King Lear

Land Enclosures, King Lear and Shakespeare the man

'Shakespeare created Lear, who is the most radical of all social critics [but Shakespeare's] behaviour as a property owner made him closer to Goneril than Lear.'
Edward Bond

In the sixteenth century, landowners began to carve up open tracts of land to create small fields bounded by hedges. These fields could be farmed more profitably but many poor farmers lost their livelihood, when common land, on which they used to graze their animals, was enclosed. Anti-enclosure riots ensued. Rebellion and disquiet was rife throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.

Shortly after the first performance of King Lear, there were serious enclosure riots in the Midlands, including Warwickshire, where Shakespeare owned land. Awareness of the problem of land enclosures increased during the 1590s and early 1600s, when religious and ethical objections to unrestrained economic self-interest were continually reasserted by poets, politicians and the clergy. Over time, arguments for purely economic considerations became both more respectable and widespread. A new order came into play, one divorced from morality, in which money dominated, authority lacked responsibility and self-interest governed.

'It would be difficult to identify a topic in Tudor England likely to arouse more passions than attempted enclosures. Often violence would flare. Controversy was not the inevitable result of enclosure, but in areas of rising population and dwindling common land (one often the consequence of the other) resistance to enclosure was a reflex reaction of local inhabitants. Folk memory reached back to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries when many villages, including several in Warwickshire, had been completely depopulated as the result of enclosure.'

Shakespeare amassed considerable wealth in his lifetime and owned, not just property in Stratford and London, but land:

'By the end of the 1590s we find evidence of a man not only with considerable sums of money to invest in property, but one also anxious to secure his newly won position in society. It was probably he [Shakespeare], for instance, who in 1596 established his father's right to bear a coat of arms, and it may also have been out of a desire to make his family's new status clear that he chose to invest his wealth in the purchase of property in Stratford. In 1597 he bought New Place, with its Great Garden, reputedly the second largest house in Stratford; in 1602 around 120 acres of land in the town's open fields as well as a cottage in Chapel Lane; and in 1605 an interest in part of the town's tithes. His total outlay in not known but could well have exceeded Ł900 - a very substantial sum at a time when a labourer was fortunate to earn 4s a week.'

From Shakespeare in the Stratford Records by Robert Bearman

Bingo is an imaginative portrayal of the last days of Shakespeare's life. In his introduction to his play, Edward Bond writes:

Shakespeare's plays show the need for sanity and its political expression, justice. But how did he live? His behaviour as a property owner made him closer to Goneril than Lear. He supported and benefited from the Goneril-society - with its prisons, workhouses, whipping, starvation, mutilation, pulpit-hysteria and all the rest of it.

An example of this is his role in the Welcombe enclosure. A large part of his income came from rents (or tithes) paid on common fields at Welcombe, near Stratford. Some important land owners wanted to enclose these fields and there was a risk enclosure would affect Shakespeare's rents. He could side either with the landowners or with the poor who would lose their land and livelihood. He sided with the landowners. They gave him a guarantee against loss, a document implies that should the people fighting the enclosers come to him for help he would refuse it. Well, the town did write to him for help and he did nothing. The struggle is quite well documented and there's no record of opposition from Shakespeare. He may have doubted that the enclosers would succeed, but at best this means he sat at home with his guarantee while others made the resistance that was the only way to stop them. They were stopped for a time. The fields were not finally enclosed until 1775.

Lear divided up his land at the beginning of the play, when he was arbitrary and unjust - not when he was shouting out his truths on the open common.
EDWARD BOND, Introduction to Bingo [Methuen 1987]

Both Lear and Gloucester realise that society's injustice demands attention. Their response is not egalitarian but paternalistic: the rich and powerful should make an imaginative identification with the poor and wretched and be charitable towards them. Shakespeare the man appears to have acted in direct opposition to the author of King Lear.


			'Shakespeare created Lear, who is the most radical of all social critics [but Shakespeare's] behaviour as a property owner made him closer to Goneril than Lear.' Edward Bond In the sixteenth century, landowners began to carve up open tracts of land to create small fields bounded by hedges. These fields could be farmed more profitably but many poor farmers lost their livelihood, when common land, on which they used to graze their animals, was enclosed. Anti-enclosure riots ensued. Rebellion and disquiet was rife throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. Shortly after the first performance of King Lear, there were serious enclosure riots in the Midlands, including Warwickshire, where Shakespeare owned land. Awareness of the problem of land enclosures increased during the 1590s and early 1600s, when religious and ethical objections to unrestrained economic self-interest were continually reasserted by poets, politicians and the clergy. Over time, arguments for purely economic considerations became both more respectable and widespread. A new order came into play, one divorced from morality, in which money dominated, authority lacked responsibility and self-interest governed. 'It would be difficult to identify a topic in Tudor England likely to arouse more passions than attempted enclosures. Often violence would flare. Controversy was not the inevitable result of enclosure, but in areas of rising population and dwindling common land (one often the consequence of the other) resistance to enclosure was a reflex reaction of local inhabitants. Folk memory reached back to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries when many villages, including several in Warwickshire, had been completely depopulated as the result of enclosure.' Shakespeare amassed considerable wealth in his lifetime and owned, not just property in Stratford and London, but land: 'By the end of the 1590s we find evidence of a man not only with considerable sums of money to invest in property, but one also anxious to secure his newly won position in society. It was probably he [Shakespeare], for instance, who in 1596 established his father's right to bear a coat of arms, and it may also have been out of a desire to make his family's new status clear that he chose to invest his wealth in the purchase of property in Stratford. In 1597 he bought New Place, with its Great Garden, reputedly the second largest house in Stratford; in 1602 around 120 acres of land in the town's open fields as well as a cottage in Chapel Lane; and in 1605 an interest in part of the town's tithes. His total outlay in not known but could well have exceeded Ł900 - a very substantial sum at a time when a labourer was fortunate to earn 4s a week.' From Shakespeare in the Stratford Records by Robert Bearman Bingo is an imaginative portrayal of the last days of Shakespeare's life. In his introduction to his play, Edward Bond writes: Shakespeare's plays show the need for sanity and its political expression, justice. But how did he live? His behaviour as a property owner made him closer to Goneril than Lear. He supported and benefited from the Goneril-society - with its prisons, workhouses, whipping, starvation, mutilation, pulpit-hysteria and all the rest of it. An example of this is his role in the Welcombe enclosure. A large part of his income came from rents (or tithes) paid on common fields at Welcombe, near Stratford. Some important land owners wanted to enclose these fields and there was a risk enclosure would affect Shakespeare's rents. He could side either with the landowners or with the poor who would lose their land and livelihood. He sided with the landowners. They gave him a guarantee against loss, a document implies that should the people fighting the enclosers come to him for help he would refuse it. Well, the town did write to him for help and he did nothing. The struggle is quite well documented and there's no record of opposition from Shakespeare. He may have doubted that the enclosers would succeed, but at best this means he sat at home with his guarantee while others made the resistance that was the only way to stop them. They were stopped for a time. The fields were not finally enclosed until 1775. Lear divided up his land at the beginning of the play, when he was arbitrary and unjust - not when he was shouting out his truths on the open common. EDWARD BOND, Introduction to Bingo [Methuen 1987] Both Lear and Gloucester realise that society's injustice demands attention. Their response is not egalitarian but paternalistic: the rich and powerful should make an imaginative identification with the poor and wretched and be charitable towards them. Shakespeare the man appears to have acted in direct opposition to the author of King Lear.