As we said in class, Shakespeare references many contemporaries in his plays. So that raises the question: who’s Gertrude really?
In the play, she’s the controversial figure who marries her brother-in-law and her husband’s murderer. In real life…well, just like the character herself, that’s not so clear. Some critics have even raised the question: did Gertrude perhaps conspire with Claudius to kill Hamlet Sr.? (Maybe, probably, not, but it’s an interesting theory to consider.)
Wikipedia describes Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, as “the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I's, from her first year on the throne until his death. He was a suitor for the queen's hand for many years.” He eventually married a woman named Lettice, whose son was the Earl of Essex. Now, this was a somewhat controversial move by Lettice, because, well, Leicester was kiiind of suspected to have killed her husband. Oops!
And then we’re also familiar by now with Mary, Queen of Scots, who is suspected to have engaged in a whole bunch of intrigue that involved killing a couple lovers. Mary then married the Earl of Bothwell, and people weren’t so happy about that, either.
But wait, there’s more!
In 1599, apparently, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, randomly busted into Queen Elizabeth’s bedchamber. The Queen was super mad—I mean, it WAS pretty inappropriate. And she was kinda self-conscious because she was getting on in years and had scars as a result of smallpox. (But who just bursts into the queen’s room without permission, anyway?!?) Another account claims that in 1598, Elizabeth didn’t grant one of his requests, so he “turned his bath on her.” When she hit him, he tried to grab his sword, but a courtier stopped him. Well, whatever the case, Essex later tried to lead a rebellion, so he got his head chopped off. At one point in the play, Hamlet likewise bursts into Queen Gertrude’s bedchamber. Interesting parallel. But it gets more interesting when you consider Act 5, Scene 1 and Hamlet talks about “paint an inch thick.” Perhaps this line is a reference to Elizabeth’s makeup to cover up her scars from smallpox.
All things considered, it’s fascinating to consider just whom Shakespeare based Queen Gertrude off of. Was he implying that the queen did, in fact, help kill her own husband? Or was he referencing an incident at court with which many in his audiences would have been familiar? Or did he have other motives as well? I guess we’ll never truly know.
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Interesting to consider, Chloe. Another thing I'd like to point out about Robert Dudley is that he was for some time a suspect in the death of his first wife, Amy Robsart, who died in 1560 when she fell down a flight of stairs. Even though he was eventually cleared of the charges, I'm sure Elizabeth's advisors and Elizabeth herself were far less amenable to a possible marriage between Dudley and Elizabeth with all that scandal surrounding him...similarly (even though most people in Shakespeare's play don't suspect Claudius of killing Hamlet Sr. until it's too late) it's implied that a lot of people were made uncomfortable by the prospect of a wedding between Claudius and Gertrude so soon after the king's death.
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