Master Skylark by John Bennett
"Master Skylark" by John Bennett is a historical fiction novel set in Elizabethan England, during the rise of William Shakespeare's career. The story follows Nicholas (Nick) Attwood, a boy who, frustrated by his father's disapproval of the traveling players, embarks on a journey to London to seek adventure and fulfill his passion for singing. His experiences lead him to be forcefully taken into the world of theater, where he encounters Gaston Carew and his daughter Cicely. Although Nick enjoys temporary success and fame, he becomes increasingly homesick and yearns to return to Stratford, especially after being disowned by his father.
Throughout the tale, themes of family, parental discipline, and the intersection of art and commerce emerge, reflecting Victorian moral values. Nick's journey is marked by both triumphs and hardships, including Carew's eventual downfall, which intertwines with the broader narrative of survival and community support. The story culminates in Nick's return home and reconciliation with his father, facilitated by the intervention of Shakespeare, who embodies the protective and prosperous adult figure. This richly detailed narrative not only offers insight into the lives of boy actors and singers of the time but also resonates with readers through its exploration of family bonds and resilience amidst adversity.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Master Skylark by John Bennett
First published: 1896, serial; 1897, book; illustrated by Reginald B. Birch
Type of work: Historical fiction
Themes: The arts, family, poverty, and social issues
Time of work: 1596-1598
Recommended Ages: 13-15
Locale: Elizabethan England, including Stratford-upon-Avon and London
Principal Characters:
Nicholas “Nick” Attwood , known as Master Skylark, a Stratford lad with a beautiful voiceSimon Attwood , a tanner, his unforgiving fatherMargaret Attwood , his understanding motherGaston Carew , a partner in the Lord Admiral’s Men and Nick’s captorCicely Carew , his daughter, a friend of NickGregory Coole , Carew’s bandy-legged servant
The Story
Set in Elizabethan England at the rise of William Shakespeare’s career, this story of a boy’s abduction to London’s world of theater is told among vivid descriptions of the life and times of the traveling players of the era. Nicholas (Nick) Attwood, angry at his father Simon Attwood’s refusal to let him see the traveling players’ performances in Stratford, takes to the road toward their next stop. On the way he meets and sings for Gaston Carew, a partner in the troupe and a shrewd judge of Nick’s vocal talent. By lies, seductions, and eventual outright force, Nick is brought to London and locked in Carew’s quarters, where he meets Carew’s daughter Cicely, who loves her father and explains his generous, expansive side to Nick.
Despite wonderful success singing in front of his audiences, and gifts of marvelous clothes and food, Nick grows increasingly homesick. His father in Stratford has, in the meantime, disowned his son, thinking that he has joined the players of his own free will. Nick is given over in apprenticeship to Master Nathaniel Gyles of St. Paul’s boys’ choir. At the height of his experience, he sings before Queen Elizabeth at her winter palace, but, when she offers to grant him a boon, he replies, “I want to go home,” and the queen misinterprets his request as a rude dismissal of her generosity. All hope gone, he returns to London with the boys; only his fellow-Stratfordian, Shakespeare, can help him now.
When Nick is “sold” to the boys’ choir, Carew becomes rich from Nick’s earnings, and begins to anguish about the rightness of his actions. Carew secretly stores his riches in separate piles for his daughter and for Nick, but he gambles the rest away, eventually fatally stabbing another gambler in a tavern brawl. Condemned to death in Newgate prison, Carew tells Nick to send for Shakespeare, who has agreed to help Nick get back to Stratford. Before Nick and Cicely can join Shakespeare, however, they are again captured by Gregory Coole; they escape too late to join Shakespeare’s troupe, and travel toward Stratford by the kindness of strangers on the road.
On their return to Stratford, Nick rushes home, only to have the gate closed on him by his father. Intervention by John Combe, a town elder, makes Simon see the error of his ways, and he embraces both Nick and Cicely, whom he will rear despite his own meager resources. Shakespeare has a surprise: When he visited Carew at Newgate, Carew told him the secret of his hidden riches and asked him to distribute his wealth to the children. Nick and Cicely are well provided for at the story’s end.
Context
John Bennett’s meticulously researched tale of a boy’s life in the time of Shakespeare first appeared as a serial in the popular St. Nicholas Magazine in 1896. Its many editions have inspired illustrators of every decade, beginning with Reginald B. Birch’s originals up to Mary F. Landrigan’s illustrations in 1953. It has been adapted in various ways as well, most notably as a stage play dramatized by Edgar White Burrill as Master Skylark: Or, Will Shakespeare’s Ward (1909), again illustrated by Birch. In a 1915 edition, Burrell notes: “To the winsome figure of Nicholas Attwood himself there clings a sort of Peter Pan quality which endears him to old and young alike.”
By placing the fictional character Nick, rather than Shakespeare himself, at the center of the story, Bennett avoids answering to known biographical facts (however slim) regarding Shakespeare’s childhood and retains the important connection with Stratford, the typical postfeudal, guild-economy village. The value of Nick’s story for young students of Elizabethan England lies in Bennett’s perspicacious and colorful descriptions of the boy actors and singers from the choirs of London, about whose daily lives little is known outside academic circles.
Despite the Elizabethan setting, however, the story is decidedly Victorian in its moral precepts: irreplaceable family values, stern parental discipline tempered with compassion, and the purely Victorian idea of the marriage (not the conflict) of Art and Commodity. These predilections remove Nick’s plight from the pastoral tradition of Robin Hood, King Arthur, and similar Romantic heroes from before 1850, and place it squarely within that of the late nineteenth century Industrial Revolution.
Young readers have appreciated the adventures of Nick in “the big city,” while at the same time they have taken comfort in the unqualified love of Nick’s mother waiting at home, a Dickensian feature in children’s literature of this period, also seen in Henrik Ibsen’s famous dramatic Bildungsroman, Peer Gynt (1867). Shakespeare, drawn here almost as a successful London “Victorian” capitalist, casts a protective cloak over Nick’s adventures, giving readers the assurance that, once the events’ dramatic structures of suspense and tension have run their course, the wisest of adults, the enterprising businessman-artist, will be here to make all well. It is interesting to note that Shakespeare’s solution to Nick’s dilemma follows Victorian principles, which were based on considerations of economy rather than emotion.
Bennett was reared and educated in Chillicothe, Ohio, and made his home in Charleston, South Carolina, until his death in 1956. Other stories by Bennett include Barnaby Lee (1902), Madame Margot: A Grotesque Legend of Old Charleston (1921), and Blue Jacket, War Chief of the Shawnee (1943), which was adapted as an outdoor drama.