emn play" during his memorial services for the late king, "to trye who shal have most resorte, they in game, or I in ernest."1 Such opposing interests of the pulpit and the stage were noticeable chiefly in the desecration of the Sabbath by the players. Even by men whose main spirit was far from religious was this evil recognized. We have an old poem which censures plays, particularly on Sunday, as "unthriftie." Crowley's lines, also,— 3 And yet every Sunday They will surely spend One penny or two The bear wards living to mend may contain not only a criticism of the general lack of thrift, but even some feeling of the unfitness of those things on that day. Such dishonor of the Sabbath was popularly supposed to invoke a direct judgment from God; and when John Bradford mentioned before Edward VI the drowning of certain men as they were rowing to a Sabbath bearbaiting at Paris Garden, he could count on the sympathy of his hearers. More plainly still do we see the conflict of the church and the play-house in Whitgift's reply to Cartwright in 1574.5 The Puritan had accused the worshippers at the established churches of a want of reverence, including even the ministers, who, he said, rattled through the service as hastily as possible, either to leave time for the popular afternoon sports, or to make room for some interlude, which, for want of a better place, was to be given immediately in the church. Although the general charge Whitgift denied, he left the above mentioned clause unassailed. No feeling was more common than this of the profanation of the Lord's day; Bucer in Germany felt the evil, and in England from this time on the feeling grew that playgoing on the Sabbath was a sin certain to call down the 1 State Papers, 1547, P. I. 2 Reprinted in Collier, I, 25; see also, Ibid., I, 231. 3 Epigrams, E. E. T. S. edit., p. 17. 4 Ordish, p. 135. 5 Whitgift, Works, III, 384. 1572 curse of God upon the offenders. To this, perhaps, more than to any other one of these causes, the clear-cut opposition to the stage was due. (d) Evidence of early Elizabethan Objection to the Stage, in Legislation and in Literature. These various moral and civic principles operating against the drama united to underlie the actions of the London Corporation at this time. From a very early date, as early even as 1543, Collier says,' that body had been hostile to plays. With the renewal of the "Acte for the Punishment of Vacabondes" in 1752, new encouragement, it may be inferred, was given to the City's early opposition. At all events, it then became so outspoken that several notes were sent by the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor, asking why he should wish to restrain plays and drive them from the city. the Council, as usual, were ready to favor the players as much as possible, even venturing, on May 10, 1574, so far as to grant a royal patent to Leicester's servants, the first of its kind, in which authority was given them to perform within the limits of the metropolis. Such an open infringement of the powers of the city's magistrates called forth from that body a retaliatory measure, which illustrates well the close connection between the care for law and order and the definitely Puritanical scruples.* For In rehearsing the situation, the Corporation's order showed how the "inordynate hauntynge of greate multitudes of people, speciallye youthe" to plays was the cause of "frayes and quarrelles, eavell practizes of incontinencye in greate Innes, havinge chambers and secrete places adjoyninge to their open stagies and gallyries, inveyglynge and alleurynge of maides, speciallye orphanes, publishinge of unchaste, uncomelye and unshamefaste speeches and doynges, withdrawinge of the Quenes Majesties subjectes from dyvyne service on Soundaies & holly I, 127. * Fleay, p. 45 * Privy Council, Acts, 1572, p. 215. the • Reprinted in English Drama and Stage, p. 27–31. dayes, at which tymes such playes weare chefelye used, unthriftye waste of the moneye of the poore & fond persons, sondrye robberies by pyckinge and cuttinge of purses, utteringe of popular, busye and sedycious matters, and manie other corruptions of youthe." In addition to these serious moral affronts, the risk from the frequent collapsing of scaffolds and from the pestilence was also included. It was "that suche perilles maie be avoyded, and the lawfull, honest and comelye use of plaies, pastymes and recreacions in good sorte onelye permitted, and good provision hadd for the saiftie and well orderynge of the people thear assemblydd" that the Council enacted, under punishment of fine or imprisonment, that every public performance within the city should first be licensed by the Lord Mayor, and that the actors should be bound to good order, and hold themselves ready at all times to cease playing in time of plague, and to contribute part of their earnings to the city's charities. This long extract is given to show that, although the fundamental cause of London's anti-stage legislation was probably not directly moral, by the last quarter of the 16th century moral questions so largely influenced all their actions that they too must stand as civic Puritans. When the moderate and just provisions of this order evidently failed to abate the evil, the next step of the Corporation was to expel all players from the city. In that crisis the players petitioned the Council to interfere, urging that to perfect the art in which the Queen so delighted a place was necessary in which to practise.1 This petition the city officials, to whom it evidently had been forwarded, answered point by point. The reply asserted that the players, though driven from the inn yards, might still practise in private houses; that men with no other livelihood ought not to depend on such a precarious calling; that to play in plague time was to spread the infection, while to play out of plague time was to draw it upon the city as a curse from God; and that their former act of toleration in 1 Fleay, p. 46–7. why? 1574 had expired with the assembling of the new body of aldermen. These sudden and unaccountable deaths of laws and orders, it may be observed, render the whole legislation of the time uncertain. But in this case there is no doubt that after the rejection of the proposed "remedies," whose only religious provision concerned Sabbath observance, plays were actually driven from the city in 1575, and that a temporary victory was won by the Puritan spirit of legislation. Behind this stand taken by the authorities of London against the players and their benefactors in the Council, there must have been a decided sentiment on the part of the people. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to regard the defense of mirth found in the prologue of Ralph Roister Doister less as a schoolmaster's apology for his pupils' diversion than as an indirect reply to the adverse feeling of the middle of the century. At any rate, the scholar and dramatist, Wager, gave at the same date an open defense of the drama as a moral and intellectual force in society1 in answer to contemporary Puritan detraction. Yet strange to say, the early bishops of the reformed English church had little to say against the stage. Bullinger across the sea, whose influence in England was so great, said of miracle-plays, "They are at this day greatly set by, although scarce godly, by no small number of trifling and fantastical heads."2 But that dramatic form was dying a natural death, and the evils of the secular drama had not yet forced themselves home upon many who loved the popular recreation. Consequently, the English clergy had at first little to say against the stage. Latimer, a Puritan in spirit and one of the first to scruple against vestments, spoke in his sermons against profanation of the Lord's day, against idleness and riot on holy days, and the blasphemy so common in the favorite pastimes-hawking, hunting, dicing and carding. Here especially his omitting to mention the stage 1 Prologue, Life and Repentaunce of Marie Magdalene, ed. Carpenter. 2 Sermons, III, 194. 3 Sermons, pp. 52, 231, 372. 3 is noteworthy; for on all these scores the theater was open to rebuke. That he laid no stress on it must indicate that in his day the evil had not assumed the menacing proportions of later years. With even more noticeable liberality, Archbishop Sandys, one of Elizabeth's first appointees, refused to condemn cards and dice as sins in themselves; and he, too, preached against idleness and revelry with no mention of the stage.1 Becon's attitude was more strict. He condemned absolutely dice and cards, and regarded the Sabbath as a day for Bible study, pious talk and deeds of mercy, and attacked idleness at all times. Yet apparently even he saw in the stage no serious menace to Christianity.2 Several other churchmen of the same school mention the stage with no apparent condemnation. Hutchinson in his sermons made two or three incidental references to the scaffolds with no adverse implication; and Tyndal, in the same spirit, remarked that some ceremonies expressed the death of Christ as plainly as "if we should play his passion on a scaffold or in a stage play." Even Ridley, in styling the vestments of a Roman bishop "too fond for a vice in a play," implied no weighty condemnation of the stage." In fact, the majority of the prominent churchmen of this early Elizabethan period took a moderate view of many things later abhorred; and although their principles in general on questions of morality and conduct, on Sabbath observance, for instance, and idleness, are the same as those of later Puritans, the complaint uttered in 1576 by North- ́ brooke, that his brother divines too seldom spoke of the great and growing abuse, was undoubtedly true. Yet it must not be assumed that the sentiment against the stage in clerical circles, especially among ministers of the more practical sort, was not constantly growing. The moderate tone of the early divines, who, in conformity perhaps with the example of the Scriptures, did not specifically condemn the stage, naturally gave place, as the danger pp. 382, 108, 80. 1 P. 118. 3 Works, pp. 215, 219, 250. 4 p. 422. 5 p. 289. |