We went to see King Lear earlier this week. I've not seen it before - I don't really know why - and I loved it (both production and play). I had two reflections. Firstly, on Jacobitism: there must be a book on the staging of Shakespeare, but I assume that Lear wasn't ever staged at all between 1688 and at least 1715. The themes of ungrateful daughters and a French invasion may have been a little too raw.
By far my most common thought though was of Yuste, the location of the retirement of Charles V. I've long been fascinated by Charles V as a pivot point in European history. His own, memorably described, 'genealogical joyride,' brought into single ownership an unprecedented profusion of crowns and though I think his power in practice operated below the level of all those coronets, it was still vast. The consequences are still with us. Under him, the Reformation began and took hold, vast sections of the New World were colonised, the Union of Austria and Hungary was created, and in some ways, much of the next hundred years and beyond was shaped simply by his will. The partition of his domains between his brother and son in itself changed the dynamic of Europe. That he detached the Low Countries from the German Habsburg inheritance and linked it to Spain could be described as leading to the creation of up to six modern states. Portugal, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Lichtenstein include at least two of my favourite places in the whole world, but they are all, to some extent, dynastic accidents.
That decisive partition is even more extraordinary because it was made while Charles remained alive. in the mid 1550s, he gradually abdicated all his possessions and retreated to a monastery, where he remained for over two years before dying. It would be wrong to argue that Charles was at the peak of his powers - he was in the middle of war with the French for a start - but this was in no way a forced abdication due to weakness (though I think there is some evidence of excruciating pain from gout playing a factor). For me though, extraordinary though the decision is, the truly astonishing thing is the period following: for over two years the most powerful European polity had two kings, and two very different kings at that. In that period, Philip II was fighting the French and indeed the Pope, while Charles apparently continued to correspond abroad. Yet, there are no suggestions of clashes, or that disaffected factions ran to Yuste. This is not the norm.
Though fascinating, to my knowledge there is nothing written in English at least about this almost unique period of two kings and about the self-imposed internal exile of the most powerful man in Christendom. I suspect it is little known (I wonder if early Jacobean audiences would have known of it), and little thought of. This is a great shame.
