The Stuart Brothers and English Theater

Summary

The Herbert brothers, William (Earl of Pembroke) and Philip (Earl of Montgomery), achieved immortality through the dedication of the Shakespeare Folio to them in 1623. All the Folios through the seventeenth century continued to carry the identical dedication even though the brothers had since died, which makes the whole enterprise a little strange. In contrast, the Stuart brothers Ludovic (1574–1624) and Esmé (1579–1624) enjoyed no such fate and fame, yet their influence at the Jacobean court and in the arts rivals the better-known duo. The failure of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to pay any attention to the Stuart brothers’ support of the arts has spurred my quest. The brothers’ father, also named Esmé, was a French first cousin to King James’s father, Henry Stuart, Earl of Darnley. As long as James was childless, Ludovic stood in immediate line of succession to the Scottish throne, as James dutifully noted. My research reveals details of the brothers’ involvement with drama and underscores the multifaceted nature of patronage in Stuart England.

The brothers’ abbreviated story goes something like this: Esmé the father came to Scotland from France in 1579, invited by the Scottish Council, possibly to give guidance to the teenaged King James, then thirteen years old. Esmé was himself in his mid-thirties. Despite the age gap, James was completely smitten with this handsome, sophisticated man, an indication of James's yearning for affection. The king showered Esmé with titles and gifts, including the title Duke of Lennox. Such a meteoric rise by the Frenchman frightened and challenged the Scottish nobles and the Scottish Kirk. In late 1582, they forced James, then their prisoner, to exile Esmé, who returned to France in late December 1582 and died in May 1583. James managed eventually to escape his captors and sought to assuage his grief by writing a compelling allegorical poem about Esmé called Phoenix. In the final l’envoy section, James the poet imagines a new phoenix coming to Scotland, who would be the son Ludovic.