Essay 39 DEBATE ABOUT THE SCYTHIANS -FRIEND OR FOE- BETWEEN 'W.S' (WILLIAM STANLEY) AND EDWARD DE VERE By Charles Graves Two plays of 16th century England provide the context, namely The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine (by W.S.) and Cymbeline, King of Britain by Edward de Vere (William Shakespeare). Both plays include the Scythians as main personalities in the plots. In the case of Locrine , the main character Locrine leaves his wedded wife Gwendolyn for the Scythian lady Estrild, whereas in Cymbeline, the Scythian Posthumus Leonidas remains faithful to his wife Innogen, daughter of Scythian king Cymbeline. The opposition to Scythians (called Ossetians or Alans by the ancient Greeks and Romans) is evident in W.S.’s play and leads us to ask the question how did the Stanleys know something about these Alans or Ossetians and their race? According to specialists the Haplogroup ‘G’ found in anyone’s DNA indicates a Scythian ancestry – half the people in Southern Ossetia (inside Georgia) have this Haplogroup ‘G’ as well as a few British people who lived in Roman villages on the frontiers with the Scots or Welsh, and were responsible for repelling them. The Alans had appeared together with the Huns who invaded central Europe (penetrating even to Rome in 410) and some Alans changed sides and became part of the Roman army defending the frontiers of Britain. Leek in north Staffordshire may have held a similar role as a Roman centre actively repelling encroaching peoples by means of Scythian soldiers. In fact, the existing Roman artefacts around Leek are considerable (see internet) especially from Abbott’s Green south to Cheddleton (an area including Stanley village). The explanation for the inclusion of stories about Scythians in The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine of W.S. (author William Stanley?) may indicate connections between the Stanleys and Scythians in Roman times. But, in fact, Stanleys say their Stanley ancestor was Ligulf in the Domesday Book (1086), an ally of William I. Ligulf is shown as landholder in the North riding of Yorkshire, at Munby next to Pickhill. Scythian-type names such as Bodin, Manbodo, Gerbodo were holding lands under the king or Count Alan of Richmond near Munby (cf. Manbodo). Bodo no doubt comes from the Scythian ‘borotai’ a ‘tribe’ of the Scythians (cf, Georges Dumézil’s several articles on Scythian linguistics). Sindi /Sandi were also Scythian names (cf. the Sindhis in Southern Pakistan) and probably gave the name to Sinderby next to Pickhill. In fact, the name for the town Ripon is said (Wikipedia) to be based upon the name of a tribe called ‘hrapa’. At Pickhill 4 miles north of Ripon, and at Sinderby next to Pickhill was the family Raper in the 16th century, a descendant of the ‘hrapa’ (Scythians). The archaeological remnant of Harappa is also to be found in Sindh in southern Pakistan. At the time of the early Persian Empires, Sindh was populated by Scythians, as was Kashmir by the Saka (a Scythian people). How are the Scythians described in each of the two plays? In The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine they are the direct single opponents of Brutus (king of Britain) and his sons - their names being the Scythian king Humber and his son Huppa (cf. hrapa above - tribe living in North Yorkshire and giving its name to Ripon). In the end, after defeating the Scythians several times, Locrine , succeeding his father Brutus as ruler of the British, takes slain king Humber’s queen Estrith as wife renouncing his own wife Gwendolyn (daughter of Corinetus, Brutus’ brother) whom he had married after one of his father’s victories over the Scythians. However, Estrith, apparently of her own free will, agrees to this union which may indicate that the supposed author William Stanley was not totally opposed to Scythians. We remember that the ‘Lancelot and King Arthur’s Round Table’ mythology for certain researchers represents a way of expressing the propinquity of Scythians and British in early Romano-British life: Alancelot representing the Alans and Celts whereas Arthur represented the Roman army general. In Locrine, the Humber (name of main Scythian leader) is noted as a Yorkshire river and even Repton is once named as British centre for one of the battles while, at the same time, these British-Scythian battles in the play are taking place on Greek or Near Eastern Asian soil with a final aim of ruling ’Albania’. This can mean either (in the classical times) the lower Caucasus near present-day Baku or as ‘Albion’ a classical name for the British Isles (‘white cliffs’). The play may be seen as unraveling in both places at once. That the Stanleys have claimed that their Domesday Book ancestor was Ligulf has not been especially helpful in determining Stanley-Scythian relations. The name can simply mean ’looks like a wolf’ and doesn’t help fix the Stanleys of Staffs. as of any particular race. Ligulf appears alongside some mixed Scandinavian-Anglian names such as Ulsi (archbishop of York Aldred’s grandson Alexander) or Gamel (son of Godric, dapifer of the Malet family) but Ligulf was listed near some Scythians such as Baret (cf. baretai the Scythian name for a tribe). We shall see below the possibility of the Howard family (ancestors of both William Stanley and Edward de Vere) being a near-Scythian family of Kurdish origin descended from the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Domesday Book person called Havard. One of the battles of Locrine’s family in the Near East was with the famous Amazon gorgons in the area of certain rivers of Central Asia which was the ancient Scythia of the Greeks, much earlier before some Scythian tribes such as Alans or Ossetians inhabited ‘Albania’ (near Baku). The name Locrine (for king Brutus’ son and heir) was obviously taken from an early Greek tribe living in southern Italy – Locrieppizephiri – founded by Locrians. With the various anomalies in the play, Locrine was son of the same Brutus who killed Julius Caesar and then went to the Aegean Sea (as in the play Julius Caesar) but this same Brutus was termed King of the Britons. The playwright is obviously using his education in the classics to describe something happening, at the end, in England, using Humber (as the main Scythian personality) tying the events to Yorkshire, where his 11th century ancestor Ligulf had once lived, i.e the progenitor of the Stanley family. Cymbeline’s family may also be considered Scythian – let us see some proofs: the choice of names for himself, his two sons (their original names before going into the woods with Belarius) and his daughter suggest a Scythian origin in the author’s mind. Guiderios and Arviragis appear to be related to the names of the most easterly provinces of the Persian Empire (in south Asia) namely Gedrosia and Aria, and Cymbeline itself may reflect Cambese, name of the father and son of King Cyrus of the Persians. Gedrosia is called in the Shorter Classical Dictionary an ’Indo-Scythian area the farthest east of the Persian Empire’. It appears to refer to Sindh on the lower Indus River. In fact, ‘Sindi’ is a person listed among the followers of William the Conqueror in his pacification of Yorkshire in Domesday Book (1086) indicating one of the ‘hrapa’ (Ossetian / Alan soldiers sent to N. Yorkshire by the Romans). His name may be reflected in the village called Sinderby next to Pickhill where the Raper (cf. ‘hrapa’) family lived (ancestor of the author of this article). Innogen could refer to Indus (a Scythian place) or to Ino, the daughter of Cadmus (see below). The mother of Guiderius and Arviragus and Innogen was Eurifil obviously an ‘European’ in origin. So, the author may have intended that the play Cymbeline be about a Scythian who married a European and became a king in Britain. As for Belarius who took the two boy babes out of Cymbeline’s kingdom into exile, he is no doubt named after the greatest general of the Emperor Justinian called Belexarius who served the Byzantine Empire ‘on the Persian frontier’ (i.e. in Sindh) but in later life came under court rejection and spent time in a Byzantine prison under the Empress Theodora (cf. Belarius’ rejection by king Cymbeline because of the urging of the king’s second wife, mother of Cloten). Cloten (son of Cymbeline’s second wife) may have been chosen because it represents one of the Fates – Clothe - in Greek mythology. In the play Cymbeline, Guiderius and Arviragus take ‘European’ names - namely they are known in exile as Polydor and Cadwal and their sister was Innogen (dressed as a boy when she first met her brothers near the cave where they lived). Polydor in classical Greek mythology was king of Thebes and son of Cadmos. Ine was daughter of Cadmos and Harmonia. To give some dating, Polydor was great grandfather of Oedipus. To use the name of this Theban family for Cymbeline’s two boys shows that in exile they took European (not Scythian) names by the will of Belarius and in the battle with the Romans at the end of the play the three of them were heroes on the side of the Britons. Another ‘classical Greek’ reference related to the play Cymbeline is to be found namely in the story of Cygnus who was king of Colonae in Troas. His wife was Philomena who fell in love with her step-son who repelled her advances and who subsequently told his father. The father Cygnus (to satisfy his wife) then put both sons and his daughter into a chest and threw them into the sea. But the chest was driven by the wind to the island of Tenedos where they were rescued This reference is important as background to the exile of Guiderius and Arviragus (sent away by their father because of his second wife and her son Cloten) but it also probably explains how Posthumous Leonades came to know Innogen his wife i.e. on the isle of Tenedos. The ‘gentlemen’ at the very beginning of the play Cymbeline say about Posthumos that ‘he did join his honor against the Romans with Cassabelan but has his titles by Tenantius whom he served with glory and admired success’. Cassabelan was a British king north of the Thames who struggled against Julius Caesar but finally had to submit to him and pay money yearly. This would explain how Posthumos served first Cassebelan, then Tenantius, the latter obviously holding a Roman name but who could be related to the island of Tenedos where Ine and her two brothers were saved from death. Thus, Posthumos, in serving the Romans under Tenantius, met Innogen on the island of Tenedos where she and her two brothers had been saved. This shows us how the author of Cymbeline has brought, in his fable, a British man and a (half) Scythian woman together in the love story of Posthumos and Innogen. In being saved these ‘Scythian’ children who had become ‘European’ through their mother Euriphil and took European names under Belarios, fought on the side of the Britons in a battle against the Romans, and won. Then the children with Belarius were reunited with their father Cymbeline, and Posthumos Leontius, who had always remained faithful to Innogen as son in law of Cymbeline, finally was accepted by his father-in-law and could live with his beloved wife. It is also relevant to say that Cymbeline is another play by Edward de Vere such as Othello or a Winter’s Tale where the author shows regret for believing in rumours about his wife Ann Cecil’s supposed affair with another man leading to their separation. This matter began while Edward was traveling in Italy as was Posthumous in Cymbeline. In fact Posthumos’ father was called Sicilius which recalls not only that Edward de Vere visited Sicily during his Italian trip but also that the jealous king in Sicily in A Winter’s Tale was Leontius a name similar to that which Posthumos also held. Can Cymbeline and Locrine be associated in English literary history? ’W.S.’ adds to his characters in Locrine the cobbler-clown Strumbo and his colleague Trompart and their action begins Act I, scene 2. Strumbo asks Trompart to take a love letter to Dorothy in which with complex language he tells this Dorothy he wishes to marry her. She replies positively- she ‘wishes to be accepted into his familiarity’. Dorothy, thus, is Scythian-oriented. In Cymbeline a Dorothy also exists offstage (2.3.135). Cloten wishes to have one of Posthumos’ garments so when he encounters him in respect to their mutual love for Innogen, he may kill him in the clothes Posthumos wore when he was with Innogen; he intends also to ravish Innogen in these same clothes. Innogen tells her servant Pisanio to go to Dorothy, who keeps Posthumos’ clothes and bring something to satisfy Cloten. So, here Dorothy is a servant of Scythian-origin Innogen (daughter of Cymbeline). The Third Earl of Derby Edward Stanley was married to Dorothy Howard, daughter of John Howard 2nd Duke of Norfolk. These were the parents of Henry the 4th Earl of Derby who married Margaret Clifford (daughter of Henry 4th Earl of Cumberland). Fernando Stanley their oldest son was fifth Earl of Derby, who died in mysterious circumstances and was succeeded by the author and de Vere son-in-law William Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby. So, Dorothy Howard was Fernando and William Stanley’s grandmother. As for Edward de Vere his grand aunt Frances was married to Henry Howard (poet and Earl of Essex) grandson of the same Thomas Howard 3rd Duke of Norfolk whose wife Dorothy was grandmother of Fernando and William Stanley. Thus, this Dorothy Howard was a person held as ancestor-in-common by both Edward de Vere and William Stanley. Perhaps this is why she as ‘Dorothy’ is introduced early in Locrine as link to Edward de Vere and who, with William Stanley, would be an avid promoter of the play. But it appears in the usage of Dorothy that Cymbeline comes earlier in time than Locrine (where Dorothy is more fully explained as girlfriend of Strumbo). It also appears that W.S. was very well acquainted with Scythian Sindh where an important family is called Soomro. The person who might be the Domesday Book ancestor of the Howards was a Havard listed after Oliver (Ulviet the huntsman) as king’s thegn in Yorkshire (Domesday Book). His family appears also in Lincs. in the original name of Haverstow wapentake (which was Hawardeshou) and in the Lincs. village Howardebo. ‘Bo’ or ‘by’ were Danish adjuncts to the family name (simply meaning ’village’) but not necessarily indicating that Havard was Scandinavian. He may have been an Alan (Scythian) like Sindi (whose village in N. Yorks was Sinderby). The nearest orthography to Howard is the Kurdish people who were of the same ethnic origin as the Scythians, so Havard in1086 as king’s thegn holding a carucate of land in Yorkshire was probably a Kurd. If the Howards were Ossetian-Kurdish origin, ‘Dorothy’ (i.e. Dorothy Howard) was an understood link between William Stanley and his future father-in-law Edward de Vere. And the plays show evidently that the two men had varying opinions on the place of the Ossetians / Kurds in early English history. Charles Graves 20 January 2024 |
