weak position of the Surrey justices, for example, is illustrated by a letter from Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, to Sir William Paget, Secretary of State, written on 5 February 1547, shortly after the death of Henry VIII. He asks that Paget or the Protector will intervene to prevent Lord Oxford's men, who have threatened 'to try who shall have most resort, they in game or I in earnest', from giving a play in Southwark at the moment when he sings his Dirige for the dead king; and he reports that one Master Acton, a justice of the peace, has attempted to stop the assembly, but the players 'smally regard' him, and 'press him to a peremptory answer, whether he dare lett them play or not; whereunto he answereth neither yea nor nay as to the playing'.[1]
The second point is that, although the Privy Council might intervene to help the magistrates, their own primary interest at this time was in the exclusion of heresy and sedition from plays. This shows itself in two ways. Individual plays are brought before the Council itself, and lead to disciplinary measures. But there is also the germ of a censorship. At first it is exercised through the local authorities. The London aldermen in 1549 appoint two of the Corporation officers, known as the Secondaries of the Compters, who are bound under recognizances to 'peruse' plays and report upon them to the Lord Mayor. But in the following year the London players themselves are bound only to perform plays licensed by the King himself or the Privy Council, and this too is the basis of Edward's proclamation of 1551 and Mary's of 1553.[2] The former requires a licence 'in writing vnder his maiesties signe, or signed by vj of his highnes priuie counsail'; the latter 'her graces speciall licence in writynge for the same'. By 1557, however, another change has taken place, and the duty of licensing is apparently delegated to the ecclesiastical authorities, that is to say the Commissioners for Religion.[3] These licences are of course for individual plays, and distinct from any general licences needed by a company in order to enable it to play at all.
When Elizabeth came to the throne she was perhaps more able than her predecessor to rely upon the municipalities in
- ↑ P. F. Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, i. 21, from S. P. D. Edw. VI, i. 5.
- ↑ Gildersleeve, 5, points out that I was misled by Collier, i. 119, into citing the Marian proclamation in Mediaeval Stage, ii. 220, under 1533 as well as 1553. I regret the error.
- ↑ Dasent, vi. 102. The Lord Mayor is to send offending players 'to the Commissioners for Religion to be by them further ordered, and also to take ordre that no playe be made hencefourthe within the Citie except the same be first seen and allowed and the players aucthorised'.
