The Faulty Verdict in "The Crown v. John Hayward"

Abstract

In 1601, Queen Elizabeth threw Shakespeare's contemporary John Hayward in Tower for writing a seditious history of Richard II. Four years later, Hayward found employment as a history tutor to King James's son. He later wrote about one of his conversations with Prince Henry, noting how he cautioned prince against history writing; he told him that might safely write of others in maner of a tale, but in maner of a History, safely they could not: because, albeit they should write of men long since dead, and whose posteritie is cleane worne out; yet some alive, finding themselves foule in those vices, which they see observed, reproved, and condemned in others; their guiltinesse maketh them apt to conceive, that whatsoever words are, finger pointeth onely at them.' Hayward here warns prince of dangers of writing political history in which guilty readers might too easily believe that the finger pointeth onely at them. His own fortunes confirm his advice. In 1599, he published a prose history covering last years of King Richard II's reign and first year of King Henry IV's under rather misleading title The FYrst Part of Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII. His topic was a spectacular one, given Queen Elizabeth's well-known discomfort with representations of Richard II. Her frequently cited quip, I am Richard II, know ye not that? suggests contemporary association of queen with her deposed predecessor.2 While earl of Essex's rebellion offers most famous cou-