ABSTRACT
To Jaques military service is as integral apart oflife as education, first love or death. For many writers of Shakespeare's generation - and for many generations since - this was no exaggeration. Jonson recalled to Drummond the highlight ofhis sojourn in the Low Countries, when, 'in the face ofboth the Campes, [he] killed ane enimie and [took] opima spolia from him' (Conversations, ed. Patterson, 23). Donne confessed to the 'fashion of a soldier' in 1596/7, 'which occupation for a while I professe' (Marotti, 1986, 102). Chapman's wartime editor records the 'general supposition' that he too fought in the Netherlands (Poems, ed. Bartlett, 427), and there is firmer evidence for Marlowe's contribution to the war effort (Bakeless, 1, 77-85, 159-62; Nicholl, 1992, passim). Dekker's marked concern for soldiers' welfare has been explained by his supposed military service (Hunt, 1911, 21); Tourneur's Funeral Poeme on Sir Francis Vere (1609) strengthens the hypothesis of his overseas employment by that family, 'concerned with military and other affairs' .' The examples of Sidney (killed in action at Zutphen in 1586) and Spenser (part of Lord Grey's administration of the ruthless policies in Ireland) are well known.
