We’ve had many monarchs in English and British history. Nearly all of them have been married, some more than once.
Here’s part one of my series on consorts:
Matilda of Flanders
- Life: c. 1031-2nd November
- Reigned: 25th December 1066-2nd November 1083
- Spouse: William I (m. 1051/1052)
- Children: Nine, including William I and Henry I
- Parents: Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and Adela of France
- Origin: France
Early Life: Matilda of Flanders was born in roughly 1031 to Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and Adela of France. Baldwin was a descendent of Alfred the Great. It’s believed that Adela could be the woman who was married to William I’s uncle, though historians are unsure if it is her. She was also the daughter of Robert II of France. This meant that Matilda had an impeccable lineage.
We do not know much about Matilda’s early life beyond that she spent it in Lille, northern France. Her mother, the extremely devout Adela, taught her daughter.
Marriage and Children: Flanders was a key region of Europe and allied with many of the important players. This made Matilda an extremely eligible match. William of Normandy was a bastard whose legitimacy tainted his prosperity. Legend has it that Matilda told his envoy that she was too high born for a bastard. William reportedly, depending on which version you believe, either dragged her off of her horse or went to her house and hit her. Matilda was reportedly so moved by that passion that she decided she’d marry only him.
Pope Leo Ix refused to give permission as the pair were too closely related as fifth cousins. This did not dissuade them, and they married in around 1051/1052.
William and Matilda had a strong, loving relationship. Unlike many of his contemporary leaders, William never took a mistress. They worked well together and Matilda was instrumental in getting William on the throne of England. He was devastated by her death, which led to an increase in his authoritarian tendencies.
They had at least nine children, including future kings William II and Henry I. Their daughters either took the veil or had advantageous marriages.
Pre-Reign and Queenship: Matilda became the Duchess of Normandy upon marriage. She had all but one of her children there, with Henry being born in England. Matilda contributed to her husband’s attempts to gain the English throne. She purchased and paid for a lavish ship, designing it herself. William was said to be deeply touched by the move.
Matilda remained regent in Normandy as William settled in England following the Battle of Hastings. She proved a capable leader, with Normandy seeing no uprisings or rebellions under her care. It also became a flourishing centre for arts.
She arrived in England in 1068, where she was crowned in a lavish ceremony. William made sure to crown as Queen and not merely a consort, as had been the case up until that point. Her name was mentioned in official documents and the Church fully recognised her.
Matilda had many landholdings and was a very wealthy woman in her own right. She closely supervised the education of her children, all of whom were educated to the highest extent.
The marriage did hit a rough patch. Their son Robert had been furious at his father for taking his (Robert’s) deceased fiancée’s lands. Robert was further angered when William failed to punish his younger sons after a prank on him. After Robert nearly accidentally killed William in battle, he was exiled. A few years later, William discovered that Matilda had been sending Robert money. He was livid but Matilda managed to plead motherly affection and win him back. Matilda brokered a reconciliation between father and son in 1080.
Matilda died in late 1083. William was devastated. He never remarried- though he wouldn’t have needed to- and did not take any mistresses. It’s said that the loss of her good influence made him more tyrannical. She is buried in Normandy at a church not far from where her husband rests.
Personality: Matilda was a deeply intelligent individual in terms of both street smarts and academia. She ensured the education of her children and was by all accounts a very loving mother. Her relationship with her husband was a good one and she was his best counsel. Matilda’s courage and shrewdness made her a strong ally and callable leader. She was deeply pious, even for the time, and left a lot of money to the church and charity.
Legacy: Matilda is remembered as the first official Queen of England. Her pious nature led her to build many religious centres. Some used to believe she was involved in creating the Bayeux Tapestry, though historians discredit that. She’s the descendent of nearly all English and British monarchs.
Matilda of Scotland
- Life: 1080-1st May 1118
- Reigned: 11th November 1100-1st May 1118
- Spouse: Henry I (m.1110)
- Children: Empress Matilda and William Adelin
- Parents: Malcolm III of Scotland and Margaret of Wessex
- Origin: Scotland
Early Life: Matilda was born with the name Edith sometime in 1080. Edith’s parents were Malcolm III of Scotland and Margaret of Wessex. Malcolm ruled Scotland for thirty-five years, whilst the deeply intellectual Margaret would later be given a sainthood. At her christening, Edith pulled the headdress of her godmother, Matilda of Flanders. This was said to be an omen that Edith would one day be Queen.
Edith’s education was advanced for a woman at the time. She was a desirable match, but the strong-willed Edith refused many matches. Her parents had her betrothed to Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond, a man forty years her senior, when she was thirteen. The death of her parents and older brother saw Rufus run off to marry another. Her uncle took the throne and her brothers were sent to England for protection. It is likely that Edith stayed in England too.
Marriage and Children: When William II of England died in 1100, his brother Henry took the throne as William was childless. He wished to marry and to cement his stature, he wished to marry Edith. Edith was reportedly beautiful and they’d known each other for years. The only problem was that Edith had been raised in a convent and there was conjecture as to whether she’d been a nun or not. It had been her aunt Christina’s wish, but Edith refused. She told a commission that she’d only been veiled to protect from being raped by soldiers. Edith further said she’d stamped on her habit after being given it. It was eventually decided that Edith was free to marry.
Henry married Edith in November 1100. She changed her name to Matilda. Matilda-how I feel refer to her from now on- and Henry had two children who lived past infancy. They were Matilda and William (original naming).
The pair seemed to have a happy marriage, despite Henry’s many, many illegitimate children. This was the norm for the time and it seems that Matilda chose to ignore it.
Queenship: Matilda was a learned Queen who served as a regent when her husband was away-which was often. She was a huge patron of the arts and made her home of Westminster a hub of music and literature. Matilda was also deeply religious, maybe even more so than her mother, and charitable. She commissioned hospitals, churches, schools and other public works. Matilda would wash the feet of the poor and kiss the hands of the ill.
As was custom for the time, Matilda helped find strong marriages for her children. She had her daughter Matilda married off to Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1114. William was engaged to Matilda of Anjou in 1113 and would be married when they were old enough.
Matilda died in May 1118, her husband by her side. Henry mourned the loss, but had to remarry after the death of his son.
Personality: Matilda had a strong personality, as evidenced by her fight to be able to marry instead of being kept as a nun. She was extremely intelligent and devout. It seemed that she was trusted enough to be regent when her husband was often away and she had an active role.
Legacy: Matilda is most remembered for being a devout Christian who funded public works and charity. Many suggested that she be canonized but this never happened. Matilda was used as an excuse by King Stephen to deny her daughter the chance at being Queen, as he argued that she’d been a nun and thus not eligible for marriage.
Adeliza of Louvain
- Life: c.1103-1151
- Reigned: 24th January 1121-December 1135
- Spouse(s): Henry I (m. 1121), William d’Aubigny (m.1138)
- Children: Seven with William d’Aubigny
- Parents: Godfrey, Count of Louvain and Ida of Ching
- Origin: Belgium
Early Life: Adeliza of Louvain was born in around 1103 to Godfrey, Count of Louvain and Ida of Ching. Very little is known about her early life beyond the fact she was reportedly extremely beautiful. Her nickname was ‘The Fair Maiden of Brabant.’ Through her father, she was a descendent of Charlemagne. She may have been well-educated as she knew French, this was not the language of her home.
Marriage: In 1120, Henry I lost his only legitimate son William. He needed an heir and wished to marry Adeliza due to her beauty and heritage. The two wed in January 1121.
Their marriage produced no children, though Adeliza would have children with her second husband. Henry and Adeliza likely had a good marriage as they were always together. She was not, however, at his deathbed in France.
Queenship: Adeliza was not political like her predecessor, but was a huge patron of the arts. She pushed for French literature, making it popular among the nobles of Europe. Henry gave her generous dower lands which allowed her to live in wealth.
Post-Queenship: Henry died in 1135, leaving Adeliza as a widow. She lived in her dower lands as the Anarchy started to unfold. In her widowhood, Adeliza was a proponent of religious charity and commissioned many buildings for the Church. She also remembered Henry and took care of his memorial.
Adeliza was living in an abbey when she was proposed to by William d’Aubigny. His family were minor nobility so the marriage was not too much of a challenge. The pair had seven children together and were ancestors of two of Henry VIII’s wives. Her husband William was a staunch supporter of Stephen, but Adeliza quietly supported Matilda, with whom she had a good relationship. It was only after Stephen threatened the family that Adeliza was forced to lure Matilda into a trap. She did ensure that Matilda could safely leave.
In 1150, Adeliza entered a monastery. This is unusual as she was still married with children. Records indicate she died a year later.
Personality: We know little of Adeliza beyond the fact she was uninterested in politics but enjoyed art. She seemed to be a good stepmother.
Legacy: Adeliza is oft-forgotten due to her lack of politics and not being the mother of a monarch. She is an ancestor of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, however, so she did manage to have a say in the royal lineage many years down the line.
Geoffrey of Anjou
- Life: 24th August 1113-7th September 1151
- Reigned: (Disputed) 1141-1148
- Spouse: Empress of Matilda (m.1128)
- Children: Three legitimate, including Henry II
- Parents: Fulk, King of Jerusalem and Ermengarde, Countess of Maine
- Origin: France
Early Life: Geoffrey of Anjou was born on the 24th August 1113. His father Fulk would become King of Jerusalem upon his second marriage to Melisende of Jerusalem’. Geoffrey had three younger siblings and two younger-half siblings. His sister Matilda was the widow of his brother-in-law William. As a young man, Geoffrey was handsome and loved sports and hunting.
Marriage: Aware of the fact that he likely wasn’t going to have any more legitimate sons, Henry I of England needed his daughter Matilda to marry and have heirs. Anjou had been an ally since William had married Geoffrey’s sister Matilda. In 1128, Geoffrey and Matilda married.
Their marriage was not a happy one. Matilda was a decade older than Geoffrey and felt that marrying a Count was beneath her, as her previous husband had been an emperor. They were both strong-willed and independent people who liked to get their own way. Geoffrey would have bastards.
They had three sons together: Henry, Geoffrey and William. The latter two would die fairly young.
Pre-Reign and Consort: As Count of Anjou, Geoffrey was in charge of the state. He put down several rebellions. In 1135, his father-in-law finally died. Some states submitted to Matilda and accepted her reign, but the English nobles chose her cousin Stephen (eldest living nephew of Henry I). This was for two reasons- the fact that Matilda was a woman and the fact that they didn’t particularly like her husband.
During his contested consortship, Geoffrey fought in Normandy whilst Matilda headed to England. He did make headway but was bogged down, leaving him no time to assist his wife in England. Geoffrey was endlessly putting down rebellions and eventually gave Normandy to his eldest son Henry.
Geoffrey died suddenly at the age of 38. He is buried in Les Mans.
Personality: Geoffrey was outwardly affable and charming, with a love for merriment and sports. He could be very cold and his strong personality made him clash with his wife. Geoffrey was nonetheless very loyal to Matilda, though one would argue that gaining the crown would be more of a benefit to him.
Legacy: Along with Lord Guildford Dudley, Geoffrey is one of two disputed consorts. He is often not included in historical rankings or is least not classed as a consort. His son Henry would live on as king, meaning that Geoffrey is an ancestor of many monarchs.
Matilda of Boulogne:
- Life: c.1105-3rd May 1152
- Reigned: 22nd December 1135-3rd May 1152
- Spouse: Stephen (m.1125)
- Children: Five, including Eustace
- Parents: Eustace III, Count of Boulogne and Mary of Scotland
- Origin: France
Early Life: Matilda of Boulogne was born around 1105 to Eustace III, Count of Boulogne and Mary of Scotland. She was their only child, which was unusual for the period. Her mother Mary was the sister of Matilda of Scotland, consort to Henry I and mother of the Empress Matilda.
Extraordinarily little is known about Matilda’s early life beyond the fact she was betrothed to Stephen aged two and was educated in convents.
Marriage and Children: Matilda and Stephen married in 1125. The two enjoyed an extremely happy marriage, with Stephen taking no mistresses nor bearing any illegitimate children. They had a mutual love and respect for one another.
The pair had five children, three of whom would later rule Boulogne. Eustace was the eldest son and heir to Stephen until the Treaty of Wallingford saw him displaced.
Pre-Reign and Queenship: The first ten years of marriage were relatively peaceful, with the couple often visiting England. All that changed in 1135 upon the death of Henry I. Whilst Matilda waited to claim the throne, Stephen immediately jumped into action and headed to England.
The Anarchy would see Matilda and Stephen often parted. When it came to war, Matilda proved to be a surprisingly excellent leader and tactician. She often came to her husband’s aid with troops. Matilda forged an alliance with her uncle, David I of Scotland, before allying with France through the marriage of Stephen to the king’s sister Constance.
Upon hearing of her husband’s capture, Matilda begged her cousin for his release but was refused. Her army then forced the Empress out of London. It was after she captured Matilda’s extremely loyal half-brother that a prisoner exchange finally happened.
The war dragged on until 1147, when the Empress Matilda returned from Normandy. There was a stalemate at this point and no side had declared victory. Stephen acted as king. Meanwhile, Matilda enjoyed widespread popularity. She was admired for her steadfast dedication to her husband, her bravery, courage and intelligence. Contemporary chroniclers said that she had a man’s heart in a woman’s body. Stephen always listened to her counsel.
Matilda died fairly suddenly in spring 1152 whilst staying in Essex. Stephen was not there at the time. One can assume he was devastated. They are buried together at Faversham Abbey, Kent.
Personality: Matilda was one of medieval Europe’s most brilliant women. Not only was she an extremely loyal spouse, but she was also a talented leader and soldier. She was on the frontlines during the war and was key in several victories. Her love for her husband was evident, as was his love for her. Contemporary citizens loved Matilda and held her up as an ideal woman.
Legacy: Despite the fact her children never ruled England, three would rule Boulogne. Her daughter Marie and granddaughter Ida would be Countesses of Boulogne in their own right, not forced to share power with their husbands. As Henry II was her cousin’s son, Matilda is an ancestor of many of our monarchs.
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Dostoevsky’s Answer to the Problem of Evil: A Lenten Reflection
Having tackled the growing hydra of socialist radicalism through his previous major novels, Fyodor Dostoevsky set out in The Brothers Karamazov to address what he saw as the fountainhead of the mid-century Russian ideological shifts: the loss of faith in the the gospel and in the Orthodox Church as the means established by Christ to display that gospel to the nations.
To be sure, Dostoevsky saw this loss of faith primarily in the upper-class intelligentsia and the later populist youth. The former, the Westernizers of the 1940s-60s whom Dostoevsky pilloried in everything from Notes from Underground to The Devils, had intended to enlighten the peasant class—part of which involved relieving them of their superstitious belief in Christ’s divinity and Christian morality. The latter generation of 1870s Populists broke from the amoral nihilism of that generation (in no small part due to Crime and Punishment and The Devils) and instead venerated the peasants’ simple way of life and native morality; however, refusing to acknowledge their source in Christ and the Russian Orthodox Church, the populists still maintaining secular aims.
Dostoevsky’s response to both groups was to advocate a return to the fullness of the faith in Orthodoxy, which could satisfy all needs of the human individual, both physical and transcendent. However, having previously been a radical himself, Dostoevsky was ever willing to pursue this goal through a conciliatory approach, especially if he might thereby rescue some readers from the contradictions and potential disasters of radicalism. He does this in The Brothers Karamazov by taking seriously a primary objection to Christianity: the problem of evil.
Ivan Karamazov: The Problem of Evil
He articulates the problem of evil through Ivan Karamazov. In Book Five, Chapter V, “The Grand Inquisitor,” Ivan follows up his description in the previous chapter of the senseless abuse of children (all gathered by Dostoevsky from real-life newspaper stories) to his little brother Alyosha, a would-be priest, with the one of the most famous stories-within-a-story in world literature. These chapters, according to Dostoevsky’s letters, are among the most important in the novel. They lay out the problem of evil and its refutation—through a parallel story-within-a-story: Book VI, The Russian Monk, which presents the life and sayings of the local monastery elder Fr. Zosima, compiled by Alyosha long after the novel’s events.
Acknowledging himself as no philosopher—to say nothing of his being an Eastern Orthodox Christian, who generally eschew Western theory-forward approaches in favor of ascetical practice and theosis as proof of the faith—Dostoevsky does not merely present logical arguments for or against Ivan’s atheism. (Indeed, one of the greatest aspects of this self-proclaimed atheist is that it is debatable whether Ivan believes his own professed atheism. He often waffles in, and at times regrets, his stance and, like Dostoevsky’s previous protagonists, is horrified upon seeing his stated beliefs actually lived out by Smerdyakov. Furthermore, Ivan often fits less the title of Enlightenment philosophe and more that of Romantic hero in protest against an unjust God whom he nonetheless believes in.) Rather, Dostoevsky addresses Ivan’s problem with evil not with a matching argument and polemical story, but with the life of a saint.
Fr. Zosima: A Holy Life
In Book VI, The Russian Monk, Dostoevsky breaks from the novelistic form and uses, instead, the mystical, timeless mode of hagiography. Because it is ordered by a moral message rather than causal events or their concomitant psychological elements, such a mode has struck many critics as dismissable, being unrealistic or simply jinned up. Dostoevsky acknowledges this in a letter to Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the Russian Orthodox Church’s representative in the Tsar’s cabinet: “Something completely opposite to the world view expressed earlier appears in this part, but again it appears not point by point but so to speak in artistic form. And that is what worries me, that is, will I be understood and will I achieve anything of my aim?”
Nonetheless, by answering the problem of evil with a holy life lived in spite of evil, he tells his assistant editor, Dostoevsky intends to show “that a pure, ideal Christian is not something abstract, but graphically real, possible, standing before our eyes, and that Christianity is the only refuge from all its ills for the Russian land,” and, presumably, for those of the rest. In short, Dostoevsky answers the world’s evil with holiness—with the saints alive in every generation of Orthodoxy that allow the Church to call itself “Holy” in the Nicene Creed and by whose theotic prayers and actions it redeems a fallen world.
The Russian Monk, however, goes beyond merely presenting one exception to evil. Contrary to the atheist-materialist-socialist arguments (then and now) that people and their actions are merely effects of environment, Dostoevsky maintains that part of the image of God in man is an inalienable individual moral agency. Thus, the redemption shown in Fr. Zosima’s story is available to all. Far from presenting merely one anecdote, The Russian Monk transforms all characters in The Brothers Karamazov into potential likenesses of Christ and His redemption of the world.
As Nathan Rosen argues, this opposite pole of “The Grand Inquisitor” defends the faith not through rational argument but through aesthetic fullness—by presenting a man who embodies in his own life the story and truth of Job. According to Rosen and other sympathetic critics, Zosima’s story, “is the literary equivalent of a precious hallowed old church icon,” and as such it renders the rest of the novel, broadly, and Alyosha’s path, specifically, into the realm of iconography—the tradition that, following Christ’s being the first Icon of God the Father, reveals the truth of the gospel through aesthetic incarnation.
Grushenka: Dostoevsky’s Magdalene
And, yet, at the time of the novel’s events, Alyosha is not as sanguine as the later Alyosha who recorded Fr. Zosima’s life. Indeed, between his conversation with Ivan (and the discovery of his own unsuspected resentment of God it revealed) and Fr. Zosima’s non-miraculous death*, his faith is quite shaken. He is, thus, primed for either a full loss of faith or a restoration in the chapters preceding “Cana of Galilee,” which Dostoevsky describes to his assistant editor as “the most significant [chapter] in the whole book.”
Having felt his faith shaken by Ivan’s “poem” and the circumstances of Fr. Zosima’s death, Alyosha reverts to the way of life he knows to be native to himself as a Karamazov: sensual degradation. Agreeing to go with the atheist student Rakitin (who’s just been wishing to trip up Alyosha so he might gloat) to the home of his father and eldest brother’s paramour, Agrafena “Grushenka” Svetlova, Alyosha intends to…do whatever Dostoevsky’s readers might infer from the author’s 19th-century understatement.
Grushenka immediately catches the mood and starts to flirt with the boy. Any other time she would have been more than willing to get her claws in yet another Karamazov male—especially the one who, by his purity, represents the moral opposite of her supposed fallenness. Although she conceals some secret joy altogether different from her vengeful persona of seduction, Grushenka begins to play the harlot she knows Alyosha considers her to be. “She suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like a nestling kitten, with her right arm around his neck. ‘I’ll cheer you up, my pious boy.’”
And, yet, far from falling to her ways, Alyosha discovers that Fr. Zosima’s teaching was not altogether without fruit. “This woman, this ‘dreadful’ woman, had no terror for him now, none of that terror that had stirred in his soul at any passing thought of woman.” Furthermore, he soon learns that the joy hidden beneath her flirtation springs from the recent discovery that the man who had seduced and abandoned her as a teenager is returning, and that she is willing to forgive him.
This turn of events has emptied her impulse to reduce Alyosha to her fallen position. “It’s true, Alyosha, I had sly designs on you before, for I am horrid, violent, but at other times I’ve looked upon you, Alyosha, as my conscience…I sometimes look at you and feel ashamed, utterly ashamed of myself.” No doubt this shame had driven her late desire to cause Alyosha’s fall.
However, just as Ivan’s description of the suffering of children primed the way for the denial of Christ in “The Grand Inquisitor,” Grushenka’s act of forgiveness for being seduced as a young girl is the prelude to her—and Alyosha’s—redemption. For, after overthrowing nearly a decade of resentment in the name of forgiveness and reconciliation, Grushenka finally learns of the death of Fr. Zosima. “She crossed herself devoutly. ‘Goodness, what have I been doing, sitting on his knee like this at such a moment!’ She started up as though in dismay, instantly slipped off his knee and sat down on the sofa.”
Witnessing such an immediate response of reverence begins the restoration of Alyosha’s faith. To Rakitin, who is still proud of having delivered Alyosha to Grushenka, Judas-like, for 25 rubles, Alyosha says, “look at her—do you see how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul—I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I’ve found a true sister, I have found a treasure—a loving heart. She had pity on me just now…Agrafena Alexandrovna, I am speaking of you. You’ve raised my soul from the depths.”
The paired forgiveness and reverence of Grushenka, the person Alyosha least expected to show such things, provides the miracle he was waiting for: the manifestation of Fr. Zosima after death. For, besides her forgiveness of the officer, in fearing what effect her own seductiveness might have had on Alyosha Grushenka displays Zosima’s core message. Assuming one’s own moral responsibility—not merely for one’s actions, but, according to Fr. Zosima, for all men’s actions—is the whole means of acquiring the likeness of Christ, and Alyosha sees Grushenka, of all people, practice it.
From the Orthodox perspective, in thus fulfilling her innate human image of God with behavior according with His likeness, Grushenka has become a living icon, as Christ, the first Icon, had been. Grushenka’s is the miracle of a Magdalene conversion, manifested before Alyosha’s eyes, and it primes him for his own symbolic incarnation of Fr. Zosima’s—and the unnamed Christ’s—message, spirit, and way of life in the climactic next chapter.
Alyosha: A Living Icon
Ultimately, each reader must decide for him or herself whether Dostoevsky’s answer to the problem of evil, indeed, answers it. Many critics have considered Ivan’s objection to Christianity insurmountable. Leaving aside possible confirmation bias in such academic interpretation, things are, admittedly, not helped by the response’s seeming so obscure—even arguably interrupting—especially to Western audiences that have generally foregone monasticism, iconography, and veneration of saints since the Reformation and subsequent Enlightenment.
However, the true answer to evil, according to The Brothers Karamazov, is not a simple one-and-done response provoking a change of mind (though Alyosha’s realization in “Cana of Galilee” of the Orthodox sacramental view of creation involves just that). Rather, it is a disposition and way of life depicted first through Fr. Zosima, then the redeemed Grushenka, and finally through a not much older but very much wiser Alyosha, who through the rest of the book follows his Elder’s direction in living out the gospel in the real world, amidst but not stifled by its temptations and evils.
And, indeed, when Alyosha meets the fourteen-year-old self-described radical, Kolya, who both parodies Ivan and represents a serious ideological influence on his younger friends, he is unperturbed. Doing what Dostoevsky hoped, himself, to do with The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha redirects the good-hearted youth’s radicalism into a simple and more impactful Christlike love of the least of these—specifically, the smallest, Ilyusha—and he manifests the humble confidence and tranquility not merely of his former elder, but of Christ and His sacramental life.
*It was considered a proof of a holy man’s life that his body did not decompose post mortem; the lack of such incorruptibility in Fr. Zosima leads Alyosha to doubt whether, as Ivan has lately denied, a God of justice exists. Ironically, by expecting a grandiose miracle to meet his spiritual crisis, Alyosha discovers that he is little better than those described by Ivan in “The Grand Inquisitor” who are too weak for the moral freedom (and responsibility) inherent in Christianity. It also reveals Alyosha’s desire to defer his moral responsibility (an antiChristian impulse in Dostoevsky) to the holy man’s direction.
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Petty Nuisance: The Cure to Modern England (Magazine Excerpt)
From an aesthetic, or mannerism perspective, gentlemen had indeed almost entirely perished from the Isles. But the idea that no one should be seen confronting anyone, and a stiff upper lip must be kept at all times had passed onto generations after generations well and intact. But does a combination of that and an increasingly restrictive legal system means nothing can ever be done to rescue Great Britain from its managed decline?
Not really. But the struggle needs to start small, tiny first steps to ease everyone out of the mindset of being a ‘gentleman’.
Unfortunately, if you started pushing over idle motorcycles on your local taxi ranks and smashing windows on your local ‘souvenir shop’, you won’t last long until your own people (yes, your own people) will start reporting you to the KGB (Komitet-Gosudarstvennoy-Bezopasnosti Great Britain), and the government WILL be on your opposition’s side.
What you need to do what some may call a ‘petty nuisance’, completely within the boundaries of law. Or rather, practicing your rights to its maximum, and making the ENEMY’s life harder – cross a zebra crossing just as a Deliveroo rider or a matte-black tinted-window Range Rover arrives so they will have to stop, if they don’t, make them, it is YOUR right! There are much more ways to do this, the sky really is the limit.
Be an active petty nuisance to your enemy, this is your last resistance to those who are invading your life. It may sound humble, perhaps futile, but it keeps the spirit of resistance awake, reminds you that this is still an active struggle, it kills the gentlemanly mindset to give in, to compromise, it keeps a little bit of that fire alive. You will find yourself fighting back more and more as you become more and more comfortable with it. And eventually, perhaps hoping, you will find yourself winning, in this petit crusade, fought with petty nuisance.
This is an excerpt from “Nuclear”.
To continue reading, visit The Mallard’s Shopify.
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Dark Humor for the Red King: The Drunk Porter in Macbeth
“Knock, knock—who’s there?”
Whenever one of my tutorial students is assigned (or, let’s be honest, barely mentions) Macbeth, I go into a certain and by now well-rehearsed tangent on how Shakespeare’s arguably darkest play contains one of the most peculiar scenes in his canon—and the origin of what is now considered a passe pretext to employ a bad pun, the knock-knock joke. Mentioning that last part usually lands me at least a few minutes of fleeting teenage attention, wherein I talk about everything from Shakespeare, to dark humor, to how Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy produced one of our lightest joke forms.
Of course, the knock-knock joke, as we know it, owes less to Shakespeare than to the innovation of 1930s English radio host Wee Georgie Wood, with his turning the Porter’s words into his catch phrase of “knock, knock, who’s there?” By the middle of the Great Depression, when the average Joe and Jane were presumably in need of an easy laugh, the joke form was sufficiently popular in the US that a Columbus, OH, theater’s contest for the best knock-knock jokes was “literally swamped” with entries (I’m sure the $1 cash prize didn’t hurt the contest’s popularity). The popularity of the supposedly low-humor knock, knock joke amidst the depression (both economic and psychological) may not owe anything directly to Shakespeare, but I do think it relates back to the original Porter scene, which is the main subject of this article.
My purpose here is not to provide a definitive reading of the Porter’s monologue, nor to ultimately solve the puzzle of what, exactly, the scene is doing in the play; better scholarship is available for those interested than the motes I will, nonetheless, offer here. My aim is to consider what Shakespeare’s following arguably the least justified regicide in his canon with a comical drunk can tell us about humor’s role in helping people navigate tragedy. And, if it sheds light on why knock, knock jokes (or other seemingly low, tactless, or dark forms of humor) may grow especially popular in uncertain times, so much the better.
“Here’s a knocking indeed!”
Macbeth Act 2 Scene 3
[Knocking within. Enter a Porter.]
PORTER Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were
porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the
key.
The lone on-stage partaker in the carousing at King Duncan’s visit to Inverness, the drunken Porter is one of the play’s few examples of plebians not directly connected with the nobility. However, unlike Hamlet’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Porter remains, like a latter day Falstaff, insulated against the intrigue that surrounds him by drink, imagination, and low jokes.
Brought onstage by the knocking of MacDuff and Lennox (as if in ironic answer to Macbeth’s present wish that Duncan might wake), the Porter shows that, like Macbeth, he has a very active imagination. In fact, since Coleridge’s dismissal and omission of the scene as an inauthentic interpolation, many 20th-century critical readings have safely secured it back in its rightful place by pointing out, among other things, the Porter’s not merely contrasting but paralleling his master. Presumably rudely awakened and hungover, he fancies himself the porter of Hell and in the employ of a devil. Of course, the supreme irony throughout the scene involves his ignorance of how close to the truth his fantasy comes.
(Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’
th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged
himself on th’ expectation of plenty. Come in time! 5
Have napkins enough about you; here you’ll sweat for ’t.
The Porter imagines admitting three denizens, each of whom, scholars have noted, can stand as a metaphor for Macbeth and his actions. The first imagined entrant is a farmer who, having hoarded grain in expectation of a shortage, hangs himself at the price drop produced by a surplus. As the play, if not the tragic genre, itself, is about the ends not aligning with expectation, the image of the farmer of course foreshadows the results of Macbeth’s betting too much on the Weird Sisters’ presentiments. Although in the end it is Lady Macbeth who commits suicide, Macbeth’s language near the end becomes more fatalistic the more vulnerable he gets, with his final fight with the prophesied MacDuff amounting to arguable suicide (to see an excellent rendition of the swap of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s psychologies by play’s end, see Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth—and my review of it). Adding to the irony of the scene is the fact that, according to Christopher Jackson, Shakespeare, himself, was an investor in and hoarder of grain against shortages. One wonders how many times he had thought of the image before writing this scene—and if he smirked while employing it.
(Knock.) Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’
other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator
that could swear in both the scales against either
scale, who committed treason enough for God’s 10
sake yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in,
equivocator.
Next in the Porter’s fantasy is an equivocator, one whose ambiguous use of language can help him with earthly scales but not heavenly. Historicist critics point to this moment as an allusion to the Jesuit father Henry Garnet, executed in 1605 for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot (to which 1606’s Macbeth can be read as a reaction). In his trial, Garnet was criticized for equivocating to keep from revealing details of the plot without explicitly lying; he was subsequently hanged, drawn, and quartered in May 1606.
While said reference is informative, if nothing else, about Shakespeare’s possible view of the Gunpowder Plot (unsurprising to anyone who knows what happens to regicides in his canon), one’s reading should not stop there. The Porter’s landing an equivocator in Hell points, again, to the play’s titular character. It should be remembered that before he commits the play’s central tragic act, Macbeth goes through a rigorous process of thought to spur himself to the deed, often playing on or completely omitting language—that is, equivocating—to justify the assassination (which, as a word, is first used in English in his “If it were done when ‘tis done” speech in I.7; not carrying the weight it does today, the coinage was an example of Macbeth distancing himself from the reality of the murder).
Furthermore, the Porter’s focus on equivocators here and later in the scene (he displays some comic equivocation of his own on the virtues and dangers of drink, unknowingly stalling MacDuff and Lennox long enough for Macbeth and Lady M. to cover up Duncan’s murder) foreshadows Macbeth’s beginning “To doubt the equivocation” of the Weird Sisters’ prophecy about Birnam Wood’s coming to Dunsinane (V.5). Indeed, the infernal dangers of ambiguous language (or of trusting one’s initial interpretation thereof) constitute one of the play’s primary themes. Among other things, Macbeth’s pointing this out establishes a further parallel between the Porter and himself.
(Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s
there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for
stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor. Here
you may roast your goose.
The last of the Porter’s imagined wards has landed in Hell for cheating English courtiers while providing them with French fashion; whether he played on his customers ignorance of how much the new fancies cost or whether Shakespeare—err, the Porter—is making a joke about French fashion being worthy of eternal damnation, I’ll decline to decide. Perhaps both readings (or one I’m missing entirely) are meant, offering sympathetic humor to both courtiers who have been gulled with exaggerated prices and to the commons who might enjoy a good skewering of the foppish trends of their betters. The dual metaphor of the roasted goose—referring both to a tailor’s hot iron called a “goose” and to the idiom “his goose is cooked”—continues the play’s theme regarding the dangers of trying to succeed through proscribed means, besides adding to the dramatic irony of the Porter’s describing his own boss’s trajectory.
(Knock.) Knock, knock! 15
Never at quiet.—What are you?—But this place is
too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further. I had
thought to have let in some of all professions that go
the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire. (Knock.)
Anon, anon!
The Porter, like Macbeth, seems to have an imagination as limitless as it is abysmal—such that he could presumably find a place in it for individuals of all professions. Also like his master, he fantasizes about a position higher (or, rather, lower) than he currently holds. That he stops not for lack of imagination but for the prosaic physical discomfort of being cold contrasts with how Macbeth eventually gives up all comforts in trying to achieve the crown. However, even here he parallels Macbeth, as both are ultimately unable to keep reality—whether the cold or the vengeance of the prophesied MacDuff—from interrupting their fantasies.
And yet, that the Porter identifies Inverness, itself, as too cold to sufficiently imagine Hell is, itself, a possible nod to the, under James I, verboten Catholic-Thomistic-Aligherian view of Hell’s lowest levels as being the frozen lake of traitors. However, Shakespeare skates past the Protestant censors, for it is not Hell the Porter is describing, but Scotland, and at its center at the very moment preceding this scene is not Satan, or the traitors Judas, Brutus, or Cassius, but Macbeth—who is, of course, all of these.
“…it provokes and unprovokes…”
But why does the Playwright link the worst regicide in his canon to a comic scene? Of course, as I mention above, plot-wise the Porter stalls the discovery of the play’s central crime. Furthermore, thematically the Porter both contrasts and mirrors Macbeth, which in different eras has been interpreted as alternatively demonizing the latter by the monologue’s subject and humanizing him by stressing a congruence with the common man.
The impropriety of the scene—joking about souls lately gone to Hell, when the unshriven Duncan, himself, has just entered the afterlife—highlights the very tension from which the Jacobean audience may have needed relief. As has been pointed out, an assassination plot against James I and Parliament had just the year before been foiled. Moreover, set in a medieval context where the death of a monarch had cosmic repercussions, the choice to distance the focus from the play’s main action may have been meant to increase the suspense—here, not merely the suspense before an expected surprise, but also the chaotic metaphysical suspension between monarchs—rather than comically relieve it. And this is assuming the comic relief does not fail due to its utter tactlessness, or to a high number of Malvolios in the audience determined to see the scene as an interruption of the play’s sombre pathos.
And yet, even being outraged by dark humor accomplishes the humor’s possible goal of helping one navigate a tragedy. For that is what I believe this scene—and most dark humor—is meant to accomplish: facilitate the audience’s psychological survival of the author’s darkest tragedy. Both inappropriate laughter and rage at impropriety—and even confusion about the scene’s strangeness—are preferable to the despair that leads eventually to Macbeth’s nihilism and Lady Macbeth’s suicide.
The Porter is not a good guy; indeed, his humor, like Falstaff’s, inheres in his being disreputable. Similarly, the scene is not openly funny, nor does it offer any kind of saccharine “everything will be alright” triteness. I, myself, am not satisfied to read it the way the play at large has conventionally been interpreted, as an implicit promise that divine justice will prevail and Macbeth will get his comeuppance like the farmer, equivocator, and tailor do; there are too many questions about Scotland’s future left unsatisfied by play’s end to settle on such a reading, just as there are arguably as many parallels between Macbeth and the play’s hero MacDuff as between Macbeth and the Porter. Rather, the scene’s salutary power paradoxically lies in its pushing the horror of Duncan’s murder even farther—by joking about souls lately knocking at Hell’s gate, with the Porter standing in as a kind of anti-St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. In so doing, the Porter scene lampoons the Macbeths’ expectation that they can somehow cheat fate, and his scene, more than the one before it, foreshadows the trend of the rest of the play.
As with the subtext of other examples of ironic humor, the Porter is not mocking the sympathetic Duncan, but implicitly commiserating with him and other victims of fate, fortune, or perfidy. By following Macbeth’s crime with a drunken Porter utterly disconnected from it who, nonetheless, perfectly names and exagerrates the themes involved, Shakespeare subsumes the play’s tragic act into the absurd, at least for a moment—and a moment is all that’s needed. By pointing out the reality of the play’s horror while safely containing it within a hyperbolically ironic, almost Chaucerian, tableaux, Shakespeare sets the standard for how well-placed instances of low and dark humor—from knock-knock jokes to self-deprication to suicide memes—can help contextualize tragedy, depression, and trauma in manageable ways.
One might balk (quite rightly) at the idea of telling a joke right after a tragedy like the assassination of a beloved king, considering it too soon and not the time for humor, but Shakespeare? Apparently he thought that was exactly when to employ humor—especially of a certain darker yet therapeutic type. It’s taken a few centuries, but scientific studies, so far as they go, have caught up with and confirmed Shakespeare’s using such humor as a way to help his audiences regulate their emotions in his plays’ more dreadful moments. Far be it from us to censure what the Playwright thought within the pale—and how dare we dismiss even the humble knock, knock joke as anything but profound and, sometimes, just what we need.
