic Jews, were routinely called 'black' by the English even though they were not of African (Negro) descent. Emilia was actually called 'the Moor' by her family. This might mean that she had especially dark skin and been a bright target for racial insults; or perhaps she and her family may have been especially conscious of the darkness of her skin in contrast to her English mother. The many 'Moors' or 'Eithiopes' of the plays, and the 'black mistress' of the sonnets, may be readily explained as Emilia Bassano's response to English discrimination against blacks such as herself. (63)
The passage also sheds light on another important point; the relationship between the Bassanos and the nobility. Being both 'black' and constantly under threat of execution as secret practitioners of Judaism (whether or not such an accusation was even true), the Bassanos played a high stakes game in Elizabethan England. In order to survive in such a hostile environment they needed the protection of 'friends in the court'. But how could such 'friends' be obtained? To survive anywhere in Christendom, Jews needed skills that would make the valuable to those in power. This is perhaps why the Bassano family developed their instrument-making and music-playing talents. These were skills that they could exchange with the nobility for money and a protected status. This intellectually driven, but conspiratorial world was the environment from which 'Shakespeare' sprang.
The British attitude towards dark skinned people during this era is also made clear in the following commission from the Queen to a merchant named Caspar Van Zeuden, which calls on him to arrange for the deportation from the country of the "negroes and blackamoors" that had "crept into the realm". (64)
ORDERS TO EXPEL BLACKAMOORS & NEGROES 1601
-- Whereas the Queen's Majesty is discontented at the great numbers of negars and blackamoores which are crept into the realm since the troubles between her Highness and the King of Spain, and are fostered here to the annoyance of her own people"In order to discharge them out of the country, her Majesty bath appointed Caspar Van Zeuden, merchant of Lubeck, for their transportation"This is to require you to assist him to collecty such negroes and blackamoors for this purpose.
Emilia's father died when she was seven, and her family somehow arranged for her to be raised by Susan Wingfield, Countess of Kent, and Margaret, Countess of Cumberland. Emilia wrote about their estate of Cookham Dean in her poem The Description of Cooke-ham. She was presumably educated along with the other girls of these noble households, as she later became a tutor to the children of the nobility.
It is difficult to speculate as to how Emilia was able to maintain her Jewish identity under such circumstances. However,, if the other evidence of Emilia's authorship of 'Shakespeare' that I have presented is deemed acceptable by the reader, then the Jewish agenda of the Shakespearean literature becomes very powerful evidence that Emilia indeed was able to retain her Jewish faith and identity. On the other hand, no other candidate for the authorship of the plays (and certainly not 'Shagspere') can explain this extensive Jewish content. And considering her family's Jewish heritage, it is entirely credible that their "conversion" to Christianity was only a matter of conformance with the royal imperative of the time.
At any rate, it is clear from the plays that 'Shakespeare' learned to speak a number of languages. Emilia was a native English speaker, but might have been taught Italian and Hebrew by her father and family, and certainly would have studied Latin and French during her aristocratic upbringing. It is entirely possible that Emilia had the early training in a number of languages needed to become one of the most productive wordsmiths in history.
As a young woman, Emilia attended the court of Elizabeth I, and shortly became the mistress to the Queen's first cousin Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, who was forty-five years her senior. Hunsdon links Emilia to the world of Shakespeare's plays because his acting troop performed many of them. She became pregnant at the age of twenty-three and then, as was routine with the pregnant mistresses of Lords in this era, was given a farewell and a stipend by Hunsdon. In October 1592 she married her cousin, Captain Alphonso Lanier, a Queen's musician and volunteer navy man. Following the Queen's death he moved into the service of James I. Emilia's relationship with Nicholas would have been the source of Emilia's knowledge of the arcane jargons of the British military and navy that found its way into the plays.
Emilia consulted Dr. Simon Forman, a physician and astrologer, in May 1597, hoping to learn if her husband would receive any preferment so that she might discover 'whether she should be a lady or no'. She was then living in the fashionable area of Longditch Westminster, next to Canon Row. Forman kept a diary describing his interactions with his clients. He found her 'high minded', which meant either that he saw her as intelligent or that she was interested in the affairs of the aristocracy. And, mysteriously, he wrote that she "hath some thing in mind that she would have done for her. She can hardly keep secret." He also noted her difficult life, stating: "it seemth she had ill fortune in her youth". Emilia again consulted Forman in June of the same year. She complained that her husband had "dealt hardly with her" and "spent and consumed her goods", presumably both the money she had inherited from her father as well as what she had saved from her allowance from Lord Hunsdon. She lied when Foreman asked her age, claiming to be 24 when she was actually 28.
In 1613 her husband died, the same year that the last Shakespearean play The Two Noble Kinsman was written. Emilia now had to earn her own living since she no longer had the income from her husband's Court musician's appointment and only a portion of the income she had derived from a monopoly on the weighing of hay and straw. She attempted to support herself as a tutor for the children of "persons of worth and understanding". In 1617 she leased a new house for that purpose on St. Giles in the Fields, an aristocratic London suburb. She immediately became engaged in a series of lawsuits and countersuits relating to the building, and a dispute with a relative over the income from the hay monopoly. Having lost most of her pupils, she left the St. Giles residence in 1619 without paying her midsummer rent, whereupon she was arrested.
She appears again in the London legal records in 1635 at the age of 66, claiming that she was obliged to provide for two grandchildren, and was in misery because she was being cheated out of her full entitlement to the income from the hay royalties. The lawsuits continued for three years. She died in April 1645 at age seventy-six, a 'pensioner', meaning that she was possessed of some regular income. She had at least two children. The first, presumably the son of Lord Hunsdon, was named Henry and had been born early in 1593. She also had a daughter who died in infancy.
THE BASSANOS AND THE MUSIC OF THE PLAYS
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