HAMLET, INCEST, AND ELIZABETH I

[Notes on a conversation with sharif Graham]

I thought you would like this,, remembering our conversation about Hamlet. BTW, I meant to mention that it occurred to me that Hamlet's harping on "incest" was an exercise in political-correctness, since Elizabeth I's legitimacy rested on the incestuous nature of her father's first marriage. (Catherine of Aragon had previously been married to prince Arthur, who died shortly thereafter. Henry VII quickly married her off to his second son, who became Henry VIII. This would have been incestuous, according to the same ecclesiastical norm that concerned Hamlet. Catherine, however claimed that her first marriage had never been consummated, and hence was itself a nullity, so her marriage to Prince Henry was NOT invalid.) There was, of course, no way to prove her claim, but - as my professor Edward Rochie Hardy observed - "She ought to have known!" So an important part of subsequent English history is entailed in this strange canon law. I think Hamlet's insistence on the "one flesh" business (Claudius as his "mother") maybe the clue to the Church's thinking: the dominical pronouncement on marriage ("...the two become one flesh, therefore what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder") would seem to imply that your sister-in-law becomes your own sister, for purposes of consanguinity.