Merry Christmas! This holiday season, we’re taking a trip back to one of the most extravagant Christmas celebrations of Shakespeare’s lifetime—the Christmas of 1603, when the newly crowned James I hosted his first royal festivities as King of England. The court was alive with feasting, pageantry, and opulent merrymaking. It was a moment of political transition, and James made sure his first Christmas made a powerful impression.

The newly renamed King’s Men, Shakespeare’s company, performed for the court, securing their new royal patronage. Alongside these performances were dazzling masques, intricate entertainments, and diplomatic displays designed to cement James’s image as both a unifier and a sovereign of grandeur.

This week, our guide through the glittering halls of Whitehall Palace in the winter of 1603 is Martin Wiggins, Senior Research Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford Upon Avon, author of British Drama 1533–1642: A Catalogue, and President of the Malone Society. Today, Martin joins us to share what made this holiday season so historically important, how theater helped James define his kingship, and what the royal court’s festivities can teach us about Shakespeare’s world. Stay with us—we’re about to unwrap a Christmas filled with drama, diplomacy, and theatrical delight.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff declares on more than one occasion, “I am a rogue.” Several exchanges between Falstaff, Henry V, and others like Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, see characters throwing the word “rogue” back and forth as both an insult and a badge of honor.

The term connects to a real form of slang underworld language known as rogue cant. Which was a secret, cryptic lexicon, spoken and understood only by criminals. Falstaff and his companions are the closest depictions of criminals in Shakespeare’s works. Their roguish behavior includes gathering at the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap to plan their crimes and divide their spoils. By choosing to use the word “rogue,” Shakespeare was deliberately connecting his characters to the real criminal underworld of 16th-century England that trafficked in this mysterious and coded language.

To introduce us to this rogue cant, and to help us unlock the hidden meanings of these words so that we can better understand the culture that produced them, we are excited to welcome Ari Friedlander back to the show.

Ari joins us today to take a closer look at rogue cant: where the words came from, how they were used, and what they reveal about Shakespeare’s world.

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