His most memorable evil characters, such as Iago, are adept at appealing to the weakness of "great-
souled" heroes like Othello by employing the techniques of flattery. Affirms Caroline Spurgeon:
Shakespeare….turns almost sick when he watches flatterers and syncophants bowing and cringing to the
rich and powerful purely in order to get something out of them for themselves. It is as certain as anything
can be, short of direct proof, that he had been hurt, directly or indirectly, in this particular way. No one
who reads his words carefully can doubt that he had either watched someone, whose friendship he prized,
being deceived by fawning flatterers, or that he himself had suffered from a false friend or friends.
(195)
It is easy to see that a man of Oxford's wealth, power and talents would have been constantly
subjected to the evils of flattery. As a reader of the Bible he was struck by, and underlined, the Argument
to II Samuel describing the "horrible and dangerous insurrections, uprores, and treasons [which] were
wroght against [David], partly by false conselors, fained friends & flatterers & partely by some of his
owne children and people” (emphasis added). A May 13, 1587 letter by Lord Burghley
to Francis
Walsingham complains that the Earl's "lewd friends….still rule him by flatteries.” Both Oxford's own
correspondence and the extant legal records of his estate reveal that, over and again, he found himself in
the position of Othello, having been, he felt, deceived by the whispering flattery of trusted stewards who
turned out to be more interested in their own gain than the welfare of their master or his estate.
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