The actor Sir Mark Rylance has explained that he accepted a knighthood, overcoming reservations about the honours system, because of King Charles’s love of Shakespeare. Charles, he said, by way of reconciling the title with his disquiet about “military history”, is “one of the most sincere, devout lovers of Shakespeare I’ve ever met in my life”.
Perhaps because there really is no question about Charles’s feeling for Shakespeare, this unusually resourceful excuse – surely making its first appearance among an anti-establishment figure’s reasons for embracing its decorations – has been respectfully received.
