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The Damned Crew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

S. E. Sprott
S. E. Sprott*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie Univ., Halifax, N. S., Canada
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Abstract

The Damned Crew was a class of roisterers in London from the early 1590's to the late 1620's, their self-styled captain being at one time Sir Edmund Baynham, who was also involved in the Gunpowder Plot. Represented in literature as perjurers, assassins, dissidents, and revellers, they were thought to be reprobate with the damned crew of devils in hell. Indeed, they may have thought so themselves, reacting from misconstrued predestinarianism as desperate libertines with a limited Manichean outlook. Some such interpretation explains their title and behaviour and the view of them taken by theological controversialists such as Dove, Kellison, and Sutcliffe, and by playwrights like Chapman.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , May 1969 , pp. 492 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1969

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References

1 R. Hooker, The Works, ed. J. Keble, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1841), i, 373, n. 9; ii, 23; John Marston, The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image (London, 1598), Satire ii, 1. 63, in The Poems, ed. A. Davenport (Liverpool, 1961).

2 Locrine, Malone Society Reprint, 1. 155; The London Prodigall, v.i.53; Sir John Harrington, The Letters and Epigrams, ed. N. E. McClure (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 295; Thomas Heywood, The Four Prentices of London, in The Dramatic Works, ed. R. H. Shepherd, 6 vols. (London, 1874), ii, 184.

3 Robert Yarington, Two Lamentable Tragedies (London, 1601), in A Collection of Old English Play s, ed. A. H. Bullen, 4 vols. (London, 1882–85), iv, 97; Wily Beguiled (London, 1606), in A Select Collection of Old English Plays, ed. Robert Dodsley, 4th ed., 15 vols. (London, 1874), ix, 269.

4 [Du] Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes, trans. Joshua Sylvester (London, 1605), p. 335; Enoch Clapham, Biblio-theca theologica (Amsterdam, 1597), fol. lv; John Clavell, The Soddered Citizen, Malone Society Reprint, 1. 1864.

5 W. Kempe, A Dvlifvl Invective (London, 1597), sig. 2r; S. Sheppard, The Times Displayed (London, 1646), p. 15; W. Chillingworth, The Works, 3 vols. (London, 1820), ii 127.

6 The Trumpet of Warre (London, n.d.), sigs. E, 1r–v. In all quotations the original spelling is reproduced, but abbreviations are expanded and printers' errors corrected.

7 The Works, ed. R. B. McKerrow, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1958), i, 169–170.

8 Fantasticks (London, 1626), in The Works, ed. A. B. Grosart, 4 vols, (n.p., 1879), ii, t, p. 15.

9 L. Babb, The Elizabethan Malady (East Lansing, Mich., 1951), pp. 76–82.

10 In The Collected Poems, ed. A. Davenport (Liverpool, 1949), p. 89; on p. 252 F. P. Wilson is reported as identifying the damned crew as “a cant phrase for the bullies of the town.” Cf. Chapman, Revenge of Biissy ..., iv.i.51.

11 The Dramatic Works, ed. F. Bowers, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Eng., 1953–61), ii, 536; D. B. Dodson, “Allusions to the Gunpowder Plot in Dekker's Whore of Babylon,” N&Q, N.S., vi (1959), 257; B. N. De Luna, Jonson's Romish Plot (Oxford, 1967), p. 108.

12 Ed. J. P. Brawner (Urbana, I11., 1942), 11. 553–558.

13 Chrestoleros (London, 1598), Lib. vi, Epigrams 5, 18.

14 Dodsley, A Select Collection, viii, 261, 265, et passim.

15 There is no biography of Baynham; I hope to provide one soon, partly from unpublished documents, from which some of the facts in the present account are derived. See Diary of John Manningham, ed. J. Bruce (Westminster, 1868), p. 142, n. 1; P. Caraman, Henry Garnet (London, 1964), pp. 411–412, et passim; M. Eccles, Christopher Marlowe in London (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), p. 63; T. S. Graves, “Some Pre-Mohock Clansmen,” SP, xx (1923), 396–397. The fight with the watch is well recounted by Leslie Hotson in Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated (London, 1949), pp. 89–110.

16 PRO, State Papers, James I, vu, 29.

17 A Tree and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings ... (London, 1606), sigs. V2r, Dlr; J. Speed, The Historié of Great Britaine (London, 1632), p. 1129; J. Hawarde, Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata (n.p., 1894), p. 256; Actio in Henricvm Garnetvm (London, 1607), pp. 11, 38, 93; PRO, Baga de secretis, pouch lix, membrane 17; Relation, sigs. I4V, Dlr, Ddlr; His Maiesties Speach . - (London, 1605), sigs. L2r, L3r; BM, Harleian MS. 360, fol. 119. William Vaughan possibly alluded to Catholics as devils when he alleged that Guy Fawkes was set on by “the damned Crew” (The Newlanders Cvre, London, 1630, p. 123).

18 Diary, pp. 142–143.

19 See T. S. Graves, “Some Pre-Mohock Clansmen,” pp. 395–421; D. C. Boughner, “Pistol and the Roaring Boys,” SAB, xi (1936), 226–237; “The Drinking Academy and Contemporary London,” Neophilologus, xix (1934), 272–283; B. Milligan, “The Roaring Boy in Tudor and Stuart Literature,” SAB, xv (1940), 184–190; W. Peery, “The Roaring Boy Again,” SAB, xxiii (1948), 12–16, 78–86.

20 A Paire of Spy-Knaves (London, ?1620), sig. C3r; cf. “cursed crew” in Hells Broke Loose (London, 1605), sig. A4r, and in More Knaues Yet (London, [1613]), sig. Clr.

21 The Blacke Booke (London, 1604), in The Works, ed. A. H. Bullen, 8 vols. (London, 1885–86), vm, 29–31. For Birchin Lane see Dekker, The Gvls Horne-booke (London, 1609) and Lanthorne and Candle-Light (London, 1609), in The Non-Dramatic Works, ed. A. B. Grosart, 5 vols, (n.p., 1884–86), ii, 210; iii, 219; Heywood, The Royall King (London, 1637), in Dramatic Works, vi, 44; A. Nixon, The Blacke Yeare (London, 1606), sig. B2'.

22 In 1608 Lording Barry cited the Damned Crew as brawlers in the play Ram-Alley (London, 1611), ed. C. E. Jones (Louvain, 1952), 11. 656–658, 2083–85.

23 Dekker,Newes from Hell (London, 1606), in Non-Dramatic Works, ii, 95; The Belman (London, 1608), in Non-Dramatic Works, in, 81–82; S. R[id], Martin Markall ([London], 1610), in A. V. Judges, The Elizabethan Underworld (London, 1930), pp. 392, 413; Dekker, O per se O (London, 1612), in Underworld, p. 370. For the Ragged Regiment see Dekker, If This Be Not a Good Play iv.ii.133; Fletcher, Beggars Bush ii.i.1.

24 Cf. The Whore of Babylon ii.ii.5; Satiromastix i.ii.340; The Gvls Horne-Booke, in Non-Dramatic Works, ii, 248; John Davenport, A New Triche, in Old English Plays, ed. Bullen, ii, 225; Jonson, Every Man Ovt... iv.iv.14–15.

25 Satyres (London, 1617), sigs. B5v-6r.

26 The Dronkards Cvp (London, 1619), sigs. A2r–v; and in the editions of 1622, 1626, and 1630.

27 A Seasonable Discovrse of Spiritvall Stedfastnesse (London, 1627; not STC), sigs. Ave1-“, and in another ed. (London, 1632; not STC).

28 Part of This Summers Travels ([London, 1639]), pp. 43–44.

29 Epigrammes (London, 1651), in Works ... Second Collection (n.p., 1873), pp. [26–27].

30 See O. J. Campbell, “Love's Labour's Lost Re-studied,” in Studies in Shakespeare, Milton and Donne by Members of the English Department of the University of Michigan (New York, 1925), p. 25; Luigi Rasi, I ComiciItaliani Biografia, 2 vols, in 3 (Florence, 1897–1905), i, 53–87.

31 Robert Mathew in a poem in Mvsarvm Oxoniensivm EAAIOφOÍA (Oxford, 1654), pp. 65–66.

32 E.g., by Edward Peynton in The Divine Catastrophe of the ... House of Stvarts (London, 1652), p. 60.

33 See, e.g., Rochester's Poems on Several Occasions (Princeton, N. J., 1950), pp. 136–137; R. J. Allen, The Clubs of Augustan London (Cambridge, Mass., 1933); D. McCormick, The Hell-Fire Club (London, 1958).

34 Rebells Anathematized (Oxford, 1645), in Works (1873), p. 3.

35 Nashe, Pierce Penilesse (1592), in Works, i, 164; cf. Dekker, The Wonierfull Yeare (London, 1603), in N en-Dramatic Works, i, 121; If This Be Not a Good Play i.i.13; Sharpham, The Fleire (London, 1607), ed. H. Nibbe (Lou-vain, 1912), ii, 386–389; for the tiltboat see The Cobler of Canlerburie (London, 1608).

36 Nashe, Preface to Sidney's Astrophel and Stella (London, 1591), in Works, in, 332; Summers Last Will (London, 1600), in Works, in, 257; the Bole seems not to be connected with the Crew, but see P. R. Baumgartner, “From Medieval Fool to Renaissance Rogue: Cocke Lorelles Bote and the Literary Tradition,” Annuale Mediaevale, rv (1963), 57–91; Hycke-scorner, in Dodsley, i, 185; Taylor, Epigrammes (London, 1651), in Works (1873), p. [27].

37 A Svrvey of the New Religion (Douai, 1603), pp. 694–695, 222; cf. 2nd ed. (Douai, 1605), pp. 363–364, 124; and 105.

38 The Examination and Confutation of a Certaine Scurrilous Treatise (London, 1606), p. 102. Cf. A. Willet (An Antilogie, London, 1603, p. 14) in reply to R. Broughton (An Apologicall Epistle, Antwerp, 1601, p. 6).

39 A Reply to Sotclijfes Answer (Rheims, 1608), fol. 431“.

40 E.g., M. Luther, De servo arbitrio (Wittenberg, 1525)' sigs. Dvv-Dviv {On the Bondage of the Will, trans. J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, London, 1957, pp. 99–100; Calvin, Institutes, iii, xxiii, 12; W. Perkins, “Gods Free Grace,” The Workes, 3 vols. (London, 1612–13), ii, 729.

41 “Caeteri autem homines ad istam societatem non pertinentes,” in Epistle 186, vii, 26, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, xxxiii, col. 825; this is Epistle 106 in Erasmus' ed. of Augustine's Opera, 10 vols. (Paris, 1531), ii, fol. 94v L. R. Broughton (Epistle, pp. [14–15]) thrust the English “damned Crew” out of the “societie” of Catholics.

42 J. Sharpe, The Triall of the Protestant Private Spirit (n.p., 1630), p. 272. Men are bad, says Machiavelli in The Prince, Ch. xviii; cf. H. Hadyn, The Counter-Renaissance (New York, 1950), pp. 412–418.

43 Aptly described and related to a “wrangling crew” by William Willymat in A Loyal Subiecls Looking-Glasse (London, 1604), pp. 60–64.

44 F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge, Eng., 1925); D. Obolensky, The Bogoinils (Cambridge, Eng., 1948); P. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee (Cambridge, Eng., 1955), esp. pp. 116–123; G. Widengren, Mani and Manichaeism (London, 1965).

45 “... Qui fingunt aliquem esse numerum hominum, quos vocant úikoúis kal xoîkoùs, qui converti non possint,” in Loci Communes (Basle, 1562), p. 62.

46 Real-Encyklopddie fur prolestantische Théologie, viii (1902), 374–380; Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, ix, i (Paris, 1962), cols. 703–706; A. Jundt, Histoire du panthéisme populaire au Moyen Age et au XVI“ siècle (Strasbourg, 1875); Charles Schmidt, Les Libertins spirituels (Paris, 1876).

47 A Single Eye All Light ([London, 1650]), pp. 7–9, et passim.

48 Plotinus, Enneads, iii, ii, 17 (MacKenna's trans.); Augustine, De libera arbiirio, iii, ix, 27; De vera religione, xxiii, 38–46; Ficino, Commentarium in convivium Platonis, in, iv; cf. Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi (Rome, 1535), Dialogue ii, p. 31; Hermes Trismegistus, Poimandres, xii (i), 1–5 (Walter Scott's trans, in Hermetica, 4 vols., Oxford, 1924–36, i, 227).

49 The Zodiake of Life (London, 1576), ed. Rosemond Tuve (New York, 1947), pp. 115–118, 138, 147–149.

50 Deuine Weekes, p. 335; but see The Poems of James VI of Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1955–58), i, 114,11. 17–20.

51 Quoted from The Plays of George Chapman ... The Tragedies, ed. T. M. Parrott, 2 vols. (New York, 1961).

52 R. B. Sharpe, The Real War of the Theatres (Boston, 1935), p. 41, n. 112; but see J. E. Ingledew, “The Date of Composition of Chapman's Caesar and Pompey,” RES, N.S., xii (1961), 114–159.

53 Contra Celsum, vi, 42–43.

54 Cf. E. Schwartz, “A Neglected Play by Chapman,” SP, lviii (1961), 144–146; J. E. Ingledew, “The Date of ... Caesar and Pompey” p. 151.