In last week’s inaugural installment of Pocket Blogs by Kate Pitt, we introduced you to Lord Saye, a.k.a. That One Random Head on a Pole in Henry VI Part II. This week Kate will show us how that one random head on a pole is connected to EVERYTHING.
Last week I hinted that one of the reasons I’m fond of Lord Saye in Henry VI Part II is that he is related to Shakespeare. While that isn’t strictly true, he is related to the Shakespeare I grew up with as a millennial with a VCR and a pulse: Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love.
The full name of the historical Lord Saye in Henry VI Part II is James Fiennes, first Baron Saye and Sele. Joseph Fiennes and his brother Ralph are members of the Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes family and descended from the sixteenth Baron Saye and Sele, the Venerable Frederick Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, who traces his lineage all the way back to the first Lord Saye who met a sticky end at the hands of Jack Cade back in 1450.
Both brothers’ acting pursuits have repeatedly brought them close to their Shakespearean past. Ralph Fiennes has played many, many, Shakespeare roles to great acclaim, and one of his earliest was Henry VI at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. That production was an adaptation of four plays (the three Henry VI plays and Richard III) into three plays (called Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III) and collectively known as The Plantagenets. There were at least some severed heads on pikes in that production, which means there is a decent chance that Ralph Fiennes crossed paths backstage with a prop head representing one of his ancestors.
The current Lord Saye, Nathaniel Thomas Allen Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 21st Baron Saye and Sele, is 100 years old, served honorably in WWII, and still lives in the family home. That home is Broughton Castle, originally built in the 14th century and passed down in the Fiennes family since 1457 when the son of Shakespeare’s Lord Saye, William Fiennes, the 2nd Lord Saye and Sele, succeeded in right of his wife to it.
In addition to being the Fiennes family home, Broughton Castle is often used as a filming location and was the home of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love. Yes, Joseph Fiennes played Shakespeare at the home of his third cousin once removed. The dance where Will meets Viola was filmed in the Great Hall, Colin Firth is grumpy in the Oak Room, and the balcony scene was filmed in the garden.
To sum up, not only does a Fiennes (James) appear in a Shakespeare play as a character, but a Fiennes (Ralph) has appeared in a Shakespeare play depicting that Fiennes (James), and his brother Fiennes (Joseph) has played Shakespeare at the home of the son (William) of the first Fiennes (James).
I first discovered this Fiennes frenzy rolling when I lived in Saybrook College as an undergraduate. Saybrook College is named after the town of Old Saybrook where Yale was originally founded. The town is named after Saybrook Colony which was named after the first Viscount Saye and Sele who helped fund it along with a Baron Brooke. The Saybrook college arms are a quartering of the Saye and Sele/Fiennes arms (three gold lions on a blue background) and the Brooke arms, which is how I spent a significant amount of time in college writing papers while wearing sweatpants with the heraldry of a minor Shakespeare character on them.
Saybrook College today is known for its two beautiful courtyards and “the Saybrook Strip” whereby residents enthusiastically remove plus or minus most of their clothes during the third quarter of a football game. We also honor the memory of Lord Saye with an annual “Saye and Sele Day” celebration, which recently included a mechanical shark.
Not every Shakespeare character with only two scenes has quite as much backstory as Lord Saye. His death is memorable and moving on its own, but next time you see Henry VI and he makes the cut, you can connect him to all the ways his life brushes against yours. Shakespeare is brilliant at sketching out characters and then shading in their hearts with a single line – “She was too good for me”, “I was adored once, too” – that tells us about their past. Lord Saye is interesting for all the ways his life reverberates in his future and our present.
by Kate Pitt
Interested in more deep dives into Shakespeare characters? Check out friend-of-Good-Tickle-Brain Hailey Bachrach’s dramatis personae, explorating the canon one character at a time.
