436 PLAYS ON SUNDAYS FORBIDDEN-CENSORSHIP OF THE STAGE.

is agreed on all hands that Shakspeare was beloved as a man, and admired and patronized as a poet. In the profession of an actor, indeed, his success does not appear to have been conspicuous; but the never-failing attraction of his pieces brought overflowing audiences to the Globe theatre in Southwark, of which he was enabled to become a joint proprietor. Lord Southampton is said to have once bestowed on him a munificent donation of a thousand pounds to enable him to complete the purchase; and it is probable that this nobleman might also introduce him to the notice of his beloved friend the earl of Essex. Of any particular gratuities bestowed on him by her majesty we are not informed: but there is every reason to suppose that he must have received from her on various occasions both praises and remuneration; for we are told that she caused several of his pieces to be represented before her; and that the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' in particular, owed its origin to her majesty's desire of seeing Falstaff exhibited in love.

It remains to notice the principal enactments of Elizabeth respecting the conduct of the theatre; some of which are remarkable. During the early part of her reign;-Sunday being still regarded principally in the light of a holiday :—her majesty not only selected that day, more frequently than any other, for the representation of plays at court for her own amusement, but by her license granted to Burbage in 1574, authorized the performance of them at the public theatre, on Sundays only, out of the hours of prayer. Five years after, however, Gosson, in his School of Abuse, complains, that the players, 'because they are allowed to play every Sunday, make four or five Sundays at least every week.' To limit this abuse, an order was issued by the council in July 1591, purporting that no plays should be publicly exhibited on Thursdays; because on that day bear-baiting and similar pastimes had usually been practised and in an injunction to the lord mayor four days after, the representation of plays on Sunday (or the Sabbath as it now began to be called among the stricter sort of people) was utterly condemned; and it was further complained that on 'all other days of the week in divers places the players do use to recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and like pastimes; which are maintained for her majesty's pleasure.'

In the year 1589 her majesty thought proper to appoint commismissioners to inspect all performances of writers for the stage, with full powers to reject and obliterate whatever they might esteem unmannerly, licentious, or irreverent :—a regulation which might seem to claim the applause of every friend to public decency, were not the state in which the dramas of this age have come down to posterity sufficient evidence, that to render these impressive appeals to the passions of assembled multitudes politically, and not morally, inoffensive, was the renuine or principal motive of this act of power.

In illustration of this remark the following passage may be quoted · 'At supper' the queen 'would divert herself with her friends and attendants; and if they made her no answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse with great civility. She would then admit Tarleton, a famous comedian and pleasant talker, and other such men, to divert her with stories of the town and the common jests and accidents. Tarleton, who was then the best comedian in England, had made a pleasant play; and when it was acting before the queen, he pointed at Raleigh, and said 'See the knave commands the queen!' for which he was corrected by a frown from the queen yet he had the confidence to add, that he was of too much and too intolerable a power: and going on with the same liberty, he reflected on the too great power of the earl of Leicester: which was so universally applauded by all present, that she thought fit to bear these reflections with a seeming unconcernedness. But yet she was so offended, that she forbade Tarleton and all jesters from coming near her table.**

CHAP. XXV. 1593 TO 1597.

A parliament.-Haughty language of the queen.-Committal of Wentworth and other members-of Morice.-His letter to lord Burleigh-Act to retain subjects in their due obedience.-Debates on the subsidy.-Free speeches of Francis Bacon and sir E. Hobby.— Queen's Speech.-Notice of Francis Bacon-of Anthony Bacon.Connexion of the two Bacons with Essex.-Francis disappointed of preferment. Conduct of Burleigh towards him.-Of Fulk Greville. -Reflections.-Conversion of Henry IV.-Behaviour of Elizabeth. -War in Bretagne.-Anecdote of the queen and sir C. Blount.Affair of Dr. Lopez.-Squire's attempt on the life of the queen.— Notice of Ferdinando earl of Derby.-Letter of the queen to lord Willoughby.-Particulars of sir Walter Raleigh.—His expedition to Guiana. Unfortunate enterprise of Drake and Hawkins.-Death of Hawkins.-Death and character of Drake.-Letters of Rowland Whyte.-Case of the earl of Hertford.-Anecdote of Essex.-Queen Elizabeth at the lord-keeper's.-Anecdote of the queen and Bishop Rudd.-Case of sir T. Arundel.

NOTWITHSTANDING all the frugal arts of Elizabeth, the state of her finances compelled her in the spring of 1593 to summon a parliament. It was four entire years since this assembly had last met: but her majesty took care to let the commons know, that the causes of offence

*Behun's Character of Queen Elizabeth.-Among the various sources whence the preceding dramatic notices have been derived, it is proper to point out Dr. Drake's Memoirs of Shaks peare and his age, and Warton's History of English Poetry.

438 ELIZABETH AND HER PARLIAMENT-WENTWORTH, MORICE.

which had then occurred were still fresh in her memory; and that her resolution to preserve her own prerogative in its rigor, and the ecclesiastical commission in all its terrors, was still inflexible.

It even appeared, that an apprehension lest her present necessities might embolden the parliament to treat her despotic mandates with a deference less profound than they had formerly exhibited, irritated her temper and prompted her to assume a more haughty and menacing style than her habitual study of popularity had hitherto permitted her to employ. In answer to the three customary requests made by the speaker, for liberty of speech, freedom from arrests, and access to her person; she replied by her lord-keeper, that such liberty of speech as the commons were justly entitled to,-liberty, namely, of aye and no,— she was willing to grant; but by no means a liberty for every one to speak what he listed. And if any idle heads should be found careless enough of their own safety to attempt innovations in the state, or reforms in the church, she laid her injunctions on the speaker to refuse the bills offered for such purposes till they should have been examined by those who were better qualified to judge of these matters. She promised that she would not impeach the liberty of their persons, provided they did not permit themselves to imagine that any neglect of duty would be allowed to pass unpunished under shelter of this privilege; and she engaged not to deny them access to her person on weighty affairs and at convenient seasons; when she should have leisure from other important business of state.

But threats alone were not found sufficient to restrain all attempts on the part of the commons to exercise their known rights and fulfil their duty to the country. Peter Wentworth, a member whose courageous and independent spirit had already drawn upon him repeated manifestations of royal displeasure, presented to the lord-keeper a petition, praying that the upper house would join with the lower in a supplication to the queen for fixing the succession. Elizabeth, enraged at the bare mention of a subject so offensive to her, instantly committed to the Fleet prison Wentworth, sir Thomas Bromley who had seconded him, and two other members to whom he had imparted the business; and when the house were preparing to petition her for their release, some privy counsellors dissuaded them from the step, as one which could only prove injurious to these gentlemen by giving additional offence to her majesty.

Soon after James Morice, member for Colchester, an eminent lawyer, who was attorney of the court of Wards and chancellor of the Duchy, made a motion for redress of the abuses in the bishops' court; and especially of the enormous ones committed under the High Commission. Several members supported the motion; but the queen, sending in wrath for the speaker, required him to deliver up the bill to her; reminded him of her strict injunctions at the opening of the

sessions, and testified her extreme indignation and surprise at the boldness of the commons in intermeddling with subjects which she had expressly forbidden them to discuss. She informed him, that it lay in her power to summon parliaments and to dismiss them; and to sanction or to reject any determination of theirs; that she had at present called them together for the twofold purpose of enacting further laws for the maintenance of religious conformity; and of providing for the national defence against Spain; and that these ought therefore to be the sole objects of their deliberations.

As for Morice, he was seized by a serjeant at arms in the house itself, suspended from his office, rendered incapable of practising as a lawyer and committed to prison; whence he soon after addressed to Burleigh the following high-minded appeal :

'Right honorable, my very good lord,

'That I am no more hardly handled, I impute next unto God to your honorable good will and favor; for although I am assured that the cause I took in hand is good and honest, yet I believe that, besides your lordship and that honorable person your son, I have never an honorable friend. But no matter; for the best causes seldom find the most friends, especially to those having many, and those mighty, enemies.

'I see no cause in my conscience to repent me of that I have done, nor to be dismayed, although grieved by this my restraint of liberty; for I stand for the maintenance of the honor of God and of my prince, and for the preservation of public justice and the liberties of my country against wrong and oppression; being well content, at her majesty's good pleasure and commandment, (whom I beseech God long to preserve in all princely felicity,) to suffer and abide much more. But I had thought that the judges ecclesiastical, being charged in the great council of the realm to be dishonorers of God and of her majesty; perverters of law and public justice; and wrong-doers unto the liberties and freedoms of all her majesty's subjects, by their extorted oaths, wrongful imprisonments, lawless subscription and unjust absolutions; would rather have sought means to be cleared of this weighty accusation, than to shroud themselves under the suppressing of the complaint and shadow of mine imprisonment.

'There is fault found with me that I, as a private person, preferred not my complaint to her majesty. Surely, my lord, your wisdom can conceive what a proper piece of work I had then made of that: the worst prison had been I think too good for me, since now (sustaining the person of a public councellor of the realm speaking for her majesty's prerogatives, which by oath I am bound to assist and maintain) I cannot escape punishment and restraint of liberty. Another fault, or error, is objected; in that I preferred these cause before the matters delivered from her majesty were determined. My good lord, to have

440 SPIRITED REMONSTRANCE OF MORICE TO LORD BURLEIGH.

stayed so long, I verily think, had been to come too late, Bills of assize of bread, shipping of fish, pleadings and such like, may be offered and received into the house, and no offence to her majesty's royal commandment ; (being but as the tything of mint ;) but the great causes of the law and public justice may not be touched without offence. Well, my good lord, be it so; yet I hope her majesty and you of her honorable privy-council will at length thoroughly consider of things, lest, as heretofore we prayed, from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, good lord deliver us; we be compelled to say, from the tyranny of the clergy of England, good Lord deliver us.

'Pardon my plain speech, I humbly beseech your honor, for it proceedeth from an upright heart and sound conscience, although in a weak and sickly body; and by God's grace, while life doth last ; which I hope now, after so many cracks and crazes, will not be long; I will not be ashamed in good and lawful sort to strive for the freedom of conscience, public justice, and the liberty of my country. And you, my good lord, to whose hand the stern of this commonwealth is chiefly committed, I humbly beseech, (as I doubt not but you do,) graciously respect both me and the causes I have preferred; and be a mean to pacify and appease her majesty's displeasure conceived against me her poor, yet faithful, servant and subject.'-Burleigh Papers.

In October following, the earl of Essex ventured to mention to her majesty this persecuted patriot amongst lawyers qualified for the post of attorney-general; when 'her majesty acknowledged his gifts, but said his speaking against her in such manner as he had done, should be a bar against any preferment at her hands.' He is said to have been kept for some years a prisoner in Tilbury castle; he recovered his liberty, however, before his death, which took place at his own mansion, Ongar Castle, in Feb. 1597, in his 59th year.

The house of commons, unacquainted as yet with its own strength, submitted without further question to regard as law the will of an imperious mistress; and passed, with little opposition, 'An act to return her majesty's subjects in their due obedience,' which vied in cruelty with the noted Six Articles of her tyrannical father.

By this law, any person above sixteen who should refuse during a month to attend the established worship was to be imprisoned; when, should he further persist in his refusal during three months longer, he must abjure the realm; but in case of his rejecting this alternative, or returning from banishment, his offence was then declared felony and without the benefit of clergy.

The business of supplies was next taken into consideration; and the commons voted two subsidies and four fifteenths; but this not appearing to the ministry sufficicnt for the exigencies of the state, the peers were induced to request a conference with the lower house, for the purpose of proposing the augmentation of the grant to four sub