carrying out her ecclesiastical policy. It is true that the Act of Uniformity, like Edward's before her, forbade any words in the derogation, depraving or despising of the Book of Common Prayer, and committed the enforcement of this prohibition to the ecclesiastical ordinary as well as to the justices of assize and the civic mayors. It is true also that the general powers of jurisdiction in cases of sedition given to the High Commission by the patent of 19 July 1559 are wide enough to cover 'words or showings' as well as 'books'. But the elaborate provisions for a literary censorship under the Commission contained in the ecclesiastical Injunctions of the same year extend to printed matter only, and for the detailed supervision of plays the Government was at first content to look to the magistrates.[1] There seem to have been two proclamations. The first, which is not extant, is said to have been made on 7 April 1559 and to have restrained plays for a stated period. The second, of the following 16 May, was intended as a permanent regulation. After noting that the usual season for interludes was now over until 1 November, and the inconvenience of some recently given, it goes on to forbid any, whether in public or private, which have not been licensed by the Mayor in a town, or in a shire by the Lord Lieutenant or two justices for the immediate locality. The licensing authorities are enjoined to allow no handling of matters of religion or state in plays, and the nobility and gentry are warned to take order that 'their seruantes being players' shall respect the proclamation. It will be observed that only the licensing of plays and not the status of players was covered. Status was left as the Act of 1531, which was still in force and was explicitly confirmed in 1563, had left it. The position was then as follows. Players, at any rate when they performed away from home, must have a licence either from their lord or possibly from the local magistrates. Whether at home or abroad, they were subject to the regulation of the magistrates as to times and places, and the precautions needed to secure public health and order. In addition, the magistrates had a special responsibility under the proclamation for allowing their individual plays, but this, in rural areas where there were many Justice Shallows, might alternatively be exercised by the Lord Lieutenant for the county as a whole. It is, I suppose, a licence for their repertory rather than for their travelling that Lord Robert Dudley asked for his men
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxii and App. D, Nos. ix, xii, xiii. The Commission had also an authority over vagrants in or near London, which apparently disappeared after the legislation of 1572 (vide infra).
