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Shakespeare’s audience included all levels of society, ranging from the educated aristocracy to the poor and illiterate “groundlings” who occupied the seats immediately in front of the stage. To appeal to such a heterogeneous group, the playwright created an equally wide roster of characters: royals and nobles, gentry and yeomen, thieves and bawds. Over the past centuries, most critical and audience attention understandably has focused on those characters from the upper class, who speak in sophisticated voices and seem to face issues of greater import. But Shakespeare’s attitude toward the great mass of people in the lower strata of society is also intriguing, for it is a curious amalgam of perspectives. He shows great sympathy for certain individuals of little social status, whom he presents as simple, honest folk standing in sharp relief to more cosmopolitan, powerful individuals who dictate the course of the day-to-day world. Yet when Shakespeare depicts hordes of untutored citizens or peasants trying to act in concert, he usually presents them as not only vulnerable to manipulation, but also potentially violent. Shakespeare’s audience included all levels of society, ranging from the educated aristocracy to the poor and illiterate “groundlings” who occupied the seats immediately in front of the stage. To appeal to such a heterogeneous group, the playwright created an equally wide roster of characters: royals and nobles, gentry and yeomen, thieves and bawds. Over the past centuries, most critical and audience attention understandably has focused on those characters from the upper class, who speak in sophisticated voices and seem to face issues of greater import. But Shakespeare’s attitude toward the great mass of people in the lower strata of society is also intriguing, for it is a curious amalgam of perspectives. He shows great sympathy for certain individuals of little social status, whom he presents as simple, honest folk standing in sharp relief to more cosmopolitan, powerful individuals who dictate the course of the day-to-day world. Yet when Shakespeare depicts hordes of untutored citizens or peasants trying to act in concert, he usually presents them as not only vulnerable to manipulation, but also potentially violent. Among those admirable, unpretentious figures Shakespeare offers is the Gardener in Richard II, who appears after the King has been removed from the throne by Henry Bullingbrook, soon to become Henry IV. At first, one of the Gardener’s subordinates questions the meaning of his own work: Why should we in the compass of a pale Keep law and form and due proportion, Showing as in a model our firm estate, When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds … (III, iv, 40–44) If the entire country is falling apart, queries this man, why should he, or anyone, maintain his duty? The Gardener has two replies. The first reflects Richard’s own negligence: Hold thy peace. He that hath suffered this disordered spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf. (III, iv, 47–49) The Gardener recognizes that the King himself must bear blame for the chaotic state into which England has fallen. Thus the Gardener articulates a faith in universal justice, the conviction that those who commit crimes inevitably pay the punishment. Second, the Gardener adds that in their own way, he and his men maintain the integrity of the country: Superfluous branches We lop away, that bearing boughs may live; Had he done so, himself had borne the crown, Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down. (III, iv, 63–66) Richard failed to sustain discipline among his followers and allowed the political system to slip into decay. The parallel thus becomes unmistakable between the garden and England itself. Both are living entities that must be nurtured. Neglect of responsibility, whether by a ruler or by a gardener, causes degeneration. In this brief scene, then, the Gardener becomes the embodiment of the English people, struggling to preserve their way of life and survive the political turmoil that besets their nation. An even more moving example of a single citizen caught up in the greater whirl around him is Feeble, the ladies’ tailor who faces military service in Henry IV, Part 2. From watching Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, we know that he allows richer citizens to bribe their way out of military service. Thus the forces he is ordered to supply turn out to be ragtag troops with no idea what the greater issues of the war might be, but who nonetheless are “pressed” into service. Here Falstaff asks of this befuddled recruit, whose name reflects his status and, we assume, his stature: Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy’s battle as thou has done in a woman’s petticoat? (III, ii, 153–155) Feeble answers simply: “I will do my good will, sir, you can have no more” (III, ii, 156). The straightfowardness of this reply stands in contrast to the convoluted reasonings that wealthier figures invoke to justify their fighting for one cause or another. Later, Feeble adds: By my troth I care not; a man can die but once, we owe God a death. I’ll ne’er bear a base mind. And’t be my dest’ny, so; and’t be not, so. No man’s too good to serve ’s prince, and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. (III, ii, 234–238) His dignity inspires comparison with Hamlet’s reflections on the fall of a sparrow before his climactic sword fight (V, ii, 219–224). Feeble may lack Hamlet’s capacity for introspection, but in the face of conflict and likely death, both men summon the same perspective. One great difference between the two, though, is that Hamlet has meditated on such issues for his whole life, while Feeble encounters them here for the first time. Nonetheless, Feeble’s directness, what we might even term a certain “nobility,” pierces through the bombast and hypocrisy that characterize so many operatives in the history plays. In addition, Feeble’s expression about owing “God a death” echoes Hal’s remark to Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 (V, i, 126), suggesting that wisdom may come from surprising sources. One more character from that world deserves comment. In Henry V, before the climactic battle of Agincourt, the King, perhaps seeking a return to his carefree days dramatized in Henry IV, Part 1 and 2 when he frequented the taverns with Falstaff, disguises himself and wanders through the camp of his troops. There he encounters three soldiers named Bates, Court, and Williams, whose views on war and death challenge the King’s own values. As the conversation begins, the King seeks reassurance that his policies have wide support: Methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honorable. (IV, i, 126–128) The word “honorable” is always suspect, as we shall consider in the chapter on “Honor.” Michael Williams, however, stands unimpressed: I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is in their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. (IV, i, 141–146) Throughout the play, Henry has tried to insist, both to himself and to everyone else, that by declaring war on the French he has not acted unilaterally, but has followed legal and religious sanction. Williams, however, does not permit the King to claim such a pose. In response, Henry offers an intricate series of arguments to justify how the King is not responsible for each man’s life, but still Williams refuses to relent (IV, i, 197–202). Frustrated, Henry finally challenges Williams to a duel, an action that diminishes the King, at least momentarily. Thus with just a few lines, Williams makes us wonder even more deeply about the nature of military conflict and the role of the soldier who stands torn between self-preservation and loyalty to his government. Hence the Gardener, Feeble, and Williams, all of whom have a brief time onstage, emerge as voices of reason and conscience. They also stand apart from the masses of people of similar rank, who are portrayed by Shakespeare in far less flattering terms. Consider the mob that follows the rebel Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part 2. When he moves to the fore, the English crown is almost literally up for grabs. Henry VI holds it, but because he is a Lancaster and the grandson of the usurper Henry IV, who deposed Richard II, Henry VI’s right to sit on the throne is under attack from the Yorks, who believe that in light of certain complicated laws of inheritance, they can legitimately claim the throne (see the chapter on “Divine Right”). As a result, the country is in the early stages of the Lancaster-York conflict, known subsequently as the War of the Roses. Cade himself is a charismatic leader, a distant relative of some of the Yorks. Nonetheless, his sporadic recitation of his family history (IV, ii, 39–44) puts the entire Lancaster-York conflict in an unpleasant light. We know that those nobles squabbling over the order of ancestry seek to maintain law. When, however, Cade shouts: “All the realm shall be in common” (IV, ii, 68), he invites the breakdown of the social structure. So does his cohort Dick the Butcher, who urges the oft-quoted: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” (IV, ii, 76). Cade and his followers unleash such savagery that they almost make us long for the machinations of Suffolk, York, and Queen Margaret. Cade’s followers first condemn a nameless clerk, ostensibly because he can read and write (IV, ii, 105–110). Then Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are brought in, and after the mob calls for their execution (IV, ii, 173), Cade reminds the audience where his values lie: “But then are we in order when we are most out of order” (IV, ii, 189–190). To Shakespeare’s listeners, for whom anarchy and the breakdown of gov ernmental structure was a paramount fear, Cade’s words could not be more distressing. Here is the threat that a mob poses, and it is a threat that Shakespeare makes painfully graphic. What follows is a series of brief scenes which reflect the chaos that ensues when a mob runs amok. A random soldier is killed simply for shouting Cade’s name (IV, vi, 7–8). Before Lord Say suffers the same punishment, Cade confesses his fear of intelligence in any quarter: The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders, unless he pays me tribute. (IV, vii, 119–121) He revels in blind acceptance by the mob. Yet Cade is hardly a fool. When Buckingham and Clifford, the King’s ambassadors, announce Henry VI’s willingness to pardon the rebels (IV, viii, 7–10) who cheer such news, Cade berates his followers: But you are all recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the nobility. (IV, viii, 27–28) Even one who has received such enthusiastic loyalty from the mob loses patience with their mindlessness. When the horde temporarily transfers allegiance back to Cade, only to switch again at Clifford’s urging, Cade mocks the fickleness which Shakespeare often ascribes to them: “Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude?” (IV, viii, 55–56). The manner of Cade’s death is appropriate, coming at the hands of Iden, another simple individual whose life is the antithesis of the unbridled ambition that characterizes so many in the play: I seek not to wax great by others’ [waning], Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy. (IV, x, 20–21) Yet even though Iden commits the murder, we can say that Cade dies at the hands of the commoners on whom he relied and who ultimately betray him. Even when the mob in Shakespeare’s plays does not actually turn violent, it must be flattered, for the threat of explosion is eternally present, and the politician who cannot work to soothe the masses faces trouble indeed. Richard II acknowledges that truth, when he comments about Bullingbrook, the man who threatens his throne: How he did seem to dive into their hearts With humble and familiar courtesy… (I, iv, 25–26) In his resentment of the strength of the people and his envy of an opponent with the skill to control them, Richard speaks for many rulers throughout literature and history. Shakespeare releases his full fury at the mob in his Roman plays, such as his late tragedy Coriolanus, as cynical a study of politics as he ever created. At the time when the play is set, approximately 490 B.C., Rome is a republic, but real power lies in the hands of a few. Nevertheless, any candidate for leadership must indulge the Roman version of rituals that are always intrinsic to political life. As the play opens, the masses mill about aimlessly, blaming their great general Martius for their lack of food. For instance, the First Citizen shouts: “Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price” (I, i, 10–11). As is usual in Shakespeare, the mob offers a simplistic solution to a complicated problem. The shrewd Menenius, however, as smooth a patrician and politician as Rome offers, diffuses their anger with the famous tale of the belly, a fable in which the aristocrats are symbolized by that organ, which devours what it needs, then distributes to the other parts. The mob is not remotely bothered by Menenius’s distortion of logic, for common sense would suggest that the ruling class should be pictured as the head of the body, not its chief consumer. Nonetheless, when Menenius concludes by referring to the First Citizen as “the great toe of the assembly” (I, i, 155), the merriment is intoxicating. Martius, though, lacks Menenius’s grace, and instead berates the crowd: He that will give good words to thee will flatter Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs, That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you, The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, Where he should find you lions, finds you hares; Where foxes, geese. (I, i, 167–172) His scorn proves prophetic. Martius, however, is not alone in his distrust of the great mass of citizens. Even their own representatives, Brutus and Sicinius, care little for the people whose interests they supposedly serve (II, i, 205–221). They anticipate the moment when Martius, now named “Coriolanus” in honor of his victory at Corioles, campaigns for the office of consul by revealing his wounds. As predicted, Coriolanus despises the overtly political gesture of flattering the voters: Think upon me? Hang ’em, I would they would forget me, like the virtues Which our divines lose by ’em. (II, iii, 56–58) When the electorate approaches, he adds: “Bid them wash their faces,/ And keep their teeth clean” (II, iii, 60–61). In his Roman plays, Shakespeare regularly uses the image of the mob’s stinking breath to characterize their general demeanor. The more Coriolanus is forced to campaign, the more he comes to hate the mob. We must regard his attitude with some suspicion, for we know that his mother, Volumnia, urges him to seek office. He despises everything she wants, yet so totally does she dominate him that he has no outlet but to follow the course she has set out. Thus we ask whether Coriolanus’s distaste for the people emerges from his own upbringing, or from the innate loathesomeness of those he seeks to rule. Perhaps the answer involves some combination of the two. Still, the masses are an ugly group, as they demonstrate when their spokesmen Brutus and Sicinius talk them into following this strategy: Lay A fault on us, your tribunes, that we labor’d (No impediment between) but that you must Cast your election on him. (II, iii, 226–229) Naturally the mob agrees, earning further abuse from Coriolanus, who accuses his fellow patricians of pandering: Thus we debase The nature of our seats and make the rabble Call our cares fears; which will in time Break ope the locks a’ th’ Senate, and bring in The crows to peck the eagles. (III, i, 135–139) Moments earlier he referred to them as “Hydra” (III, i, 93), invoking the mythological nine-headed beast slain by Hercules. We might think the judgment cruel, but later in the same scene the plebeians, goaded by Brutus and Sicinius, are ready to throw Martius off the Tarpeian rock, from where all who acted against the state were hurled to their death. Coriolanus eventually offers grudging apologies, but his attitude reverts quickly, and he resolves to take action on his own: You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate As reek a’ th’ rotten fens, whose love I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air—I banish you! (III, iii, 120–123) He does not escape, in fact, for in being true to his own behavior, he must fight somewhere, and thus he joins the army of his longtime enemy, Aufidius and the Volsces. Menenius first blames Sicinius and Brutus for Coriolanus’s defection: You have made fair hands, You and your crafts! You have crafted fair! (IV, vi, 117–118) But he also assaults the plebeians, who prove timidly hypocritical by insisting that they never wanted Coriolanus expelled (IV, vi, 139–145). However childish or maladjusted we judge Coriolanus to be, the mob is always worse. The manner of Coriolanus’s death is fitting. After his mother and wife fail to persuade him to rejoin Rome, Coriolanus finds himself muddled, unable to commit fully to anyone but himself. Still, the Volscean mob, like their Roman counterparts, initially cheer their new ally who had recently killed their children in war (V, vi, 51–63). But when the Volsces attack and Coriolanus tries to establish a peace that brings glory to both cities, Aufidius brands him a traitor, and the Volsces, ever fickle, recall his past conquests of them and join in the accusation. Within moments Coriolanus is killed: not by one man, but by the crowd. Perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous portrait of the mob is in Julius Caesar, where in some respects it may even be judged the central character, the one whom all the principals fear and to whom all the principals gear their actions. True, Rome of 44 B.C. is not a democracy. Yet its politicians understand that any individual who hopes to gain power must have the support of the people. Their unruliness is apparent in the first scene, as they ramble aimlessly while two tribunes, Murellus and Flavius, seek to rally popular support against Caesar. After the commoners exit, Flavius notes acidly: See whe’er their basest metal be not mov’d; They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. (I, i, 61–62) He recognizes how malleable they are. An equally cynical note is injected by the conspirator Casca, who describes the mob’s attitude after Caesar publically declined a crown: … the rabblement howted, and clapp’d their chopp’d hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and utter’d such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown, that it had, almost, chok’d Caesar… (I, iii, 244–248) The familiar image of the mob’s breath, in the context of such sneering, confirms the attitude that the politicians in this play have toward the masses whose support they must win. Even Caesar worries about their mood. When his wife, Calphurnia, relates her dream that shows the masses bathing in blood running from Caesar’s statue, he agrees that for her sake he will remain home from the Senate (II, ii, 71). However, at the mere suggestion by the conspirator Decius that the people will laugh if Caesar yields to his wife’s fears, the great general immediately changes his mind (II, ii, 105–107). The mob inspires that much fear. The most astonishing glimpse of the masses occurs after the assassination of Caesar, when first Brutus, then Antony, takes control in the Forum. Initially, the crowd responds to Brutus’s thin words about honor, but they do so in curious phrases. “Let him be Caesar” (III, ii, 51) shouts one, and “Caesar’s better parts/ Shall be crown’d in Brutus” (III, ii, 51–52) adds another. Despite Brutus’s hopes for them, the people do not seek freedom. They desire a ruler, an authority to set down laws and regulate lives. Thus the chaos of the play’s opening scene mirrors the community state of mind. Antony’s oration, however, leaves the crowd constantly off balance. In his opening lines, he stands over Caesar’s corpse and seems to accede to the mob’s immediate desires: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” (III, ii, 74). But immediately, and with apparent humility, Antony recreates scenes from Caesar’s life, simultaneously glorifying him and diminishing the stature of the men who killed him (III, ii, 87–103). Slowly the plebeians turn his way: “Methinks there is much reason in his sayings” (III, ii, 107), says one. The gambit of showing Caesar’s will drives the mob into a well-timed frenzy, for as they grow desperate to learn its contents, Antony claims that he does not mean to disclose any stipulations, then further entices them: “You are not wood, you are not stones, but men…” (III, iii, 142). Eventually he sends the crowd charging in one direction, then waves the parchment and with comic adroitness pulls them back: “You have forgot the will I told you of” (III, ii, 238). Antony’s most effective stroke, though, is bringing the mob around Caesar’s body, then holding up the ripped and bloody cloak, which was worn, Antony claims: “That day he overcame the Nervii” (III, ii, 173). He then graphically points to where each assassin’s knife supposedly entered Caesar’s body. He cannot, of course, know where and by whom individual blows were struck, but he conjures up a scenario of one blade after another ripping Caesar’s body, and with every stab the mob feels the blade within themselves. Caesar’s wounds become their own, and they quickly label the conspirators as “traitors” (III, ii, 255). Although Antony is brilliant, two lines reveal his icy detachment: Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot, Take what course thou wilt! (III, ii, 259–260) The mob, racing off to commit destruction and murder (III, ii, 254–261), is terrifying. The funeral oration is usually regarded as the climax of the play, but the brief scene that follows is the dramatic high point. It lasts only thirty-seven lines, but it is a fearful portrait of humankind reveling in savagery. In a moment that recalls the actions of Jack Cade’s followers against the clerk, the Roman people realize that Cinna the Poet is not the conspirator they seek, but kill him anyway (III, iii, 33–34). This scene is the mob’s final appearance, and therefore what remains with us is the montage of men running the streets like the “dogs of war” Antony invoked earlier (III, i, 273). The image carries over even to plays where the mob does not actually appear, but in which this sense of them looms. In Hamlet, for example, a messenger reports that Laertes, in fury over the death of his father, Polonius, and his sister, Ophelia, has aroused the rabble who “call him lord” (IV, v, 103). Claudius remains convinced that as King he can hold authority (IV, v, 124–126), and he does manage to diffuse Laertes’ threat, but the actions of the populace in support of Laertes affirms once more Shakespeare’s fear of mob rule. Throughout his plays, Shakespeare suggests that the brutish energy of the masses must be controlled by an authoritative government. Indeed, as the plebeians in Julius Caesar and Coriolanus suggest, the mob wants and needs control by an outside agent. True, Shakespeare demonstrates sympathy and respect for some of his humblest characters, but never does he let us forget that when individuals join in action, they may lose rationality, morality, and even their fundamental decency.

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