No More Learning

It may suffice to say that Edwards was a university
man (as Richard Bower may also have been) and Hunnis obtained,
in some way, the equivalent of a university training. Both were
celebrated by contemporary writers as authors of dramatic and
of non-dramatic works, the fame of Edwards lasting till 1598,
though his death occurred in 1566. Non-dramatic writings from
the pens of both have been preserved; of their dramatic com-
positions, we have only Edwards’s Damon and Pithias, though
chance has preserved for us a very detailed account of his other
known play, Palamon and Arcyte, produced at Oxford in 15662.
Mrs Stopes has suggested that Hunnis was the author of the
Tragedie of the King of Scots, produced by the children in 1567,
the first recorded performance after his succession to the master-
ship, and of several others of the plays produced under his super-
vision. Among these were Narcissus, 1571, the History of
Loyaltie and Bewtie, 1579, the History of Alucius, 1579, and
a satirical Comedie or Morrall devised on A game of the Cardes,
1582. Probable as the suggestion is, we have no means of veri-
fying it. But the accounts of Edwards's Palamon and Hunnis's
Narcissus indicate that, as stage managers, they carried on the
traditions of the group of plays discussed above. The two passages
are so interesting in themselves and so important in their bearing
upon the history of the stage that they may be quoted briefly :
In the said play [Palamon and Arcyte) was acted a cry of hounds in the
Quadrant, upon the train of a fox in the hunting of Theseus, with which the
young scholars, who stood in the windows, were so much taken (supposing it
was real), that they cried out, 'Now, now ! -there, there! -he's caught, he's
caught! ' All which the Queen merrily beholding, said, “O, excellent! these
boys, in very troth, are ready to leap out of the windows, to follow the hounds. '
This part, it seems, being repeated before certain courtiers, in the lodgings of
Mr Robert Marbeck, one of the Canons of Christ Church, by the players in
their gowns (for they were all Scholars that acted) before the Queen came to
Oxford, was by them so well liked, that they said it far surpassed Damon and
Pithias, than which they thought nothing could be better. Likewise some
said, that if the author did any more before his death, he would run mad: but
this comedy was the last he made; for he died a few months after. In the
acting of the said play, there was a good part performed by the lady Amelia,
who, for gathering her flowers prettily in a garden then represented, and
singing sweetly in the time of March, received eight angels for a gracious
8
:
1 Good accounts of Edwards have long been accessible, and Mrs C. C. Stopes has
published two notable articles on Hunnis. (See bibliography. )
? As to Damon and Pithias, cf. ante, vol. v, chap. IV, and, as to this play and Palamon
and Arcyte, chap. XI of the present volume. The university drama Narcissus mentioned
in the same chapter is, of course, a different play from that mentioned in the text.


## p. 287 (#305) ############################################

Children's Plays not written by Masters 287
reward by her Majesty's command. By whom that part was acted I know
not, unless by Peter Carew, the pretty boy before mentioned.
A scene in Narcissus may have been suggested by this play,
as the History of Loyaltie and Bewtie may, possibly, have been
suggested by Cornish’s Triumpe of Love and Bewte, of 1515.
The revels accounts for 1571–2 contain the following:
John Tryce for mony to him due for Leashes, & Doghookes, with staves, &
other necessaries: by him provyded for the hunters that made the crye after
the fox (let loose in the Coorte) with theier howndes, hornes, and hallowing,
in the playe of narcisses. which crye was made, of purpose even as the
woordes then in utteraunce, & the parte then played, did Requier. . . . John
Izarde for mony to him due for his device in counterfeting Thunder &
Lightning in the playe of Narcisses.
For reasons which will soon appear, it seems improbable that
Nathaniel Giles, the last of the masters with whom we are
concerned, composed any plays for production by the children.
But the répertoire of the boys was probably not confined, even
in the early years of their histrionic career, to the plays written
by their masters. Unfortunately, the early records are too scanty
and too indefinite to permit of very positive statements on this
point. As early, however, as 1584, two of the most distinguished
authors of the time had written for them. John Lyly's Campaspe
and Sapho and Phao were played before the queen by the children
of the chapel in conjunction with the children of Paul's before
this date, and another play by the same author, Love's Meta-
morphosis, originally written for the children of Paul's, was trans-
ferred to the chapel boys at some date before its publication in
1601. One of the most interesting of the plays of George Peele,
and, in the opinion of some critics, his best play, The Araygnement
of Paris, also bears upon the title-page of the first edition (1584) the
statement that it had been presented before the Queenes Majestie
by the Children of her Chappell. ' Fleay, indeed, assigns the pre-
sentation of it to 5 February 1581, and the same writer gives 1581
as the date for Campaspe and 1582 as the date for Sapho and
Phao. These dates seem probable; but we are not here concerned
with their accuracy, as the essential fact is that both Lyly and
Peele wrote for the children of the chapel. That Greene wrote
anything for them is unlikely, but the Tragedie of Dido Queene
of Carthage, by Marlowe and Nashe, is stated on the title-page to
have been played by them, and it is highly probable that it was
they who played Nashe's Pleasant Comedie, called Summers last
will and Testament at Croydon in September 1592. The play
alluded to here as having been presented by the same company


## p. 288 (#306) ############################################

288
The Chapel Royal
in the preceding summer was, according to one of Fleay's con-
jectures, Marlowe and Nashe's Dido; according to another, the
anonymous Warres of Cyrus, published in 1600; we have no
means of knowing whether it was either.
To one unfamiliar with the stage history of the time these
records might seem inadequate evidence for the brilliant and
influential histrionic career ascribed to the children of the chapel.
But those who know how scanty the records are will recognise
that no other company in these early years presents greater claims
to having exercised a real leadership in the drama. The children
of Paul's were, indeed, at one time served by Lyly as dramatist? ;
but he began with the children of the chapel, who seem, in fact,
to have been pioneers in many important features of both dramatic
and histrionic development. That there were other companies
of boys—notably those of Paul's and those of Windsor, those of
Westminster school and those of Merchant Taylors'—and that
many companies of men players performed at court and in public,
does not detract from their primacy in these early years.
The opinion expressed above that Nathaniel Giles, who, as will
be seen, became master in 1597, wrote nothing for the chapel boys
is a mere conjecture, but is supported by two facts: first, that
not long after he became master he seems to have allowed other
men to use his commission to procure boys for the chapel to
provide a company of professional child actors; and that, from
this time onward, the actual choir boys of the chapel do not seem
to have taken any part in the presentation of plays at court or in
public. Since the professional company was supplied with plays
by professional dramatists, and the boys under the immediate
personal care of Giles did not produce plays, it is very improbable
that he wrote any.
On 9 June 1597, Nathaniel Giles, bachelor of music and master
of the children of St George's chapel, Windsor, became master of
the children of the Chapel Royal, in succession to William Hunnis.
By a privy seal of 3 July, he was authorised to take up boys
for the service of the chapel. No essentially new provision
appears in this commission. Giles is authorised to take up'suche
1 That Lyly ever occupied the official position of vice-master (i. e. assistant master)
of Paul's, seems a solemn inference from a jesting satire. Harvey says he 'played
the Vicemaster of Poules and the Foolemaster of the Theater. ' Was there, then, s
Foolemaster of the Theater? That neither epithet need be taken seriously is indicated
by the additional. sometime the fiddlesticke of Oxford, now the very bable of London. '
So far as we know, there was no such officer as vice-master of Paul's. Vice,' in
• Vicemaster,' is, doubtless, the counterpart of 'Foole,' in ‘Foolemaster. '
6


## p. 289 (#307) ############################################

Theatrical Company of Children of Chapel 289
a
and so many children as he or his sufficient Deputie shall thinke
meete,' and to provide 'sufficient lodging for him and the sayd
Children, when they for our service shall remove to any place or
places'; but the former clause is repeated from earlier commissions,
and the latter would never have seemed anything more than a
more explicit expression of a similar clause in previous com-
missions but for the events which ensued. At some unknown
date after the issue of this commission, James Robinson and Henry
Evans joined with Giles in exploiting the commission. They took
up more boys than were needed for the chapel choir, lodged them
in Blackfriars and established a regular theatrical company of the
children of the chapel.
The highest interest attaches to this professional company of
boy actors, but it is at present impossible to determine exactly
when their career began. The Blackfriars property was purchased
from Sir William More on 4 February 1596 by James Burbage,
apparently because of its suitability for a playhouse. In November
of the same year, the inhabitants of Blackfriars petitioned the
privy council against Burbage, declaring that he is now altering
it and meaneth very shortly to convert and turne the same into
a common playhouse. ' How effective this petition was in hindering
or delaying the projected playhouse we have no means of knowing
Burbage died early in the following year, and the next unmis-
takable evidence we have in regard to the Blackfriars playhouse
is that, on 2 September 1600, Richard Burbage, son of James,
leased it for twenty-one years to one Henry Evans; but it is
certain that, before this date, it had been used as a playhouse by
the children of the chapel, and that Evans was already interested
in the company. In testimony given in a lawsuit in 1612, Richard
Burbage says:
true yt is that this defendant, consideringe with himselfe that, except the said
Evans could erect and keepe a companye of Playinge boyes and others to
playe playes and interludes in the said Playhouse in such sort as before tyme
had bene there used, etc. ;
and Evans speaks of the playhouse as 'then or late in the tenure
or occupacion of this defendant' (i. e. Evans himself). It is com-
monly held that the children of the chapel were playing there as
early as the end of 1598, and this is probably true.
The evidence we have seems to indicate that Giles was only
6
6
1 The order for the suppression of the Blackfriars playhouse, dated 21 January
1619, states, however, that their honors then (i. e. in 1596) forbad the use of the said
house for playes. '
E. L VI. CH. XI.
19


## p. 290 (#308) ############################################

290
The Chapel Royal
passively interested in the project, and that someone else—perhaps
Henry Evans—first saw the great possibilities which lay in pro-
curing, under the liberal terms of Giles's commission, a company of
boy actors and exploiting them in the private playhouse of the
Blackfriars. After about a year and a half of experience, we may
suppose, Evans decided to take a long lease of the property, and
this was effected on 2 September 1600. It was not very long,
however, before he got into trouble about taking up boys. On an
ill-fated Saturday, 13 December 1600, James Robinson, acting as
deputy for Giles and as agent for Evans, seized Thomas Clifton,
a thirteen-year-old boy, as he was on his way to school. Unfor-
tunately, the boy's father, Henry Clifton, esquire, of Toft Trees,
Norfolk, not only secured the aid of Sir John Fortescue, one
of the privy council, to have his son released, but, about a year
later, brought the matter before the court of Star chamber. A
decree was rendered censuring Evans for taking up gentlemen's
sons and ordering the severance of his connection with the
company and playhouse. In anticipation, perhaps, of these pro-
ceedings, Evans, in October 1601, transferred all his property to
his son-in-law, Alexander Hawkins. After the decree was rendered,
Evans, acting through Hawkins, further entered into an agreement
with Edward Kirkham, William Rastall and Thomas Kendall, allowing
them to share in the management and profits of the playhouse. This
is not the place to recite the quarrels between these shareholders;
it may suffice to record that the success of the children was very
great, that the profits of the undertaking are said to have been very
large and that the company continued, with some vicissitudes, to
act as the children of the chapel until, at the accession of James,
they were re-named the children of the queen’s revels, and, finally,
were replaced by the company of men to which Shakespeare
belonged.
During these years, this professional troupe of boys was
served by some of the foremost dramatists of their time.
Among the earliest was, doubtless, Chapman, who, perhaps, joined
them in 1598, when he left the employ of Henslowe. He appears
to have written for them his May-Day, his Sir Gyles Goosecappe,
his Gentleman Usher and the extant version of Al Fooles. Another
even more notable writer for their stage was Ben Jonson, from
whom they received not only The Case is Altered, but, also, Cynthia's
Revels, Poetaster and, perhaps, A Tale of a Tub. There is also
some reason to believe that some of Marston's plays were written
for them. Unfortunately, much of the stage history of the time is


## p. 291 (#309) ############################################

Ages of the Children. Songs and Music 291
purely conjectural, but it seems practically certain that their vogue
had become so great by 1601–2 as to draw from Shakespeare the
airily satirical lines in Hamlet concerning the 'eyrie of children,
little eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are most
tyranically clapped for it. '
The names of some of these boy actors of this later period are
known, some from Henry Clifton's bill of complaint and some from
the lists in Ben Jonson's plays. One of them, Salathiel Pavy, as is
well known, died early, and was celebrated by Jonson in a graceful,
if somewhat 'conceited,' epitaph, full of the highest praise for his
abilities as an actor. Others became renowned as members of the
king's company in later years.
As to the ages of the boys, it is difficult to speak with
certainty. Young Clifton was thirteen years old when 'taken
up,' and William Hunnis found it necessary, in earlier times (1583),
'to kepe bothe a man servant to attend upon them and lykewyse a
woman servant to wash and kepe them cleane. ' In the case of the
boys of the choir, it was customary, from early times, for the sovereign
to provide for their education at one of the universities so soon as
their 'breasts (i. e. voices) changed'; but, no doubt, when their prin-
cipal function was acting they were held longer as children of the
chapel, and Philip Gawdy writes in 1601: "'Tis sayde my Lady of
Leoven bath marryed one of the playing boyes of the chappell. '
The success of the companies of choir boys in both early and
later times was, doubtless, due, in no small degree, to the songs
scattered through their plays and the instrumental music before
the play began and between the acts. Other companies, of course,
had incidental songs, but, apparently, not so many of them, and
instrumental music seems not to have been given in the public
theatres. That it was a prominent feature of the performances
given by the boys, notwithstanding Clifton's declaration that his
son and other boys taken up by Robinson, Evans and Giles were
childeren noe way able or fitt for singing, nor by anie of the sayd
confederates endevoured to be taught to sing,' we know from pas-
sages in several contemporary plays, as well as from the explicit
statements of the duke of Stettin, who visited Blackfriars on
18 September 1602.
The special interest felt by queen Elizabeth in the chapel
boys at Blackfriars may have been due, in part, at least, to their
music. At any rate, there cannot be any doubt of her interest in
them. According to a letter from Sir Dudley Carleton to John
Chamberlain, she attended the play at Blackfriars on Tuesday,
6
194%


## p. 292 (#310) ############################################

292
The Chapel Royal
She was
29 December 1601. The duke of Stettin speaks, indeed, as if the
,
queen had established the theatre and provided the rich costumes
of the plays, but the evidence in the suit of Kirkham vs Evans et
als (1612) indicates that the managers, Evans, Kirkham and their
fellows, bore all expenses and took all profits. Kirkham was,
indeed, yeoman of the revels, and had charge of the costumes
and properties provided for the revels at court, but, though he
may have been able to borrow from the revels garments for the
use of his company, he could not have bought them without special
authorisation. There is no evidence that the queen had any
active part in the establishment or maintenance of the children of
Blackfriars, though, of course, the company could not have been
established or maintained without her tacit consent.
fond of the drama and of music. On 8 April 1600, the privy
council addressed a letter to the Middlesex justices expressing
the queen's pleasure in the performances of Edward Alleyn and
his company, and her desire that he should be allowed to erect the
Fortune theatre.
Hasty as this survey of the long and brilliant career of the
children of the chapel has, necessarily, been, it can hardly fail to
have suggested their very great importance in the history of the
drama and the stage. They were pioneers in more than one
interesting movement, they produced plays by some of the fore-
most dramatists of their time, they were prominent in the curious,
not to say ludicrous, 'war of the theatres,' and they were finally
put down because of the vigorous political satire spoken through
their mouths.
1


## p. 293 (#311) ############################################

CHAPTER XII
UNIVERSITY PLAYS
TUDOR AND EARLY STEWART PERIODS
It has been pointed out earlier in this work that, while the
humanist movement at Oxford and Cambridge in the sixteenth
century did not result in any important contributions to classical
scholarship, it was remarkable for the production of a large
number of Latin plays? In the previous volume? , the rise of the
renascence academic drama on the continent was briefly traced,
and its influence on early Tudor comedy, especially school plays,
illustrated. But, in England, school plays had a comparatively
limited vogue. It was at the universities that the humanist drama,
written and acted by scholars, found its real home. Originating
in didactic tendencies, and encouraged, as has been shown, by the
framers of college statutes, its aims, at first, were educational rather
than literary or recreative. But, amidst the medley of plastic in-
fluences in English university life, it was inevitable that drama at
Oxford and Cambridge should not remain purely academic, in the
narrower pedagogic sense. The gradually increasing proportion of
plays in the vernacular produced on college stages, the ceremonial
visits of kings and queens and other royal personages to 'shows'
at the two seats of learning, the attractions, for the scholar play-
wrights and their audiences, of controversies, whether local and
personal or of national significance—these were among the factors
which speedily enlarged the bounds of university drama, and
developed within it that variety of types which the following pages
will attempt to sketch. But, to the last, it remained conscious, at
least intermittently, of its distinctive origin and mission. Though
influencing the popular stage, and being influenced by it in turn,
yet, in the main, it followed an independent and diverging track,
and it has both merits and limitations which are peculiarly its own.
i See vol. II, p. 424. See vol. v, chap. v, pp. 100 ff. 3 See ibid. p. 103.


## p. 294 (#312) ############################################

294
University Plays
5
Mummery and impersonation in their more primitive forms can
be traced back at the universities to the later fourteenth century.
Though Warton's reference to the fragment of an ancient ac-
compt-roll of the dissolved college of Michael-House in Cambridge'
(it was merged in Trinity college) containing expenditure, under
1386, on a comedia, cannot now be verified, it may reasonably be
taken as authentic. The statutes of New college, Oxford (1400)
and of King's college, Cambridge (1443) expressly provide for the
celebration of the favourite medieval ceremony of the boy bishop'
on the feast of the Innocents and of St Nicholas's day respectively.
In the King's college account-books there is an entry of expenses
incurred circa ludos on Christmas day, 1582, and of a payment
lusoribus in aula collegii, on the following day. Similar entries of
expenditure on Christmas ludi or 'disgysynges' are found in 1489,
1496, and later? The account-books of Magdalen college, Oxford,
show that provision was made for 'the bishop' on St Nicholas's
day frequently between 1482 and 1530, as well as for scriptural
ludi on the chief church festivals, and miscellaneous interludes
and entertainments. The register of Merton college, Oxford,
records the election of another mock dignitary, Rex Fabarum
or king of beans, who was chosen on or about the eve of St Edmund
(19 November). In the first entry, in 1485, the election is said
to be per antiquam consuetudinem, and the names of successive
'kings' are given annually till 1539, when the ceremony seems
to have fallen into disuse?
It was while such medieval plays and ceremonies retained
a flickering vitality that humanist drama at the universities began.
At Oxford, the mention in the Magdalen accounts for the first time
of a comedia in 1535, and, again, in 1539, and of a tragedia in 1540,
probably indicates the transition to neo-classic types. According
to Anthony à Wood, the Magdalen comedy of 1535 was Piscator
or The Fisher Caught, by John Hoker, a fellow of the society. In
1536, the Plutus of Aristophanes was acted in Greek at St John's
college, Cambridge. The production in 1546 of the Athenian play-
wright's Eiphvn or Pax, by John Dee the astrologer, at Trinity
college, Cambridge, of which he was a fellow, seems, also, to have
been in the original tongue. But these precedents were not
6
See Plays performed in Cambridge Colleges before 1585 by Smith, G. C. Moore in
Fasciculus Joanni Willis Clark dicatus, p. 267.
· The register is in MS, but the present writer has been given facilities for
consulting it.


## p. 295 (#313) ############################################

Nicholas Grimald
295
followed, and there appears to be no record of a classical tragedy
being acted in Greek on the Tudor university stage'.
Seneca, not Sophocles, was the pattern of the English humanist
when he essayed to write tragedy? It is thus typical of the
blending of old and new influences that the earliest extant uni-
versity plays should be on scriptural subjects, and should be cast
in approximately Senecan mould. Their author was Nicholas
Grimald, born in 1519, and a member, successively, of Christ's
college, Cambridge, and of Brasenose, Merton and Christ Church,
Oxford
The first of these plays, Christus Redivivus, printed at Cologne
in 1543, was written and acted at Brasenose, as Grimald relates in
a dedicatory epistle, soon after his migration to Oxford in 1540.
It combines a Senecan treatment of the Gospel story of the
resurrection, in which Mary Magdalene plays the most effective
part, with a comic underplot centring in the four Roman
soldiers who guard the sepulchre, and who are cleverly dis-
criminated types of the military braggart. Grimald's second
tragedy, Archipropheta, printed at Cologne in 1548, was written
in 1547, on his election to the newly constituted society of Christ
Church. It dealt with the career of John the Baptist, which
Buchanan had already dramatised in his Baptistes, acted at
Bordeaux a few years previously*.
But, in spirit and in style, the two plays are remarkably
different from each other. The Scottish humanist follows the
strict Senecan model, and makes the Baptist the mouthpiece of
his own political and religious opinions. In Grimald's work, John
plays a comparatively passive part. The interest centres in the
voluptuous passion of Herod and his unlawful wife Herodias,
which is portrayed with a lyrical intensity and opulence of phrase
unmatched in Tudor drama till the time of Marlowe. Equally
foreign to the scriptural theme and to the Senecan convention is
the comic note struck by Herod's fool, Gelasimus.
These two Latin tragedies of Grimald, if they were known to
Roger Ascham, did not earn from him in The Scholemaster the
1 John Cristopherson, according to Warton, exhibited in 1546 at Trinity college,
of which he was afterwards master, a Jephtha of his own composition in Greek and in
Latin. The MS of the Greek play is in the library of Trinity college.
Smith, G. C. Moore, u. s. , pp. 269–270, mentions performances at Cambridge
of Troas, 1551/2 and 1560/1, Oedipus and Hecuba, 1559/60, and Medea, 1560/1 and
1563. These were almost certainly Seneca's plays (Troas = Troades).
3 On Grimald's English poems, see vol. 11 of the present work, pp. 179, 180.
* See vol. in of the present work, p. 161.


## p. 296 (#314) ############################################

296
University Plays
commendation of being ‘able to abyde the free touch of Aris-
totles preceptes and Euripides examples' which he reserved for
Buchanan's Jephthes and the Absalom of Thomas Watson of St
John's, Cambridge. Watson, owing to scruples on a minor metrical
point, never published the play; but it is probably that preserved
in the Stowe MSS 957, which is a tragedy of the strict Senecan
type. The story of the revolt in the royal house of Israel lent
itself as naturally to Senecan machinery as did legendary dynastic
feuds of early British kings, and Chusi's relation to David, in act
iv, of the overthrow of Absalom's ill-armed troops and of his
hapless end, is a vivid piece of narrative.
Religious drama of an entirely different type made its appear-
ance on the Cambridge stage when, during the Lent of 1545,
Kirchmayer's Pammachius was acted at Christ's college. Though
it was condensed for the occasion, no excisions could disguise
its savage anti-papal satire. It was inevitable that the orthodox
chancellor of the university, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester,
should write letters of remonstrance to the vice-chancellor, and
order him to hold an enquiry concerning the performance.
Dis-
satisfied with the report, Gardiner laid the matter before the privy
council, which instructed the vice-chancellor to reprove the
offenders, but took no further disciplinary measures. The members
of Christ's college probably avoided controversial dramas in
future ; but entries in the college accounts testify to great dramatic
activity in the immediately following years. The leading spirit
in these entertainments was William Stevenson, who entered
Christ's in 1546, graduated B. A. in 1550, M. A. in 1553 and B. D. in
1560, and was twice elected a fellow of the college. A play by him
is mentioned in the accounts for 1550—1, and, again, in those for
1551—2; and, in the following year, he is reimbursed 18d. for ex-
penses on his 'plaies. ' There is another entry of a play by him in
1553—4, and a final one in 1559—60, during the second tenure of his
fellowship. Hence, it has been plausibly conjectured that Steven-
son is the author of Gammer Gurtons Nedle, 'played on stage,
not longe ago in Christes Colledge in Cambridge. Made by
Mr S. Mr of Art. '
The first edition of this comedy was not published till 1575, but
its printer Colwell had obtained, in 1562/3, a licence to issue
Dyccon of Bedlam. As ‘Diccon the Bedlem' is the leading figure in
1 The traditional ascription of the play to John Still rests merely upon a conjecture
of Isaac Reed in 1782, and may be dismissed. But it is remarkable that John Bridges,
dean of Salisbury, a member of Pembroke college, is spoken of in two of the Martin
Marprelate tracts, 1588, as the reputed author of the comedy.


## p. 297 (#315) ############################################

Gammer Gurtons Nedle
297
'Mr S. 's' play, the licence probably refers to it, and there are
bibliographical grounds for the conjecture that the work was
printed long before it was put on sale. A reference to arrest ‘in
the kings name' in act v suggests that the comedy was written
before the death of Edward VI in July 1553. If Stevenson were
its author, it would thus appear to have been composed between
1550 and 1553, and, if the title-page is to be trusted, revived later,
probably in 1559—60. However this may be, Gammer Gurtons
Nedle is of enduring interest as the earliest university play in
English which has come down to us. At first sight, it shows little
trace of scholarly influences. The fourteener' in which it is
'
mainly written is a rough and tumble metre; and the dialogue,
;
often coarse in strain, is, as a rule, in that south-western dialect
which became the conventional form of rustic speech on the
Elizabethan stage. The plot turns on the complications produced
in a small village society by the loss of the gammer's needle, and
the characters are typically English, including Diccon, who com-
bines the rôles of a Vice and a vagrant Tom of Bedlam. But, on
closer examination, the effect of classical models is seen. The
comedy is divided into acts and scenes, and the plot has a real
organic unity. The parts played by the different personages in the
village community, from “Master Baily' and the curate downward,
are neatly discriminated. The triumph of pastoral convention
had not yet blurred for English humanists the outlines of genuine
English country life.
The golden period of academic drama may be dated from the
visits paid by queen Elizabeth to the two universities early in her
reign. The visit to Cambridge began on 5 August 1564, and, in
a letter from Grindal, bishop of London, written about three
weeks before, the university authorities were admonished to
put themselves in all readinesse to please her Majestie, to welcome her with
all manner of scholastical exercises, viz. with Sermons, both in English and
Latin; Disputations in all kinds of Faculties; and playing of Comedies and
Tragedies; Oratios and Verses, both in Latin and Greek.
Under the direction of Roger Kelke, 'who was by the Vice-
Chancellor and Heads of Colleges specially appointed to set forth
and teach such plays as could be exhibited before her Grace,' a
varied dramatic programme was provided. It began with a per-
formance of the Auularia of Plautus? on the evening of Sunday,
* Plautus appears to have been the favourite classical dramatist at Cambridge in
the sixteenth century. Smith, G. C. Moore, U. 8. , pp. 269–271, records sixteen per-
formances of his plays between 1549 and 1583; four performances of comedies by
Terence are noted during the same period.
6


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University Plays
6 August, in King's college chapel. A great stage containing the
breadth of the Church from the one side to the other' was erected
for the performance at the queen's own cost, and so keen was her
interest that she remained till the final plaudite, without betraying
the slightest weariness, though some of her suite grew impatient,
owing to their ignorance of Latin or their desire for sleep.
On the following evening, a tragedy called Dido, written by
Edward Halliwell, fellow of King's college, was performed. It was
in hexameter verse, and drawn, for the most part, from the Aeneid.
Like the earlier school drama on the same subject, acted before
Wolsey in 1532", it is not extant; but the contemporary narrative
of Nicholas Robinson describes it as novum opus sed venustum et
elegans, though considered too long by some carping spectators.
A still more regrettable loss is that of the next evening's
play, Ezechias, an English Biblical drama by Nicholas Udalla.
As Udall was an Oxford man, and had been dead for about seven
years, the production of a play by him on this occasion is somewhat
remarkable, and was probably due to his long connection with
court entertainments. Though the work is not extant, the accounts
of the performance by Hartwell and Robinson show that it dealt
with Hezekiah's destruction of the idols of the grove and the
brazen serpent, the resentment of the populace, the mission of
Rabshakeh at the head of the Assyrian host and the mysterious
destruction of the invaders in a single night. As in the case of
miracle-plays, lighter episodes were evidently mingled with
Biblical incidents. Mirum vero quantum hic facetiarum, quantum
leporis in re tam seria ac sancta, et veritatis tamen certa serie
nunquam interrupta.
Great 'preparations and charges' had been 'employed and
spent about' another play, Ajax Flagellifer, a Latin version of the
Sophoclean tragedy, which was to be given on 9 August, the eve of
the queen's departure. But she was so much wearied by her
exertions that the performance had to be abandoned Before her
departure on the following morning, Elizabeth gave a present in
money and other marks of her favour to Thomas Preston, fellow
of King's, afterwards author of Cambises, king of Persia, who
had pleased her by his acting in Dido and his skill in disputation.
This visit of the queen to Cambridge had its counterpart two
* See ante, vol. v, chap. v, p. 102.
: On Udall'8 other plays, see ante, vol. v, chap. v, pp. 103—6.
3 See post, p. 317, as to the performance of an Ajax Flagellifer, doubtless the
same play, before James I.


## p. 299 (#317) ############################################

Elizabeth at Oxford in 1566
299
years later in one to Oxford, which began on Saturday, 31 August
1566, and lasted till Friday, 6 September. She arrived from Wood-
stock, and had to undergo so formidable a succession of welcoming
orations from the university and civic authorities on her way to
Christ Church that she was unable to be present the following
evening at the first play performed in her honour in the college
hall. On a stage specially prepared at the queen's own cost, with
'stately lights of wax, variously wrought, Marcus Germinus, a
comedy in Latin prose, was performed. It was the joint composition
of several Christ Church scholars, and was produced with the help
of Richard Edwards. From the analysis of the plot given by
Bereblock, it appears that it dealt with a conspiracy against
Germinus, a native of Campania, in the reign of Alexander Severus,
by jealous rivals who think that they have compassed his ruin,
but whose designs are foiled by the evidence of honest freedmen.
On the following night, 2 September, the first part of Palamon
and Arcyte, an English play by Richard Edwards, was acted in the
queen's presence? The report of the magnificence of the decora-
tions, and the eagerness to see Elizabeth, drew such a vast crowd
of spectators (infinita ac innumerabilis hominum multitudo) that
part of the wall of the staircase leading to the hall collapsed,
killing three persons and wounding others. The catastrophe, how-
ever, did not interfere with the performance or with the queen's
enjoyment of it. From the analysis of the plot given by Bereblock,
it is evident that it was exactly on the lines of Chaucer's Knight's
Tale. The first part ended with Theseus's discovery of the two
rivals for Emily's love fighting in the wood, and his determination
that the matter should be decided by a tournament. The second
part, acted on 4 September, dealt with the tournament, the victory
of Arcite, his sudden death and the betrothal of Palamon and
Emily. The loss of the play, which anticipated by about half a
century the treatment of the same theme in The Two Noble
Kinsmen, is a matter of great regret. Not only was the queen
delighted with it, but a party of courtiers who had seen a rehearsal
of it ‘said it far surpassed Damon and Pithias than which they
thought nothing could be better. '
The series of plays performed before the queen during this visit
terminated with a Latin tragedy, Progne, by James Calfhill, canon
of Christ Church. The plot was drawn from the sixth book of
Ovid's Metamorphoses, and dealt, doubtless on Senecan lines, with
the gruesome tale of the revenge of Progne, wife of king Tereus,
i On Edwards's previous career as a dramatist see ante, vol. v, chaps. IV and v.
a


## p. 300 (#318) ############################################

300
University Plays
upon her husband for the wrongs done to herself and her sister
Philomela. It is not surprising that such a work ‘did not take
half so well as the much admired play of Palamon and Arcyte. '
But the relative merit of the pieces performed during these two
royal visits to the universities is of less import than the remarkable
variety of their subjects and their style. A play of Plautus, a
tragedy on Dido in Vergilian hexameters, an English verse play on
Hezekiah, a Latin version of the Ajax of Sophocles, a neo-Latin
prose comedy, an adaptation of The Knight's Tale, a tragedy in the
Senecan manner on an Ovidian theme_here is a microcosm of the
motley literary elements which, combined with features of more
popular origin, went to the shaping of the Elizabethan drama. It
was into academic societies in which such varied stage productions
formed part of the regular ritual of social and intellectual life that,
within the next two decades, Marlowe, Peele, Greene and Nashe
were to enter, and it was thence that they were to carry away
lessons destined to exercise a momentous influence on the future
of the London theatre.
To the immediately following years, no extant university play
can be assigned with certainty. But, from the register of Merton
college, Oxford, we learn that performances, both in English and in
Latin, were given in the warden's house or in the college hall. On
3 January 1566/7, Wylie Beguylie', an English comedy, was per-
formed by the scholars, merito laudandi recte agendo; and this
was followed, about a month later, by the Eunuchus of Terence.
In the January of the following year, the Merton scholars revived
Edwards’s Damon and Pithias, and, a few days later, acted the
Menaechmi of Plautus.
Byrsa Basilica by J. Rickets, a play of unique character sug-
gested by the foundation of the Royal Exchange in 1570, appears,
from the epilogue, to be of university origin, though it deals in
fantastic fashion with the career of Sir Thomas Gresham, and with
various aspects of London commercial life, in bizarre combination
with the figures and machinery of southern comedy? The political
1 The loss of this early Oxford play in the vernacular is particularly unfortunate,
as we cannot tell whether it bore any relation to the later Wily Beguiled (printed 1606),
which was almost certainly a Cambridge play (cf. Ward, vol. 11, pp. 612—3). Wily
Beguiled, however, was influenced so directly by The Spanish Tragedie, The Merchant
of Venice and Romeo and Juliet that it is doubtful whether it can be connected with
the Merton comedy of 1567.
* Gresham's civic career, with an admixture of episodes from the general history
of the period, afterwards furnished materials for the popular stage in Part II of
Thomas Heywood's If You know not me, You know no bodie (1606).


## p. 301 (#319) ############################################

Legge's Richardus Tertius
301
and dynastic, instead of the economic, aspect of the national annals
furnished material for another play of somewhat later date, which
attained unusual popularity, and which is of special interest
as illustrating the Senecan treatment of a theme which afterwards
became the basis of a Shakespearean chronicle history play. This
work, preserved in a number of manuscripts, is Richardus Tertius,
by Thomas Legge, master of Caius college, Cambridge, and twice
vice-chancellor. It was acted at St John's college in the spring of
1580, and in two of the manuscripts the list of performers is given.
It ranges over the long period from the death of Edward IV
to the battle of Bosworth field, and, hence, is in tripartite form,
consisting of three actiones performed on successive evenings. It
thus departs from the strict Senecan model in its comprehensive
sweep and in its disregard of the unities of time and place. It also
dispenses with the moralising chorus. Otherwise, it is a typical
Senecan tragedy, in metre and language, in motives and situations
and in the general conception of a royal tyrant akin to Nero in
Octavia and to Atreus in Thyestes. It has the characteristic faults
of the school to which it belongs—monotony and an excess of wire-
drawn declamation—but Legge had genuine skill in technique and
expression, and taught the lesson that structural design and
rhetorical embellishment are essentials in a historical play.
Greene, who took his B. A. at St John's in 1578, was still in residence
at Cambridge when the play was produced, and Marlowe entered the
university in the following year. There can be little doubt that
Legge's drama was known to them, and that, at least indirectly,
it also influenced Shakespeare in Richard III. The Senecan
series of reverses of fortune in Shakespeare's play, the passages of
semi-lyrical declamation, the dialogues in otixouvdía, the peculiarly
sombre colouring of the work and the two wooing scenes, which
have no source in Holinshed but are anticipated in Legge's tragedy,
all point strongly to this conclusion.
Not long after the production of Richardus Tertius, a number
of Senecan plays dealing with more remote and exotic historical
subjects were performed. Solymannidae, an anonymous tragedy,
was acted, at one of the universities, in March 1581/2. It treats
of the murder of Mustapha, son of Sultan Solyman II, at the insti-
gation of his ambitious step-mother Rhode, who wishes the throne
for her own son Selymus. Another Senecan tragedy on an oriental
historical theme, Tomumbeius, by George Salterne of Bristol, deals
with the tragic fate of Tuman-bey, who became sultan of Egypt in
1516. Its dedication to Elizabeth proves that it was written during


## p. 302 (#320) ############################################

302
University Plays
her reign; but, otherwise, its date and place of performance are
unknown. Even more uncertain is the provenance of the pseudo-
historical Senecan tragedy Perfidus Hetruscus, the plot of which has
points of contact with Hamlet. On the death of Sorastanus, duke
of Tuscany, his brother Pandolphus seeks to gain the throne by
conspiring against his nephews Columbus and Lampranus. His
chief agent, at first, is a Jesuit Grimalfi (an indication that the author
was a strong protestant), who, however, is slain by the ghost of
Sorastanus. Through the further machinations of Pandolphus,
Columbus is banished by Lampranus ; but the ghost of Sorastanus
appears to him in exile, and bids him return to kill his uncle. He
obeys the command and fights a duel with Pandolphus, who sends for
a poisoned cup of wine. The traitor himself drinks by mistake from
the poisoned cup, but recovers, and afterwards strangles Columbus,
,
and poisons Lampranus during his sleep. He succeeds to the vacant
dukedom, but dies after donning the crown which he himself had
poisoned. Preserved in a single manuscript, and never printed, this
play has not attracted the attention to which its plot entitles it.
It is of greater interest than the much better known Roxana, by
William Alabaster, of Trinity college, Cambridge, acted about 1592.
This is a close version, with most of the names altered, and with no
indication of its source, of an Italian play, La Dalida, by Luigi
Groto, published in 1567. Alabaster lays the scene in Bactria; and
the plot, which centres round Roxana, a princess of the imaginary
royal house, exceeds even the usual measure of horrors in a
Senecan tragedy. Doubtless, this characteristic (in consequence
of which a gentlewoman fell distracted' at the performance),
together with the elegant Latinity of the play, gained for it the
popularity of which an echo remains in Dr Johnson's laudatory
allusion to it in his Life of Milton.
The Senecan school of university dramatists produced its most
important figure in William Gager, who is included in Meres's list
(1598) of the chief dramatists of the day, though, strange to say,
among writers of comedy. Born between 1555 and 1560, he entered
Christ Church, Oxford, in 1574, graduated in 1577 and became a
doctor of civil law in 1589. During his long residence, he took
the lead in writing plays for performance by members of his
college. With the exception of his single comedy, Rivales, no
longer extant, they were Latin tragedies on classical subjects.
The first of these, Meleager, was produced in 1581, and revived,
three years later, in the presence of the earl of Leicester, chancellor
of the university, and Sir Philip Sidney. The author of An Apologie


## p. 303 (#321) ############################################

William Gager
303
6
for Poetrie, as he watched the performance, must have rejoiced
that there had arisen a dramatist who carried out to the letter his
critical precepts, preserving the unities in the strictest fashion, and
taking care not to match ‘hornpipes and funerals. '
In 1583, before another visitor of distinction, Albertus Lasco,
prince palatine of Poland, two other plays by Gager were acted, the
comedy Rivales already mentioned, and 'a verie statelie tragedie,'
Dido, in the preparation of which George Peele took part. For
this tragedy, which was produced with ‘strange, marvellous, and
abundant' scenic effects, Gager, like Halliwell at Cambridge
twenty years before, drew the chief situations and much of the
dialogue (though cast into Senecan form) from the Aeneid.
Another of the Christ Church dramatist's tragedies, Oedipus, of
uncertain date, is only partly extant in manuscript. But the last
and finest of his classical plays, Ulysses Redux, was printed a few
months after its production in February 1591/2, when Rivales also
was revived. Ulysses Redux, though Senecan in form, is far from
being a lifeless piece of classical imitation. Drawing its subject
from the later books of the Odyssey, it is not unworthy of its
source. The incidents are skilfully grouped, and many of the
scenes, including the fight between Irus and Ulysses, and the
efforts of the suitors to bend the bow, are full of dramatic vigour.
The conjugal affection of Penelope for her lord is provided with
an effective foil in the passion of the handmaid Melantho for
Eurymachus-an un-Homeric episode which Gager develops in
the spirit of romantic drama.
But of greater permanent value than Gager's tragedies is his
masterly defence of academic plays and players contained in a
letter to John Rainolds of Queen's college, afterwards president of
Corpus, a puritan antagonist of the drama. Of both sides of th
correspondence an account is given in a later chapter of this
volume? The arguments with which Gager meets Rainolds ob-
jections to the impersonation of women by men in feminine attire,
and to Sunday performances, are full of interesting references to
contemporary college life, and he sets forth eloquently the aims
and ideals of academic playwrights and actors.
We doe it to recreate owre-selves, owre house, and the better parte of the
Universitye, with some learned Poeme or other; to practyse owre owne style
eyther in prose or verse; to be well acquantyed with Seneca or Plautus . . . to
trye their voyces and confirme their memoryes, to frame their speeche; to
1 See post, chap. xiv.


## p. 304 (#322) ############################################

304
University Plays
conforme them to convenient action; to trye what mettell is in everye one,
and of what disposition they arel,
But Seneca and Plautus were not the only exemplars with
whom university dramatists were 'well acquainted. ' From about
1580 onwards, their productions in the sphere of comed even
when written in Latin, had, usually, an Italian, and not a classical,
source. To this period belongs Victoria, by Abraham Fraunce of
St John's, Cambridge, a metrical Latin version of Luigi Pasqualigo's
prose comedy I Fedele, published in 1575. This is a typical pro-
duct of the southern stage, with a complicated intrigue between
rivals for the favours of a married lady, with impersonations
and disguisings and with the stock figures of a braggart and an
enamoured pedant. Fraunce's version, except for the addition of
an episode taken from The Decameron, and the revision of portions
of the later acts, is very close. It thus contrasts with the free
English adaptation of Il Fedele by Anthony Munday, Fedele and
Fortunio, wherein the braggart, who is called captain Crackstone,
becomes the chief figure in the comedy?
A more ingenious and skilful adaptation from the Italian
than Victoria, though from The Decameron and not from a play,
is the anonymous Hymenaeus, acted at St John's, Cambridge, prob-
ably in March 1578/9. The list of actors, which included Fraunce,
is virtually identical with that which took part in Richardus
Tertius, except that the latter has a considerably larger cast.
Boccaccio tells of the remarkable experiences of a gallant called
Ruggieri, who makes love to the beautiful young wife of an aged
doctor of Salerno, and who swallows a sleeping draught by mistake.
In Hymenaeus, the young wife is the daughter of an elderly
father, with three suitors-a doctor, a drunken German and a
young Venetian whom she favours. It is the Venetian who drinks
the potion prepared by his rival, the doctor, for the heroine's
father, and who, in consequence, goes through a series of adventures
which nearly ends on the gallows, before he succeeds in winning his
mistress's hand. To the same group of Latin comedies in Italian
style, though no immediate source of them has been hitherto
traced, belong several St John's college plays of somewhat later
date. These include the pastoral Silvanus (January 1597), with
resemblances of situation to the Silvius-Phoebe-Rosalind love-
| For a full account of Gager's letter, by the present writer, see The Fortnightly
Review, August 1907.
? See ante, vol. v, chap. XIII, and bibl. vol. v, pp. 474–5, for an account of Munday's
play.


## p. 305 (#323) ############################################

Laelia
305
complication in As You Like It, and with a Latinised echo, in the
closing song, of the August roundelay in The Shepheards Calender;
and Machiavellus (December 1597), in which the bearer of the
title role, and a Jew, Jacuppus, carry on a contest with a remark-
able series of disguises, plots and counterplots, for the hand of the
heroine, till her betrothed, who is supposed to have been killed in
the wars, returns just in time to claim her once more as his own.
Two comedies which can be traced to their Italian sources are
Leander (1598 and 1602) and Labyrinthus (1602), performed at
Trinity college, Cambridge, and written by Walter Hawkesworth,
fellow of the college, who acted the chief part in both plays.
Their popularity is evidenced by the number of manuscripts in
which they are still extant; but they were merely Latin adaptations
of La Fantesca and La Cintia respectively, both by G. B. della
Porta, the Neapolitan playwright. Of all these Cambridge versions
of Italian comedies, the most important is the anonymous Laelia,
acted at Queens' college in 1590, and revived in 1598. It is
founded on Gl Ingannati (1531), and its action is similar to that
of the main plot of Twelfth Night. The source of Shakespeare's
play has always been doubtful, though Rich's Apolonius and Silla
and Emanuel Ford's Parismus have features in common with
it. Nor is it safe, as has been attempted by W. H. Furness and
F. E. Schelling, to identify Laelia as the direct original of Twelfth
Night, though it is just possible that it may have been. In any
case, the university play and the Shakespearean comedy present
an instructive contrast of methods, the advantage not being all on
one side. Laelia lacks the lyric beauty, the delicate, imaginative
charm of Twelfth Night, without hint of its superbly humorous
underplot; its characters are of the conventional southern type,
including the stock figures of a pedant and a nurse. But the plot
of Laelia is a very deft piece of stagecraft; and, by representing
Flaminius (Orsino) as having loved Laelia (Viola), before he trans-
ferred his affections to Isabella (Olivia), it makes more plausible
the final union of hearts between hero and heroine.
The plays dealt with hitherto in this chapter are academic
in the sense that they were written and acted by university men
within college walls, and that, whether English or Latin, they
were influenced, almost without exception, by the classical or
1 It is curious that the Cambridge authorities, when asked to prepare A Comedie
in Englishe' to be acted at court by students before the queen at Christmas, 1592,
wrote to Burghley, 'Englishe Comedies, for that wee never used any, wee presentlie
have none. ' See ‘Dram. Records from Lansdowne MSS'in Malone Society Collections,
vol. 1, part 2, p. 199.
20
.