for 'his obstinate preciseness'. It was, perhaps, as a result of the mirth shown at Oxford, that both Universities were invited to produce English plays at Court during the following Christmas. This, however, Cambridge at any rate declined to do, giving as their excuse the shortness of time, but more particularly the customary limitation of their academic plays to the Latin tongue.[1] There is no evidence, and little probability, that Oxford were any more amenable.
James passed through the outskirts of Oxford in 1604, but plague deferred his formal visit until 1605, when he came with the Queen and Henry, and stayed from 27 to 31 August.[2] As he came down St. Giles', he was greeted from St. John's with Matthew Gwynne's device of the Tres Sibyllae. The plays were in Christ Church hall, and apparel was hired from the King's Revels company in London. Inigo Jones, 'a great traveller', was employed to furnish special machinery for changing the scenes, but opinions differed as to his success, and also as to the extent to which the King kept awake during the performances. Of these there were four. On 27 August a piece, variously named Alba and Vertumnus, and written in part by Robert Burton, was acted by Thomas Goodwin and other Christ Church men.[3] On 28 August actors from various colleges gave an Ajax Flagellifer, not apparently a translation from Sophocles, but an independent play. On 29 August St. John's men gave a play by Gwynne, also called Vertumnus, sive Annus Recurrens. These three, of which only the last survives, were in Latin. On 30 August, for the sake of the ladies, the fourth play, again by men of various colleges,
- ↑ M. S. C. i. 198, from Lansd. MS. 71, f. 204.
- ↑ There are four narratives: (a) Anthony Nixon, The Oxford Triumph (1605, S. R. 19 Sept. 1605); (b) Isaac Wake, Rex Platonicus, sive Musae Regnantes (1607); (c) a Cambridge report, probably by Philip Stringer, printed from Harl. MS. 7044, by Leland, Coll. ii. 626, and Nichols, i. 530; (d) a letter from John Chamberlain in Winwood, ii. 140. F. S. Boas and W. W. Greg (M. S. C. i. 247) print schedules of the apparel and necessaries obtained from Kirkham and Kendall of the Queen's Revels, and from one Matthew Fox. They were partly for The Queen's Arcadia, partly, I think, for Ajax Flagellifer, and partly for Alba. Provision was made for a magician, and 'those scenes of the Magus', for which Robert Burton tells his brother (Nichols, iv. 1067) that he was thanked by Dr. King, Dean of Christ Church, were presumably in Alba. This is Stringer's name for the first play. Wake calls it Vertumnus, but it is clear from his analyses that it is distinct from Gwynne's, which he calls Annus Recurrens. Stringer's rather critical narrative contrasts with the self-complacency of the Oxford writers. He tells us how bored the King was and how the Queen and the ladies disliked the almost naked man in Alba.
- ↑ Goodwin's performance was made an excuse for securing the King's recommendation for his election as a Student of Christ Church (S. P. D. Addl. Jac. I, xxxvii. 66, 67, 70).
