William Boyle - Misprision or Bust: Why One Word, in One Sonnet, Matters

It was exactly twenty years ago that a new theory on the basic subject matter of the Sonnets was put forward by Hank Whittemore. The Monument Theory, as it came to be called, was unprecedented in its scope and completeness, positing a real documented moment in time (the Essex Rebellion and its aftermath) as the subject of the middle one hundred sonnets, and the identification of the key figures as the 17th Earl of Oxford (the Poet), the 3rd Earl of Southampton (the Fair Youth) and Queen Elizabeth (the Dark Lady).
Boyle's presentation revisits this core issue of the Monument Theory, i.e., that the sonnets are about real events in the lives of actual people, and that the real event in this case was indeed the Essex Rebellion of February 8, 1601, and the two years immediately following. There is one word in one sonnet (“misprision” in Sonnet 87) which, I believe, illustrates this point better than any other in the whole sonnet sequence.
“Misprision” is a word that has only two definitions, one broad and general, and the other narrow and legal, and most usually associated with “treason.” Understanding the difference between “treason” vs. “misprision of treason” is the key to understanding the significance of this word in Sonnet 87. Simply put, treason is an overt act that results in the death penalty while “misprision of treason” is an “act of omission” that results in a sentence of life imprisonment.
The history of the Tudor dynasty includes many instances of “treason” vs. “misprision of treason” being at the center of famous legal cases, and more than once suspects and/or convicts found their lives hanging in the balance between the two. In the case of the Essex Rebellion, six persons were executed over a four-week period; but the rebellion’s co-conspirator/co-leader, Southampton, although tried, convicted of treason, and condemned to death with Essex, was spared execution, and eventually pardoned.
So the key to understanding the presence of the word “misprision” in Sonnet 87 is to see that it may well be an open, overt, legally correct reference (not a veiled or coded word to be interpreted) to what must have been the legal mechanism by which Southampton was spared. This was, after all, how the Tudors had been doing business in such cases for one hundred years.
This talk was presented at the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Conference in Hartford, CT on October 17, 2019.