Rise of Common Play 00 Brad
Rise of Common Play 00 Brad
Rise of Common Play 00 Brad
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THE RISE OF
THE COMMON PLAYER
By
the
same Author
THE NORWEGIAN
SHAKESPEARE AND
ELIZABETHAN POETRY
ELIZABETHAN STAGE CONDITIONS
THEMES AND CONVENTIONS OF
ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY
THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT
IBSEN,
ANDREW MARVELL
(with
M. G. Lloyd Thomas)
T.
S.
ELIOT
THOMAS MALORY
THE queen's GARLAND
SIR
(An Anthology)
THE
RISE OF THE
COMMON PLAYER
A Study
of Actor
in Shakespeare
M.
C.
and
Society
England
BRADBROOK
LITT.D.
CAMBRIDGE
1964
First Published
1962
M.
C. Bradbrook 1962
PREFACE
This book has been written in the hope that it would interest
both students of drama and students of social history. It is a
continuation of the study I began in Shakespeare and
Elizabethan Poetry; but instead of exploring the literary
influences surrounding the plays,
as
it
when the
The book is
years
divisions of the
first
and the
Men
conflicts of the
drama
in
Elizabethan times.
Apart from
Quotations from this work are given in the original spelling, which is
of significance for its origin; all other quotations are in modern spelling. In
quoting from early books I have given the signature reference, not the page
reference except when, as with Laneham, I have checked the pagination.
^
the
complex
Part
social structure.
of the troupes
to
relate
who
this
social
development of
In Part
II,
and
literary forms.
the same
critical
period
is
focus
first
actor to achieve
Part III
is
by
fully incorporated
As Common
fall
of the choris-
declined; they go
in a well
to the
common
Lastly, Part
stages.
general dramatic
royal
The growth
within in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the language burst into flower ; blossom by blossom, from the arrival
of Marlowe somewhere about 1587, masterpieces appeared.
There had never been anything like the wonderful period
VI
'traffic
men who
audacity of the
understand
why
presented
Elizabethan
The Elizabethan
not hard to
poetic
is
it
it,
his
way
to a throne.
M.
C.
BRADBROOK
ABBREVIATION
E.E.T.S.
M.S.
E.S.
Oxford 1903.
E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan
vols. Oxford, 1923.
M.S.C.
Malone
Stage^
W. W.
Greg.
Oxford 1907-.
M.S.R.
Hillebrand
Malone
H. N.
Hillebrand,
versity of Illinois
The Child
Studies in
Actors,
Uni-
Language and
Nichols
P.M.L.A.
To
EDITH EVANS
and the memory of her
friend
and mine
JUDITH WILSON
CONTENTS
v
Preface
xi
xii-xiii
PJRT
I.
The New
II.
Estate.
Common
17
Player
III.
Player-Poets.
67
IV.
V.
96
Integration
PJRT
Leicester's
VI.
II.
COMMON PLJTERS,
Men at Kenilworth;
VII.
VIII.
119
1575-1600
Laneham's Letter.
PJRT
The
X.
III.
162
Robert Wilson.
178
HOUSEHOLD PLJTERS,
194
1574-1606
Choristers' Theatres in
PJRT
XI.
IF.
Drama as
The
2 11
1559-1607
Christmas Revels.
XII.
141
Richard Tarlton.
IX.
39
243
265
versity.
282
Epilogue
Table of Dates,
558-1 616
284
Notes
288
Index
31
ILLUSTRATIONS
I.
a.
A
1
Museum, Cambridge.
Poetry as Offering.
Museum
II.
Royal
MS.
Queen Elizabeth
From the British
64
18. a. xlviii.
RICHARD TARLTON
From a sepia wash drawing originally belonging to
Samuel Pepys; Pepysian Library, Magdalene College,
Cambridge. MS. 2980. 3llb. By kind permission
of the Master and Fellows.
III.
EDWARD ALLEYN
From
painter
the
oil
painting
unknown.
By
at
kind
Dulwich
permission
College,
of the
96
192
RICHARD BURBAGE
From
the
oil
portrait
at
Dulwich
College.
224
arms
his
in
Alleyn's.
to their 'followers*.
PLAYERS'
ARMS
I.
Arms
of Shakespeare
3.
Burbage
4.
LORDS' ARMS
AND BADGES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The
help
of generous
Library,
and appeared
I
am
very grateful to
my
March 1959,
friends
Helen
Cam
for kindly
it
was written.
M.
xiv
C. B.
PART ONE
T^layers
and
Society
CHAPTER
300-1 572
ences
century
late fifteenth
retainers
Tudor
growth
interlude
and censorship
effects
regional differ-
and
strollers
royal entertain-
propaganda
of the Reformation
of professionalism
in the
the early
position under
THE
in
At
least
two
it,
separated
off^
creative leap
17
PLAYERS AND SOCIETY
ditch
the most significant date in the history of English
drama. To this date, a return will constantly be made: it is
the main starting-point for each of the four parts of this book.
Medieval playing took many forms and was seasonal and
festive. Because it was polymorphous it remained undeveloped, however complex; because it was seasonal and
festive,
it
of sub-dramatic
clear.
What happened
Hall
is
whether
is
hard to
might
At the
might make
From
the
;
more
but only
Comedian
life
Medieval man,
if
them
which bred them.
tournament as the
through the guild
plays of the great towns to the village merriment, each had
out of doors in Spring
his own form of dramatic festivity
and Midsummer, within the Hall at Christmas.
Machinery was costly, and expensive properties appeared
again and again, while accompanying speeches might vary
for person and occasion. Pageantry of castles and ships,
fountains and arbours, flowers that grew up with a turn of
a winch and opened to reveal a singing child, trumpeting
angels with practicable joints belonged only to great cities;
as weeping Madonnas, bleeding crucifixes, bowing Gods in
glory belonged only to great churches.
Mystery plays in English can be dated from the third
quarter of the fourteenth century they appeared in Chaucer's
lifetime, though not with especial strength in Chaucer's city
of London. They belonged to the great religious cities of the
prosperous Midlands and north-eastern counties, to York,
Coventry, Lincoln, Chester. At Beverley, the guildsmen sat
at a
court,
in a
wooden
From
historical
plays,
(3)
but as
The lower
By
20
Lost
for
many
guilds
state, isolated
among rough
The
Palatine Bishop of
Durham,
hills
in
21
still
found
in Elizabeth's
when he
set
out to
command
Netherlands. (5)
Among the tenantry,
the
home and
which
many
legends of Arthur,
fessional
entertainer,
history. (5a)
a great
his forebears,
triumphs,
challenge were
common
to heralds
and
to dramatic shows.
The
nineteen minstrels of
Edward
Edward
III received a
fee of
22
summer.
From
The
reign of
line; in
23
men
own parish. By ElizaThomas Whythorn, music master to Archbishop Parker, could declare that minstrels who 'sold their
to act as minstrels outside their
beth's time,
voices'
with
whom we
much
and minstrels,
troubled as you
cost'.
It is difficult to tell
or
dumb shows
jigs
Chase.
At
may be
distinguished
the
late
fourteenth
24
At Maxstoke
men
in their desperate
their ancient
bread.
The problem
livery of
whom
they disputed
25
all
this
dramatic activity.
From
all
new
God's vicegerent
in their
midst
1384
The
summer
festivity
came
at
who
Summer
mockery, dressed as a
Lord, with a garland of leaves on his head, to his death
beside the Tower; Bruce himself was in mockery described
as a Summer Lord. (10) Perhaps memory of such scenes
lingers in Shakespeare's Henry VI^ when the vengeful
Margaret crowns Richard of York with a paper crown and
stands him on a molehill before stabbing him to death, 'to
right our gentle hearted king'.
That king, like other Lancastrians and Yorkists, delighted
in shows; Lydgate's mummings for Henry VI and for the
City companies, dating from about 1430, survive and were
in
26
remembered;
Lydgate and
Court,
English, in
wedding of
The
distinction
fine one.
strolling
is
the lord's
men moved
rewards their
out,
fine clothes
to
and
little
of thirty miles.
As
fine title
might win
in the
men and
27
who come
to
make
their offering of
summoned
recognized;
a play in
who
in this
for the
later, in
The most
no other
is
to be allowed. (13)
these
and costuming
members
of the audience
which players
which Sir Thomas
29
is
possible in the
open
air;
sharp debating-
at incorporating
school,
who
Henry VIII's
and
brilliant
Heywood,
writer of interludes,
also
itself;
reign outshone
30
and new
stated
that
Bale,
he wrote Protestant
York caused
a seditious rising. In
1539 the
As
late
Tudor
censorship.
31
escaped detection.
Pastime had lost
that a
Tudor
policy.
and
The
became necessary to
enough with existing
vulnerable.
it
They were
entirely in the
and the Government turned to its clerical arm for suppression. The story is by now well known larger northern towns
fought hard to preserve their plays, and the process of
suppression was not complete till 1575, when the last
performance was given at Chester (the year before Burbage
opened his Theatre). As late as 1600, the town sought to
revive them. The books were called in for censoring, and
eventually censored out of existence this process was easier
than a flat prohibition; and it worked. (16) As the church
images were defaced, the illuminated manuscripts thrown to
chandlers, so plays fed bonfires or the worm. The Coventry
men's 'storial show' was banned although they protested that
it was not 'Popish'. These great provincial cities, deprived of
;
32
own
plays,
for
common
players, as
Shrewsbury
make plain. At Shrewsbury, however, they were rivalled by
local schoolboys, who gave famous performances of Whitsun
plays in the Quarry, led by their master Ashton, in the early
years of Elizabeth's reign; and probably in many smaller
places, notably Hadstock in Suffolk, a play-loving centre.
In an age of religious tension, all social and political
problems tend to formulate themselves in religious terms.
The new union between Church and State was strong, but its
exact balance was still precarious. Doctrinal and social
interests which led to the control of plays coincided with the
need to order the more restless and disorderly part of the
population, and so led to the further control of players. A
the records of Coventry, Lincoln, Norwich,
a policy
The term
of 'minstrel', extended
all
from local gentry, who took the livery of a great lord, down
to yeomen, tinkers and cobblers.
The connexion between retaining and vagrancy appeared
when on 26 May 1545, Henry VIII announced his drastic
intention of taking up for the Navy ruffians, vagabonds,
masterless men, common players, who haunt the Bankside;
and in the same breath once more forbade retaining other
than household servants or those allowed by royal licence.
The common
but
if
33
troops,
who
cry,
'Come on
players,
.
.'
.
ship of
it
existed; a
London
currier
was forbidden
34
to put
on plays
in
common
who
live
seething.
flat
Company
in the
Meanwhile
same
^village
London and
livery,
Throgmorton
plot,
Tower
on.
common
35
Government planning.
May
As the season
Saints, and some
559.
and the
local
Watch Committee
the conditions of
performance.
briefly
and
unsuccessfully revived in 1589, during the Marprelate controversy with the Puritans, but it led to the closing of the
theatres.
from
in
at late
The
37
way of
pastime,
evolved from
The
its
The
all
players themselves
'lads of
wooden sword.
The
New
drama, though
to
do
it
its
great violence.
By
a 'play'
it
is
probable that no
CHAPTER
II
Common Player
London
in
1559-1603
The Rise
Men and
oj Leicester s
the
Founding
oj the Theatre
of
and
government
Men
of
Men
of
servingman's
conflicts
opposition
between central
provinces
livery
London
City
trouble in the
local
of Leicester's
rise
the
in
use
their building
the Theatre
of Henslowe
full
social establishment
recognition in the
and the
TH
first
activities
last
its
years of Elizabeth
years of
James
ment
in
which
London, and
their
wooden galleries
leaving them only the forlorn
little
form of
service,
which was
in their
commodity
to put
for
down
cash.
its
to the level of
till
we have trimmed
stall;
Then young and old come and behold our wares and buy
them all.
Then if our wares shall seem to you well woven^ good and
fine,
(i)
it,
they masqueraded as
profession of serving
on didactic
grounds was met by the retort that plays were the devil's
sermons a hideous mockery or antitype of true instruction. (2) The rhetoric and showmanship of preacher and
actor are not entirely dissimilar, and this natural rivalry left
the player at a severe disadvantage, for all authority and
prestige lay with his opponent.
His difficulty sprang from his lack of any fixed status or
recognized place in the commonweal his occupation was in
its present form not traditional. Having no place in the
scheme of things, he had no place in society. The establishment of two playhouses, the Theatre and the Curtain, in
1576 and 1577 was a turning-point in the struggle; shared
with other purveyors of pastime, such as fencers and bearbaiters, they were the outward and visible sign of the common
the
to justify players
players' right.
The
40
common
given the
Roman
and
profitable;
title
for
its
common
greater glory,
plays
quite the
extreme
ascetics,
such as Rainolds
all academic
if necessary,
at
as well.
by
41
who roamed
for
its
new
nobility.
to
mean
that
In
this
in the
and so keep
always
own
observe
traditional
formulations,
but
this
only
common
players.
men. Theoretically,
London performances as
42
rehearsals
A Health
to
Men
(1598)
But
in
any age
wages
and ex-
it
and
his
By
and deserve
it,
though
it
(D2
no
v)
servingman
serves without
43
is
established at ;io,
and ten
shillings
where
it
is
shillings
was the
company
to put
when
Richard II
whose
?it
to
depended on merit. In
Mayor
after
least five
made
in
The City
down plays
44
hath not been used nor thought meet heretofor that players should
men
and lawful
but that
arts or retained in
The
in vacant times of
(M.S.C.
recreation.
I, 2,
172)
'without public or
common
collection of
money
or of the
became
their
money-box
Firm
45
be quelled.
It
in the
Hall
common
our
plays
and such
like exercises
which be commonly
The Merchant
but had been thrust aside in their own Hall and not given
the seats of honour as Chief Spectators, which traditionally
were
their right.
No more
sequence. This was not pure City pomposity, (8) simply the
assertion of the ancient social form of Drama as the private
'Offering' to a superior
from
also;
Society
demanded
lord, or to a master,
that
all
from
men
whom
all
social ills;
life.
it
meant
stability.
Hence
and were
subject to a bewildering variety of control. Socially the whole
problem of the actors in the seventies and eighties turned on
the question of who should control them, and in what
respects for by these ligaments of control and responsibility
they eventually became knit into the community.
requirements.
46
fixed habitation
Lord Mayor of
London has the precedence of an Earl and could say 'No' to
Pembroke or Worcester on occasion.
The moral objections of the City were therefore based on
the fact that Playing was not Work, but Idleness. To be
given entirely to this way of life was to be guilty of Idleness,
extraordinary privileges for their players ; the
to
promote
it
in others. Social
in the captain's
soldier
47
police.
out. (i i)
had both economic and moral objecthey had a much more immediate apprehen-
tions to players,
were given
to
ing proscriptions
them for their weakness in enforcthe Lord Mayor in his turn would threaten
snapping
at
the Justices of the Peace for Middlesex. (12) In the weakness of coercive power lay the players' opportunity; nor did
conferred
by
their
livery.
48
or by
*in very
by the Lord Mayor
contemptuous manner departing from me, went to the Cross
Keys and played that afternoon'. (13) 'Contempt' is the fault
urged against players even by friends such as Henry Chettle.
company, striving
to rival the
sequently particularly
the third
ill
Mayor
Men,
money and
play for a
troubled for
less
many
own
Queen
ment
as I
so
speak sharply to
youth had
the Inner Temple
to
who
in his
would
not have
exercises of learning
The
toleration of
and
meant thereby
it
.
and
common
at the
49
such
follies,
them spending
to avoid 'lewd
and
on
evil sports'.
among
others.
The
year
Gager,
before,
chief
it
was
a servant
who
stabbed and
killed Wynsdon. More luckily, the story seems never to
have reached London and the players' clerical opponents
there, who would certainly have made the most of it.
9 July of that year the Queen's Men were at Cambridge and the Vice-Chancellor must have been relieved that
By
down
for the
50
Long
Vacation,
all
is
negligible, in
Lord Mayor.
(if it
were
More against
he), in depicting
the plight of the poor Flemings sent plodding to the coast for
transportation,
sad and
ill-
51
till
private
if
Tower
in the
men
to play in Yorkshire.
When
In
all
later troupes.
persons, yet
ing in his household. In these early days, companies sometimes played together; the better the player the more likely
seems
'entertain'
that
you
will
done
{M.S.C.
in times past.
little
I,
4 and
5,
348-9)
petition, similar
wound
A peer
of noble peers,
The
by Burbage, Perkin, Laneham, Johnson, Wilson and Clark, would protect these men individually
patent, sought
53
By
the process
known
as 'exemplifica-
any one of them could carry his privileges with him, and
extend them to cover a group which he joined. (15) On the
tion'
other hand,
it
bound more
Men;
the
tie
between the
men was
their
hired
and
stock
men and
later
for
paying the
and it occurred to someone at Court, always looknew ways of skimming the profits from trade, that a
flourishing,
ing for
54
restrictions.
when
Hence
May
1574,
England were
granted to James Burbage, John Perkyn, John Laneham,
William Johnson and Robert Wilson, the Earl of Leicester's
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of
Men.
to use, exercise
art
tragedies interludes stage plays and such other like as they have already
used and studied or hereafter shall use and study as well for the
recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure ... as
and occupy
also to use
practised
modity ...
as also
as well within
within the
boroughs etc
as
liberties
liberties
any act
of the same
cities
towns
statute proclamation or
provided the
our Revels
(for the
common
in the time
of common prayer or in
com-
to their best
commandment ...
said
all
(i 7)
SS
By
Men
in effect a Patent of
Mono-
Household.
The
regulations requiring
all
plays
and players
all
by
playing places which on
affrays
and
down minute
to be licensed
;
great complaint of
from divine service, unthrifty waste of the money of poor and fond persons, accidents
from the collapse of staging or from gunpowder used in
plays. (i8) The decree specifically exempts performances
given for festivity in the houses of the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen. This duplicate Order in effect nullified the
Patent, as far as London was concerned, since the City was
prepared to enforce
Emboldened by
it.
of Leicester's
Men
the
of St John's
56
57
is,
common
playing once a
He
by which he reckoned,
week, the companies would get ;^2,ooo a year.
players' places)
week they play two or three times. Plays at the Cross Keys
were given on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Lord Strange's
Men were playing six days a week at the Rose for eighteen
a
weeks in 1591.
Groundlings would have been
as the galleries at
the landlord.
ensured
if
first, if
the actors
especially if the
John Brayne, his financial backer, and with his ground landlord was long and vehement. Henslowe, a money lender,
moved into the show business, developed all its branches. His
stepdaughter married the great actor Edward Alleyn, and
Men,
number and
The
able. Plays
58
have a
fit
summon
an audience
to wait
alleys in
grew
in size;
sisted
'sharers', those
named
took
Edward
cluding
open
at the
come back.
By 1595 the city Alnager, Francis Langley, had opened
the Swan in the old Beargarden, a little to the west of the
Rose, to the disgust of the Lord Mayor, and doubtless that
of Henslowe too, lessee of the Royal Game of Bearbaiting.
The Swan 'the new stage or Theatre (as they call it)' (21) was
the most gorgeous of
The
Isle
of Dogs
all
playing places
Pembroke's
59
Men
in
Two
It
striking out in a
new
direction.
They
houses of
West London.
other
Its square brick frame
perhaps recalled the shape of the
Hall theatres.
Alleyn began his campaign by securing the recommendation of his lord, Nottingham, to local Justices of the Peace,
pleading the Rose was dangerously 'decayed' and
disregarding his friends the watermen
that crossing the river
was 'noisome' in winter. The nobler inhabitants of Finsbury,
headed by Lord Willoughby, at once protested to the
Privy Council, just as, four years before, when Burbage
dwellers
in
the Liberty,
many;
60
tion
of the facts
little
manipula-
in
April
much-
1600.
full
the situation.
Two
many
houses'.
By May
61
many
in
all
meaning presumably
and
in times of
to
all
Room
symbol of their
status. These
were no longer Common but City Players; soon they were
claiming the academic titles of Comedians or Tragedians.
'Some term them Comedians, othersome Players, many
Pleasers, but I, Monsters', exclaimed William Rankins.
There was much in a name.
Relying on the support of the general public, players had
risen to be employers of labour. They had their apprentices.
special provision of the Lord's
Kempe
it
conferred a
as
new
surname
(see
player.
62
this
was
a masculine
compare
it
began
As soon
as they
became firmly
new
plays.
Between
their
The
structure
known
The
to call for.
bearings.
of the players,
official location
first
noticed in
1603 James
in
600,
issued his
freely to use
art
shew and
County of Surrey
now
as also
commodity
Moote
halls or
other convenient places within the liberties and freedom of any other
City University
Moreover,
it
Town
is
or Borough
requested
'to
(24)
allow
men
quality'.
Under James
family.
Though
tinued to travel
in the
much
restricted to
theoretically at least,
as before.
Hope, retaining
movable stage
the bears.
The whole
64
^^^^B^^^^^Si^
t
.SO*
a,
Is
o
o
en oj
f^ be
-J^
>
a.
^ J- CO
^
^^^
<
CO
No, those
women
on the stage
itself.
boxes,
Yet such
1 6
5 it was
1
is
still
Common Flayer
dependence on
he turns about
face;
Trumpeter
an echo.
{E.S. IV, 256)
In the same year the Master of the Revels, Sir George Buc,
in his Treatise of the third University, printed with Stow's
That most
is
so lively expressed
Rome
(I
in the age
mean
of her
pomp and
in respect of the
it
this city, as
better performed
ness).
But
it is
clear that
instructed
c
by
his
he thinks of players
own
Office;
6^
it
is
as
what
is
'third university'.
I
for a corollary
understand,
in
grammar,
Seven years
later
still,
Henry Peacham,
Artists,
more than
no share
(25)
writing in his
in general' says:
at all in Nobility or
Tumblers, ordinary
all
(and
Fidlers,
Gentry; as
Inn keepers.
Fencers, Jugglers, Mountebanks, Bear- wards and the like; (except the
Grand
Signior or Great
none must be
(Ed.
Here
it
where
Mahomet,
said
the
would appear
gentility,
G.
S.
idle),
pp. 12-3)
removed from
The present
London players
66
CHAPTER
III
COMMON PLATER
Attack and Defence
and
City
formation of
Queen's Men
renews
Marprelate controversynew
by
on Shakespeare
answer:
Robert Greene,
and
exposure
of
economic
motives
a
renewed
War of
Theatres
Hamlet and
Heywood's Apology for
of Father Leak.
and
the
attack
the
literary attacks
the dramatist
Chettle's
especially
the City's
general defence,
for opposition
the
the debate
in the
the
the players
Actors
the reply
the case
THE
67
social
players.
by the royal
livery)
is
banketting,
feasting,
it
[is]
spent, either in
hundred years
later,
down
to
(li r)
68
COMMON PLAYER
SOCIAL STATUS OF
arsenal for
all
his successors.
against
which he
contents himself with a treatise. Although plays and players
are the first objects of attack Northbrooke allows moderate
recreation; he would permit
which he writes an
Scholars to
at tennis
make
and such
(M2
like etc.
r)
may
they
we must
rather abstain
pleasure
their
to
be
cockered
with
destruction
in this
to suffer
of their
souls.
(Mi
The
v)
stage is for him *a spectacle and school for all wickedand vice to be learned in' in fact, the school of Satan;
the Theatre and the Curtain are therefore to be dissolved and
put down by authority, like the brothel houses and stews
ness
(I2
r).
learn
all
manner of
sins
and wickedness
to
who wish
come
to
to the
play.
To see
is
if
you
will
learn
69
to beguile,
allure to
how
to betray, to flatter,
whoredom, how
to murther,
swear, foreswear,
lie,
how
to poison,
how
how
to
to disobey
and
spoil cities
and towns, to be
idle
and blaspheme,
how
at
like
such interludes
how
to practice
mock
them?
(Ki
to
in the
and v)
'this
The Lord Mayor is exhorted to put down profanaDay when there is 'flocking and thronging
bawdy plays by thousands' (F6 v). The profits made by
(D5
v).
players,
which he estimates
in their necks
nor in the City to wait upon you with long blades by their
slashing and cutting
and
ruffianly quarrelling,
70
sides,
with
little
COMMON PLAYER
SOCIAL STATUS OF
word speaking,
If thou be a
man
me
in Smithfield.
(Ni
v)
own
(B3
v)
play-acting scholar
clearly
We
hoping
have
to
infinite poets,
At
.
and
pipers,
cattle
among
us
skill
(Bi
r)
the City
how many
them, they have ink in their bowels to darken the water; and
in their budgets, to dry
it
were easy
for
you
to
(E7
them.
71
choke
sleights
letters
overthrow
v,
E8
r)
is
known,
well
that
hangbyes
ill
transfers his
which stand
(C5
at the reversion
of
vi.s.
among their
mean those
talked of abroad.
He
(I
on the
stage,
and
common
and
v)
men
crafts-
scffiong
when
at every
they
come
abroad,
He half expects an
(C5
r)
Cet animal
Quand
on
est tres
mechant:
V attaque^
il se
defend.
by snarling admonition.
72
COMMON PLAYER
SOCIAL STATUS OF
now
considers in
and jeering'
all
cases
most severely
censured. He objects to players impersonating men above
their station, a curious social taboo which is echoed later
by Rankins:
and
unchristian,
is
its
'scoffing
to take
on him the
title
is
in
(E5
lie.
common
r)
generation, to say
we
are
were
commanded by God
called,
private
men
which
same
in a
calling
we
wherein
commonweal ...
if
walk gentleman
proportion
is
to abide in the
is
and
like in satin
velvet,
the whole body must be dismembered and the prince or the head cannot
(G6
v,
G7
r)
Take but degree away, untune that string and hark what discord follows, as one of the players was later to observe.
Yet his account of the players' origins suggests that
some players might plead the stage as their natural calling
and that some of the players had begun to take boy
apprentices. (5)
Most of the
have forsaken to
live
by playing, or
from
other
way
(G6
now
v)
reformed sinner
and
in
City of London'
c*
73
and endeavour
in future to
compass.
live within
to return,
life
to live
by
is
is
God
hath cursed
it;
it
which
that
is
comes running
air. (5a)
(G7r)
Uncased,
these 'gentlemen'
approaches
number of
the
it,
his
purely
vituperative
adjectives,
schooling
Sometimes you
shall see
knight, passing from country to country for the love of his lady,
encountering
return,
is
posy in his
a terrible monster
mere
what
changed
as
made of brown
he cannot be
known
but by some
tablet, or
cockleshell,
either
many
so wonderfully
learn
you by
that?
When
(06
They
ruffie'.
many
and where
out to
characters,
make
it
is
trifles,
it
cut
it
r)
it
down when
it
has too
it
74
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
parable to the
is
filthy plays
Lord
when
[yet]
and
friars,
you
life itself?
shall
the church of
the devil
God
be bare and
shall
(N4
empty.
and v)
which cannot
live
of themselves, and
from country
to country,
the goodwill
men
which
is
a kind of beggary.
to another,
For commonly
would
men, passing
not.
(pp.
75-6)
of Danaeus*
in his translation
75
and Prophane
the
and interludes: or
to give anything
yet these kind of persons do, after a sort, let out their labour unto us,
is
(E6
laudable.
r)
who
liked the
command,
men
commended by many,
masking of apes
their habitations
those
Most men
To
in
easily answer,
wander
into error,
must not
and to build
and may
as gods
offend.
The
may
The
spring a general
is
evil. (8)
social differentiation of
unequivocally put.
The
who would
fortunately for
on the
The
76
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
way
South
Kyme
who would on
occasion
In
owl
in
1 584 he was
in
Rome [perhaps,
like
Mundy,
as a spy]
by
King James.
Whatever scurrilities were indulged in by the players
would seem fair retort in a controversy where their opponents
of
77
players,
you painted
sepulcres,
you double
were expert at loading their arguments, assuming their conclusions and exemplifying what they denounced. Gosson
based his first treatise only on 'prophane writers, natural
reason and common experience', but when Lodge replied in
the same terms, accused him of ignoring Holy Writ. Northbrooke and Stubbes say that it is blasphemy for players to
handle sacred subjects and profanity for them to ignore such
subjects. The unmeasured fury with which later the players
are accused of backbiting, of uncharitable and unchristian
detraction, is equalled only by the ease with which these
divines slip into theatrical terms, talk of plays confuted in
theatre betrays
all
enchantments of the
a flat pro-
impossible to enforce.
The element
action,
totally to
was
it
of contempt as well as
like'
his
all
matters, they
78
now grown
very
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
twelve of the best chosen, and at the request of Sir Francis Walsing-
ham
and
they were sworn the Queen's servants, and were aiUowed wages
liveries as
Queen had no
Annales
players.
(ed.
1583 the
1631), 698
They were on
the
new men
in fact received
no wages.
Grooms of
the
Chamber belonged.
name
own deathbed
this child.
79
Men
is
week
so small a
The
crisis
of
who
if
they
number
as to be the cause
[M.S.C.
I, 2,
of
173)
mentioned
in 1574),
Strange's (1576-7).
The
theatres.
80
ineflFectual
orders
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
house'. (13)
The general attack on the Puritan
down a general
held, plays
were
up
merrily.
The
players
showed
their
because
boord
is
allow
it,
it
plain,
They
is
sooth
WalsinghamJ would
what
Finally
when
in
March 1592
81
a feeler
their old
enemies
is
success.
eighties
rise of
plays
SOCIAL STATUS OF
their
COMMON PLAYER
skilled
had
guise of a romantic
He
told his
own
tale.
They promised
to
reward him largely for his pains, if he could 'perform anything worth the stage', and his first comedy succeeded so
well that 'happy were the actors that could get any of his
works, he grew so exquisite in that faculty'. Eventually, of
course, he fell into evil ways and ended wretchedly.
The narrator when asked for his judgment of plays,
players and playmakers, says that some who have been 'too
lavish against that faculty have for their satirical invectives
been well canvassed' (1 3 v) that is, they have been staged
by the players; he will venture to give his opinion only on
condition that what he is about to say in confidence will not
be repeated to anybody. With this brief salute to Gosson and
Mundy, he proceeds to talk about the ancient Romans. This
is of course simply a way of discussing the current situation
the Elizabethans were as ready to see themselves 'shadowed'
under Roman terms as they were to see the Romans
'shadowed' in Elizabethan costume upon their painted
scenes. In The School of Ahuse^ Gosson used Ovid's Art of
83
to
might be presented
in
At
'Rome' by such
first
as
the comedies
More
in
throw of many
Thus
grew
were
plays,
to such as
men
the quality,
of such
at the over-
London:
to be mercenaries, then
men of
vile gains;
in
when
acount
thus Comedians
left to practice
such
stain
Rome,
taken away by covetous desire; yet the people (who are delighted with
such novelties and pastimes) made great
much
and highly
by continual use
(I4
r)
Put
in
last part
and
84
COMMON PLAYER
SOCIAL STATUS OF
makers being worthy of honour for their art, and the players
deserving both praise and profit, as long as they wax neither
covetous nor insolent*.
tale
player'
living; if
quoth Roberto
'I
by outward habit
would be taken
men
should be censured,
my
know
me when
my very share
you, you
dwell' (quoth
was
Tempora mutantur,
I tell
my
am where
am
conster
What
fain to carry
sure you
it; it is
other-
(D3
hundred pounds.
two
v)
I terribly
to
Heaven.
(D4v)
As Roberto
natural to
assume that
recognizable
this
it would be
would combine
Robert Greene,
rich
player
traits
and general.
8J
most
is
the
Almanack
is
was absolute
But now
my
out of date.
Of morals
Was
teaching education
have more.
This
is
(1^3 v)
some
of the features are borrowed from Nashe (17); but Shakespeare is the only player-poet singled out by Greene, as he
leave
monsters,
Dream (1592)
Chettle did
London
itinerant
fairs, falls
and mountebanks,
86
to
Kind Hart's
SOCIAL STATUS OF
The wandering
Now-now, the
COMMON PLAYER
Anthony
ballad singer
villainous
all
plead
The
sung
printed,
at fairs
in
round Bishop's
Stortford. It is vile that *boys of able strength and agreeable
capacity should be suffered to wrest from the miserable aged
a plumber, are travelling the countryside
of ballad singing'.
life
who had
Foxtail^
must pawn
his fiddle
and
trust to
This
entertainers,
Tarlton, to
is
skilfully
whom
is
humblest of
Actors.
His defence
behind
all
made by Nashe
where he
praises
the
in Piers Penniless
'stately
His Supplication,
and 'honourable
and remarks that the trades
scene'
is
a piteous
Groats-Worth of Wit,
after his death are speaking
PLAYERS AND SOCIETY
ill
Nashe
Harvey
in particular.
Its
though put
tainment,
in
extempore jests.
Although an academic debate on plays continued with
unabated vigour at Oxford, it did not continue in the City.
During the War of the Theatres between men and boys'
companies at the end of the century, poet and player once
more Vent to cuffs in the question' upon the topic which
Greene had already raised whether the learned poet had
their
Shakespeare,
now
who
had jested
earlier
common
country
at
own
person
How
comes
reputation
it
come
Hamlet
to Elsinore.
352-4)
who
it
reflects
Hamlet's
upon the
final
The
first
injunction to Polonius
88
rivals,
who
and
to the players
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
shows the
Hamlet:
Good my
hear;
let
well bestowed?
lord,
Do you
them he well used; for they are the abstracts and brief
of the time; after your deaths you were better have a
chronicles
My lord,
their
ill
to
their desert.
Hamlet:
God^s bodykins, man, much
desert
better.
Use every
scape whipping?
man
(2, 2,
'the statute',
after his
SSZ~^Z)
he remembers also
not.
(2, 2,
577)
The
it,
reflexions
final
who
(16
is
2).
good standing
Bearing an epistle to
Actors',
it
Men.
89
Let
their ignorance
Because
The
^tis
merry,
(a2 v)
clerks' abusive
name
the
(^3
as
some
'letters
detractors do.
Webster
of commendation': of
Heywood he
to
says
play
who
Roscius
(;^6, 13s.
the 'precise'
Marcus Aurelius
(like
James
I)
when
fancied himself
life-size,
90
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
Northbrooke's,
learn
all
is it
recognized.
had
their terror.
(a3v)
Heywood's
Roman
theatres
owes
nothing
an enlarged and
(as his
celestial vision
a 'cloud-capped'
dream
in
is
The
in the
first
Roman
manner of
Heywood saw
theatre, as
a semicircle or half-moon,
it,
whose
was
galleries
and
degrees were reared from the ground, their stairs high, in the midst of
which
might
easily
from the
(D2
weathers.
all
r)
Later the outside of the stage was hung with linen cloth,
and the inside with curtains. A later form had two movable
stages which could be joined or used for separate scenes to
be played simultaneously. (19) Pompey's theatre, built of
stone, seated four thousand people; and finally the glories
of the fifth theatre, built by Julius Caesar, are described.
The
bases,
columns,
pillars
of hewed marble,
upon any
giant-like Atlas,
Heaven on
we
all
whom
his shoulders, in
which an
artificial
sun and
moon of
(D2
motions. ...
91
v)
galleries
were
of an exceeding
altitude,
From
all
and chosen
silk
waved con-
(D3
tinuously.
r)
If then
As
the
world a Theatre
by the roundness
it
-present^
merit,
rest
inherit.
(a4 v)
92
COMMON PLAYER
SOCIAL STATUS OF
Many amongst us,
and temperate
lives
know,
carriages, housekeepers
them
and contributory to
all
(E3
most bountiful.
r)
L G. (evidently a
'sectists
sour
and
one
of
the
rank' who had
cleric, but not
been challenged) in a mixture of pedantic literalism and
moral fury, supported by the thirty-eight-year-old arguments
of Northbrooke, Gosson and Stubbes. Nothing had been
learnt and nothing forgotten. The achievements of Marlowe,
Shakespeare, Jonson were entirely ignored. With heavy
sarcasm, Heywood is termed 'Master Actor' (he was a
graduate). His expressions of humility and insufficiency are
mockingly appropriated word for word; then the thunder
Some
follows.
God
two
trates
take
it
of men; to
God
it is
God
it is
swine.
{J
It is
whole industry
for as
many
life
they give
the commonwealth.
Vindictively,
I.
rich in
(p.
Even the
strollers, if
4)
not for
93
defence evoked
in a
much
all
embittered form.
is
Though
that of
modes
mon Players
they
himself.
Our
English tongue, which hath been the most harsh, uneven and
broken language
in the
world ...
is
now by
this
secondary means of
new
flourish unto
it;
it is
grown
to a
most perfect
Poems writ
many
nations
r)
it
common
94
SOCIAL STATUS OF
COMMON PLAYER
common
players
on common
stages
you
when
may go
to a
said plays
be performed by
common stage players, because stages in these places cannot come under
the name of common stages.
(Fol. no)
The
audience consists 'most of young gallants and Protestants (for no true Puritan will endure to be present at
plays)'. The young of both sexes go but 'neither matron nor
grave nor sage man is there seen' (Fol. 144). When Father
the odds between the composers of the one and the composers of the
common
among
the
unworthy
who
stage player
[is]
one
are
to be laid
on the
actors
commonly youths of
best
as
95
CHAPTER
IV
and
performance
in
the
theatre
in
the
inn-yards
of dancing
compared with
of
crowd
of comedies
of regular attendance
power
to control a
the
emotional effect of
the
of
Kempe
courtly games
attraction
rival
English histories
of
notion
casual
by London prentices
riots
effect
'activities'
distractions
fears
the magistrates
lack of
now be
should by
life
in the
to
the
most prominent
96
as the ballad
is still,
interest.
in courtly
The
single
Richard Tarlton
From
originally belonging to
Samuel Pepys
show
at the
Theatre
in
The
was
who scrambled
modern
its
theatre than
it
social
was
atmosphere,
like a funfair.
fair'.
Merriment, jigs
When
Leicester's
Men
Denmark
in
in
For the
of jigs,
galliards, moriscoes,
set
casts,
The
r) {2)
feats of activity'
97
to
sermons.
new writers
on the concentration
actors could
saw plays
whenever the
The
flavour to performance.
more notorious
98
CREATION OF COMMON AUDIENCE
and inns had other entertainments within
'noises* of musicians, singers of
their fairground
three-man songs, shows of
and resident
prostitutes. On the Bankside the popular Rose Theatre was
actually built in the garden of an inn, and the proprietor
dwarfs, freaks and monsters in private rooms ;
supplied refreshments.
Whether
mood would
had no duty to attend to
the give and take which
be seen, and those who sat in the Lord's Room in the early
days were certainly part of the show, as the gallants on the
stage were later. In Court performances, eyes would be as
much on the Queen as on the spectacle, while her Chair of
State displayed her to all. (4)
The presence of a Chief Spectator would imply yet another
kind of attention. The play would be directed toward him in
compliment; or occasionally, in malice, as when the Cambridge students brought in the Mayor of the town to hear
himself mocked in Club Law. This happens in the play scene
in Hamlet. The King, Queen and all the Court would have
expected a play celebrating the royal accession and marriage,
ending perhaps with the descent of Juno, Hymen or Concord. A tragedy would be tolerable only by contrast (like
The Misfortunes of Arthur^ offered to Elizabeth by the
students of Gray's Inn). Instead of this, a most unseemly tale
was offered and Claudius was perfectly within the tradition
when, as Chief Spectator, he inflicted the deepest snub
by rising, calling for lights and walking out. He need not
be played in panic. Elizabeth once behaved in the same
fashion, (5) when she was affronted by a scurrilous piece of
anti-papal buffoonery.
99
if
pleased, the
play with loaded dice which ensured that the Prince should
win.
In the
common
Chief Spectator.
humbler men
obsequious prologue or
perhaps by a mimic
Duke or Prince (6) ; to feel himself entitled to resentment or
applause as lord of the show. This feeling must gradually
have prevailed over the joys of common pastime, and turned
the play from a joint frolic into a performance. To adopt the
attitude of Chief Spectator in the Jacobean theatre would
have been anachronistic. Dekker's gentlemanly gull, who
exacts his full sixpennyworth of notoriety, takes leave in the
middle of the play; but even the gull uses this deep snub only
when he thinks he has been personally glanced at.
The Elizabethan opposition made the double charge that
plays taught bawdry, trickery and baseness; and that the
audience did not attend to the plays, but were engaged in
bawdry, trickery and baseness of their own. Gosson denied
that *any filthiness indeed is committed within the compass
of that ground', but says that assignations are given, and
for the
to hear the
spoken
mean
to
make such
assemblies
lOO
me say so.
They
Were not
which they
sell is full
of cockle.
C4
r)
Stockwood denounces
Flocks of as wild youths of both sexes, resorting to interludes, where
both by lively gesture and voices there are allurements unto whoredom.
The
r)
when
all
sly
Italy.
and are not slow to play back such scenes. Their behaviour is
worthy of Ovid's pen and Gosson adapts Ovid's description
;
You
shall see
to sit
laps, that
know
no chips
light in
in their ears, I
not what; such giving them pippins to pass the time; such play-
ing at foot saunt without cards; such tickling, such toying, such
smiling, such winking, such
ended, that
it is
a right comedy.
lOI
to
cog
at cards,
any
villainy.
Of these
he
knew
the casts
lifts,
all
the
Now
the
common
(D4
v)
persons in the land, apt for pilfery, perjury, forgery, or any roguery,
the very
scum
shifters,
coseners;
rascality
briefly
an
unclean
generation
and
spawn of
vipers.
Firtue^s
The
Commonwealth (Qi
r)
At Maypole mirth
Or
in
Do fly for
life^
Like
little
and so
together greese^
was
likely to
times;
more
greater evils
and night
must
plays, at unseasonable
and undue
they not only hide and cover the thief, but also entice servants out of
their master's houses,
to effect
many wicked
whereby opportunity
stratagems.
Virtue's
is
Commonwealth (Wi
is
v)
at first
and were
servants,
go
to the play.
103
He
upon the
toe
all
upon the
where,
thought
it
better solitary to
walk
in the fields
where
the ghost of
from plays or
at their
coming hither
to use
In a place so
is
esteemed,
it is
rude to see the shameful disorder and routs that sometimes in such
public meetings are used.
citizens
The
nor any of both their servants, but some lewd mates that long
for innovation,
men
men
make
(E4
hurly burly.
come
104
and v)
might hope
worth
their
how
the
In a short time, the deed was performed, but how, the young nip could
not easily discern; only he
felt
him
shift his
hand towards
his trug, to
convey the purse to her; but she, being somewhat mindful of the play,
because a merriment was then on the stage, gave no regard; whereby,
thinking he had pulled her by the coat, he twitched the young nip by
the cloak,
this offer
put
down
his
hand and
The young
own
The
officers bringing
such a
when
man
as
we
at a play
them
to
my
tie to
to be a noted cutpurse,
all
people to wonder
D*
105
p.
at,
2,
owing
to uproar at the
many
This sounds as
Porters
The
Catastrophe in the open theatres, that the scene after the epilogue hath
jig)
no tumult, yet no
quietness;
among them,
more
no man under-
none
in danger;
yet
it
overwhelms, breed-
pleasure.
3,
340)
106
jigs
in his Apology
time Nashe wrote Piers Penniless in 1592, he could distinguish between different kinds of prentice in the audience;
and there was indeed a wide gulf between the young goldsmith or mercer who might rise to be Lord Mayor, with a
brother at the Inns of Court, and the poorer kind of handicraftsmen.
Whereas some
them
object they
corrupt the youth of the city, and withdraw prentices from their work;
they heartily wish they might be troubled with none of their youth nor
servants) never
Nashe
F4
r)
men
treasonous plots.
107
common
who
(ii.
says 'the
viii)
rejoice
What
Edward
III, or
Henry V.
his
him
in his
him
spectators.
it
hath power to
is
new mould
performer
and well
lively
r)
when
married posted
every
company
home
presently
was
set
solemnly, to be wedded.
on
fire,
were
single
vowed very
(G5 r)
Plays Confuted
at
we
cannot
(F5
tickling the
outward
r)
Massinger
108
in his
Roman
to
cried out
art
.'
are even as
welcome as
even
as
welcome
as the
fit
as
(p.
Kempe back
comparison 'thou
8)
but 'good
and
called
for a farewell
'if
God
speed thee! I
God
God's name.'
(p.
speed
19)
among
state
in
surviving Robin
fights. (10)
followed their
a
mock
In Kenilworth's
drill
'storial
is
made up
fight paradoxically
largely of
To
men
witness
effect
on
art
familiar.
As John
Stevens puts
it
in
Music and
The
ritual,
whether
of those
who
'in earnest
conducted
The
courtly
it.
(p.
69)
game of
love' at
feelings of those
who
art
no
is
till
me
that,
all for
five,
now
ments, as
when
plainly
lie
on the surface of
their docu-
Whit
little
world
but he had imprisoned his prentices as well as the servingthen had been faced with a riot of other prentices,
;
attempting to get their fellows out of custody.
men and
Ill
me word
that he
at
was
my
come
in the
morning
ride to
to
that he
my lord,
Hunsdon's hand to the order suppresshad been reluctantly set down Burbage
refused to be bound.
The magistrates were prepared to be severe; and the
central government, when it intervened, was drastic. This is
illustrated by an episode of 29 June 1595 recounted by
Stow. Unruly youths started throwing stones at the warders
of Tower Street, urged on by an old soldier with a trumpet.
They were arrested by the Sheriffs, but disorder grew; the
Lord Mayor rode to the spot, and because the City Sword
was borne before him, narrowly himself escaped a clash with
the royal warders from the Tower. On 4 July the Queen
appointed a Provost Marshal, with the power to hang
offenders, since order was not yet restored. Five of the unruly
youths were convicted of high treason they were hanged,
drawn and quartered on Tower Hill on 24 July.
London crowds had long been notorious; Froissart had
remarked 'The Englishmen are the perilousest people of
the world, and most outrageousest if they be up, and
specially the Londoners.' (11) Sir William Walworth's
summary treatment of Wat Tyler was a shining example to
every Lord Mayor. And London, as everyone recognized,
had developed a large criminal class. Among the regular
complaints of the City, it was alleged that plays, even if not
and even
after seeing
ing plays
it
112
it
must be assumed
indicates that
it
is
fairly
it
is
mending the
in
1587 and by
almost exactly as
roof.
much again
for 'painting
amounted
to
^120
Although
a wooden and plaster building open to the weather would
certainly need repainting, the expense of these repairs must
represent rough usage by other forces than those of wind and
rain. It cannot be assumed that there was no alternative to
uproar on the one hand and attentiveness on the other.
Alfred Harbage has rightly protested (12) against the
imputation of lawlessness which an uncritical reading of the
City's complaints might suggest but he seems to think that
annually, or almost a quarter of the original cost.
113
and
understatement
Elizabethans had a very real fear of the potentialities of a crowd
They were
crowd.
less
we
any
policing them.
14)
(p.
But
some London
fine seam,
mason
of Bridge Gate
The behaviour
some London
.
is
assembled.
592, the Privy Council's orders
watch* of householders furnish a pitiable
'Midsummer
example of
their
meagre
tell
watch'.
If this
less well
were so
in
districts
were even
114
these affairs.
When
five or six
Ludlow
Shropshire lads
in
who had
at night. (16)
The more
As with
there
came
115
Gendemen and
causes, ay the
as
it
This serves to show that the City was unable to carry out
a fully prepared piece of work at the Theatre their chance
of dealing with a sudden emergency may be measured by
;
this failure.
who were
exchange
witticisms
with
actors
accustomed to
the
and to see
themselves as part of the show. Perhaps assembly is a better
word than audience for such a gathering. With the emergence of the Great Companies and the establishment of the
theatres, the new audience also emerged, although clowns
with their jigs and their improvised personal scurrilities were
still part of the tradition. It was they who replied with coarse
home thrusts to the Puritan attack. It was they who took so
full revenge for past injuries in the Martin Marprelate
merriments that it led to the closing of the theatres. (19)
The combined art of the new actors and the new poets
first created a truly theatrical audience. Marlowe, interpreted by Alleyn, based his triumph on the rejection of
The
first
116
phenomenon of the
would get
consequences.
and
The 'quaking
wooed
it.
spoil,
stormed
at the
audience and
O for my sake^
as of a convicted criminal.
No
117
it
to
him
to give
Why^ Hal,
^tis
my
vocation,
Hal;
^tis
no sin for a
man
to
/, I, 2,
16)
meant a
their art
audience; to transform
to the dramatic
exacting test for the poets, for the shift of focus and the loss
many
traditional
ii8
CHAPTER V
Cornish
ings
'guary'
plays
the
later
morality
of dramatic
interludes
Hieronimo, and
persistence of
game'
some
Lydgate's disguis-
plays
illusion
interludes
antic
Marlowe's
Kyd's
Shakespeare's
illustrated
shows
solution
by the Vice,
in entertainments
of Elizabeth.
ELIZABETHANS might
Comedian, a transformation
119
narrative,
little
where
pulpit,
subtle art of leading the audience out from the world of every-
or
Love commands
the
Queen
Shene
as later poets
frieze jerkin
time of Pope.
None of Chaucer's successors was able to command the
delicate perspective by which he could take himself and his
listeners out of the world of everyday and into the Garden
of the Rose. Narrative forms stiffened and grew literary in
the worst sense: but the combination of recited verse and
spectacular display which the guild plays supplied was used
by Chaucer's disciple Lydgate. His 'disguisings', Christmas
1
20
shows both
for the
and played
it *in
came out of
a tent
disguisings.
The Poet
as Presenter
wore
Hunnis
welcomed her
Perhaps in
wore this traditional garb
as he came *to sing a song, that old was sung'.
The play as 'Song' or 'Tale' with acted accompaniment
(or the pageant-figure, with a label on his breast proclaiming
his name for the literate, and a presenter to introduce him),
needed integration. A curious variant on Lydgate's fantasy
is recorded from the remote Cornish west as late as 1 602 by
so dressed
Gower
Shakespeare's Pericles,
to Kenilworth.
still
Richard Carew.
The
is
a kind of interlude
all sides,
many
miles
off, to
field,
fifty foot.
it,
having the
The Country
it;
for they
have therein devices and devils to delight as well the eye as the ear;
the players con not their part without book, but are prompted by one
called the Ordinary,
who
hand, and telleth them softly what they must pronounce aloud.
v)
This seems to imply illiterate actors, who were not professionals and did not rehearse enough to get their parts: it
implies also a succession of single actors or at least a very
121
few
at a
distressed *0,
you mar
all
mimicked
gentleman 'with
soberly related'
all, till
in action.
As he
and countenance
set gesture
to
fell
still
play.
Which
though
trousse,
it
them with a
great deal
more
sport
(T4
and
r)
it
little
was possible
sense
for the
word
drift*
a stumbling
stool.
The
opposite extreme
is
shown
122
in
(3)
ready give-and-take
life
*I
will
be doing,
come back.
Anyone who can amend
prologue to do
so.
The
fully dined,
comedy
this
is
he refuses to
invited
by the
intervention of spectators in an
is
if
their lord
of disapproval.
The
the nature of
The Chief
Comedy
of Errors.
represented within a
By
who
because he is 'claiming' to
But a quarter-century later.
Sir Henry Wotton's only observation on the procession of
Garter Knights in Shakespeare's King Henry VIII or All is
True, is that 'this representation makes greatness very
personates kings
be,
and not
is
'acting a
lie',
to represent, royalty.
123
He
its
morality,
King Edward VI's Lord of Misrule, are introduced discomedy oi Aesop^s Crow: Baldwin
It
things to
to
common*
to imagine
and
tell
make
reasonably.
And
although in a
tale
be sufFerable
it
to bring
them
it
was uncomely
and without
(A4
and v)
common
of
* to
See p.
common
no.
*
'
is
to converse in
some
124
set
One
man
is
not wearied, be
it
the ear with sweet words, equally balanced, the eye with
variable delight, but also with great alacrity doth swiftly run over in
two
many
is
years, gallopping
drawn
from one
when
maketh him
patiently
(7)
scurrility
ment, such as the alliterative poets, Chaucer's contemporaries, had once known. Their best effects were spectacular.
Ordinary people who did not want to follow a debate would
be prepared to gape at a show and wait for the fighting to
begin, or for the appearance of the devil with his fireworks.
An example of simple moral spectacle is The Cradle of
Security as given at Gloucester about 1570. It seems a
mixture of show, song and lament. The hero, whom the
writer describing him realized to be 'a king or some great
prince', was enticed into a huge cradle and rocked asleep by
three ladies, but
in the
severally
by the three
upon
thereunto,
fastened
ladies,
who
fall
his face,
to singing again,
sword
all this
how
and then
dis-
end of the stage two old men, the one in red with a drawn
in his hand,
of the stage,
was
mace struck a
till
at last they
fearful
ladies
in a soft pace
came
to the cradle,
when
cradle,
all
whereat
all
all
the court
man
with his
the courtiers,
prince starting up barefaced, and finding himself thus sent for judg-
away by wicked
spirits. (8)
126
players
in
them as
and
players
of
of the poet.
player'
it is
Sir
To which Wit
Thomas More
and spake
down?
the matter
298-301)
replies
The chime
incarnation of the
common
life,
represents a different
way of
conceiving action.
Whom we may
and
He
own
perhaps because
produced
first
Marlowe,
in spite of, or
a 'tragical discourse'
still
127
from the cauls of 'dream' and 'shadow' in the older storyteller's art, which established his imaginative relation with
his audience.
The
the
actors
on of
ment on the
all
part,
and
fleeting visions of
were
The dim
art,
dom
when it
The
made by dramatic
is
all
huff-snuff.
The
craftsman
Kyd gave
later
writers
their
scaffolding.
first
tragic part
'live'
commonly acted
128
POET'S ART AND PLAYER'S QUALITY
contradiction that can be included in the one part ; this occurs
only to figures
*in
the round'.
Sins, like
their juggling,
also lacked
make them of a
universities
piece'.
incarnation of wit,
The Vice
is
soul
*a
Contentions
till
the Vice,
is
lead.
not confined
within the framework of the play, but stands with the audience partly outside it; he engineers the action, and also
explains it confidentially; so far, he has something in common
with the Presenter. But he is always disguising himself and
playing a false part; he has this in common with the mime.
He
feigns joy
and
grief, piety
his
own
and
'low'
a churl's style;
it.
it is
familiar,
jogging the
is
vivid
listener,
humoured, he stood
The
official
he was
all
representative of the
Humanum Genus,
Lusty Juventus, or Mankind; from the spectator's point of
view, what was to be rejected overtly was the enticing of
Inclination or Merry Report, the Vice; what was rejected
covertly was his dull, simple dupe.
However close the sermons of the Virtues to the sermons
of the preacher, mood and occasion determine the meaning of even the most impeccable sentiments; the identical
words of the pulpit will sound very different in the atmosphere
of a feast. The closer such plays came to religious phrasing,
audience in a moral play was the victim
129
the
some of the audience were thembe preachers, the old spirit of parody from
the Feast of Fools may have helped the Vice, who always
In college plays, since
selves likely to
The
members of
the audience.
Protean
art.
world of abstractions.
The power
The
lies in ironic
co-
boy who
silently points to the empty box which the wretch Pedringano
thinks to contain his pardon, and dupes him to the scaffold;
the Machiavel Lorenzo; the Ghost of Andrea and the looming figure of Revenge all foreshadow the planned, dominating, inescapable doom which Hieronimo finally accomplishes
in his play, where all the deaths are in earnest and not in
ordination; as theatre
jest.
The
it
is
superb.
is
'antic'
its
structure.
The
figure of the
and mastery of
fear
work
as
assimilation
Dr Thomas
upon the
supreme
As we
see murderers
committing the
upon gibbets,
to terrify us
from these
sins
from
terrify others
it
hung
were,
of Providence, with
God was
God
remote control
in
directly active in
His universe, so
that
is
which
.
He
and that
(A5
r)
fits
As he
whom
his
dagger, the other party perceiving, so avoided the stroke, that withall
own
own
the
means of surgery
that
all
his breath
last
was not only a manifest sign of God's judgment but also an horrible
fearful terror to all that beheld him. But herein did the justice of
and
God most
132
POET'S ART AND PLAYER'S QUALITY
had written those blasphemies to be the instrument to punish him, and
that in his brain,
(K5
V,
Ch. xxv)
The
not
To
man
have reduced
of blood.
this frightful
God
to
dimensions merely
as
Richard
State
supreme
The
diabolic
is
to have
Tudor
had a troupe of
(i, 2,
133
255-6)
actor
Red
Bull,
to encourage
him'.
start.
is
known
to
simple or heartily
In Act III he
is
bluff.
They
'confession* of a
killed.
134
colour^
Murder
And then
As
To which Buckingham
replies that
he can play
at
terror?
1-4)
being an
actor.
Are at my
And both
At any time
to
grace
my
offices
stratagems.
(3,
With
5>5-iO
acts as Presenter, to
cries
He
is left
end he
is
willing to throw
away
all
of the line
A horse,
a horse,
my kingdom for a
horse.
(5> 4, 7)
The
image of courtly
Believe me^
When
futility).
sir,
Then
let
in
my youtJis giddiest
to
was a
so like Courts, as
days,
-play's praise.
Whose
Now
deepest projects
not separate the actor from the role ; they too lost themselves
number of
stories
truly Protean.
Burbage
He was
part and putting off himself with his clothes, as he never (not so
as in the tiring house)
assum'd himself
till
much
young
The
it
will
compensate
player's 'conceit'
is
Alleyn
remained ever himself, and his career shows that he was as
remarkable and forceful off the stage as on it. Burbage subpart,
his realization of
dued himself
it
as a coherent identity.
to his part
it still
is
yet
E*
137
now been
outlined will
rise
138
of the
Common
in
terms
Player.
PART TWO
Common
VlayerSy Ijyj-l6oo
CHAPTER
LEICESTER'S
VI
MEN AT KENILWORTH
Laneham's Letter
Laneham's
not
by a Mercer
an imaginary
author
Menbanter of
probably John Laneham of
town
common
who,
by
song of Minstrel a
corresponds
of a
of
but
of a
of
own
defence of
of John Laneham
subsequent
MERRYMAKING and Ceremonial games provided a
Country
sports
work
as depicted
the
really
the
Leicester's
like the
players,
the
the
status
in
his
the clergy
professional burlesque
the social
the writer
'character'
justification
the
to that
friendly
traits
learning
his
player
includes
the
citizen
author's
writers
his
career
the actor.
sports
persisted
among
countryfolk,
Mayday
or
to
the Play^
was copied
into the
141
Maitland
MS.
COMMON
Triumph
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
lost.
then march
this
drummers thundring,
their
stumps
heads like
among
madmen,
their hobbyhorses
then after
this,
And
all
summer
halls,
wherein they
feast,
their
set up,
all
May
1575 at a
and courtly
be
combined
for
the Queen was about to
allegory were all to
set out on a progress which culminated in the most stately
the Princely Pleasures of Kenilof all sylvan games
moment when
in
worth. (3)
142
LEICESTER'S
MEN AT KENILWORTH
household.
With
its
hangers-on,
its
baggage,
its
open
cramped discomfort for the rest, the Court found at Kenilworth a magnificence equal for once to its Gargantuan
appetite.
Two
now
lost);
(at least
one
and those
from the point of view of a gentleman poet, is dealt with below, in Chapter XL The present
chapter is concerned with an anonymously printed letter,
dated from the court at Worcester 20 August 1575, 'from
a freend officer attendant in the Coourt, unto his freend a
Citizen, and Merchaunt of London'. (4) This work, usually
known as Laneham's Letter, is written with more attention
to country sports which Gascoigne excluded as beneath his
notice or that of the 'studious and well disposed young
gentlemen' he addressed. Hitherto, though well known and
several times reprinted, it has been assumed to be no more
than its title states it to be; the 'quaint' spelling and the vivid
descriptions have excited a rather amused curiosity. It is
my view that this document was written by a member of the
Earl of Leicester's Men, John Laneham, and that it
rejected, written
represents the
merriment
is
common
player's
by no means
143
its
and
COMMON
that
it is
a social
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
document of importance
Men
correct, this
of Islington.
It is fairly certain that
made
it
waz
tells,
on Sunday,
Men were at
1
7 July
seeme very
short,
though
it
lasted too
Leicester's
ill
likeness to that
enough to show
of Thomas Whythorn, whose Auto-
39)
is
Yoer contreeman,
companion,
and
freend
assuredly;
Mercer,
me R.
L. Gent. Mercer
(p.
144
87)
LEICESTER'S
MEN AT KENILWORTH
*by the
the
Coounty of Nosingham
Gentlman'.
It seems however improbable that the writer is really
Roberte Langham, admitted to the Mercers' Company in
1557, having been apprenticed to William Leonarde; for at
the beginning of the letter he describes how he travelled to
France 'under my Master Bumsted'. Christopher Bompstead
could have been Langham's Master, for he himself was
admitted to the Mercer's Company in 1 54 1 ; but in fact he
was not. If there is one thing which even the most careless
writer would not mistake, it is the name of the master to
whom he had served his seven years of apprenticeship, in
whose house he had resided when not engaged upon his
travels. (5)
To
choose a
name
that
was
more
Games
The
daringly
jest; to describe
thumb a nose
about 'the tribe of Mani-asses' or
is
to
elsewhere. (6)
letter is
addressed to
London
in
57 1,
Humfrey Martin,
young
145
COMMON
of the two
PLAYERS,
who supported
1575-1600
ance. (8)
The writer's description of his office
is
likewise imaginary
it
finds
Laneham
and the
Clerk of the Council-Table served in the Office of the Lord
Privy Seal. To 'act' the porter was a recognized comic role;
on Elizabeth's entry to the Castle, the part of the porter was
played by the Esquire Bedell of the University of Oxford,
of which Leicester was Chancellor.
are those of a doorkeeper. 'Clerk'
146
was a senior
title
LEICESTER'S
Laneham
MEN AT KENILWORTH
on the Earl of
was
it
left
have fresh
if I
woold
tary.
When
(p.
82)
the Queen's
this
groom
in
the
door. (10)
Woodstock,
in
in
(i i)
known
Common-
as Leicester's
appeared as
Letter from a Master of Arts to his
Friend in London \ above all, the popular half-jocular, halfsatirical pamphlet such as Chettle's Kind Hart's Dream, took
this form. Although it is nearly twenty years earlier, this
Letter has much in common, both in style and matter, with
the pamphlets of the nineties ; there is large borrowing from
it, for example in Greene's Farewell to Folly.
wealth,
The
first
a double
aim
is
calculated. It has
would be
is
possible that
it
147
had
also a further
common
players
aim; to
a
merry
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
Thus
And noow
am
little
in,
to the matter.
(P-7)
word
in the description
of
'a
who
The
bridegroom formost, in
his freends
Que^n) a
his fatherz
(for
wyse on
his hedj
in his
of hiz mother that lent him a nu mufflar for a napkin that was tyed
too hiz gyrdl for lozing ... for though heat and coolnes
occazions
matter,
wype hiz
when yooth
is
manerly brought up
Tiz
(p.
'Welcome
to the preface.'
148
a goodly
in fatherly loouve
motherly aw.
*
upon sundry
27,
p.
and
30)
MEN AT KENILWORTH
LEICESTER'S
is
far
it is
man
And
fyrst
cunning
in fens,
his
Captain
ham
lent
it
all
master with him; thus in the foreward making room for the
(P-
The
revive their
clergy
Hock-Tuesday
'storial
Cox and
rest.
34, p. 36)
his
men
to
it
the great
later
149
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
The
thing said they iz grounded on story, and for pastime woont too
men
it
tyll
noow of late
laid
dooun, they
to the
(p.
33)
Hocktide
between
battle
It
and
commemorated
mish unto a blazing battail', first with spear and shield, then
with sword and target. Two parties of footsoldiers next
marched in, and turned from ranks into triangles, and from
that into rings and so out again till 'a valiant captain of great
prowez, as fiers as a fox assaulting a gooz' gave the first blow;
whereupon the fight resumed with the Danes twice getting
the advantage 'but at the last conflict, beaten doun, over
com, and many led captive for triumph by oour English
weemen*.
The
martial triumph
is
150
MEN AT KENILWORTH
LEICESTER'S
preachers of London.
the
London
Coventry
It
anticipated also
players' best
men
getpenny
what was
to prove
1591
returned to their old theme with The Defeat of the Danes and
the Life of Edward the Confessor. (13)
as listed
is
bachelor
yet*.
The mockery
of
Islington's
civic
pretensions
'well
knooen
next
to be
London
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
its
burlesque manner
is
close to the
mantle
Which of us
And thearewith
54)
printing began.
is
The language
of
manner of Chaucer's
Sir Thopaz, to
which kind
it
seems to
LEICESTER'S
'dashing' a comedy,
MEN AT KENILWORTH
of the game.
what) He
a God.
set the
!
God
hath sent
musik
is
a nobl Art.
me
is
(ye
kno
it is
sum-
44)
'Anoother,
skilled musician,
a
a
tempting part.
But behind the surface jollity and gay burlesque, a more
personal and dangerous jest may perhaps be concealed. The
matter of this song, especially as transmitted by one London
citizen to another, might reflect upon the state and dignity
of the London archery band, the Ancient Order, Society and
Unity Laudable of Prince Arthur and his Knightly Band of
the Round Table, incorporated as such by King Henry VIII,
who also bestowed on the leading archer the mock title of
The Duke
of Shoreditch.
The
COMMON
manner
in
which
it
PLAYERS,
was given
1575-1600
Isle
popular,
circulating
in
manuscript for
many
Laneham
years,
this
as
non-
takes leave of
glory-
The
festivities,
when
to heer
play.
21)
He
(where
heraldic
devices
particularly
interest
Queen
him),
154
LEICESTER'S
MEN AT KENILWORTH
The
to sports
A jovial man,
and therefore
to the
common
common players.
The character
sufficient
reader
is
Negro
implied that he
is
to create a
most improbable
social
hybrid.
affairs
for the
On
embodiment
in
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
is
presented
Laneham
ye)
which
have spoken
of, I shall
bring oout
56)
Laneham
He
windlass'
ij6
LEICESTER'S
And
but mark a
oour toongs in
lyttl I
tallk
MEN AT KENILWORTH
pray,
do alweyz so redily
trip
in the world,
cooplz
(p.
75)
wedded
bliss'
is
Finally,
Laneham
finds
it
liberalitie,
az hath no
wey
to
his
trezure, but only by liberal gyving and bounteous bestoing his trezure;
folloing (az
it
Extra fortunam
Quas
est
dederiSy solas
semper habebis
opes.
COMMON
Oout of all hazered^
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
to
gyvest:
(p.
80)
It
helps to join
De
Dum
Regina Nostra
Illustrissima.
ILLA diebus
Another
IJ8
Eliza-
had closed
MEN AT KENILWORTH
LEICESTER'S
with a
little
to his household.
He
that
Leave apes
And let
to
old
dogs
to bait^
Lanam
lash
lose times:
him with
my
folly I
is
is
celebrated.
Men
at the
entertainment
is
fine social
already seen.
If they
encountered
to the godly.
pleasures
To
it,
the
would be
disloyal, yet
how could a
159
painful preacher
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
the dimension of
art.
to the
Wardens
of the Stationers'
Company,
grown insurmountable.
It is
the
the Letter
its
ment and
scorn.
160
LEICESTER'S
MEN AT KENILWORTH
i6i
CHAPTER
VII
nature of
extempore
some posthumous
paradox
of
the
sequent misrepresentation
his
no
verses
descriptions
his ballads
the
fool
man
himself.
They knew
By
sub-
contemporaries
the
'plot',
its
his career
HI
his acting
was very
first
man
to be
first
known
all
162
had been
dull
in Bedfordshire,
came
to
drunken
act
improved
all
in the telling.
clowns
He
had a
which he played
how Tarlton played the God Luz with a flitch of bacon at his back,
and how the Queen bad them take away the knave for making her
laugh so excessively as he fought against her little dog Perrico de Faldas,
and what
my
longstaff,
lord Sussex
and Tarlton
163
said to
oF her mastie;
one another.
(4)
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
own
titles
before
him
as judge.
He
on him by a
within
his
guard,
picking
drab
getting
him up and throwing him down bodily into the tiltyard. At Norwich, when in
June 1583 the Queen's Men were involved in a fight, he
tried to restrain the ardour and the sword of his fellow-actor
dealt
set
Bentley.
father, I
do not desire
it,
I trust in
(as his
God you
brethren) said
shall live to
enjoy
it
yourself. (5)
The
V as
Henry
it
first
stage of separating
it still
recalled.
style
and
originally a country
Jigs sprang
German
farcical
this
acting; he
Of merry
Whose
conceit
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
art of paradox.
His companion
pretty new Ballad entitled The Crow sits upon the wall,
signed R. T. might have been sung as a jig; the different
lines
Please one
Be
and please
members
all.
Please one
Be
and please
all.
Have
166
of the
or thread,
call.
Whether
it
all.
What
beer.
be strong or small.
was that
really
quote
it
in all innocence.
Mar-Martin,
These tinker
terms
and
stage.
Then Martin
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
is
upon the
stage;
.',
you are
to
blame
'countercheck quarrelsome*.
made him
a Puritan
Ab
Upon
whomsoever thou
dost
carry.'
At this,
down on
168
Calvinist; what, do
.
set
my
yes, yes,
Oh,
there
is
to
is
quoddam
tertium.'
confirm
it,
companions
if
it
all
(p.
boon
57)
to
fore let
it
pass for a
regions in
to say he
is
When
enemy,
personal
he underscores
the point by introducing Tarlton, singing a scrap of Elderton's famous ballad. The Fangs of Love, The prelate was said
to be 'fit for the devil's chapel' and this brought Barnaby
Rich before the Privy Council. Tarlton's extempore jests,
F*
69
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
works.
1600).
{c.
Here he
now
either
my
you
my drum, my
Then
cap,
.
Inn
At a wine
tavern too!
shall I invest on me
O, my heavenly Maker!
Monstrum Horrendum? God forbid, says the
.
little
whylom
beseech you, as
little
compliment,
Gentlemen.
of
melancholy.'
honest
He
mirth,
Tarlton
players.
Now,
masters,
what
say ye to a
What,
all
amort?
No
if
for this
170
I see
their
words are
full
is
monstrous;
(p.
39}
no small
of the bowling alleys in Bedlam and other places, that were wont
empty.
own
speciality.
contemptible'.
The
letter
bawd ye
will be.
Ay, by
my
troth
spoil
sir,
And
why
you,
not I as well as
sir,
my
neigh-
Out
171
42)
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
would
end in a song; yea, an extemporal song on this theme.* But in
Kind Hart's postscript there is a final hint on Tarlton which
suspect refers to
Em
made
Tarlton had
Ball, or
will
ham
being
able
Adams,
fuller of
men how
a silly old
/ was
/ was
not taught
excel
T.
155
172
A groom
of her chamber
When
As
U envoy.
Thus Peggy bewailed the
loss
of her friend
What
Be
merry,
Some
One
needs thee
say, let
to
his
gone
wail and moan?
is
sorrow alone.
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
consists of a passionate
but of poetry in
wonder
'learned heads'
cunningly disclose
the shores^
they
serve us as a christal glass
out^
Have
with other
works
The substance
And then
or the circumstance^
is ill
applied^
174
of,
is
action he
will
pay his
tribute.
and
in
If
Apollo
I yield
to loss
Sith verse
r II press
of time.
and I so
in
different are^
ragged rhyme
No painted
Shall
He
my
invention shew.
if
he wins grace
With
off.
In
its
naivety
it
may be thought
to confirm Sir
Roger
The commendatory
and
gifts
Themes
is
pamphlets
COMMON
PLAYERS,
qualities, if
1575-1600
without the help of
He
all
my
the world,
mouth.
a perfect testimony of the good heart and dutiful zeal of your honour's
most humble
With
at
to the Right
his suit
and other
conceits
knew
to be
liked,
Tarlton,
who
on the toe
left
not his
p.
like.
1
Tarlton
is
He
citizenship of
Heywood.
He
fluid
life
chorus.
Kempe,
his successor,
176
though he was
called 'Jest-
wandering
atmosphere surrounding them,
position in society perhaps finds some reflection.
household jester who also took the whole City for
Nashe put him with Knell, Bentley and those who
the dignity of the stage, but this was the con-
however
Tarlton's
He
was a
home.
advanced
his
different the
177
CHAPTER
VIII
member of
Leicester's
Men
a triumph over the Spanish foe, the enemies of the stage, and
a lament for Tarlton
Prophecy
his Cobbler^s
satiric in intention,
Wilson's name
several times coupled
ROBERT
with Tarlton's, for both excelled in extempore acting.
is
fit
He
178
is
named
mock
Four years
earlier, in
a burst of
Harvey had
like-
How
thrusting
me
make
my
trial
in
of my extemporal faculty
(Camden
Letter Book
In
Leicester's
Men
Society 1884), p. 67
(2)
He may
have
known him;
So
now
is
who for
Swan on
the Bankside.
{E.S. II, 349)
Wilson
career offered a
model
to Shakespeare.
his
praise
179
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
This
tall
Men who
Leicester's
'is
willing
'facility'.
described as
world.
180
THE QUEEN'S LIVERY
Usury. At a higher
level
in the final
to Hell
and
istic
of the
Tudor
interlude
show Money
other plays
in a
assumed,
Millers, however,
were
of Dissimulation.
traditionally cheats
and Simplicity
but
is
to filching in
i8i
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
own
indignity of a
whipping
Enter Servicable Diligence the Constable, and Simplicity with an
officer to
if
you can.
(Fi v)
is
comportance,
and
Gobbo,
a great feeder,
assist),
bonfacious,
markle, conspatch,
He
I pray you^
be miserable
For I labour
to
get
my
to
me and
let
me
go,
know
He
an
tells their
Fraud
as
ostler, for
devises
always cheated by
Fraud
and Usury
the hard-hearted
knave.
common man
at his
most
childlike to gaiety
is
and a place
in
now a
The
whipping.
182
THE QUEEN'S^LIVERY
man Hospitality, protector of Love and Conscience,
murdered by Usury; when the Judge asks
old
is
There
is
Simplicity sings
No
it,
and
seen, Stephen
Gosson
testifies;
Queen,
Feast',
Enough
is
as
Good
as a
might
shift
Purgatory.
183
COMMON
It
is
protest
PLAYERS,
masked
1575-1600
protectively
by
and
fooling,
moment
to justify his
own
cause. (7)
attired, representing
London,
having two angels before her, and two after her, with bright Rapiers
in their hands.
London
speaketh.
And they
London
to see.
Lady of all, the miraculously preserved Elizabeth. The London Lords who are the
heroes of the play embody the unity of London actors and
London audience. The Preface echoes the humble prayer
is
that
heads.
184
players'
The
own
case,
it
new
attack.
Lust
in the
Chapel of Adultery
in
Holywell
(i.e.
and
the Theatre)
Gosson's School
second edition.
triumphant Vaunt, Counterblast or Challenge, in which
proclamation replaced argument. Pleasure most directly
represents the players' cause, and as he hangs up his shield
at the opening in general challenge to all comers, his words
to his page. Will, include a veiled threat of staging his
Good
His
boy,
mark well
to his
his gesture
and
weapons and
scorn,
his look,
attire.
(B2
r)
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
in fact,
Majesty, Ambition as
The
by three heralds,
a stately image of
triple challenge
is
and titles
tourney, and far
insignias
a
Pomp
is
to arrange for
humbler pastimes.
My
lordsy
I would I might
To carry as
it
were a
advise ye
careless
now
regard
Watches
Bonfires, hells
And
The
End
not
last
to
Green
be seen.
at the
audience by Puritans
as adapted for martial display, it
links together the pomp of patriotism and the pomp of plays,
which was to be so thoroughly exploited in the English
Histories of Wilson's successors.
The heroes
of The Pleasant
The
first
friendly rivalry of
all
three
all at
joint challenge to
any foreigners
who presume
to dispute
their right. (9) After the defeat of the Spanish Lords, three
Lords of Lincoln appear, but they are sent away bearing only
the stones of repentance on which the ladies sat.
London's fellowship includes heroes and clowns; Simplinow a freeman and very proud of his title. Clad *in bare
black like a poor citizen', his mourning attire, as he sets up
city is
in the
city^
was leaning
have
that Tarlton?
I never knew
to
my
O,
wife useth
/*/
him.
What was
now and I
wiss he hath
as ever
O passing fine
Tarlton,
like
was
born,
187
COMMON
Wealth He
is
1575-1600
There
PLAYERS,
Simplicity:
And thou
I see.
wit free.
(C i
heart sore.
v)
whereof I
new
orders, nor
am a freeman and
sciences set
please ye, as ye
may
up
read in
in the City,
my bill there.
(H3
Simplicity freeman.
v)
all
London, nay
Fraud out of
nothing, and
this
I'll
all
world,
England
is
188
let
him in
garments, the Shoemaker
Tanners
will miss
me
see, I shall
have
much
Tapster in
filling pots,
and
The
mons,
'chiefly in
Com-
London*.
the clear and definite lines of his previous work, this hotch-
potch looks like a sad falling off. But the 'variety' might in
be put forward as an aim, especially when the variety
itself
wright,
and that things of like matter are not joined together. Truly, there are
many of such divers and sundry effects, that it could not be altogether
And in my judgment, through the strangeness and variety
observed.
of matter
it
will be
more
that
wandering
knowing
in strange, pleasant
and contrary
weary
us,
Five 'houses' are shown upon the stage in this medley, and
end one of them is burnt down. (12) It is the Cabin of
at the
Contempt, the
villain
of the piece
is
called
Contempt,
the players'
besetting sin.
189
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
most
Venus has
lulled
Mars
asleep with
comes
lies
in
and
as
he
turn'.
/ see a
And holy
The
effectual
and see
working of a prophecy^
That while ye
stay,
their pleasure
may
content
ye.
Then
is
a second induction in
190
on Charon,
ferryman of Hell, in dialogue with Codrus, enemy and
detractor of poets, a human embodiment of Contempt. The
medley ends with a flock of jailbirds being released to help
entirely unrelated satiric episode brings
Moral.
Though
it
London
in
Stately
Underlying
bitterness of the
Clown, with
half-nonsensical,
half-threatening
his prophecy.
The
rhymes and
all is
the
strange,
riddles
of
such characters as Peter of Pomfret, (13) Thomas of Erceldoune, or of John Ball constitute the tradition for his speech
of warning to the worldly court of Boeotia: it is threatened
with the fire of Judgment Day.
And babes
any^
cries^
in street that
lies^
vein.
Being
lifted
When you
up on high
to scorn.
Where
scholars' allegories^
his dilatories^
Bethink
But
in
191
(B3
v,
r)
COMMON
He
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
And
For
Go
doom
before the
lack.
his back.
scholar, there's
lack.
humble
cobbler's
wisdom:
the
common means
Raise up some
man
contemptible
and
vile.
In
The broken
spirits.
(F3
r)
is eloquent of defeat.
inconsequence makes it now extremely
difficult to read, most of the figures were traditional and
familiar; its mingling of natural and supernatural is in the
tradition of popular romance. Both in his triumphs and in
And though
its
192
Edward
From
Alleyn
Painter
unknown
Leicester's
Men,
Men
Queen's
is
no accident. The
London
the actors as
Fathers
modern
to find the
The
were extended to
tion.
as
The
all
Men
Queen's
City
numbers of troupes
Among members
art.
recognized in his
own
actor's art.
193
CHAPTER
IX
and
Fortune Theatre
of
domestic
life
Aileyn
building of the
later career
riage
association with
alliance
Henslowe
his building
his College
second mar-
THE
194
MASTER OF THE ROYAL GAME
Hieronimo and Orlando. Strikingly tall, with a
splendid voice and presence, he excelled in majestic parts.
Among his papers at Dulwich is a finely executed invitation, with his name written in gold, where he is called upon
to meet a challenge for the 'English Crown' by playing
before chosen judges any of the great parts made famous by
as playing
now
by
make
see not
how you
can any
we must and
will say
Ned
Allen
Your
still.
W.
P.
(2)
The
make an
matter good, as Nashe, one of his staunchest admirers,
declared ; but the foundations of his fortune as distinct from
very
ill
adopted Alleyn as a son into his highly respectable Southwark home, while Alleyn, having found the father he had
lacked, seems to have played the part with genuine feeling.
This was a season of plague ; and, driven off to Chelmsford,
Bristol, Chester and York, Alleyn sent home instructions to
his young wife for the disinfecting of the house, while
Henslowe replied for her with affirmations of the superior
efficacy of prayer. One letter ends with a player's flourish
195
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
'Thine, and nobody else's, by God of Heaven but otherwise his endearments forecast those of the worthy Citizen
against
the
personal
appearance of the
devil,
'credibly
London
and Exeter.
a jesting letter
is
John Pyk
a mocking pun upon his own
prentice
part.
Mistress, your honest ancient and loving servant Pige hath his
commendations
and
to
my
to
you and
to
my
with
humble
mistress,
me
send
a morning and
to
my
my neighbour
my
me up
my shoes and that
with me for the block
Doll for calling
all
to
lovely
king
London.
I cease.
Your
it
my
{Henslowe Papers y
196
p.
for I
it.
41}
mother and
ground
is
'Bess Dodipoll'
witnesses:
the quittance cost
know
best
woman
me
to
it
pay
of me.
was the
it; if
bailiff's fee.
You
{Henslowe Papers,
p.
6o)
it is
By
the early
whom
it;
and
in
December 1594,
and
ments.
in the eighties
Kenilworth,
Laneham
tion of the
Queen.
He
197
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
whose own father had been Master of the Game in Brill Park
and Ashdown Forest. It was not a pretty sport, as an advertisement among the Alleyn Papers at Dulwich makes plain; a
chief attraction, as with cockfights, was betting:
Tomorrow
all
pounds and
worry a
five
who
have
for five
also to
rex,
{Henslowe Papers
What
tear
is
p.
106)
it:
Christian heart can take pleasure to see one poor beast to rent,
and
kill
another, and
all
And
although
they be bloody beasts to mankind, and seek his destruction, yet are
they are.
we
creatures
(Q2
r)
moved freely from comcompany: the plague conditions of 1592-4 made all
groupings insecure. Such was Alleyn's fame that in 1594 a
play was described as given, not by the servants of the Lord
Admiral, but by *Ed. Allen and his Company'. In 1597,
Alleyn, like other gifted players,
pany
to
men
198
deputies.
Next
year,
later years
Though you have worn your apparel to rags, the best is you know where
to
you were
in cloth
me
shall
as if
see.
{Henslowe Papers,
p.
60)
summer
of
ship
of
all
A long lugubrious
Vagabonds
199
COMMON
complain of
born to it:
.
as if he
had been
idle
that usually wandreth through the countreys with bulls and bears
and
1575-1600
life,
strollers,
PLAYERS,
we know
pleased
...
to grant us
apprehend such vagrants and to convent them before the next Justice
your Majesties
such game.
take
he
shall
and
W.
The
use, if
College (1889),
ii,
22-3
up
bulls
which
No
game
till
it
surpassed the
Prince
Henry improved
the breed, for most of the dogs were killed in the process.
Moving
on
of his wealth.
Where
there's
his
muck,
there's
money; the
200
trate.
monument
to posterity
So
the
Adam
fields;
had
Moses
his holy
ground
Thy worship
thee at the
put
last to
it
in the wilderness
in the land
and the
of promise;
The
and Jacob
Israelites
till it
Solomon
pleased
to build a
(Young,
I,
26)
201
COMMON
who wrote from
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
debt:
...
it
albeit,
best
I
becomes
have
imprisonment
Eulogium or
praise of
is
of charity, because
felt
may make me
excused, because
barbarousness
me
live
my
If anything in
offensive, let
be
it
predominant. Accept
my
will,
me
however, and
Thomas Dekker.
{Henslowe Papers,
p.
92}
servant'.
own name
Masters
of his foundation should be called Alleyn in the hopes that
inspired his second marriage. This founding of a charity was
part pious restitution of God's gifts to Alleyn, part compensation for the absence of an heir; as such, it was attended with
fresh difficulties. After drawing up his statutes, for which he
consulted the noble foundations of Eton and Winchester,
the child his
Alleyn required
letters
patent
to
establish
perpetual
great seal'
It
is
it
be of tenure in chief,
way
life
Wards
will decay.
(Young,
202
I like
well
Majesty give
I,
37-8)
The
did Alleyn
fall far
short of
203
COMMON
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
laconically the burn-
first
to his father-
about having
holders,
who
all
it
set
of share-
much
new
contributed.
Alleyn suffered a
The
on 3 December, he married
a girl of twenty. There was much comment and some amusement; one courtier writing to another observed:
and
less
The
strangest
lately
match
in
my
later,
opinion
is
his
two
doubt
hospitals.
(Young,
II. 35)
scoff'
(The Calme^
1-33)-
by no
had
means equalled in cordiality those with his first.
hoped that a common interest in livings might have
developed instead he found his wife's dowry withheld, himself refused a loan, denied the courtesy of the Dean's household in his visits to London and saddled with a sister-in-law
whom he was expected to support. All sorts of trifles
AUeyn's
He
204
were
My
this; that I
own
now
perceived you
reputation or your
and a
words
lie,
in
my mind more
fitting
you
are,
but as
Before
false as
am
too old
dom.
now
God
to learn rhetoric
it
ago
was
false
when you
reverend a calling as
me
a plain man.
I desire
my life and
For a conclusion
my
now under so
thank
thirty years
this violence
always to be so for
you
is
let
me entreat you,
is
as I find
hope you
will
pardon
me
way a means of my
delivering
my
hindrance; and as
my mind
is
in plain terms.
(Young.
II, 36-8)
agreement the 'old player' was expected to give all, and get
nothing but the honour of alliance, he well knew how to
retaliate. In hopes of an heir, Alleyn tried to recover some of
the land granted to his foundation ; not
till
the last
month of
he sign the
statutes,
205
COMMON
intelligence
PLAYERS,
1575-1600
his
own
He
decreed that
elections
206
childhood,
lack
of apprenticeship,
fellowship
with
the
Hamlet
with
men
of great worship
on the bench'.
The
sit
expected to be knighted
I,
350)
theatre; this
is
Here
tion,
207
PART THREE
Household Players,
IJ'//f.-l6o6
CHAPTER X
choristers of St Paul's
the
1
Theatres
Choristers^
574-1 606
their
Children of
under
performances of
and of Chapel Royal under Farrant
of Hunnis and
of
Chapel Royal
Lylyan
second
of
of
kidnapping of Thomas
and
nature of
the
traditions
Westcote
Paul's
at Blackfriars
the
organization
the
outline
activity at Paul's
Clifton
activities
the
period
at Blackfriars
acting by choristers
^James
prohibits
decline of
WHO
deep.
Twenty years
earlier, as little
Clergeons, the
land.
211
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
a Percy were willing to spend
1574-1606
common
at
Lyly
is
Marlowe.
The
them a magnificent
tradition,
and
its
to twelve;
212
with
increasing difficulties,
crucial
and conand
But in the
some
intermissions,
The
children
Queen's
London
in
their
education
or
their
future.
The
royal
common
threat
of plays.
players
Having tamed
now found
audience,
the
themselves exposed to a
new
weapon was
efforts
their
^13
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
victory
and putting
1574-1606
form of
rhetorical
and
what are these children but common players who one day
questions:
will
come
(He
refrained
Two
Henry VIII
214
some
talented, energetic
who
best.
mumming
is
of
followed by
much
clearer
the
companies.
By 1574,
had been giving public performances for some time, (2) and
must have enjoyed the first regular playing place in the City;
Richard Farrant brought the royal livery to Blackfriars in
1576, only three months after Burbage signed the lease for
the Theatre. The late seventies saw the heyday of both boys*
companies. Farrant died in November 1580, Westcote in
April 1582, at the height of the first City campaign against
plays. There was some attempt to join the two companies;
acting ceased in 1584, though Paul's Boys reopened in 1587
for another three years. The most successful years for the
up
when
215
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
were known,
Westcote was a personal favourite of Elizabeth.
He had played before her when she was a Princess at Hatfield; royal favour alone explains how he contrived to keep
his position as almoner, organist, vicar choral and subdean
'Sebastian's Boys', as the Children of Paul's
led because
vainly on
unmoved by what he
excommunicated Westcote
in the Consistory Court. Westcote gave his bond to conform
or resign yet a decade later the City Remembrancer came to
protest to the Dean about 'one Sebastian that will not communicate with the Church of England', who kept plays 'to
great gain, and peril of the corrupting of the children with
papistry'. From December 1577 to March 1578 Westcote
was committed to the Marshalsea 'for Papistry'. Yet, with
more than the common player's audacity and defiance, he
Grindal, Bishop of London, who, not
tears',
1582, when he
left
till
handsome remembrances
to
many
of the
216
boys
of beginners
led
knew both
And sorrow
But mark
troupes:
there,
make.
He
remain.
Science (4)
217
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
most churches
lost
it
glazier's shop.
An
ordinance
o'clock,
and before
six,
when
the great
gate to the precinct was shut and the daily bustle ended.
They acquired a most distinguished repertory. John Heywood composed for them: Redford's fVit and Science^ and
Westcote's Liberality and Prodigality^ originally
rewritten for the
common
theirs,
were
stages.
him
in
running
218
in the
Strand. (6)
up some of that
which belonged to the privileged theatre
of the Inns and the great Halls. Mother Bomhie was a harmless merriment, though too broad for Court, it would seem;
but Lyly joined the Marprelate controversy, which grew in
At
first
tradition of malice
savagery.
He
common
stages with
shrill
abuse of Puritans.
to
as
219
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
lot,
220
man
may
in the spirit of a
Windsor
its
fast
(known
as
liberal 'times
of liberty and playing weeks' meant that the chapel did not
perform at all, and they were then quite free from the duty of
waiting upon the Court. (10)
There was therefore a tradition of dividing the choir,
whose headquarters, as it would appear from offices held by
the members, tended to be at East Greenwich. Farrant
221
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
friars
clear to
all
222
THE LIVERY AND THE SURPLICE
Some
difficulties
Revels Accounts of
1574 to play a
After lodging at the Revels Office to rehearse, they were
ferried from Paul's wharf in two tilt wherries, attended by
in
place
among
and Poetry
in the
Among the
it
the lowest
will
it
be remembered, broke
Prince Hal,
if
man
Laneham; because of
Falstaff's
of Windsor.
social
their incorporation
223
head for
The
and
by
traditional
HOUSEHOLD
PLAYERS,
1574-1606
son
implying
some and
hereditary succession.
disorderly
the
For
the
Lord Mayor's
being outside
freedom from
clerical interference.
more
better,
had been
The
into use
till
604
might
be given as
is
not being
let to
residents only.
Behind
its
lodgings, with
its
own
224
From
the portrait at
Reputed a
Dulwich College
self-portrait
royal livery. It
when,
even
difficult to protest
it
was
His
prices, as
befitted
his
were
status,
To
farm an
ofiice
little
books of
was customary.
The
fiction
of rehearsals was
up on 19 September, Leicester
Hunnis meant only
coolly kept
to practise the
told
More
now
in his
charge, in like sort as his predecessor did, for the better training
to
do her Majesty
that
them
service.
MSS.)
the Chapel in
charge till the Earl of Oxford became interested and encouraged John Lyly to put a finger in the pie. The lease of
the theatre was 'tossed to and fro' between them till Easter
1584, when More recovered it and shut down the playhouse.
225
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
He
let
some rooms
to the
and bored
it
with bodkins
till it
leaked.
He
1574-1606
astute
man, recognized
transport
and
their
penny
a day in breakfast
He
now
at Blackfriars.
seeking
full
how
to play off
who
Giles,
Windsor Children
control of one
226
The Privy
Council, in
its
rehearsing for
companies as
the Court, although both were outside the
Lord Mayor's
jurisdiction.
Under
pretence of toleration,
and exercise
sake'
This passage
and
may be
no love
fair
interest.
accuracy
But
Cupid
at the
at Paul's;
London.
(D3
v)
227
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
attended from the
first
1574-1606
Declama-
Yet by an ancient
Tom
made
were
Tell-troth. Shakespeare
'little
prating
York'
in
The
risks
and
fire'
{Cynthia
Revels,
most
is
is
The
little
regarded.
228
favour by denouncing his friend Gabriel Harvey for lampooning the Earl later Harvey bitterly exclaimed
;
my
In
poor fancy
it
and
it is
Euphues,
good
it is
The
it is
to be
merry: and
better to lose a
it
2,
new
125)
his
favourable
efforts
229
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
till
He did
at
Having burnt
his fingers, the playwright contented himwith writing for Paul's, who after a discreet interval had
regained their footing in the Cathedral precincts according
to his own statement he was given royal encouragement to
'aim all at the Revels' ; with a half-promise that the Mastership should be his in reversion. This post had just gone to the
energetic Tilney, a follower of the Howards, who stood in no
need of a deputy at this time.
Tilney outlived Lyly and blasted his hopes he raised the
Mastership into an important public office, but he did so by
supervision of the growing common stages, not by development of the limited Household troupes. He ceased to be a
working deviser of shows and became a bureaucrat. His
licensing functions were developing most satisfactorily for
himself at the time when Lyly's venture at Blackfriars failed
when Worcester's Men found themselves in trouble at
Leicester in 1584, they were the poorer for losing an
expensive licence which Tilney had issued. Henslowe's
diary also shows how regular was his tribute to the Revels
self
Office.
230
it
Lord Burleigh's
interest.
He
sat
in three succeeding parliaments, each time for a fresh conit for him
he had no roots
same year he engaged himself in the
Marprelate controversy, as a result of which he lost his last
theatrical connexion. Occasionally he might be employed by
some country lord to write an entertainment for the Queen
in progress, (13) but his career was effectually over. After a
brilliant start he found himself outdistanced by younger men.
The very strength of his original work fettered him, for as a
writer he developed
little:
common
stages, Lyly's
in his
youth
to the Hall, to
in
its
subtlety
if
allegorical system.
audience
to
display
fine
clothes,
nice judgment,
lofty
pretensions.
'I
Hamlet
if I
could see
231
court-
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
ship according to the rules of the
game
1574-1606
of loveon behalf of
the audience.
the
would take
to
such
be the original of
as
as a
first
more passionate
in
hope
I shall
done hath
it
and turned to
folly that
who
grass,
after service
not suffered to
in the grave,
only being he to
whom
her
232
herself he
first
life
appeals sharpened:
.
rebels.
friends, that
summa
last
patience to
all
by
revels, I
may
will
my
totalis
is
amounteth
creditors,
my
is
my
posterity.
I
may have
The
it
my
last
new
out in a pardon.
his juniors,
style,
friends
and the
recompence
(Feuillerat, pp.
and
a protection to pay
on
Twenty
sure to be slow.
my
shorter than
I find
up the inventory of
casting
time; the
My
me
to
Thus,
come
561-2)
had run
their
his
H*
233
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
chief achievement of the boys
they
1574-1606
As they
his highest praise for the Waits of Norwich, when they came
out to meet him at the end of his Dance, that they were equal
to a Chapel.
The
prises; Farrant
one-man
full
enter-
authority over
in a
revival the
to suppress
all
plays during
St Paul's.
By now
234
'at
the boys.
and acquired
as business associate
Thomas Wood-
all
he added
had submitted the play to one
of the clergy to read. (i6) The mere fact that they acted in
the precincts must have meant that some check could have
been kept on Paul's Boys by the Dean and Chapter.
Nevertheless, the old tradition of courtly invective, which
Lyly had started, was applied during the second phase of the
choristers' theatres to general satire of Court and City.
Witty young gentlemen from the Inns, like John Marston,
wrote in a malicious and highly personal style. Middleton
Lyly's glancing
more
precise,
licentious, the
Theatre
at
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
Peers sold off his playbooks but such had been the reputation of his theatre that two years later, Woodford's rival
company paid him twenty pounds a year to keep it shut.
The Paul's boys began the attack on the men's companies,
which is known as the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres,
;
manner
own
Cynthia's
had
Revels.
set
up by
lease ran
little
In
but its
and the presence of
friars
from Michaelmas
common
600 by
236
playhouse. Evans's
December the
kid-
troupe persisted.
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
secede.
office as
Comedians or
none of the
that
.
shall
be used or employed
God Almighty
of
in such lascivious
and vain
it is
not
said Choristers
fit
exercises.
238
satire,
Heywood
noted
some abuse
particularising of private
ness
and
men's humour
committing their
bitter-
mouths of children,
it
never so
Heywood
is
not altogether
many
of the
brilliance of
he made
it
bookish rhetoric.
dramas
poetry, not
in the dedication to
acting
They enjoyed
was
criticized; 'Faith,
ignorant in
'Who
reflects:
is
and
Duke of Venice, he
strut?'
The
much
ruffling insolence
grown
'If
the
forth in that
239
HOUSEHOLD PLAYERS,
1574-1606
and
of three years.
Even
their
marched
in
Men
and City
good order.
240
PART FOUR
All
the
WorlcTs a Stage
CHAPTER
DRAMA
XI
AS OFFERING
Elizabeth as actress
to
Summer Welcomes
her
the
the Misfortunes of
Elizabeth's festivities
difference
those
glorification
traditional
secular
in
revival
ONE
I were turned out of the realm in my pettiwere able to live in any place in Christendom.* (i)
In her relations with her people, by responsive quickness
she created a part for both to play. The legend of the Queen,
built up throughout her reign, could not have been sustained
had she not herself enjoyed a keen sense of dramatic
possibilities in her role. Because of her imprisonment under
Mary, Foxe all but put her among his Martyrs; and the
'troubles' of her early years formed the subject of a popular
play by Thomas Heywood, produced within two years of her
death. Her deliverance was generally accounted miraculous.
Courtiers and poets celebrated her as the chaste and sacred
beauty if not a Beatrice, at least a Laura, as Gascoigne and
Ralegh both proclaimed. To her people at large she became a
goddess who scattered blessing, wealth and happiness
qualities that if
coat
preserver of peace
a 'dearest dread*
243
a heavenly virgin
Come over
Come over
Sweet
appeared
in the burst of
high
I see.
greeted her
spirits that
sentiments.
To
silence the
The
height in this
by
at its
To
all
such as bad
God
Grace
all
and
God
save
them
all,
to
and
244
I,
1-2)
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
in the
time that the child spake, besides a perpetual attentiveness in her face,
a marvellous change in look, as the child's words touched either her
person, or the people's tongues or hearts.
The
people gave
*a
(Nichols,
I, 3}
prayer.
She sent ahead to order silence at the next pageant 'for her
Majesty was disposed to hear all that should be said unto
her'.
The
'
pithily'
I
thank
request
my lord mayor,
is,
his brethren
and you
all.
No
power.
And
you
all, I
And
whereas your
will in
me
Queen was
I trust shall
to her
my blood. God
thank you
(Nichols,
all.
I,
15)
245
'
power
hunger
On
much
rise to
virginity.''
246
The
first
DRAMA
courtly
drama of the
AS OFFERING
age, that of
John Lyly,
reflected the
life
of the Court.
The
plays of
experimentor-general,
it
said,
wasted.
He
in its sequel at
and
soldier or as a diplomat;
New
Then,
-peerless Prince,
In your affairs
When
made
Year's gift
Queen
employ
this willing
man.
to
was first
greeted by a prophesying Sybil, who appeared from an
arbour a bow-shot from the entrance then by a comic porter,
in the garb of Hercules
a part written and played by the
Esquire Bedell of Oxford University.
Beginning with surliness, he recognized deity in his
presence, fell on his knees and offered the keys of the castle.
the
Gloriana
now? Well, we
hereafter.
I,
7)
all
248
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
rule,
who
main contribution,
at least in
masque. The
blind'.
accident,
given.
249
to
/ am
but messenger^
Have passed
A world of wealth
at will
staff
of your
estate,
250
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
been.
bliss
(Nichols,
I,
80)
a night
eliminated; the
how
right way'.
in
the
moment and
their
plea.
few weeks
later,
at
the
thriftily
play.
251
Woodstock
in
which
all is
reported
this present
world, or
observed
In which
tale, if
state
less
less
whom
I find
W.
CunlifFe,
P.M.L.J. XXVI,
p.
93)
common
home through
*a
gown
of rainbows'
colours
who
acting as
official
above the
strife.
Immortal
From
states^ as
the
less,
598-9
remains
to be.
None
in the play,
and free,
(ed.
move
cit.
p.
117)
great passion
252
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
this little
its
lover cries:
And seek
the
save.
to
bliss
And absent,
/.,
pp.
2 1-2)
aloof.
still,
So
fortified,
852-5
(ed.
cit.,
p.
124)
974-7
(ed.
cit.,
p.
127)
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
Cambridge University would attend
way of
lengthy disputations by
at Saffron
Walden with
Queen,
(5)
to the
Queen
is lent.
bent.
celebrating
the
mysterious union
Queen
of the
(O
Tclad
sits
seemly sight)
in scarlet like a
And ermines
maiden queen,
white:
set:
violet.
influence.
At
title:
Shrovetide, in February of
254
Astraea,
Armada
John Davies's.
young
year, the
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
why
How
W.
state to stage.
is
Queen of
Scots;
Mordred
who
the archtraitor,
brings in
Act
III, to
just to
kill
He
it
can ever be
Seems
it so
sour
to
win by
civil
wars?
76-82)
cated and
be mysteriously impli-
felt to
strife;
What
Who
hopes ^
knows
what
haps., lie
wasted in
these
wars?
For
Gorlois
epilogue,
48-9)
Which
time
to
come,
and many
ages hence
(5, 2,
14-23)
young lawyers
more
Nor was an
anticipated the
common
stages.
element of the dark and sinister at all out of place in Christmas revels. Yet one of the consequences of a feminine ruler
was that this darker aspect of the revels, together with
deliberate breaking of decorum and order, disappeared.
Elizabeth imposed her own style, which was not that of her
and
this style
256
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
was
clearly heard.
death's heads
from the
who
Masks of meyoxes
were
half
men and
lay in the
Tower under
half
young king
Somerset,
custard.
If
Mary tried
enough
for
first
to leave off*.
in darkness
as well as disgrace.
traditionally
and sank
Masque
of
of decency.
Unlike her
1
257
Mary's
she
preferred
properties,
what we owe
to
it
this table,
every
No
man from
all
Heavy attempts
258
at
morality were
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
improvising.
all
259
crowded
gracious reply:
That if his letter had not excused his passing by, he should have done
homage before he had gone away, although he had been a greater
Prince than he was; yet she liked well his shews
come
at Shrovetide
he and
that if he should
have entertainment
(M.S.R.,
And as
p.
55)
salute.
The
irresistible
first
knew how
idea of splendour,
260
DRAMA
AS OFFERING
state
his true
the role
utmost ceremony. Bywitty self-mockery, the Prince of Purpoole kept his part
from declining to a mere fantasy of greatness. Traditional
sports were in the blood but no longer in the brain; something had perhaps been learnt from the 'sort of base and
common fellows' from the Theatre, whom the Grayans
called in when their own sports were held up by tumult.
Once more then in 1595, as at the time of the Armada
peril,
in
fantasy of Proteus
adamant of hearts
without arms of men?
hearts of men do move
.
{M,S,R., p. 64)
Elizabeth
now
kingdom of the
had witnessed
seas; 'Russia,
to her power.
Shadows
The
TK iron-forcing
adamant
doth resign
p.
66)
the
kiss ; she invited the Prince to join in the day's fight at the
barriers, in
Meanwhile,
Armada, Summer
the
life
of one old
woman was
and
civil
few
DRAMA
Time hath
to
AS OFFERING
When
turn'd'.
silver
September 1592
in
and so speedy an
(Ed. J.
visited the
new
life:
grass
air
wrought
so strange
an
alteration.
W.
Cunliffe,
P.M.L.J. XXVI,
to
effect
him
whereon you
tread;
this
136}
p.
is all
life
that
you
live;
can wish.
(Nichols, II, 4}
At
Where
Her
things change
And her
eyes
and
beauty:
But
still.
cheeks do fill
263
life,
still
in
before.
264
many years
CHAPTER
XII
The
University
Court
in the Universities
mas shows
the traditional
mockery
Prince at Oxford
decline of this
in the
Inns of
in Christ-
The Christmas
behaviour
form
of the audience
TH
^general conclusion.
E 'private' audience,
the play or put the character 'beside his part' was a form of
jest
that
spectators
to interrupt a country
I*
265
The
choristers' theatre
Damplay appear
in Inductions (2);
went on in great
was intermittent, depending on the fancy of
households,
it
still
What
evidence remains
made to songs.
The other three texts are the
or 'entries',
Gesta Grayorum of 1 594, considered in the last chapter; the group of Parnassus Plays,
as
winter of 1607/8.
By this date, the
Masque had
267
The Parnassus
choristers' theatres in
critical
there,
when
actors
came on
room atmosphere of
They
sophistication
and
and some-
268
had
THE PRIVATE AUDIENCE
Christmas sports and Christmas Lords (though forbidden at Cambridge by the Visitors of Edward VI) and
plays were occasionally provided. Cambridge's tradition lay
mainly in comedy and Oxford's in tragedy.
The visits of the Queen in 1564 to Cambridge and 1566
to Oxford were of course occasions of great splendour, when
the whole university united to present stately shows;
scaffolds were built, streets were decorated, famous authors
were called in to help. The Christmas sports of a college were
on a smaller scale. The similarity in style between the Gray's
their
instance,
Andrew's
Lord of
St
Queen
to
chapter,
269
up
skill.
According to Nashe,
topical,
and calculated
to
come home
270
Court.
The
who
is
now
member
a foppish
of the Inns of
and go
Few
writer
Ovid and
that writer
Why,
Metamorphoses, and
much of that
much of
talk too
them
too.
He
informs the scholars that *I rode this last circuit purposely, because I would be judge of your actions'. To the
Kempe
scholars,
Be merry,
my
grand terms.
lads,
Vocation in the world; for money they come North and South to
bring
it
to our playhouse,
who
The
scholars
however turn up
entertainment industry
consort
of fiddlers
being told by
Kempe
preferring
to the
4, ed.
cit.,
p.
339)
the
Better
'
271
Sooping
to
gazing
streets^
it
And pages
to
London
the
Faith
hall
we
who seems
playhouses, as a
life
p.
350)
on the Kentish
desperately
bound
for
satirist.
our voyage
The
shepherd's
retire to a
hills,
cit.,
is
pitiful fate
360)
in poverty,
and scorn
is
for the
Greene
And
Must we
be practised
to these
relief?
leaden spouts
Rambling and
precision as they
interest
the
pp. 343-4)
War
Common
Players,
They
work of
272
some
whiffs of 'that
writer Ovid'
common
made
to boast of their
stages
Our play
It will
We
lads, the
(11.
subjects.
We
That
act
London Actors
upon the
But we
That plough for
stage.
wage.
into
my grandam,
For
troth,
in
(ll-
273
my
mouth,
737-9> ed.
cit.,
p.
26)
at the Theatre.
(11.
750-1, p. 27)
with
The custom had been unused for thirty years, and as the
scribe remarks, those who proposed it had little idea how
was to prove. Chosen at All Saints, the Prince
on St Andrew's night, when other college
came into power, and his sports began modestly
expensive
was
it
installed
officers
enough with
a play given
upon the
man
it
was
altar
of Fortune
plaudites
were
as
much
cleanly supported by
voided, that
as
it
deserved) suddenly
some of ye
standers
by
fell
down; but
till
ye company was
it
was
Throughout the
was a
pp. 27-8)
between the
and a sense that
college revels were much pleasanter when they were not
'troubled with strangers'. The comfort and exclusiveness of
privacy and the glory of publicity struggled uneasily together.
sports there
conflict
274
this reason,
punishment
This
is
mood
satire alone
was
London
possible.
as of the
is
The
and
flat.
children in
275
Spigot
miserably at a nonplus as
failure,
coming
made other
it
was most
it)
(M.S.R.,p. 130)
The
in'
is
'beat
same tripping
in',
/ Monday am,
not he
surnam'd the
besides
black.
{M.S.R.,p.i3S)
and the whole little show could almost have been written by
Lydgate for Henry VL The public sports continued till
Shrove Tuesday (when the Prince resigned his state) and
even beyond, ending with the English tragedy, Periander.
276
College clapping'.
The
full state
aim
is
also the
same
277
is
(in little) as
the
the 'ridiculous
full
as
the
Laneham's
contrast stand
farewell. Plays
unacted,
half
side-shows and
Offering, the
ceremony of
Hospitality.
The
rich profusion of
gallimaufreys of older
Those
that
in
the college, throwing of stones into the hall and such like riot that the
officers
first
forth in the beginning of the play, with about a dozen whifflers, well
armed and swords drawn. Whereat the whole company (which were
gathered together before the chapel door to try whether they could
break
it
After
this all
it
To
when
they came
when
278
The
difficulties
Yet this did not prevent their flinging a little learned scorn
upon the common stages. In the show of the Prince's
deposition, Momus, traditional enemy of poets, comes to
taunt him and to suggest that he might go reopen the boys'
theatres in London or set up another playhouse under the
sign of his goddess Fortune
Fortasse pueros alere pulchellos cupis
(M,S.R.,
p.
221)
name of our
of
all
these
youth,
at
Taxed
p.
288)
mocked,
as they suspected,
279
Brawn
Later
joiners'.
The poor
in
virtue
of not being a
common
London
audience.
set,
It
or a closed
but
it
lingering
common
280
The
of Hamlet.
The
festivity in
Players
who
the Theatre.
by
Common
in less
From
to supplant
281
it.
EPILOGUE
The
common player from the insecurity and unwhich troupes fluctuated at the beginning of
Elizabeth's reign, to general acceptance by reputable society
in the later years of James is inseparable from or involved in
the emergence of the great metropolitan companies. It was a
member of the first of these companies, James Burbage, who
built the Theatre in 1 576 a fixed home for drama permitted
strollers to become citizens, and pastime to become art.
Elizabethan drama rose to the greatest heights English
poetry has ever attained about thirty years later. It began to
do so in the mid-eighties, when the Theatre had existed for
rise
of the
certainty in
audience
The economic
new
professional
self-sufficiency
actor ;
it
enriched
skill.
better
it
led
could not compete with the common stages. The choristers' theatres kept alive for a while older courtly forms of
entertainment, the plays of Lyly providing an exercise in
'commoning' or the use of poetry in the arts of personal
choristers' theatres
282
criti-
EPILOGUE
and university students continued to
write and act plays as part of any great festivity, whether a
royal welcome during the Queen's summer Progress, or
Courtiers, lawyers
a Christmas revel.
The legend
of Elizabeth lent
itself to a
declined,
disappeared.
was by then
616
its
greatness before
stabilized, the
taken over the closed theatre of the choristers, and the main
had evolved.
player was fairly general
by the end of the sixteenth century; it came slowly because
there had been no place for players in the Tudor social
structure. The player had gained this by keeping to the
traditional role of serving man, while gradually consolidating
a new position, in which the organization of leading companies resembled in some ways that of a trade guild.*
Practical recognition was conceded, but social theory,
especially as displayed in the sermon, or other works of the
clergy, was never adjusted to include the actor. Successful
individuals
Shakespeare, Burbage or Alleyn
or successtraditions of the English stage
Social acceptance of the
common
which
1615. In time of
social instability, the actor remained vulnerable to attack
similar arguments from later Puritans were eventually to
lead, in 1642, to the closing of the theatres by the Parlia-
mentary
late as
forces.
by C.
S.
company and
between
283
TABLE OF DATES
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TABLE OF DATES
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d
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^^?u-g.
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289
NOTES
CHAPTER
and scenic
qualities
visit there.
4.
Stevens,
5.
by players
who
G. Thomas
died
31 3 as Archbishop of Canterbury.
6. See E. K. Chambers, E.S., II, 98, for the full 'flyting'.
Thomas Newton, The Touchstone of Complexions {i^jb), fol. lOOr,
in
and
cf.
7.
in
J. Stevens,
302-3.
The 'youths of the parish' who put on a play against John a Kent,
Antony Mundy's
Dream
who
Harfs
all
288
NOTES
more remains
to be
Day;
it
Jude's
Day
111
May
1.
summer
More,
University
Drama
is
Drama
in
the
289
NOTES
1461-1483 (Trans. Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 39,
1-175), chapter 5. For the case of cobblers and tinkers, see p. 103.
'Instead of coming up at his lord's call to take his part and quarrel
The
was
An amusing story of a
a serving
man
1605 [E.S.
I,
340).
The
Preface to Shakespeare's
commendation',
19. C. R. Baskervill, 'Early Romantic Plays in England' [Modern
Philology, 6, 191 6, 97). This may have been an attempt to imitate the
fashionable late performances in noblemens' houses, which came after
supper. See also Chapter II, note 6.
20. For a general discussion of the problems of government control,
see Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Government Regulation of Elizabethan
Drama (Columbia 1908); the facts are also set out by E. K. Chambers
in The Elizabethan Stage. Neither of these writers has considered the
social implications for the actors as a profession. For some parodies of
town players see Chapter XII, pp. 273, 276.
CHAPTER
II
290
NOTES
would be men
nineties.
who prayed for all. When Sir Philip Sidney wrote a defence
of his uncle Leicester against the scurrilous attack of Leicester's
Commonwealth, he spent much time trying to disprove the undeniable
fact that the Dudley's were a new family. It was more intolerable to
Sidney that his uncle should be an upstart than that he should be a
murderer or so it would appear.
For a general discussion, see Ruth Mohl, Three Estates in Medieval
the priest
The
to
pay for
his pleasures:
/ keep a Taylor,
The
revelling
be
saved
6. As late as 1580, plays were given in houses in Cheapside, beginning at 7 or 8, ending at 11 or 12 {M.S.C. II, 3, 310). Plays were
staged by merchants either in the street or in their houses {ibid. II, 3,
similar prohibition in
1553
In
The
common
7.
players.
291
The comment is by S.
Cox.
NOTES
See also Chapter III, pp. 71-6, for other exatnples]of the immorality of
living by Play instead of by Work. The latest example is that of Father
As even
p. 95),
it is
Taylors.
11.
Cf.
principle
it
Chapter
IV
assemblies.
13. See Virginia Gildersleeve, op. cit. 176. Tarlton knew how to
defend himself at need. And of course Richard Burbage took by the
nose the man who in 1 590 invaded the Theatre and 'playing scornfully
with this deponent's nose' uttered threats of bodily violence. Ben
Jonson killed a fellow actor in a duel. Such evidence must be set
against the unwilling testimony of embittered opponents that some of
the players were quiet respectable men. See below. Chapter III and
Chapter IV.
14. Quoted by F. S. Boas, University Drama in the Tudor Age
(Oxford 1914), 192. For the risk of turbulence at University performances, see Chapter XII below.
15. Exemplification was not finally abolished till 161 6, when the
Lord Chamberlain forbade it (E. K. Chambers, E.S. IV, 343). For
the protective power of these letters see Gosson's remark (Chapter III,
p. 71).
16.
M.S.C.
Compare
in
17. See Gildersleeve, op. cit. pp. 33-4, for the full text, and M.S.C.
262-3. Notice that the company is licensed for music as well as
I, 3,
acting.
in
King James's
292
NOTES
mention of the licensing function of the Master
of the Revels, which was much extended in the eighties.
This patent
is
the
first
M.S.C.
to have killed a
I, 2,
plays'
terms.
(cf.
21. See E. K. Chambers, E.S. IV, 316, and M.S.C. I, i, 75; for
Stockwood's querying of the general term, E. K. Chambers, E.S.
IV, 200.
22. This reaffirmed their minute of 13 February 1598, limiting
the London theatres to these two. The pattern of allowing two
licensed houses persisted after the theatres in question had passed away.
There is little real evidence for the belief of Martin Holmes that the
Bankside was an altogether more unsavoury district than the north
side of the river. The suburbs on both sides, being out of the City's
control, were dangerous. The Bankside was also inconvenient.
23. It has already been mentioned that Alleyn in 1597 ^^^^ ^^^
stock to the Admiral's Men for ;^50. Richard Jones of Worcester's
in
Men
24. M.S.C., I, 3, 264-5, and E.S. II, 208-9. This licence was so
favourable that it must have been drafted by the players' friends. The
is
not safeguarded in
it;
but
when
copied for the Prince Palatine's players at the Fortune, this was
righted. Universities
have
also slipped in
NOTES
evidently they took protective action, for a year later, in July 1604,
James forbade
in
Cambridge
common
in the English
25. Chapters 38, 47 (Stow, Annales (1631), 1082 and 1086}. Buc
thinks of Revels as close to Heraldry
as continuing in fact the
still
'gules, a
CHAPTER
III
The
'lost'
XV
294
NOTES
Commons was
Sir
John Neale.
Newton
Burbage
The
Flecknoe on
said:
Those who
yet contain
295
NOTES
For an account of Gosson see Stephen Gosson: a Biographical and
by William Ringler (Princeton 1942). Lodge's Defence
9.
Critical Study,
was
players.
Chamber
Dymokes
at
South
Kyme;
another Star
(i.e.
Temple
'with
Temple and
but
it
is
its
This
May
unlikely that
was heard 5
A. Inderwick,
case
History, ed. F.
this
perfor-
mance.
16. M.S.C. 3, 166. This arose from an appeal to the Archbishop
of Canterbury from the Lord Mayor, asking that Tilney should not
licence playing houses {M.S.C. I, 68-70). Cf. Chapter II, p. 55
(quoting E.S. IV, 271).
17. Nashe's preface to Greene's Menaphon (see E. K. Chambers,
E.S. IV, 236). I have written on Greene and Shakespeare at more
length in Shakespeare Survey, 15 (1962).
18. 'This is somewhat like (thought I) if he had said anything
296
NOTES
from place to place wander with
of horse teeth to the impairing of Kind Hart's reputation.
. . But I perceive master doctor was never a tooth drawer; if he had,
I know he would have touched their proceedings.' D3 v. For further
discussion see below, Chapter VII.
19. This description tallies with that of Hotson's waggon stage
but note that the theatre is a half moon only. For an even more
remarkable example of anachronism see Gosson's assertion that St
Gregory Nazianzen wrote his dramas 'detesting the corruption of the
papist Corpus Christi plays that were set out by the papists', and therefore designed his work for closet reading 'that all such as delight in
numerosities of speech might read it, not behold it on the stage' {Plays
aginst cozening tooth drawers, that
banners
full
Confuted,
E5 v-E6
The
20.
r).
comparison
is
MS. 4787,
21.
Folger Shakespeare
Library,
Washington.
It
appears that the prohibition really issued not from the archpriest,
William Harison, but his assistant, John Colleton, who had been given
the power to waive the prohibition, but who writes the lengthy defence
of it. Colleton, who had stood trial with Campion, was an old man of
seventy and may have been trying to control the conflict over
plays between Catholics and Puritan's (James's 'Book of Sports'
having inflamed it); was Leak perhaps of the same family as
the play-loving Sir Francis Leek of the north? (Cf. Chapter I). The
notice of withdrawal of the prohibition occurs on fol. 87.
CHAPTER IV
1
von Wedel
York in 1485,
the Masque at
it
see
in her lap.
K*
297
NOTES
vaudeville, see Louis B. Wright, Jnglia, heft
Modern Language
I, xl
is
placed
theme
not
many
7.
unknown
See M.S.C.
I,
i,
this
in
Plays were
many
Appendix D, passim.
9. Middleton, The Roaring
'filth'
Girl, I,
see E,
K. Chambers, E.S.
i.
Froissart, translated
English courage.
12. See Alfred Harbage, Shakespeare's Audience;
quoted are from p. 14 and p. 139.
13.
Henry
Crosse,
Firtue's
Commonwealth
(Qi
298
the passages
r),
says
the
drunken custom
NOTES
atWymondham,on the feast of the translation
Thomas i Becket, whose chapel was there (S. T. BindoflF, Kett's
of St.
Rebellion (1949)).
14. See Virginia Gildersleeve,
bethan
clause runs:
may
Chapter III,
is
p.
parodied in Eastward
89, Chapter
X,
p.
Ho!
4.
219.
CHAPTER V
I.
This
is
as if
is
He
tells
299
NOTES
2.
mummings,
p. 169. Lydgate's
published by the same society in volume II of his Minor
the end.
4. See John Lough, Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford 1957}, Chapter I, especially pp. 39-
6.
See Chapter
7.
Henry
Q2 v. The
use
seventieth year. See also Chapter IV, p. 114. This play is mentioned
in the repertory of 'my Lord Cardinal's players' in the Shakespearean
Thomas More.
Thomas Heywood, prologue to Perkins's revival of The yew of
Malta in 1633. Note that 'shape' and 'tongue' are still kept apart.
Perkins was measuring himself against Alleyn, as Alleyn was invited
to measure himself against Knell and Bentley (see Chapter IX,
Sir
9.
P- 195)-
Vice and
and lago.
1 1
See Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses (i 583) N2 r, on the wickedness
of 'enterlacing' the word of God in wanton shows; Crosse gives an
example of 'a certain poet, who mixing the word of God in a heathenish play, was suddenly smitten blind for his prophaneness' {Virtue's
300
NOTES
blasphemy, that a man may
In Greeners f^ision, Chaucer is
rebuked 'The meaning is good, but the method is bad' and some of
Greene's own sentences are quoted with the comment 'If they had
been placed in another humour, how much more had they been
Commonwealth, P3
edify as
much
r)
and condemns
'this
at a play as at a sermon.'
excellent?'
Spivack does not take this sufficiently into account, or allow that the
of the plays would convert a good many of their 'sermons' to mock-sermons, reducing the Vice also to a mockery of
social context
evil.
Cf. Chapter
12.
is
made
suit for
CHAPTER
VI
foreigners, p. 107).
6.
301
NOTES
distorted
name
of the Vice
The
7.
house
Sir
Roger
built at
is
Long Melford
essentially that
is
riddled with
Lord Mayor of
London, at Westminster on 14 March 1567/8 (William Shaw,
Knights of England (1905), vol. II).
8. See E. K. Chambers, E.S. II, 385, for Bompstead. For the
priest-holes.
Visitation of Suffolk see Harl. Soc. Pub. 4, xli. The name Laneham
occurs in a will from Bury dated 1540 (Camden Soc. Pub. xlix, 137).
Chamber- Door'
is
'household' of a
Summer Lord
or Christmas Prince.
11.
J.
W.
XL
XXVI
Cunliffe,
clear.
12.
See Chapter
VII
The
mark of
this
mock
is
'low'
a hall-
marriages see C. R.
302
NOTES
townsman's play oi Narcissus and Seven Days of the Week (see Chapter
XII).
15. See Richard Robinson, The Ancient Order Societie and Unitie
Laudable, of Prince Arthur and his knightly Armoury of the Round
Table (1583), dedicated to Mr Customer Smith, with verses in praise
of the Bow by Thomas Churchyard. A grand assembly of three
thousand archers in the year of publication marched from Merchant
Taylors' Hall to Smith field, where they shot at the target for glory;
their leaders had such titles as Marquess of Clerkenwell (Nichols, II,
304). See also Nichols' account of another shoot organized by Sir
Hugh OfRey. Justice Shallow who 'played Dagonet in Arthur's show'
was evidently one of these knights.
1 6.
It is a challenge to King Arthur's knights by a giant who vows
to take all their beards in tribute. See Malory, Le Morte U' Arthur,
Book I, chapter 27. The burlesque remained current in a debased
form; Percie Enderbie copied it from a manuscript of Lord Herbert of
Cherbury in Cambria Triumphans, 1661 (ii, pp. 197-8); it appeared
also, recognized as burlesque, in J. Mennies, Musarum Deliciae 1651,
where it is attributed to J. A. and also in Percy's Reliques, III, p. 25.
In addition to Laneham and Enderbie, Percy used a Bodleian manuscript, but it seems that the manuscript texts derive from Laneham.
17. The Black Prince was the sign of a mercer's shop in Cloth
Fair, near
West
Smithfield, as late as
boards of Old London Shops (1947), p. 134). This was 'the cloth
quarter', a natural home for the mercer; and a natural sign for the City
Archer, for
whom
runs:
While that oour neighbours Reamz {alas) uprore doth rend asunder
In mirth among the subjects that her Majesty ar under
She [thanks too God) leads pleaxant dates; let spite and malice wunder.
303
NOTES
20.
in
see:
his
name
to be.
The
boy players and their dramatist were anti-Martin but might also
have been anti-Laneham. Cf. C. L. Barber, 'The May Game of
Martinism' in his Shakespeare's Festive Comedy. Laneham was still
alive in 1591, but Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, while praising
him, lists him among the older comedians with whom he was personally
unacquainted. This would mean that he was no longer about in the
mid-nineties.
John Nichols,
in his reprint
of
Laneham 's
intitled
"A Whip
for
Ames,
1689,
p.
'
this tract
a curious but
suggestive confusion.
CHAPTER
VII
1
Robert Wilson so describes Tarlton in Three Lords and Three
Ladies of London (see Chapter VIII). Tarlton is described as an innkeeper by William Percy, and in Tarlton* s Jests, which though largely
apocryphal, appeared before the end of the sixteenth century and there-
valuable preface.
collection
is
now
The
Walsingham
his son-in-law
The
was
lawyer Robert
Adams had
sung;
pleasant Ditty
NOTES
and Robin Goodfellow. Tarlton,
Greene, was given a number of edifying 'repentences'. Kempe
objects to the ballad singers foisting ballads upon him at the end of his
"Nine Day^s Wonder^ and says his principal reason for writing it was to
give a true account of what happened.
4. Cal. State Papers^ Domestic^ 1581-90, p. 541. Reprinted by
Halliwell with some further rhymes which perhaps were added by
dialogue wise between Tarlton's Ghost
like
Collier.
5. Jonson, Induction to Bartholomew
our Times (1638), p. 103.
6.
of
Wit
of
And the
He
is
K. Chambers, E.S.
II,
339)
8.
9.
Latinisms; he evidently liked to lard his talk with tags and malapropisms.
News
Tarlton's
are
all
305
NOTES
A grass widow
Em
14.
at
ton,
the
Toys,
and
London by Henry
Lady Frances Mild-
Freckle-
survive,
The
skilled a
CHAPTER
VIII
Another Robert Wilson, who matriculated at St John's, CamMichaelmas was ordained by 1575; and a third who took
his B.A. at Oxford in 1572 was likewise ordained by 1578. Both these
men held benefices.The notion that there were two player-poets
1
bridge, in
recommend
and has been rejected by Greg and Chambers. For a recent statement see H. S. D. Mithel, Notes and Queries, vol. 6, No. 3, March
it,
1959.
See R. C. Bald, Notes and Queries, March 1955.
3. G. L. Hosking, Life and Times of Edward Alleyn, 61.
4. This was the actors' church: the Fortune theatre was in the
parish. See Mary McManaway in The Shakespeare Quarterly, IX, 4
2.
but in Cambridge
.'
(B4
Cambridge
'I
is
cut in
the second.
7.
of
Queen
Institutes,
XXI,
1958, 92-3.
306
NOTES
8. Here all the sins attendant on plays were disguised as virtues,
such as Honest Recreation or Modest Audacity, Lust the bride
'painted her fair face with spots of shadowed modesty' (fol. 14) as did
the spotted Conscience of Wilson. Pride carries the idol of the little
God Cupid in procession to the Chapel Wilson uses the 'little God'
Contempt as the villain of The Cobbler'' s Prophecy.
9. Englishmen who steal brides from foreigners were a favourite
topic; compare Englishmen for my Money, Pleasure, the youngest of the
lords,
is
men-
opening:
o.
These
late
with liberty
to three far
born foreigners.
(Bi v)
mark-
must have been in some episode of the previous play, now lost, that
Tarlton captured Simony 'in Don John of London's cellar' [E.S. IV,
229), i.e. on the premises of the Bishop of London.
1 1
Among his lost plays in Henslowe's lists are The Chance
Medley and The Madman's Morris.
1 2,
Compare the burning of the temple in the Digby play of Mary
Magdalene. Contempt is the child of the old churl Ingratitude by
Security; he seduces the false goddess Venus, alias Lust, who bears him
the bastard Ruin. All this might be made a reflection of the players'
overweening, in which case the play would be a recantation, in a
humble form, like Summer''s Last Will and Testament.
Peter of Pomfret appears in Shakespeare's King John, 4, 2, In
1 3,
the romance, Thomas of Erceldoune receives political prophecies from
his fairy bride, as Ralph does from Mercury.
14. See Alice Venezsky, Pageantry on the Shakespearean Stage
The
facts
of Alleyn's
life
IX
W. W. Greg
in the
NOTES
Henslowe Papers and Hens/owe Diary (1904, 1907) are invaluable;
much material is found in W. Young, History of Dulwich College
(1889), which takes the story down to the dissolution of AUeyn's
original foundation by Act of Parliament in 1857,
2. The letter refers to Peele, which places it probably in the early
fifteen nineties. For examples of similar challenges see Chapter II,
p.
62.
3.
surplice
his breast.
was
dressed.
609)
The
time.
ranked by
P- 3)-
6.
G2
p.
Heywood among
See
e.g.
and
v.
John
Stevens,
in
5),
the Early
Tudor Court
308
NOTES
minor canons,
to the
On
and
cf.
his
W.
poor brethren
K. Jordan, The
was described
officially as a
musician.
CHAPTER X
For the quotation see Liber Familicus of Sir 'James Whitelocke
T.
College, Cambridge.
to seek sport'
McKerrow, 1904-10,
The attack on
far
ed.
III, 46).
NOTES
be allowed to be played that are penned', while suggesting that Martin
himself in his 'gleeks and girds' should 'pen some play for the Theatre,
with some ballads for blind Davie and his boy, devise some jests and
D2
v.
aim
at.
clerk, organist
at
(Camden
For the
310
NOTES
but no fees or wages besides; and that some former supplementations
have vanished. At Windsor, chantries survived as sinecures for
supplementing the lay clerk's fees.
Two years after presenting his petition, Hunnis received a substantial grant of crown lands. He had charge of the gardens at Green-
wich; enjoyed toll rights on London Bridge, and sold his patent; left
his shop to his wife, and followed the Court where his handsome
presence and poetry secured him favour. The terms on which Farrant
acted as deputy for him are unknown. From the Household Book of
James, of July 1604 [Household Ordinances, 301), it appears that
choristers were allowed 'one mess of meat a day as lawfully accustomed'
2.
News,
xiii.
3.
One
to the
Queen,
entitled
3.
edited
NOTES
commodity only) convert the
brand, 155-7
^'^O"^
said
^^^' S.P.D.
16. For The Old Joiner of Aldgate, the play in question, see
C. J. Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age.
17. I share the scepticism of Chambers {E.S, II, 19) about a
possible appearance in Gloucestershire.
18. For the Clifton case, see Chambers, E.S. II, 43-5. For the
German's report, ibid. 46-7 he gives an account of a mixed concert
preceding the play, so that some of the boys at least were singers.
19. Both commissions to Giles are printed by Chambers, M.S.C.
I, 4; pp. 359-63. Hillebrand remarks that this is the solitary instance
he recalls of the revocation and reissue of a writ, to the same
:
person.
20. See the Induction to John Day, The Isle of Gulls Thomas
Dekker, The Gull's Horn Books and cf. Chapter XII, pp. 278-9.
\
CHAPTER
XI
J.
XXI,
and his lyric and satiric poetry was among the first work of this kind
from the court circle to receive publication in theory anonymously, and against his knowledge [A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres,
1573)-
Hunnis, Master of the Chapel Children, may have used his boys
in one of the many shows. For Ferrars see below, p. 256:
he was also represented in The Mirror for Magistrates ^ he appeared as
4.
as
nymphs
312
NOTES
a typical early reveller in the scurrilous Beware the Cat (see above,
Chapter V, p. 124).
5. In The Lady of May (1578). The most spectacular offering in
which Sidney took part was the Whitsuntide tourney of 1581 when
he appeared as one of the Four Foster Children of Desire who
besieged the Fortress of Perfect Beauty, with dummy cannon, and
melting lyrics, only to yield themselves as captive slaves to the invincible Elizabeth.
6.
The
oath subscribed by
gentry to avenge
directed against
7.
Queen
10. For the use of the players at Gesta Grayorum, see above,
Chapter II, p. 51. For the relation of these Revels to Shakespeare's
play see Frances A. Yates,
Study of Lovers Labour''s Lost (Cam-
bridge 1936).
NOTES
CHAPTER
XII
1
The fool in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay calls the Prince 'Ned'.
For Goldingham, see Chapter XI, p. 251, and for Cornish 'guary' see
Chapter V, p. 121.
2. See the Induction to Day's Law Trickss to the Oxford play of
Periander\ to Afucedorus; and many of Jonson's Inductions, from
Cynthia^s Revels to The Magnetic Lady.
3. The Isle of Dogs was the scandalous play by Nashe which brought
about a general inhibition of plays in 1597; ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ Dogs was
a beggars' refuge opposite Greenwich. For the connexion between the
Parnassus plays and the Poets' War see the edition by J. B. Leishman
(1949) and my Growth and Structure of Elizabethan Comedy (1955)
chapter 5.
4. St John's College, Oxford, had been founded by Sir Thomas
White, who also founded Merchant Taylors' School; it may be that
the strong acting tradition at the school supplied this college with good
MS.
314
J.a.I.
INDEX
Biographical
dicates
the
dates
birthdate
references in
authors;
are
given
for
players
only
('_/?.'
flourished
in-
is
separately given.
Adams,
1376-go;
J., ft.
player,
164
Boar's
24
Edward,
Head
116,
58, 60,
Burleigh,
189
Bear-baiting, 57, 59, 64-5, 68, 197-
200, 293
Beard, T., Theatre of God's Judg3 1-3
56,
Burbage,
53,
ments,
Inn, 57, 61
Wm.
Cecil,
Lord,
124,
163,
z-^s
INDEX
H., 49, 59, 180;
Hart's Dream, 86-8, 104,
147, 170-2, 176
Chettle,
Kind
115,
T.,
The,
169,
219-20
Coventry Hocktide play,
19,
Day, T.,
312;
J.,
Isle
Law
Tricks,
314
Derby, E.
Donne,
London, 244-6
Elizabeth of Bohemia, Q., her men,
299
Evans, H., play promoter, 225, 230,
236-7, 240
32,
Davies, Sir
212, 235
Dean of St Paul's, 204-
Famous
M. of Windsor boys,
deputy of Chapel, 215-25
Ferrars, G., Lord of Misrule, 124,
249, 256-7
Farrant, R.,
Field,
N.,
1587-1629;
f.
302
247-51,
291, 313
Giles, N.,
M. of Windsor
Chapel boys, 226, 236, 238
Globe Theatre,
and
281
Gosson,
of,
113,
112
Gloucester, play
family
68,
player,
203, 237
Flecknoe, R., 136, 235, 295
Fletcher, G., 81
Fortune Theatre, 60-1, 99,
Dutton,
of Henry V, The,
Victories
of,
J.,
219;
239
Clui Law, 99, 270
299' 305
Cocke, J., Character of a Player, 65
Colleton, Father, 294, 297
of Chapel boys,
player, 237,
Cobbler of Canterbury,
M.
kidnapped
i6oo\
Ji.
K., 23, 26
K., 34, 257
Edwards, R.,
Edward IV,
Edward VI,
1571-90;
at,
114, 126
Edward
108
31 6
INDEX
Gray's Inn sports, 48, 51, 83-4, 99,
255-6, 259-62, 266-7, 269
Greene, R., 82-8, 127, 168, 293,
296, 305; Farewell to Folly, 147;
Groat's Worth of Wit, 85-8, loi102, 295, 305, 306; Never Too
Late, 83; Orlando Furioso, 85,
302; TAird Part of Coneycatching,
105
Greene, T., f. 1604-18; clown, 124,
148
Greene'' s Vision,
280
Haughton of Lea,
his
men, 34
Gentlemanly Profession
of Servingmen, A, 43, 290
Henry VI, K., 26, 276, 289
Henry VII, K., his men, 27
Henry VIII, K., 31, 33, 116, 153,
Health
to tie
men, 199
Henslowe, P., play promoter,
58-61, 63,
no,
xi,
James
53 55 172
Jones, R. ,f. 1383-1624; player, 293
Jonson, B., 85, 164, 239, 268, 271,
292, 319; Bartholomew Fair, 115,
Theatre, 62, 64
M. of Chapel boys,
Hunnis, W.,
Kempe, W., /.
Inner
Temple
Islington,
62;
151-3,278
sports,
squire
195
Laneham,
J.,
Jl.
1372-91;
player,
of,
230
Commonwealth, 147, 291
Licensing of plays and players, 34-7,
Leicester's
55-6,
of,
player,
176,
49
minstrel
1383-1603;
li,
Masque
269
Hope
61,63-4
317
INDEX
London, players
81,
62, 70,
Misrule, Lords
Midsummer watch,
Lord Mayor of, 35, 36, 47-8,
180-9;
102,
111-12,
26;
of,
313
61,
115,
of,
28,
294
W., 224-5, 229
More, Sir
Morton, Cardinal, 28, 123
Mucedorus, 197, 314
Mulcaster, R., 214, 249, 309
J.,
Narcissus, 273-4
Marprelate
Whip for an
Ape, 304
Marston, J., 234, 235; Antonio and
Mellida, 239; Eastward Ho! , 236,
299, Histriomastix, 25, 127, 236,
288, 291, 296
Martin, H., mercer, 145, 148
P.,
257, 313
iVill,
Newington
and
62
theatre, 59,
Northbrooke,
J.,
Treatise, 67-70,
267-80
108, 289
May Day
Medwall,
H.,
28;
295
Fulgens
and
Pavey,
W., 50
8.,
player,
i$8g-i6o2\
kidnapped
237
Peacham,
256
236
318
M.
247
INDEX
Pembroke, E.
of, his
men,
59,
80
Percy,
at,
23;
Shakespeare,
235
Periander, 275-6, 314
Perkin, ].,fi. 1572; player, 53, 55
Perkins, R., Ji. 1603-30; player, 90,
300
Philomela, 275
P/ay of the Cards, 87
Play of Plays, -]-]
14,
62,
128,
228; Love''s
133-5,
Labour's Lost, 89, 100, 262, 299;
261-2
Puttenham, G., Art of Poetry, 108
Pyk, J., fi. i593-9\ boy player, 196,
Privy Council,
3 5,
288, 295
Rainolds, J., of Oxford, 41, 50
Ralegh, Sir W., 137, 146, 176, 247,
J.,
Shrewsbury School
clovra,
54,
Skelton,
J.,
Slater,
M.,
165; Magnificyence, 30
Smythe,
Mr
218
Refutation of the Apology for Actors,
93-4
Somers,
W.f.
Retainers, 33-4, 53
Revels, M. of, 55-6, 256, 258, 293.
Spenser,
M.
plays,
230-3
E.,
Stockwood,
158
Strange, Lord, his
169
Richard
player,
310
282
Revenge
1394-1623;
ji.
240
J.,
33
134
Red Lion Inn, 54
Redford,
plays,
207
and
1610-35;
305.
Shoreditch, 37, 56, 163
254
Rankins, W., Mirror of Monsters, 62,
67,73,76, 185, 293
Red
Shanks,
men, 27
men, 49,
58, 59,
80,97
Robin Hood
195
his
E.
men,
of.
Lord Chamberlain,
319
INDEX
Tarlton,
R.,
ft.
1370-1388;
clown,
Crow on
Deadly
Sins,
167-8;
27, 98,
Tragical Treatises, 81, 173-6
Tarlton^s Carol, 172-3
282
Tilney, E.,
M.
Warden of
2,
220-1,
Walsingham,
172
his
293-4
Ports,
Doister, 37
Cinque
230, 296
Time's Complaint, 275-6
Tusser, T.,_;?. i3^o\ boy player, 217
the
men, 32
220
Woodford, T., play promoter, 235236, 240
Woodstock, entertainment at, 251-3
Worcester, E. of, his men, 49, 61,
Wotton,
320
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