Lord Hunsdon (Henry Carey): The Protector Who Becomes a Cage
Overview
Lord Hunsdon—Henry Carey—is a historical figure who becomes a pivotal force in Emilia Bassano’s fictionalised story. In By Any Other Name, he is the Queen’s cousin, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Master of the Revels, which gives him absolute authority over the plays that reach the Elizabethan stage. When Emilia is “bartered” to him at the age of thirteen, he assumes the role of her protector, moving her into his London household, delaying consummation, and offering her a life of material comfort that also traps her. Hunsdon is neither a straightforward villain nor a romantic hero. He is a man of immense power who genuinely believes he is being kind to the young woman he owns, and that tension makes him a richly ambivalent character. Through Hunsdon, Picoult examines the paradox of a man who provides Emilia with the very tools she needs to write—a study filled with play manuscripts and a tacit permission to critique them—while remaining, by the nature of the era and his position, the principal obstacle to her voice.
This page examines Hunsdon’s plot role, his motivations and traits revealed through actions, his chronological arc, his key relationships, the consequences of his decisions, and how he connects to the novel’s major themes. For broader context, revisit the main book page or explore thematic guides on female erasure, gender bias in the arts, and the Shakespeare authorship question.
Plot Role and Chronological Arc
Hunsdon enters the narrative before he physically appears. Emilia learns that she has been “bartered” to the Queen’s cousin, a man forty-three years her senior who is estranged from his wife. That transactional framing sets the tone for everything that follows. In a 1582 masque at court, thirteen-year-old Emilia first meets Hunsdon, and soon afterward she moves into his Somerset House residence. The relationship progresses with a calculated restraint: he delays physical intimacy, shows her his orangery, and treats her with a surface-level gentleness that Emilia interprets as a “good man.”
The tournament scene marks his first real test as her protector. When Emilia offends the Queen by waving a ribbon at a knight meant to honour Elizabeth, Hunsdon’s face pales, and the Queen berates him publicly. Later that night, in his study, he schools Emilia not with shouting but with a chilling lesson: he describes his job of licensing and censoring plays and warns, “Speech without thought can be quite dangerous, can it not?” This moment transforms him from a distant patron into an active warden, one who uses his professional authority to map the limits of Emilia’s entire existence.
That same night Emilia initiates sex. The act is a deliberate performance on her part—“she kissed by the book”—and it solidifies the terms of their bond. Hunsdon becomes her lover, but also her keeper. Over time, he grows accustomed to finding her reading the fair copies of plays sent to him for review; he not only tolerates her opinions but seems to value them. This quiet permission is the crack through which Emilia’s hidden writing life seeps.
Hunsdon’s presence recedes in the later chapters as court duties and health problems draw him away. He suffers attacks of gout and spends long stretches at court, leaving Emilia alone in Somerset House—absences that prove crucial for her affair with the Earl of Southampton and her collaboration with Kit Marlowe. He returns to the foreground briefly to take her to a play reading, faintly unwell, still the attentive if oblivious patron. His arc does not climax dramatically; rather, it fades, leaving behind the framework of patronage and obstruction that shapes Emilia’s entire struggle.
Motivations, Traits, and Actions
Hunsdon’s kindness is genuine but conditional. When Emilia asks why he is kind to her, he answers, “What reason have I to be otherwise?” This reply reveals his worldview: he sees no contradiction between owning a young woman and treating her well, because in his mind, benign ownership is the natural order. His desires are simple—companionship, intellectual stimulation, a mistress who does not embarrass him at court—and he pursues them through a mixture of paternalism and indulgence.
His most revealing trait is his instinct to control through education. Rather than punish Emilia for her outburst at the tournament, he stages a private lecture on the power of words, drawing a direct line between the plays he censors and the need to curb her own unguarded speech. The message is clear: as long as she stays within the boundaries he sets, she will be safe and comfortable. Step outside, and the Tower awaits. That this warning is delivered gently, almost lovingly, makes it more sinister, not less.
Yet Hunsdon is not a cardboard patriarch. He genuinely engages with Emilia’s sharp commentary on the plays, and he brings her to readings, exposing her to the nuts and bolts of theatrical production. Whether this is born of affection or intellectual vanity is ambiguous, but the effect is real: he inadvertently becomes the midwife of her talent. His willingness to listen to a woman’s opinions on drama is remarkable for the time, and it hints that he, like many powerful men, misjudges the threat in front of him. He sees a clever mistress, not a suppressed playwright.
His public role as the Queen’s cousin shapes every private decision. The tournament incident shows that his standing with Elizabeth is fragile; he cannot afford his mistress making a fool of him, and he passes that anxiety down the chain. In his own realm, he is a king of sorts, but in the tiltyard he is merely another courtier scrambling to retain favour. That duality—authority in the study, supplication in the court—keeps him from becoming a one-dimensional tyrant.
Key Relationships
Emilia Bassano – The central axis of his story. Hunsdon is her protector, master, and eventually her lover, but he is never quite her confidant. Emilia learns to perform affection for him, compartmentalising her inner self just as she learns to dissociate during sex. Their dynamic is a study in asymmetrical power masquerading as mutual respect. Hunsdon gives her access to the theatrical world and, unintentionally, the education that will fuel her secret plays and her long narrative poem Venus and Adonis. Yet she must always hide her truest self from him; when she compares him to Southampton, she is already psychologically unfaithful, not just sexually.
Queen Elizabeth I – As the sovereign’s cousin and Lord Chamberlain, Hunsdon exists in a perpetual state of dutiful submission. Elizabeth’s displeasure is a mortal threat, and he spends enormous effort managing it. This relationship echoes down onto Emilia: Hunsdon cannot protect her from the Queen’s wrath, and when Emilia threatens his standing, his first instinct is damage control, not defence. It is a reminder that in the Elizabethan hierarchy, even a powerful nobleman is ultimately disposable.
Henry Wriothesley (Southampton) – Hunsdon never interacts with Southampton in the examined chapters, but the absence is meaningful. Hunsdon’s long hours at court create the vacuum into which the young earl steps. Hunsdon remains unaware of the affair, a blindness that underscores how thoroughly Emilia has learned to dissemble. The contrast between the two men—the aging, gout-ridden chamberlain and the beautiful, dangerous young earl—maps Emilia’s divided heart: security versus passion, compliance versus risk.
Key Decisions and Consequences
Hunsdon’s decision to take Emilia as his mistress in the first place is a life-altering one for her. It removes her from the Bassano household and places her in a gilded cage where she has every material comfort but zero autonomy. The consequence, seen across the entire novel, is that Emilia’s genius must grow in the shadows, nourished by stolen moments in his study.
His choice to educate her through fear rather than anger after the tournament is another turning point. He could have cast her out, which would have been catastrophic for both, but instead he binds her closer by making her fully aware of her vulnerability. From that night forward, Emilia understands that she is an entertainer in a play of Hunsdon’s making, and she begins consciously writing her own lines beneath his nose.
His unofficial policy of allowing her to read and critique play manuscripts has the most far‑reaching consequence of all. Emilia absorbs dramatic structure, verse, and the mechanics of censor‑acceptable theatrics directly from his desk. She starts filing away the names of lazy playwrights, and by the time she sees a dull play by a certain William Shakespeare, she is absolutely sure she could do better. Hunsdon’s study becomes the workshop for the secret literary works later attributed to Shakespeare. His unknowing patronage is arguably the novel’s most crucial plot enabler.
Finally, Hunsdon’s frequent absences—driven by court obligations and later by illness—create the necessary space for Emilia to act on her desires and ambitions. Without those gaps, she would never have met Southampton alone in the garden, nor might she have slipped out in boy’s disguise with Marlowe. Hunsdon’s absence is a structural force, as powerful as his presence.
Connections to Themes and Symbols
Hunsdon is the human face of the structural forces this novel critiques. As the Master of the Revels, he personifies the female erasure and pseudonymous authorship that drive the story. He decides what can be spoken on stage and, by extension, who may speak. Emilia can only become a playwright by circumventing him entirely—writing in secret, using a male front. The irony is that she learns her craft directly from the materials he controls, a stolen education that mirrors the hidden authorship debate at the novel’s heart. Visit the Shakespeare authorship question for a wider discussion.
His relationship with Emilia is a textbook example of the commodification of women. The word “bartered” is used explicitly. She is transferred between male guardians as a valuable asset, her virginity a commodity to be traded for protection. Hunsdon’s kindness does not negate this transaction; it merely decorates it. For more, see the commodification theme guide.
Hunsdon also embodies the gender bias in the arts. Emilia notes that his play-reviewing role would never be open to her, not because she lacks ability but because she is a woman. Every favourable comment he makes about her insights is a compliment that remains locked inside a private chamber, never translating into public recognition. Explore the theme of gender bias in the arts for parallel dynamics in the novel’s other timeline.
Conversely, the study where Hunsdon works becomes a symbol of art as resistance and legacy. The same desk where he wields his censor’s quill becomes the surface where Emilia’s poems and plays first take shape. Every line he strikes through in a submitted script is, in a sense, a rehearsal for the erasure Emilia herself must eventually fight. Her later decision to write is a direct, quiet rebellion against the world Hunsdon represents. Understanding how art functions as resistance is essential to the novel’s message.
Questions and Answers
1. Who is Lord Hunsdon, and what is his relationship to Queen Elizabeth I?
Lord Hunsdon, Henry Carey, is the son of Mary Boleyn and, by some accounts, possibly King Henry VIII; officially he is the Queen’s first cousin. In the novel, he serves as Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Revels, managing all entertainment at court and controlling the licensing and censorship of plays performed in London. Elizabeth is his sovereign and his relative, and his position depends entirely on her favour, as shown when her anger at the tournament puts him on the defensive.
2. How does Hunsdon’s role as Master of the Revels shape Emilia’s hidden literary career?
Hunsdon’s censorship duties give him a constant supply of play manuscripts at Somerset House. Emilia, with his permission, reads these “fair copies,” learns dramatic structure and verse, and begins forming critical opinions that he encourages. This informal apprenticeship, entirely off the public record, is the foundation of the writing that will later be attributed to Shakespeare. Without Hunsdon’s study, Emilia would not have such intimate access to the inner workings of Elizabethan theatre.
3. Why does Emilia describe Hunsdon as a “good man” when he clearly controls every aspect of her life?
Emilia’s judgement is shaped by the impossible alternatives available to a thirteen‑year‑old girl in 1582. Compared to a cruel guardian or abandonment to poverty, Hunsdon is indeed good: he does not beat her, he delays physical intimacy, he speaks to her with courtesy, and he values her mind. Emilia clings to this relative goodness to survive. The novel never asks us to approve of their relationship, but it does show that performative gratitude is one of the few strategies a woman in her position can use to maintain a sense of agency.
4. What does the tournament incident reveal about Hunsdon’s expectations of Emilia?
When Emilia publicly waves a ribbon at a knight meant for the Queen, Hunsdon’s most immediate reaction is fear for his own standing. The Queen humiliates him, and he withdraws without defending Emilia. That night he delivers a stern lesson: “Speech without thought can be quite dangerous, can it not?” He expects Emilia to be invisible, discreet, and entirely loyal to his reputation. Any spark of independence that threatens his position must be smothered, even if the smothering is framed as protection.
5. In what ways does Hunsdon’s treatment of Emilia embody the novel’s theme of female commodification?
Emilia is explicitly “bartered” to Hunsdon by her family, making her a tangible asset exchanged for advantage. Hunsdon supplies her with fine clothes, a comfortable home, and education, but all of this is predicated on her total surrender of autonomy. She is expected to perform the role of grateful mistress, including sexual availability, in return for his protection. Her body, her time, and even her intellectual output belong to him by default, encapsulating the era’s view of women as property to be owned and managed.
For further insights into the novel’s dual narratives and the way Emilia’s story intersects with Melina’s, you might explore the ending explained or browse additional questions and answers.