Isabella_for_Students

QUEEN ISABELLA The character of Queen Isabella is a fairly complex one. Towards the opening of the play we find her sorely tried by the vagaries and perversions of her husband and very unhappy at being slighted by her husband. She seems to hungry for the king’s affection and is prepared to do virtually anything to gain it. To win love for Edward she is prepared even to request the baron for Gaveston’s recall from banishment. She does not become attracted to Mortimer. After the recall of Gaveston and at the time immediately preceding it her behaviour was not quite blameless however. It was probably she who advised Mortimer to advocate Gaveston’s recall with the express purpose of having him assassinated at a future date. After she went over to France to plead her own case before her brother, her affections undergo a sea change and her love for Mortimer become explicit. Marlowe’s delineation of the queen is some times adversely criticized. It is held that “the transition from her faithful, but despairing attachment to the King to a guilty love for Mortimer” has not been indicated. There are certainly many passages, especially in the first act, which must be taken to indicate that the queen loves Edward, and some of these have the informative value that attaches to soliloquy. On the other hand, the growing intimacy between the queen and Mortimer had also been adequately suggested. It is to Mortimer that Isabella from the beginning is made to turn for sympathy and help in her trials. Their conversation together in Act I, Scene 4 with Mortimer’s ready acquiescence in her plan, is in itself mean to be significant, and certainly would be made more so on this stage; but there are other casual hints. Both Gaveston and the King allude to the intimacy. At the beginning of Act II Scene 4, Edward spurns the queen, talks of her lover Mortimer, and leaves Isabella lamenting his stony heart. Mortimer enters and in his direct strong way arranges that they should follow to capture Gaveston. Isabella implore him to leave her lest her suspicion be aroused and, when along, speaks her heart : “So well hast thou deserved, sweet Mortimer, As Isabella could live with thee forever”. The actual moment of change to a full union with Mortimer in love and intrigue is not shown. Isabella appears just once in the third Act preparing to leave for France, and from the fourth act to the end of the play is definitely against the king. Some critic have supposed that Isabella’s early utterances of love for the king are hypocritical. This is not tenable. Nor is the alternative explanation correct which suggests that Marlowe deliberately blackens Isabella’s character in order to draw more sympathy towards the king. It is true that Marlowe could have thrown more light on Isabella’s change of affection. But there is no real inconsistency. The queen loved the weak king, but in her solitary despair was helped by Mortimer. While his strength attracted her, she was repelled by the neglect and insults of her husband. She went to Mortimer when her attraction became love. Towards the end she hardened her heart to the king. She may have been conventionally immoral and wicked; but that is not to be inconsistent. The way Marlowe develops the queen’s character throughout the play does not do justice to Queen Isabella the person. For the majority of the drama, the queen is portrayed as a feeble, nagging, helpless woman who looks to the nobility for sympathy. “… I will endure a melancholy life, and let him frolic with his minion” (1.2.66-67). This scene is the first glimpse of the queen’s portrait that the reader and audience see. The queen is storming out to the forest “to live in grief and baleful discontent,” when the Mortimers inquire as to where she is going (1.4.97-98). Isabella laments about how she has been displaced by Gaveston , and how she “will rather die a thousand deaths,” than to stop loving the king. Marlowe continues to outline Isabella in this manner throughout the play, until she suddenly takes a stand and helps in planning the invasion of England. Though Isabella’s devotion to Edward in the beginning of the play is admirable, it is not an accurate portrayal of who the queen was as a person. Marlowe “created a split image of Isabella. The queen is imbued with an infinite devotion to her husband at the beginning of his reign, but this goodness seems to be overshadowed by her hypocrisy and faithlessness toward the end”. In the first act of the play, the audience listens to the “miserable and distressed queen” (1.4.170) grieve over the absence of her husband’s love. However the illustration of a devoted wife is altered by the fourth act when the audience sees the queen’s willingness to tighten the noose around Edward’s neck. In this act, Isabella is seen speaking against her husband: “Misgoverned kings are cause of all this wrack; Whose looseness hath betrayed they land to spoil and made the channels overflow with blood” (3.1.81-88). The sense of matrimonial faithfulness felt in earlier scenes is a character attribute created by Marlowe; there is no evidence that the actual Queen Isabella felt compelled to such loyalty. In fact, no one could insult the queen without paying fatal consequences. With a quick wit and an even quicker temper, Queen Isabella was a woman no one in their right mind desired to be at odds with. Regardless of the weaknesses Marlowe highlights, the queen’s strongest feature, political diplomacy, shines through not only Marlowe’s characterization of her, but also through historical documentation of her political activities. Though Marlowe misrepresents Isabella as weak, he does put her in the middle of peace negotiations between England and France (3.1.81-88). Diplomatic prowess was not, however, the only power Isabella possessed in the political realm. Her familial connections granted her a great deal of political pull and her followers fortified her resolve and ability to attain what she wanted. Isabella’s cleverness and quick temper proved to be a deadly combination, especially for Edward. Though he accurately captures Isabella’s temperament into his sketch of her, Marlowe leaves out the fine details of her main strength - politics. Just the threat of having to visit Isabella’s discontented brother was enough for Edward to send her to France to negotiate peace between the two monarchs (Strickland 173). Marlowe inaccurately portrays the relationship Isabella has with her brother as well. He speeds through Isabella’s visit to France and gives the impression that her brother is apathetic to her pleas. However in actuality, the queen was quite welcome in Charles’ domain until he was informed of her relations with Mortimer. Having close kin on France’s throne all of her life proved to be a great benefit to Isabella. Isabella found support from members of an even higher class than the nobility. The general public of England sympathized with her as well. Her fairness and generosity helped Isabella gain the trust of the general public. Isabella’s allegiances, whether they were hereditary or held together by some other political facet helped her to establish a strong influence within the circle of nobility. The influence Isabella toted granted her the ability to practice her diplomatic prowess. In fact, in many cases involving conflicts between the nobility and the king, Isabella was responsible for keeping the peace. Although Edward II lacks emphasis on Isabella’s strengths, Marlowe incorporates a small amount of her political finesse in his depiction of her. Much like in reality, Marlowe shows Isabella traveling to France to negotiate peace between her brother, Charles IV, and Edward (3.1.59-88). After receiving a letter from Charles IV announcing that the French had sized Normandy, the king, not wanting to confront his brother-in-law himself, sent Isabella to do his dirty work. According to Marlowe, the result was Isabella being stranded in France with no allies (Bevington 394). Every image set up by Marlowe in his picture of Isabella as a weak woman is shattered by her role in the events that culminated in the death of the king. Not only did Isabella play a key role in Edward’s deposition, but she was also responsible for the letter that condemned him to death. Marlowe takes Isabella’s hotness and waters it down into a mellow, mild flavour in his depiction of her as a character. Although the queen is seen rallying her troops against the king, it becomes apparent that this coups against Edward has not been organized by the queen, but more so by Mortimer and Sir John (4.4.1-26). There are three elements that should be considered in regard to Isabella’s role in Edward’s death. The first is how he was imprisoned. After Edward was captured and safely confined, it was the queen’s responsibility to convince parliament that Edward II wanted to resign his crown to his son. The final element of Isabella’s role in Edward’s death was the letter she wrote ordering his execution. However, Marlowe shows Mortimer writing the letter instead of the Queen. When Marlowe sets up the scene where Edward’s murder is ordered, he does not give the queen the credit that is owed to her. With Mortimer’s words, “The King must die, or Mortimer goes down. Yet he that is the cause of Edward’s death is sure to pay for it when his son is of age, and therefore I will do it cunningly. This letter, written by a friend of ours, contains his death, yet bids them save his life”, Marlowe does not mention that the letter is the queen’s clever doing. Christopher Marlowe wrote plays in a time when women were not accepted as independent leaders of society; they were viewed as weak and inferior. In the portrait Marlowe paints of Queen Isabella in his drama Edward II, he succeeds in capturing the essence of her fiery temper and desire for control. What Marlowe omits from his painting are the hues of political strength and influence Isabella possessed in her time. Giving a portrayal of the queen as a devoted and weepy wife is an inaccurate description of Isabella as a person. Though Marlowe highlights his sketch of Isabella with splotches of her supporters and diplomatic abilities here and there, he leaves out the red-orange of her passion against the king, and the violet hues of the loyalty she enjoyed from the connections she had, on both French and British soil. Marlowe neglects the blues and greens of her victory against Edward, and denies her the blackness that signifies his death. In Edward II, Marlowe paints a picture of a lonely matron, not of the political genius that was Isabella from France.