• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

And he goeth on: for well you know the Harlot of Rome uzed to delight in rich shewes and silken costumes and men dressed as women to bedazzle the people and turne them away from the true worship of Christ. What is theyre gibbering mass but a playe? Now we have stoppte theyre masses will they not trye another waye to turn folke from true faith? What, quoth I, think you these players are secret papistes? Nay, says he, they are more subtle, more than serpentes. Now what sayest thou if I tell thee there is a man now abroad the chief of these playeres who, item: doth devise secret libels on the true religion: item, doth hold up papiste priestes in such playes to admiratioun: item, whose father wast a papiste fined many tymes for shunning the protestant church and whose mother wase spawn of a family longe reviled for adamant recusancie, doutlesse a papiste herself: item, who conspyred traitorously to ralleye the attainted earle of Essex his forces when he rebelled gainst our late sovereign Quene by meanes of shewing to his followers on the morn of the rebellion the playe of Richard Second as an inspiring exemple of treason & regicide & should have been taken up at that time but was not, for some of worship did protect him, dmn their eyies. What saye you of such a one? Quoth I (which I knew well was the onlie mete answer nowe), to the Tower with him hee should not walk abroade one houre.

Hee then smyled a colde smyle saying marry, you spake the truth boy, yet in the kingdomes now disordered state this wee cannot do, or not yet. For look you, the King surroundes himselfe not with the Godly but with lascivious & corrupt favourites, viz. my Lord of Rochester and otheres lyke, of these manie as near to papistes as your shirt your bodie & these delighteth in such vaine shewes as playes upon the stage: even the King hath a bande of playeres of whom he doth bespeake playes to suit his fancies & the one of whom I tolde thee the chiefest amongst these knaves.

Now, he sayeth further, wee have us a prince Henry as good a protestant as ever ate bread, sober, wyse beyond his yeares: yet his father the King can thinke of nothing but to wed him to a popish princesse & this we cannot suffer to befall this lande for it will be the ruine of Gods church in England, the same as the King hath already begun with his depraved and ungodlie rule of bischopes. Soe my Lord D. and other worthie nobles of the true faith, thinking upon this lamentable past, hath brought forth a plan and have looked long for some one to bring it to particular action. And wee have found hym.

Who, quoth I? You, quoth hee. At hearinge this I wase much afrayde & sayde, for why? Thus he expressed it: you know the Kinges mother wase a vain wicked papiste traitor Mary Queen of Scotlande justlie executed by oure late Quene & this hath long rankled the King that all good Englishmen should despise his mother and mayhap thinke them: lyke mother lyke childe. Soe happlie he would looke with favour upon a playe presentinge Queen Mary as a goode woman wronged, & mayhap he should command this knave of whom I lately spake to write it oute. What then boy?

Then I thought mee be clever as you can Dick for thou art fulle in the power of this one and I sayd ’twould be a scandal to all goode protestants in the kingdom they would not stand it. He says Aye and tis why it is far from the Kinges mind. But suppose one feigning to be in service of some great Lord, a privy councillour even, should go to this maker of playes saying I bear direction from the Kinges majestie: write such a playe and thou wilt be rewarded & gaine favour in the Kinges sight. And suppose such a playe came to be and suppose it were plaied before the King and his courte, what think thee would befall? For know you that no playe can be shewn without a licence from the maistre of the revels: yet in truth no such license would ever issue for such a playe, ’twould be worth the heade of any such officer. Yet suppose further that we have