William
Shakespeare wrote thirty seven plays which are still performed all around the
world but there’re also 154 sonnets laced with love, passion and
treacle-sweetness. He often refers to the seductive “Dark Lady” and her
identity has been guessed at for over four hundred years.
Many scholars
point to Mary Fitton, an Elizabethan gentlewoman who
became a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth and daughter of Sir Edward Fitton. Her scandalous affairs with famous men of the time
are well known. I read a book and its entirety is given over to her being the
Dark Lady beyond reasonable doubt but we’ll never know. When I read she was the
daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth
Cheshire my nosiness was pricked. Gawsworth isn’t far
from home, a forty minute drive. I went to see if I could find her.
Mary was about
aged 17 when she became a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth (her dad knew the
Queen well.) Her dad recommended her to the care of Sir William Knollys who looked after the Queen's household. Though Sir
William was fifty and married it didn’t stop him getting infatuated and then
romantically involved with Mary.
By 21 she had to give up her job due to a
form of hysteria. A year later she led a dance in the masque celebrating the
fashionable wedding of Lady Anne Russell and met William Herbert (later Earl of
Pembroke) and became his pregnant mistress. The baby died perhaps from syphilis
as William may have suffered from this. Both Mary and Pembroke were dismissed
from court, socially ruined.
Mary then had
an affair with the married Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Leveson
and bore him two daughters. Mary couldn’t keep her knickers on and then had an
affair and a son with Captain William Polwhele. Her
mother wrote "such shame as never had a Cheshire woman, worse now than
ever.”
When her
husband died in 1610 the -32-year-old Mary had children to take care of and
married again to a Pembrokeshire captain, "gentleman lawyer" and
former M.P. Finally she settled and died aged 69. Her ghost is reputed to haunt
Gawsworth Old Hall.
So why is she a
contender for the “Dark Lady?” Scholars think William Shakespeare knew William
Herbert (the Earl of Pembroke) and was senselessly infatuated by his pregnant
mistress Mary Fitton. It was probably unrequited love
as a lady moving in high society would not normally have a liaison with a lowly
poet/actor. We’ll never know if most of those love-soaked sonnets were about
the woman I’d come to find.
I entered the
empty Gawsworth church but couldn’t get up to Mary. She’s
buried in an elaborate family tomb but it’s sealed off from pond-life like me. She’s
represented by one of the kneeling figures along with her siblings. I spent
about fifteen minutes in the church reading about her in a book of churches I’d
bought. The book said you know it’s a perfect day if you can look at the
reflection of the church clock on the river’s surface and read the time. I went
outside to see but couldn’t just read the time properly; there was a wee breeze
tickling the water. Not a perfect day then but looking at the resplendent
beauty of the Cheshire countryside it seemed pretty perfect.
On the walk round the church a few
ducks came trotting towards me….had to give them something…
When learning about Mary Fitton I read you can tell when it’s a still day as you can
read the clock in the water’s reflection…not quite…
She’s over here…
The ghost of Mary….?
Looking at Gawsworth
New Hall near the church…