When failure was an option, just not a very attractive one

"Were now the general of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit,
To welcome him!"

                                                     Henry V         (Prologue to Act V)

Shakespeare is making a direct reference to contemporary events in these lines from the prologue of the last act in his rousing history play, Henry V. The lines refer to the man of the moment in 1599: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, the man sent to teach those endlessly quarrelsome Irish a lesson, once and for all.  Shakespeare's countrymen were aching for a hero: in Essex many thought they had found one.

The decade following the 1588 triumph over the Spanish Armada had been disappointing for the English in many respects. Along with an economic downturn, recurrences of bubonic plague, crop failures, atrocious weather, conspiracy rumors and the stubborn reemergence of threats from Catholic Spain, the English knew that their virgin queen was as mortal as any milkmaid, with no obvious heir to make for a smooth transition of power. The question of the royal succession would be finally settled only on Elizabeth's deathbed.

Rebelliousness in Ireland had also been a nagging concern, as attempts to establish an aggrandizing English Pale had met with a resistance that should have surprised no one, but evidently did. Attempts to put down the Irish rebels had proven ineffectual. The martial reputation and personal ego of Essex was such that he inadvertently found himself in command of troops charged with crossing the Irish Sea and setting things right. Shakespeare's image of "rebellion broached on his sword" would have seemed fitting at the time.

Pictured above, from the collection of Agecroft Hall, is an English backsword (sharp along one edge rather than both) made c1650, a half-century after the fiasco that saw the Earl of Essex lead his forces to Ireland, flail away ineffectually at the rebels, and return in a rush to England, petulantly storming into Queen Elizabeth's private chamber to protest against real or imagined intrigues against him at court.

He had failed. The country was shocked. Essex had made what was regarded as a humiliating truce with the Irish. Elizabeth was angry, and her anger would grow when Essex, shortly thereafter, tried to stage a coup on the streets of London that came to nothing. Essex and his followers had even persuaded Shakespeare's theatrical group, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, to dust off the play King Richard II and perform it at the Globe. That play involves the deposition of an anointed monarch, an idea that Essex wished to promote for his own ends. But Londoners didn't take to the streets, his coup attempt failed, and his head landed in a bucket on Tower Green.

The sword pictured above is referred to as a mortuary sword, so named for its depiction of a person believed martyred by those sympathetic to a particular cause. This sword dates to the English Civil War and the ensuing Commonwealth period, and the face depicted represents King Charles I, executed during the Puritan wave that swept over England in the mid-seventeenth century. That same Puritan regime would be largely responsible for the closing and destruction of theaters in London, including Shakespeare's Globe. One might say that the actors themselves had achieved a sort of martyrdom, not to be recognized until the Restoration.