was in English. It was Daniel's Arcadia Reformed, afterwards published as The Queen's Arcadia. The King was not present on this occasion. It is a little surprising that he did not visit Cambridge until 1615. He had been preceded by Henry, who was there with the Elector Palatine in 1613, and saw performances by Trinity men in their college hall of Samuel Brooke's Adelphe and Scyros on 2 and 3 March respectively.[1] James went from Royston, and stayed from 7 to 11 March 1615.[2] The plays, given in Trinity College hall, were successively Edward Cecil's Latin Aemilia, by St. John's men, which is lost, Ruggle's Ignoramus, by men from Clare Hall and other minor colleges, and Tomkis's Albumazar and Brooke's Melanthe, both by Trinity men. King's had prepared Phineas Fletcher's Sicelides, but the King did not stay long enough to hear it. The visit evoked an outburst of satirical verses, both from Oxford and from the lawyers, who were stung by the wit of Ignoramus, with which the King was so pleased that, after a vain attempt to get the actors to Whitehall, he paid another visit to Cambridge, and saw it again on 13 May.[3] In March 1616 Cambridge men played before him at Royston; the name of the play is not known.[4] Oxford did not get its chance again until 1618, which falls outside the scope of this record.
The opportunities for spectacular display, which provincial towns enjoyed during a progress, fell to London chiefly at the time of a coronation, when on the day before the actual ceremony the sovereign passed in state from the Tower to Westminster, through the principal streets of the city which claimed to be, in a special sense, the royal
- ↑ Birch, i. 214; Winwood, iii. 441; Nichols, iv. 1087, from Hacket's Life of Williams.
- ↑ Birch, i. 303; Stowe, Annales (1631), 1023; Hardwicke Papers, i. 394; Truth Brought to Light, 64; Nichols, iii. 43. The names of the plays are given in a MS. penes Sir Edward Dering, printed by S. Pegge in Gent. Mag. (May 1756) and Hawkins, Ignoramus, xxx. I adopt the dates of this MS., which fit better into James's movements than the 12-15 March suggested by Chamberlain's letter in Birch, i. 303. The Vice-Chancellor ordered 'that noe Graduate of the Universitie under the degree of Master of Arts, or fellow-commoner, presume to come into the streets neare Trinity Colledge in the tymes the Comedyes are actinge; or after the Stage-Keepers be come forth; nor that any Schollar or Student, but those onely before excepted, by any meanes presume or attempte to come within the said Colledge or Hall to heare any of the said Comedyes'.
- ↑ Birch, i. 360, 361; Hawkins, Ignoramus, cxix, from a narrative by James Tabor, Registrary.
- ↑ Birch, i. 395, 397. Can the play have been Susenbrotus, for which there seems no room in the visit of 1615, although the MS. claims a performance before James and Charles at Trinity in '1615'?
