to sett before their eyes, the fearfull Judgement of God, shewed upon a
gentlewoman of Eprautna[79] of late, even the 27 of May 1582, the
fearfull sound whereof is blown through all the worlde, and is yet fresh
in every man’s memory. This gentlewoman being a very rich merchant man’s
daughter: upon a time was invited to a Bridall or Weddyng, which was
solemnised in that Town, against which day she made great preparation,
for the pluming of herself in gorgeous array, that as her bodie was most
beautifull, fair and proper, so her attire in every respect might be
correspondent to the same. For the accomplishment whereof she curled her
hair, she died her locks, and laid them out after the best manner, she
coloured her face with water and Ointments: But in no case could she get
any (so curious and dainty she was) that could starch and sett her
Ruffes and Neckerchers to her Minde: wherefore she sent for a couple of
Laundresses, who did the best they could to please her humors, but in
any wise they could not. Then fell she to sweare and teare, to curse and
ban, casting the Ruffes under feet, and wishing that the Devil might
take her when she wear any of those Neckerchers again. In the meantime
(through the sufferance of God) the Devil, transforming himself into the
forme of a young man, as brave and proper as she in every point in
outward appearance, came in, feigning himself to be a wooer or suiter
unto her. And seeing her thus agonised, and in such a pelting chafe, he
demanded of her the cause thereof, who straightway told him (as women
can conceal nothing that lyeth upon their stomackes) how she was
abused[80] in the setting of her Ruffes; which thynge being heard of
him, he promised to please her minde, and thereto took in hand the
setting of her Ruffes, which he performed to her great contentation and
likyng, insomuch as she lookyng herselfe in a glass (as the Devil had
her) became greatly enamoured with hym. This done the young man kissed
her, in the doing whereof, he writhe her neck in sunder, so she died
miserably, her body being metamorphosed into blacke and blue colours,
most ugglesome to behold, and her face (which before was so amorous)
became moste deformed and fearfull to look upon. This being known,
preparation was made for her buriall, a rich coffin was provided and her
fearfull bodie was laid therein, and it covered very sumptuously. Four
men immediately essaied to lift up the corpse, but could not move it,
then six attempted the like, but could not once stir it from the place
where it stood. Whereat the standers by marvelling, caused the coffin to
be opened to see the cause thereof. Where they found the body to be
taken away and a black Catte very lean and deformed sitting in the
coffin, setting of great Ruffes and frizzling of haire, to the great
fear and wonder of all the beholders. This woeful spectacle have I
offered to their view, that by looking into it, instead of their other
looking Glasses they might see their own filthiness and avoid the like
offence, for fear of the same or worser judgment: whiche God grant they
mai do.
PURITANISM ON SPORT.
=Source.=--Philip Stubbes: _Anatomy of Abuses_, 1583 (Ed. New Shakspere
Society), Part i., p. 184.
For as concerning football playing I protest unto you it may rather be
called a friendly kind of fight than a play or recreation: a bloody and
murthering practice, than a fellowly sport or pastime. For doth not
every one lie in wait for his adversary, seeking to overthrow him and
to pick him on his nose, though it be upon hard stones? in ditch or
dale, in valley or hill, or what place soever it be, he careth not so he
have him down. And he that can serve the most of this fashion, he is
counted the only fellow, and who but he? so that by this means sometimes
their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometime their legs,
sometime their arms: sometime one part thrust out of joint, sometime
another: sometime the noses gush out with blood, sometime their eyes
start out; and sometimes hurt in one place, sometimes in another. But
whosoever scapeth away the best, goeth not scot free, but is either sore
wounded, craised[81] and bruised, so he dieth of it, or else scapeth
very hardly, and no marvel, for they have the sleights to meet one
betwixt two, to dash him against the heart with their elbows, to hit him
under the short ribs with their gripped fists, and with their knees to
catch him upon the hip, and to pick him on his neck, with a hundred such
murdering devices; and hereof groweth envy, malice, rancour, choler,
hatred, displeasure, enmity, and what not else: and sometimes fighting,
brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide, and great
effusion of blood, as experience daily teacheth.
Is this murthering play, now, an exercise for the Sabaoth day? Is this a
Christian dealing, for one brother to maim and hurt another, and that
upon prepensed malice or set purpose? is this to do with another as we
would another to do with us? _God make us more careful over the bodies
of our Brethren!_
PURITANISM AND THE STAGE: THE ATTITUDE OF THE CITY OF LONDON TOWARDS THE
THEATRES.
=Source.=--_Remembrancia_ (Archives of the City of London), Malone
Society, _Collections_, I., i., p. 68; ii., p. 164.
I.
Our most humble duties to your Grace remembred. Whereas by the daily and
disorderlie exercise of a number of players and playing houses erected
within this Citie, the youth thereof is greatly corrupted and their
manners infected with many evill and ungodly qualities by reason of the
wanton and prophane devises represented on the stages by the said
players, the prentices and servants withdrawen from their works and all
sorts in generall from the daylie resort unto sermons and other
Christian exercises to the great hinderance of the trades and traders of
this Citie and prophanation of the good and godly religion established
amongst us. To which places also do usually resort great numbers of
light and lewd disposed persons as harlotts, cutpurses, coseners,
pilferers and such like and there under the colour of resort to those
places to hear the playes devise divers evill and ungodly matches,
confederacies and conspiracies, which by means of the oppotunitie of the
place cannot bee prevented nor discovered, as otherwise they might bee.
In consideration whereof we most humbly beseach your Grace for your
godly care for the refourming of so great abuses tending to the offence
of Almightie God, the prophanation and sclaunder of his true religion
and the corrupting of our youth, which are the seed of the Church of God
and the common wealth among us, to vouchsafe us your good favour and
help for the refourming and banishing of so great evill out of this
Citie, which ourselves of long time though to small purpose have so
earnestly desired and endeavoured by all means that possibly wee could.
And bycause we understand that the Queen’s Majestie is and must bee
served at certen times by this sort of people, for which purpose she
hath graunted her letters Patents to Mr. Tilney, Master of her Revells,
by virtue whereof he beeing authorised to refourm exercise or suppresse
all manner of players, playes and playing houses whatsoever, did first
license the said playing houses within this Citie for her Majesty’s said
service, which before that time lay open to all the statutes for the
punishing of these and such lyke disorders. We ar most humbly and
earnestly to beseech your Grace to call unto you the said Master of her
Majesty’s Revells, with whom also we have conferred of late to that
purpose, and to treat with him, if by any means it may be devised that
her Majesty may be served with these recreations as hath been
accustomed, which in our opinions may easily be done by the private
exercise of her Majesty’s own players in convenient place and the Citie
freed from these continuall disorders, which thereby do grow and
increase daily among us. Whereby your Grace shall not only benefit and
bind unto you the politic state and government of this Citie, which by
no one thing is so greatly annoyed and disquieted as by players and
playes and the disorders which follow thereupon, but allso take away a
great offence from the Church of God and hinderance to his gospell, to
the great contentment of all good Christians, specially the preachers
and ministers of the Word of God about this Citie, who have long time
and yet do make their earnest continuall complaint unto us for the
redresse hereof. And thus recommending our most humble duties and
service to your Grace we commit the same to the grace of the Almightie.
From London the 25th of February, 1591.
YOUR GRACES MOST HUMBLE.
To the right reverend father in God my L. the Archbisshop of
Canturbury his Grace.
II.
That night I returned to London and found all the wardes full of
watchers; the cause thereof was for that very nere the Theatre or
Curtain at the tyme of the Plays there laye a prentice sleeping upon the
grasse, and one Challes at Grostock did turn upon the toe upon the belly
of the same prentice; whereupon the apprentice start up and after words
they fell to playne blowes. The companie increased of both sides to the
number of 500 at the least. This Challes exclaimed and said that he was
a gentelman and that the apprentice was but a rascall, and some there
were little better than rogues that tooke upon them the name of
gentlemen, and said the prentices were but the scum of the world. Upon
these troubles the prentices began the next daye being Tuesday to make
mutinies and assemblies and dyd conspire to have broken the prisons and
to have taken forth the prentices that were imprisoned, but my lord and
I having intelligence thereof apprensed[82] four or five of the chief
conspirators who are in Newgate and stand indicted of their lewd
demeanors....
Upon the same Wednesday at night two companions, one being a tailor and
the other a clerk of the common pleas, both of the duchy and both very
lewd fellows, fell out about a harlott, and the tailor raised the
prentices and other light persons, and thinking that the clerk was run
in to Lyons Inn came to the house with 300 at the least, brake down the
wyndowes of the house and struck at the gentlemen; during which broil
one Reynolds a bakers sonne came into Fleet Street and there made solemn
proclamation for clubs. The street rose and took him and brought him
unto me and the next day we indicted him also for this misdemenour with
many other more....
Upon Sunday my lord sent two Aldermen to the Court for the suppressing
and pulling downe of the Theatre and Curtain. All the Lords agreed
thereunto saving my Lord Chamberlain ... but we obtained a letter to
suppresse them all. Upon the same night I sent for the quene’s players
and my lord of Arundel his players, and they all willinglie obeyed the
Lords’ letters. The chiefest of her Highness’s players advised me to
send for the owner of the Theatre[83] who was a stubborn fellow and to
bind him. I dyd so. He sent me word that he was my Lord of Hunsdon’s man
and that he would not come at me but he would in the morning ride to my
lord. Then I sent the under-sheriff for him and he brought him to me,
and at his coming he stouted me out very hasty, and in the end I showed
him my lord his master’s hand, and then he was more quiet, but to die
for it he would not be bound.
EUPHUISM, A FASHION OF 1580.
=Source.=--Lyly: _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, 1578, beginning.
There dwelt in Athens[84] a young gentleman of great patrimony, and of
so comely a personage, that it was doubted whether he were more bound
to Nature for the lineaments of his person, or to Fortune for the
increase of his possessions. But Nature, impatient of comparisons, and
as it were disdaining a companion or copartner in her working, added to
this comeliness of his body such a sharp capacity of mind, that not only
she proved Fortune counterfeit, but was half of that opinion that she
herself was only current. This young gallant, of more wit than wealth,
and yet of more wealth than wisdom, seeing himself inferior to none in
pleasant conceits, thought himself superior to all his honest
conditions, insomuch that he thought himself so apt to all things that
he gave himself almost to nothing but practising of those things
commonly which are incident to these sharp wits, fine phrases, smooth
quips, merry taunts, using jesting without mean and abusing mirth
without measure. As therefore the sweetest Rose hath his prickle, the
finest velvet his brack,[85] the fairest flower his bran, so the
sharpest wit hath his wanton will, and the holiest head his wicked way.
And true it is that some men write and most men believe, that in all
perfect shapes a blemish bringeth rather a liking every way to the eyes
than a loathing any way to the mind. Venus had her mole in her cheek
which made her more amiable. Helen her scar in her chin, which Paris
called Cos amoris, the whetstone of love, Aristippus his wart, Lycurgus
his wen: so likewise in the disposition of the mind, either virtue is
overshadowed with some vice, or vice is overcast with some virtue.
Alexander valiant in war, yet given to wine. Tully eloquent in his
gloses,[86] yet vainglorious. Solomon wise, yet too wanton. David holy,
but yet an homicide. None more witty than Euphues, yet at the first none
more wicked. The freshest colours soonest fade, the teenest[87] razor
soonest turneth his edge, the finest cloth is soonest eaten with moths,
and the cambric sooner stained than the coarse canvas: which appeared
well in this Euphues, whose wit being like wax, apt to receive any
impression, and bearing the head in his own hand either to use the rein
or the spur, disdaining counsel, leaving his country, loathing his old
acquaintance, thought either by wit to obtain some conquest, or by shame
to abide some conflict, who preferring fancy before friends, and his
present humour before honour to come, laid reason in water being too
salt for his taste, and followed unbridled affection, most pleasant for
his tooth. When parents have more care how to leave their children
wealthy than wise, and are more desirous to have them maintain the name
than the nature of a gentleman, when they put gold into the hands of
youth, where they should put a rod under their girdle, when instead of
awe they make them past grace, and leave them rich executors of goods,
and poor executors of godliness, then is it no marvel that the son,
being left rich by his father’s will, becomes retchless by his own will.
But it hath been an old said saw, that wit is the better if it be the
dearer bought: as in the sequel of this history shall most manifestly
appear.
It happened this young imp to arrive at Naples[88] (a place of more
pleasure than profit, and yet of more profit than piety) the very walls
and windows whereof shewed it rather to be the Tabernacle of Venus than
the Temple of Vesta. There was all things necessary and in readiness,
that might either allure the mind to lust or entice the heart to folly:
a court more meet for an Atheist, than for one of Athens, for Ovid, than
for Aristotle, for a graceless lover, than for a godly liver, more
fitter for Paris than Hector, and meeter for Flora than Diana. Here my
youth (whether for weariness he could not, or for wantonness would not
go any farther) determined to make his abode, whereby it is evidently
seen that the fleetest fish swalloweth the delicatest bait, that the
highest soaring hawk traineth to the lure, and that the wittiest brain
is inveigled with the sudden view of alluring vanities. Here he wanted
no companions, which courted him continually with sundry kinds of
devices, whereby they might either soak his purse to reap commodity, or
sooth his person to win credit: for he had guests and companions of all
sorts.
AN ELIZABETHAN MAN OF LETTERS: THOMAS NASHE DEFENDS ROBERT GREENE’S
MEMORY AGAINST GABRIEL HARVEY.
=Source.=--Thomas Nashe: _Strange Newes_, 1592. Edited by R. B. McKerrow,
1904.
In short tearmes, thus I demur upon thy long Kentish-tayld declaration
against Greene.
He inherited more vertues than vices: a jolly long red peake,[89] like
the spire of a steeple, he cherisht continually without cutting, whereat
a man might hang a jewell, it was so sharpe and pendant.... Debt and
deadly sinne, who is not subject to? With any notorious crime I never
knew him tainted.... A good fellowe he was, and would have drunk with
thee for more angels than the Lord thou libeldst on gave thee in
Christ’s College.... In a night and a day would he have yarkt up a
pamphlet as well as in seaven yeare, and glad was that printer that
might be so blest to pay him deare for the very dregs of his wit.
He made no account of winning credite by his workes, ... his only care
was to have a spel in his purse to conjure up a good cuppe of wine with
at all times.
For the lowsie circumstance of his poverty before his death, and sending
that miserable writte to his wife, it cannot be but thou lyest, learned
Gabriell.
I and one of my fellowes, Will. Monox (Hast thou never heard of him and
his great dagger?) were in company with him a month before he died, at
that fatall banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herring (if thou wilt
needs have it so), and the inventory of his apparrell came to more than
three shillings....
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Left blank in the original.
[2] Or rather 27.
[3] Householders.
[4] Lose.
[5] Whereas.
[6] Bishop Gardiner.
[7] Sir Robert Rochester, Comptroller; Sir William Peter, Secretary of
State; Sir Francis Inglefield, Master of the Wards; and another.
[8] Cardinal Pole.
[9] Dieppe.
[10] Polling, _i.e._ shearing or extortionate.
[11] Coarse woollen cloth.
[12] Common, _i.e._ public.
[13] The Rood, on the Roodloft.
[14] Regimen, government.
[15] In the primitive Church.
[16] From πρεσβυτερὁς (elder), both presbyter and priest are derived.
[17] Pretended.
[18] Persuade the people.
[19] Public.
[20] At cess--_i.e._, quartered on the inhabitants.
[21] Thomas Fitzgerald’s rebellion took place in 1534-5. This
reference to it dates the present document as being of 1571 or 1572.
[22] Deceived.
[23] _I.e._, Cecil.
[24] _I.e._, Mary Queen of Scots.
[25] Surety.
[26] Paused.
[27] Christopher.
[28] Banner.
[29] Barnard Castle, of which he was Steward.
[30] Outermost.
[31] Lief, dear.
[32] “Francis” in the original text--a slip of the pen.
[33] Men of property among the rebels were attainted, and their lands
confiscated; the author appears to threaten that even when their money
is gone they remain men and may yet be to be feared.
[34] Sir Thomas Plomtrie--_i.e._, Thomas Plumptre, priest--chaplain
to the rebels, was hanged at Durham for having celebrated Mass in the
cathedral there.
[35] Kentish saint, to whose shrine pilgrimage was made; he became the
proverb for pre-Reformation superstition.
[36] _I.e._, his people.
[37] See.
[38] Really 25 of February.
[39] 1569-1570.
[40] Ure--_i.e._, use.
[41] Babington’s conspiracy.
[42] Precedent.
[43] _I.e._, “Either supplicate or strike home.”
[44] _I.e._, Mr. O----’s house.
[45] Orig. ‘unamity.’
[46] In command of the Spanish land forces in the Netherlands.
[47] The Duke of Medina and Sidonia, in command of the Armada. On the
25th of July Drake, writing to Walsingham, says: “God hathe geven us
so good a daye in forcying the enemey so far to leeward, as I hope in
God the prince of Parma and the Duke of Sedonya shall not shake hands
this fewe dayes.”
[48] Gravelines.
[49] The Duke of Parma.
[50] Probably brother=brother-in-law here, as often, or father of his
son-or daughter-in-law.
[51] This and some of the other totals are incorrect; they are given
as they stand.
[52] Encumbered.
[53] Except.
[54] Awaited.
[55] Chase = the guns in the bows.
[56] Result.
[57] Experienced.
[58] Champaign.
[59] Thoroughly healed.
[60] _I.e._, Suppose my intent were evil.
[61] Another version is given in Sir Symonds D’Ewes’ _Journals of all
the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth_.
[62] Their--_i.e._, the Commons.
[63] They had been kneeling.
[64] Conspiracies.
[65] Faults.
[66] These were pasteboard figures eight feet high.
[67] Orig. seemed.
[68] Richard Mulcaster, first headmaster of Merchant Taylors’ School,
whose _Positions_ is the most important English educational book of
the century.
[69] George Gascoigne, the poet.
[70] _I.e._, Elizabeth.
[71] Polished.
[72] It was the latter.
[73] Getting rid of.
[74] Slipper.
[75] Adulteries.
[76] Fault, make mistakes.
[77] See p. 97 for Lady Jane Grey, whom Ascham gives as an example of
this rule.
[78] Dip.
[79] Antwerp (spelt backwards).
[80] Ill-used.
[81] Crushed.
[82] Arrested.
[83] Probably Burbage.
[84] _I.e._, Oxford?
[85] Break, flaw.
[86] Speeches.
[87] Sharpest.
[88] _I.e._, London?
[89] Pointed beard.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
xxviii. Item whether=> xxxviii. Item whether {pg 31}
They are superstititious=> They are superstitious {pg 42}
which is Knockphargus=> which is Knockfargus {pg 45}