THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME BRINGS ITS REVENGES
by Edward A. Quattrochi
Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club
October 29, 2001
As a recent member of The Chicago Literary Club, and a fairly old member of the Caxton
Club of Chicago, I have become aware of the striking
similarities and some of the differences between these two Chicago
institutions. Both have an interesting and variegated history, which
intersect at significant points in the past. And both have had
interconnecting relationships with the University Club of Chicago that
suggests historical antecedents in Medieval England. Most of you here, I
presume, know more about the history of the Literary Club than I do,
especially our president, Francis Straus. The paper he delivered in January,
1999, "About Sixty-Six Chicago Literary Club Papers," traced the
participation of members of his family for over 100 years. He reviewed and
summarized the papers delivered by his relatives in the last century, a
truly outstanding record and an incredible job of summarizing and
synthesizing. But I trust that you will bear with me for a brief review of
the Club's history. I do so to relate it to the histories of the other two
clubs, which may be less well known. But the main thesis of my paper is to
describe the linkage between these three venerable Chicago clubs with
Medieval London.
All three Chicago clubs were founded within a twenty-one year period at
the close of the 19th century. This period of ferment in Chicago resulted in
part from the rebuilding of the city after the great Chicago fire in 1871.
It is a tribute to the energy and vision of the founders of the Chicago
Literary Club that it met for the first time three years after the fire and
has continued to meet weekly for next 127 years. In the period leading up to
the Columbian Exposition in 1893 several seminal institutions in the
development of the city were founded. Particularly the Newberry Library and
the John Crerar Library have had a long and close association with both the
Chicago Literary Club and the Caxton Club.
The first librarian of the Newberry Library, Dr. William Frederick
Poole, was President of the Literary Club for the year 1879-80 and read ten
papers between the years 1875-1893. John Crerar, a beloved member of the
Literary Club for ten years read four papers, and bequeathed $2,600,000 to
establish the John Crerar Library as well as $10,000 to the Literary Club.
From their beginnings the Chicago Literary Club, the Caxton Club and the
University Club have been connected in time, place and personalities. The
University Club was founded in 1888, fourteen years after the Literary Club.
It occupied a building at 116 Dearborn before moving into its current
baronial quarters down the street at Monroe and Michigan in 1908. For the
first 18 years of its existence the Literary Club met in seven different
locations before moving to the University Club building on Dearborn in 1892.
Three years after the Literary Club took up quarters in the University Club
building, the Caxton Club was founded in 1895. It met in the University Club
where the Literary Club had already taken up residence.
That the Caxton Club would find quarters in the University Club was surely
no coincidence, for six of the original founding members of the Caxton Club
were also members of the Chicago Literary Club. James W. Elsworth, who
joined the Literary Club in 1894, was the first president of the Caxton
Club. Among his many other contributions to art and letters, Elsworth
brought to Chicago its first Gutenberg Bible, which he purchased at auction
for $14,800. It was only the second copy to come to the United States and is
now in the Princeton University Library. George Armour, who had been a member of the
Literary Club since 1880, was
elected the first Vice President of the Caxton Club. Charles Hutchinson
devoted much of his life to service and philantrophy, and especially to the
Caxton Club and the Literary Club. As one of the founders of the Caxton
Club, he organized its first exhibition at the Art Institute, and served as
treasurer, vice-president and president before the turn of the century. A
member of Literary Club since 1884, he read 17 papers between 1887 and 1923.
He was a stalwart in both clubs until his death in 1925. Other founders of
the Caxton Club, who were also members of the Literary Club, were Edward
Ayer and Martin Ryerson.
Another distinguished member of both clubs was Frederick Gookin. I am
indebted to Gookin's History of the First Fifty years of the Chicago
Literary Club, published in 1926, and Frank Phiel's The History of the
Caxton Club, published in its centenary year in 1995, for facts that I have
gathered for this paper. In 1897 Caxtonian, Frederick Gookin gave a talk in
conjunction with an exhibition of his collection of Japanese color prints.
This event was something of milestone in the sexist history of both clubs,
for the Council passed a resolution "that members be at liberty to bring
wives." Thus a precedent was established that was to continue with both
clubs holding occasional joint "ladies night's" meetings. But alas! it was
not until 1976 that women were accepted as members of the Caxton Club; and
not until 1993 during the presidency of Ralph Fujimoto that the Chicago
Literary Club admitted its first woman.
Both the Caxton Club and the Literary Club changed locations several times
in the next couple of decades. The Caxton Club moved to new quarters in the
Fine Arts Building in 1899 while the Literary Club remained at the
University Club. In 1906 the Literary Club moved to the Orchestra Hall
Building at 168 Michigan, where it held meetings until 1910. In that year
the Literary Club and the Caxton Club made arrangements with the Fine Arts
Building for joint occupancy. On October 31, 1910, the Literary Club
celebrated its occupancy of the new quarters by holding ladies' night
reception to which members of the Caxton Club and their ladies were invited.
Thus the Literary Club, the Caxton Club and the University Club have
been tied together since their beginnings not only by joint memberships but
also by close physical proximity in the places where they held meetings.
From their beginnings to this day many members of one club belong to one or
more of the others. I know some here besides me belong to two or even three
of these venerable Chicago institutions.
But the ties that bind these organizations go back even further in time and
in place. Let me begin to trace the lines of decent from the present time
back to Medieval England with a few historical facts about the University
Club building. It was built in 1909, during a period when Chicago
architecture was establishing itself as world class. On the ninth floor is
the mammoth Cathedral Hall, the main dining room for the University Club. It
has been the site of luncheons and dinners for scholars and visiting
luminaries for almost a century. Many Caxtonians and Literary Club members
were among its first patrons. And I presume that many here tonight have
enjoyed its culinary delights and its baronial ambience.
For any of you who may not have had the experience of dining in
Cathedral Hall I have a couple of slides to give you an idea of the size and
splendor of the cavernous dining room:
Cathedral Hall
Although Chicagoans as well as visitors from around the world have been
dining in this hall for almost a hundred years, few are aware of the
inspiration of its design. Its historic ties with Medieval England are
little recognized except for those of its patrons who take the trouble to
wonder about the gothic design of the dining room. Moreover it is a
well-kept secret, even among Shakespeare and Thomas More scholars, that this
landmark was inspired by Crosby Hall in London, once owned by King Richard
III and by Thomas More.
Cathedral Hall was designed by the architect, Martin Roche, a principal in
the architectural firm, Holabird and Roche, a firm famed for its influence
in the development of early skyscrapers, especially the architectural
movement known as the "Chicago School." The University Club itself is
surrounded by other buildings designed by the Holabird and Roche firm to the
south across the street is the Monroe building; to the north the famous trio
of The Cage Group, and to the west the Champlain building. Several other
significant buildings in downtown Chicago, designed by the firm, have been
designated as Chicago Landmarks.
In preparation for his design of Cathedral Hall Martin Roche visited England
and steeped himself in the English, collegiate, Gothic style of
architecture. In particular he studied and contemplated the design of Crosby
Hall in London. When he visited London, Crosby Hall stood on its original
site in Bishopgate, but it was not destined to remain there. While Cathedral
Hall was being constructed in Chicago, the owners of a bank in London were
about to demolish it to make room for an office building. Public opinion
could not dissuade the bank from building its new offices on the site of the
Hall but forced it to finance the moving of Crosby Place from its ancient
site in Bishopgate to Thomas More's garden in Chelsea.
About the time Crosby Hall was being reconstructed in Chelsea and
Cathedral Hall was being constructed in Chicago, the muse of a great
American writer, Henry James, inspired him to lament the unsettling events
of his day. The history of Crosby Hall and the conjunction of that history
with Chicago are natural material for treatment by Henry James in its long
historical reach and international connections. We have pieces of that
history in James's own voice in an essay titled "Refugees in Chelsea," the
title of which puns on two kinds of refugees and two kinds of war. In 1914
James described the sheltering of hundreds of Belgian World War I refugees
in Crosby Hall, then situated in Chelsea near where James lived on the
Thames Embankment. Crosby Hall was itself a refugee, having been dismantled
from its original site in the old City of London and moved down the Thames
to Chelsea, a refugee from the kind of global conflict that James knew best,
that between progress and history. Here is how James describes the sad
spectacle:
This great private structure though of the grandest civic character, dating
from the fifteenth century, and one of the noblest relics of the past that London
could show, was held a few years back so to cumber the precious acre or more on which it
stood that it was taken to pieces in the candid commercial interest and in order
that the site it had so long sanctified should be converted to such uses as would
stuff out still further the ideal number of private pockets. Dismay and disgust
were unable to save it, the most that could be done was to gather in with
tenderness of, its innumerable constituent parts and convey them into safer conditions, where
a sad defeated piety has been able to re-edify them into some semblance of the original
majesty.
We may gain some small inkling of what James is extolling in this photo
of Crosby Hall taken some forty years after he wrote those words:
Crosby Hall in Chelsea circa 1953
And here is another picture of the interior of Crosby Hall dated
about 100 years earlier in 1842:
Crosby Hall circa 1840
Several generations of dedicated English patriots made a formidable
attempt to preserve this old landmark, one of the most famous in English
history, but sadly, Crosby Hall today has been converted into a condominium
.
I revisited it last May and was depressed to see its original splendor
emaciated by the developers ruin hands. But until recently it has been
famous for its association with some of the great poets, kings, courtiers,
statesmen, and villains in English history, chief among them King Richard
III, Thomas More and William Shakespeare.
The history begins in 1470 when John Crosby built his mansion, then the
largest building in London. He lived in the house for only five years until
his death in 1475. With the death of King Edward IV in 1483, his brother,
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took possession and used it as his London
residence before his succession to the crown as Richard III. Richard
maneuvered Edward's widow, Queen Elizabeth, into releasing her two sons,
King Edward and his younger brother, Prince Richard, from sanctuary in the
Tower. Richard, the Protector, sent the Queen's allies to a conference at
Baynard Castle and withdrew with his counselors to Crosby Place. Thomas
More records this event in his History of Richard III : "All folke
withdrew from the Tower, and drew unto Crosbies place in Bishops gates
street where the protector kept his household." According to More, and the
Tudor view of Richard's reign that he perpetrated, the Protector plotted the
murders of his two nephews at Crosby Place.
Shakespeare used Thomas More's History as the main source for his The
Tragedy of Richard III, and he makes Crosby Place more conspicuous in the
action of the narrative than does More. Whereas More mentions Crosby Place
only once in his History, Shakespeare mentions it three times in his play.
The first reference occurs in the second scene of the play. The time is
shortly after the Battle of Tewkesbury, in which the Lancastrian King Henry
VI and his son, Prince Edward, were slain by Richard, under the banner of
his brother, King Edward IV. As Prince Edward's widow Anne escorts the body
of King Henry VI in a funeral procession, Richard suddenly halts the
entourage and forces his affection upon her. Anne is initially repulsed and
rails at Richard for murdering her husband and father-in-law. But Richard
is undaunted.
He displays not an iota of remorse; instead he proceeds to woo the
widow, Anne, and audaciously invites her to go home with him to Crosby
Place. Here is his unconscionable proposition:
That it may please you leave these sad designs
To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,
And presently repair to Crosby Place;
Where (after I have solemnly interr'd
At Chertsey monastery this noble king,
And wet his grave with my repentant tears)
I will with all expedient duty see you.
(I ii 206-216,The Riverside
Shakespeare)
That is what I would call genuine chutzpah. This is one of the most
memorable scenes in the play, and one of the most outlandish in
Shakespeare's entire canon.
If Shakespeare could be credited, the historical setting of this scene
would establish the date of Richard's residency at Crosby Place as early as
1471. This is good theater but hardly adheres to the historical facts.
Prince Edward was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, and King Henry
was executed shortly thereafter, but not the way Shakespeare would have it.
Richard fought valiantly at the battle of Tewkesbury, but he did not
personally kill Edward or his father, Henry, and it is highly unlikely that
he attended King Henry's funeral. Moreover he would not have invited Anne
to "repair to Crosby Place," in 1471. At that time John Crosby was living in
his recently built mansion. But Shakespeare was writing drama, not
recording history.
John Crosby's history is interesting not only because he built a famous
mansion, but also because of his probable connections with William Caxton.
The biographies of William Caxton and John Crosby, and the history of Crosby
Hall, are individually interesting in their own rights, but taken together
with their connections with the cultural renaissance in Chicago at the end
of the last century; they are indeed even more fascinating. It is
historically, and even poetically, congruous that the University Club should
have been founded in Chicago about eight years before the Caxton Club, for
it is approximately that time span between the building of John Crosby's
house and the beginning of William Caxton's printing business. About seven
years after Crosby Hall was completed in 1470, Caxton set up shop about two
miles away in Westminster Abbey and printed his first book in England, The
Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers.
Much more is known of William Caxton than of John Crosby. But in their
own lifetimes Sir John Crosby was a better known public figure than William
Caxton. Crosby was born in 1410, and his lineage goes back at least one
hundred years before that. After his death he became a folk hero, and the
myth grew that he was an orphan, found at a crossroad, from whence comes his
name, Crosby. He became a prosperous merchant from his dealing in
commodities, mainly in wool. He traded mainly with the Low Countries,
particularly with Bruges, Belgium, and Calais, France, which was at that
time governed by England. These facts suggest that he knew and probably
dealt with William Caxton.
Prior to beginning his printing business when he was past fifty, Caxton,
like Crosby, dealt in commodities of various kinds. He spent most of his
life before starting to print books in the Low Countries as a distinguished
member of the Mercers Company. His fellow merchant adventurers, sometime
around 1462 elected him Governor of the English Nation in Bruges. The post
of Governor at that time had considerable authority having to do with the
regulation of trade between England and the Low Countries.
Caxton left his job of Governor of the English Nation in Bruges in 1470
and moved to Cologne, where he learned the printing craft. He returned to
Bruges sometime in 1473 and there printed his first two books: The History
of Troy, and The Game and Play of Chess. In 1476 he came back to England,
after nearly thirty years on the continent, and set up his shop in
Westminster Abbey.
During the crucial years between 1470 and 1475, when Caxton changed
careers, John Crosby accumulated a considerable fortune. In 1466 as one of
London's most influential citizens, Crosby began construction of his
mansion. In that same year he was elected a Member of Parliament for the
City of London and shortly thereafter selected to be Auditor of the City.
In 1468 he was elected Alderman, and in 1470, Sheriff. In that year his
house was completed, then the largest and most sumptuous mansion in London.
At that time he was also appointed Mayor of the Staple of Calais--then in
the possession of England-- a position of considerable importance in its
day. The Merchant Staplers had the monopoly of exporting the principal raw
commodities of England, especially wool, to all the lands England then held
in France.
It is probable that John Crosby had dealings with Caxton in his
capacity as the Governor of the English Nation in Bruges. Caxton had
regular correspondence with both London and Calais about trade matters
during those years. He knew, and was known by, nobility, diplomats and
merchants who were also associates of Crosby. Toward the end of Caxton's
tenure as Governor in 1469, for example, King Edward commissioned a
delegation of diplomats and merchants, headed by Caxton and John Prout,
Crosby's predecessor as Mayor of the Staple of Calais, to negotiate a trade
agreement with the Duke of Burgundy.
When Caxton was relieved of his duties as Governor of the English
Nation, John Crosby was nearing the end of his illustrious life and gaining
fame and fortune up to his death in 1475.
In 1471, King Edward IV had taken the throne from the Lancastrian King Henry
VI, but King Henry was only a puppet King, being completely dominated by his
wife, Queen Margaret. She came back to England with Henry in tow to reclaim
the throne. While King Henry's forces were engaged in battle with King
Edward in the North, the Bastard Faulconbridge mounted an assault on the
City of London. John Crosby, as Sheriff, and a staunch Yorkist, organized
the citizens to beat back the attackers, thus saving London from
Faulconbridge's forces and securing the crown for Edward IV. For this heroic
feat, Edward dubbed him a Knight in 1471.
From this time to the end of his life, John Crosby was an important
figure in the administration of King Edward. In 1473 he embarked on a
crucial diplomatic mission to Bruges, along with several key figures in
Edward's court, to negotiate a trade agreement with representatives of the
Hanseatic League. Several of the diplomatic delegation had known dealings
with Caxton. One in particular, Hugh Bryce, a wealthy goldsmith, was a
patron of one of Caxton's later books, The Mirror of the World, printed in
1481.
By the time the diplomatic delegation arrived in Bruges, Caxton was no
longer Governor, but it was likely that he had returned to Bruges from
Cologne. When Crosby's delegation came to Bruges, Caxton had many friends
and connections there, most notably Margaret of York, the sister of King
Edward IV, of King Richard III, and of their brother, George, Duke of
Clarence.
The delegation came to negotiate with Charles, Duke of Burgundy, who had
married Margaret in 1468. Duke Charles and Margaret were not only important
politically, but they also had a significant influence on Caxton and on the
history of printing. Charles had one of the finest libraries in Europe at
the time, and Margaret was a patroness of arts and letters. It was she who
urged Caxton to translate from French his first printed book, the History of
Troy, which he dedicated to her. And it was to Margaret's brother, George,
that Caxton dedicated his second book, The Game and Play of Chess. This
significant book in the history of English printing, came from Caxton's
press in 1475, the year of John Crosby's death.
I don't think it is very well known how closely connected with Caxton
and the history of printing in England were the siblings of King Richard
III--his sister Margaret, and his brother, George. Some of you may have seen
the film version of Shakespeare's Richard III, with Lawrence Olivier playing
Richard, and John Gielgud playing Richard's brother, George. You might
recall the horrendous scene in which the henchmen of Richard come to the
tower where they slay George and stuff his body in a wine barrel.
Crosby's will reveals that he was a rich and generous man. Among other
bequests he left a considerable sum to St. Helen's parish, where he is
buried. This church is famous, among other reasons, for being the parish
church of William Shakespeare, which may account for the prominence of
Crosby Place as a setting in Richard III.
After his death, John Crosby's fame as a hero of London apparently grew
for more than a hundred years. His popularity among the citizens of London
can be surmised from a reading of a little known play, entitled Edward IV,
written by Thomas Heywood, and staged in London about the same time as
Shakespeare's King Richard III. That was about 125 years after Crosby's
death. The first three acts of Edward IV focus on the repulsion of
Faulconbridge by the citizens of London, led by Mayor John Crosby, and one
of his chief compatriots, and fellow merchants, William Shore. Not only
do they save London from the assault by Fauconbridge, but they also
preserve the virtue of Jane Shore, from Faulconbridge's lustful intentions.
The curious indication of how Crosby had become a folk hero is
suggested in his being cast in the play as a major figure in the reign of
Edward IV. He is given the title, Lord Mayor of London whereas in fact he
was only Sheriff. The last two acts tell the story of the seduction of Jane
Shore by King Edward. The second scene of the fourth act is set in Crosby
Hall. The Lord Mayor, John Crosby, comes on stage in a scarlet gown with a
gilt rapier by his side. In a long self-congratulatory soliloquy he explains
that some will marvel how a man of his humble background has risen to a
position of such importance. He explains how an honest shoemaker found him
near a crossroad and gave him the name, Crosby. He thanks God, and ends his
windy exposition:
In Bishopgate Street, a poor house I have built,
And my name, have called it Crosby House.
And when God will take me from this life,
In little Saint Helen's will be buried.
In this same scene the Mayor prepares a feast for the arrival of King Edward
to celebrate the victory over Faulconbridge. Since Crosby is an old
widower, he has recruited his niece, Jane Shore, as his stand-in hostess,
along with her husband, William Shore. I have been able to discover no
other evidence that Jane Shore was Crosby's niece, but the association is
tantalizing. Jane Shore was one of the most famous concubines in English
History, and the subject of one of England's most enduring folk songs.
She was Edward IV's favorite mistress, and apparently such a beautiful,
witty, intelligent and winsome person that Thomas More, in his History of
Richard III, could find very little fault in her. In fact, More praises
Jane above King Edward's other two favorite mistresses: "The King would say
that he had three concubines, who in three diverse properties, diversely
excelled. One, the merriest; another, the wiliest; the third, the holiest
harlot in the realm". More comments that the holiest is "one whom no one
could get out of the church lightly to any place but it were to bed," but he
does not name her. He does name the merriest, however, as Shore's wife, "in
whom the King took special pleasure."
Because More's History was the chief source for Shakespeare's play, it
has forever fixed in the Western consciousness the portrait of King Richard
as a murderous tyrant deformed in body and soul. From More's History
Shakespeare developed the idea of Jane Shore as a witch, responsible for his
withered arm. In one of the many memorable scenes in that play Richard uses
Lord Hastings' liaison with Jane Shore as a pretext for chopping off his
head. In the crucial scene in which Richard must find a pretext to execute
Hastings, Richard bursts into a council meeting and accuses Hastings of
consorting with Jane Shore to ruin him:
Then be your eyes the witness of their evil
Look how I am bewitched; behold, mine arm
Is like a blasted sapling, withered up;
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore.
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
III iv 67-72
Jane Shore's relationship with John Crosby is interesting not only
because she is an engaging historical figure in her own right, but also
because her relationship with Lord Hastings, provides another link between
Crosby and Caxton. Caxton surely knew Jane, because he knew her husband very
well. In 1487 William Shore, apparently to avoid bankruptcy, made over his
entire property to three friends including Caxton. Eleven years before that
assignment, Pope Sixtus IV had obliged King Edward by annulling Jane's
marriage on the grounds of the impotence of her husband. Edward showed his
appreciation to William Shore, the complaisant husband, by granting him
royal protection.
Lord Hastings became Jane's paramour after the death of King Edward and
most probably before his death. Before Edward's death, about 1481, Hugh
Bryce, a diplomatic colleague of John Crosby's, asked Caxton to print for
him The Mirror of the World, which he intended as a gift for Lord Hastings.
Hugh Bryce, as a London merchant, was apparently a close associate of Crosby
and Shore as well as of Caxton.
Another indication of the perduring popularity of King Edward's favorite
concubine, and the connection between William Shore and Lord Hastings with
William Caxton, is suggested in another play by Nicholas Rowe, entitled Jane
Shore, A Tragedy, written about one hundred years after Heywood's Edward IV
.
Although Rowe's play can hardly be considered great literature, it
provides another tidbit of evidence of the possible connections between
William Caxton and John Crosby. If William Shore was a mercer in Antwerp,
as the play indicates, he certainly would have been a close associate of
William Caxton, who had served so long as the Governor of the English Nation
in Bruges. As Heywood's play clearly indicates, Crosby's chief lieutenant in
the defense of London was William Shore. And Lord Hastings, the villain of
the play, was indirectly responsible for the printing of one of Caxton's
early books.
The story of Crosby Place, after John Crosby's death in 1475,
establishes it as one of the most famous landmarks in English history. Time
will not permit a review of that history now, but a few of its subsequent
illustrious owners and tenants are immortally associated with the history
and literature of England. Sometime around 1520 Thomas More, then Lord
Chancellor, bought Crosby Hall and used it for a time as his London
residence. It is possible, and if so, ironic, that More could have worked
on the revision of his History of Richard III while he resided at Crosby
Place. After owning it for only a couple of years, More sold it to his good
friend, the wealthy Italian merchant, Antonio Bonvisi. After More's death
Bonvisi continued close relationship with More's family and friends, and in
1554 rented the place to John Roper, More's son-in-law, and the author of
More's best known biography, and to William Rastell, More's nephew, and the
editor of More's English Works, published by Richard Tottel in 1557. It
is probable that in Crosby Hall William Rastell prepared the text of his
uncle's works for publication. And it is, I think, appropriate that the
best, and most famous work in that edition is The History of Richard III.
In 1908, the year the University Club building in Chicago was erected,
Crosby Hall was taken down from its historic site in Bishopgate Street in
London and rebuilt, brick by brick, at the site of Thomas More's garden in
Chelsea. Viewing this resurrection of that magnificent edifice, Henry James
wrote in the essay I quoted earlier: "Strange withal the whirligig of time;
this great structure came down to the sound of lamentation, not to say of
execration, and of the gnashing of teeth, and went up again before cold and
disbelieving eyes; in spite of which history appears to have decided once
more to cherish it and give it a new consecration."
I close by pointing to a few ironies in the title of my paper, "The
Whirligig of Time." James' solemn tribute to Crosby Hall with its wistful
tag, "the whirligig of time," echoes the final words of Feste, the clown, in
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In the final scene of that most festive of
Shakespearean comedy with its dark sub-text, Feste taunts Malvolio, the
puritan, by ridiculing him to his mistress Viola with these familiar lines:
Why, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrown upon them.'
and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
Feste, the clown, Sir Toby Belch, Maria and Sir Andrew Aguecheek exact their
revenge on Malvolio for his puritanical censoring of their revelry, but his
last line carries with it the ominous prophecy of what was to come forty
years later in London. Malvolio responds with the final lines of the Play:
I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
And ironically he exacted his revenge through his Puritan successors who
closed the English theaters in 1640.
In summary I reflect on the whirligig of time as it has zig zagged over the
past 530 years. John Crosby built his mansion in 1470. King Richard III took
it over in 1483 and plotted there the murder of his two nephew princes.
Thomas More lived in it for a few years in 1520 and may have written parts
of his History of Richard III there. William Rastell, More's nephew, lived
in it in 1557 when he published the Complete English Works of his uncle,
Thomas More. By the way, I have a copy of that edition here for anyone to
look at who might have an interest in old books. In 1908 while Crosby Hall
was being moved from Bishopgate Street in London to Thomas More's garden in
Chelsea, Cathedral Hall was being constructed in Chicago. And we are here
tonight as members of the Chicago Literary Club in ways, however remote,
connected in the whirligig of time to our forebears in the Caxton Club, the
University Club, and to medieval England.
Ed Quattrocchi
Evanston, Ill
Paper delivered to the Chicago Literary Club, October 29, 2001
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