Books by Carol Curt Enos

Shakespeare's Cheshire and Lancashire Connection and his Tangled Family Web by Carol Curt Enos takes Ernst Honigmann's Shakespeare: the Lost Years to a more comprehensive and detailed level in its search for evidence that William Shakespeare spent his late teen years in the homes of Catholic holdouts in Lancashire, proof that he, too, at great risk, clung to the Catholic religion. Enos focuses on Mary Arden Shakespeare's distant Arderne relatives scattered throughout Lancashire and Cheshire, detailing their hitherto unexplored ties to powerful Catholic families: Stanley (Earls of Derby), Fitton, Hoghton, Hesketh, Gerard, Leigh, and many more. Shakespeare is known to have begun his professional theater career in Lancashire with Ferdinando Stanley around 1590, a logical sequel to his earlier service in the homes of two powerful Catholics, Alexander Hoghton and Sir Thomas Hesketh, in the early 1580s. In this scenario, Shakespeare would have been at the heart of the Catholic mission in England with seminary and Jesuit missionary priests, notably Edmund Campion and Robert Persons, smuggled into the country to perpetuate the Catholic faith. Extensive, detailed genealogy tables display and clarify the complicated intermarriages of these Catholic families uncovering several new Shakespeare/Lancashire connections: 1) Edward Alleyn, a nephew of Sir Thomas Hesketh, 2) John Gerard, Jesuit priest, served by John Fulwood, stepbrother of Mary Arden, 3) John Arderne, valued servant of both Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby and his son, Ferdinando Stanley, 4) William Leveson and Thomas Savage, Globe Theater trustees, probably acquainted with Shakespeare in the 1580s, 5) Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton's family relationship to Shakespeare, 6) The Park Hall Ardens' family ties to Robert Devereux, 7) The Park Hall Ardens' family ties to Richard Neville who claimed Westmorland title, 8) Shakespeare's family's involvement in Catholic plots against the

Shakespeare Settings can be read as a narrative, but it is also a reference work that allows one to trace connections among persons and events surrounding William Shakespeare. It documents the friendship between two men of very different social classes. It traces the early association in Lancashire of Shakespeare with Edward Alleyn, who served as the manager of Ferdinando Strange''s acting group before both men were in London. It inquires into the meaning of the purchase of the Blackfriars gatehouse and the relevance of the persons connected with the gatehouse.By bringing together names related to Shakespeare and his family in important contexts in Lancashire and in the Catholic underground, connections and relationships can be seen that are not obvious from vast and disparate readings. Nineteenth century scholars who painstakingly gleaned information, often from primary sources, provide fine details regarding Shakespeare and his family. These sources are often overlooked, as theoretical arguments wander far afield in a world of literary jargon that has little to do with the plays. The long quotations from these sources retain the flavor and detail that could be lost in summaries. The new focus on historicism is revealing the relevance of the older works in Shakespeare studies.The biographical sketches included here are selective, based on:1. Family relationship to Shakespeare2. Connections to the Counter-Reformation underground3. Lancashire and Cheshire ties with Shakespeare and the London theater4. Actors Shakespeare could have knownThis, then, is primarily a reference book with a goal to reveal William Shakespeare''s ties with committed Catholics who were instrumental in the English Counter-Reformation. Many of the sources used here are presented in more detail in Enos''s The Shakespeare Encyclopedia: Stratford/London/Lancashire Links, http://www.sunflower.com/~cenos/. The encyclopedia could be expanded indefinitely as others contribute findings, creating a detailed environmental context to further our understanding of Shakespeare, the man, more thoroughly and consequently read his plays and sonnets more knowledgeably.