Lucy Negro, prostitute: The Dark-Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets

Some black women worked alongside their white counterparts as prostitutes, especially in Southwark, & in the brothel area of Turnmill Street in Clerkenwell. Here Lucy Negro, a former dancer in the Queen's service, ran an establishment patronised by noblemen & lawyers. Her area of London was notorious. "Pray enquire after & secure my negress: she is certainly at The Swan, a Dane's beershop in Turnmil Street," wrote one Denis Edwards in 1602. Shakespeare's acquaintance, the poet John Weaver, wrote of a woman whose face was "pure black as Ebonie, jet blacke".

Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets was a London prostitute called Lucy Negro, a dark-skinned madam who ran a licentious house (brothel) in Clerkenwell, north-east London. aka Black Luce, she was 'an arrant whore & a bawde’, catering for everyone from ‘ingraunts’ (immigrants) to ‘welthyemen’ & the aristocracy.' Yet she Inspired many of Bard's sonnets 127 to 152. The sonnets give few details describing her, apart from her dark eyes, hair & complexion, with hints that she was married. The Bard imagines an unidentified woman - known as the 'Dark Lady' but not actually named by him in that way - in an adulterous sexual relationship. She is the inspiration for many of the sonnets 127 to 152. She is 'my female evil' & 'my bad angel' in sonnet 144.

This identity was tentatively suggested in the 1930s. in August 2012 Dr Salkeld revealed public records that convinced him. Dr Salkeld discovered part of the evidence in the diary of Philip Henslowe.

The diary of Philip Henslowe, who built Rose Theatre, makes reference to Lucy Negro & her associate Gilbert East, another Clerkenwell brothel owner. They were both tenants of Henslowe, who had a rival acting company
Henslowe, who staged at least one of Shakespeare’s plays - Titus Andronicus - recorded 30 occasions when he dined with a Gilbert East who was also Henslowe’s bailiff for properties that he owned.

Apart from a midnight raid on her premises, Luce is not recorded as being arrested, though her girls were, & court documents include references to her successful brothel.

'Black Luce’s bad name was so well-known that anyone reading Shakespeare’s… sonnets… in the 1590s & early 1600s is likely to have brought her to mind, & Shakespeare must have known this.'

Lucy Negro also appears in a list of bawdy entertainments - the Gray's Inn Christmas entertainments of 1594 - & in a few plays & literary texts of the period.

'The stews were closed down by Henry VIII in 1546 & that drastically inhibited prostitution activity in the area. 'The majority of cases were north of The Thames, including Clerkenwell.'


Adapted from information found at: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2194176/Dark-Lady-Shakespeares-sonnets-finally-revealed-London-prostitute-called-Lucy-Negro.html