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New Allusions to a Game at Chesse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Bernard M. Wagner
Bernard M. Wagner*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

It is well known that the performance in August, 1624 of Thomas Middleton's allegorical play A Game at Chesse, dealing with the Spanish marriage, caused a furore in London theatrical circles, and that the king (then on a progress), learning of it through the Spanish ambassador, ordered its suppression. No attempt, however, has been made to collect the references which this public satire would naturally occasion in the news-letters and private correspondence of the day. Of the allusions given below from these sources, five (nos. 1, 5, 8, 13, 14) have not been noticed before by students of the drama and two (nos. 3, 7), although previously known, are given accurately for the first time. Nos. 2, 6, 9-12, although they have already been correctly printed, are here summarized (within brackets) for the convenience of the reader and included in the series, in proper chronological sequence.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1929 , pp. 827 - 834
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 827 Among the MSS. of the Hon. Frederick Lindley Wood, preserved at Temple Newsam, Leeds. Historical Manuscripts Commission. Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, VIII (London, 1913), 27.

Note 2 in page 827 State Papers, Domestic Series, James I, vol. CLXXI, 39. Printed in George Chalmers, An Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare Papers (London, 1797), 497 note; J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (London, 1831), I, 449 note, 2d ed. (London, 1879), I, 428 note; Alexander Dyce, Works of Thomas Middleton (London, 1840), I, xxviii; A. H. Bullen, Works of Thomas Middleton (London, 1885), I, lxxviii. The quotations in this, and the following summaries are from the original documents.

Note 3 in page 828 S. P. Dom., CLXXI, 49. Abstract in Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I, XI (London, 1859), 327. For “the players haue gotten 1001 the day,” the abstract gives the erroneous paraphrase “the players gain 1001. a night,” which is quoted by E. C. Morris in “The Allegory in Middleton's A Game at Chesse,” Engl. Stud., XXXVIII (1907), 45 note 2, and John Tucker Murray, English Dramatic Companies, 1558-1642 (London, 1910), I, 159 note 4. This letter is also noted by Sir E. K. Chambers in “Dramatic Records from the Privy Council Registers, 1603-1642,” in the Malone Society's Collections, IV and V (Oxford, 1911), 379.

Note 4 in page 828 Privy Council Register, James I, VI, 424. First noted by T. Hornby in The Shakespeare Society's Papers, II (London, 1845), 106. Printed in Chambers, op. cit., 380.

Note 5 in page 828 S. P. Dom., CLXXI, 60.

Note 6 in page 829 S. P. Dom., CLXXI, 64. This communication is signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Grandison, Arundel, Calvert, and Chichester. Printed in Chalmers, 498 note; Dyce, I, xxx; Collier, I, 450 note, 2d ed., I, 429 note 1. A copy of the letter is also in the P. C. Register, VI, 425, from which source it is printed by Chambers, 380, and Mrs. C. C. Stopes, “Dramatic Records from the Privy Council Register,” Shakes. Jahrb., XLVIII (1912), 107. Bullen (I, lxxix) gives readings from both copies. The quotations in the present summary are from the first.

Note 7 in page 829 S. P. Dom., CLXXI, 66. Printed, with several inaccurate readings, by Thomas Birch, The Court and Times of James the First (London, 1848), II, 470 (cited as B. in list of variants). Reprinted from Birch by Bullen (I, lxxxiv), with the omission of one word in the first sentence. This sentence, in turn, is quoted from Bullen by E. V. Gildersleeve, Government Regulation of the Elizabethan Drama (New York, 1908), 122, and Thorndike, Shakespeare's Theatre (New York, 1916), 219. E. P. Stratham in A Jacobean Letter-Writer. The Life and Times of John Chamberlain (London, n. d. [1920?] 224, quotes one sentence, with an erroneous reading, from the original.

Note 8 in page 830 B. curiosity.

Note 9 in page 830 Bullen omits.

Note 10 in page 830 B. Scotsmen.

Note 11 in page 830 Either Chamberlain is mistaken as to the presence of Morton at the play or Nethersole is misinformed, for the latter wrote in his letter of 14 August, “Sr Albertus Morton . . . . is gone to Court 14 dayes since, but not yet returned.” He had still “not yet come backe” when Nethersole wrote on 19 August.

Note 12 in page 830 B. thither.

Note 13 in page 830 B. so severe.

Note 14 in page 830 Stratham reads counterfeit.

Note 15 in page 830 B. and his letter.

Note 16 in page 830 B. there lacked.

Note 17 in page 830 B. is, playing.

Note 18 in page 830 B. further pleasure be known.

Note 19 in page 830 B.M. MS Addit. 27962, vol. C, f. 189r (transcripts of the correspondence of the Florentine ambassadors in England, 1616-1657, preserved in the archives at Florence).

Note 20 in page 831 S. P. Dom., CLXXI, 75. Printed in Chalmers, 499 note; Dyce, I, xxxii; Collier, I, 452 note, 2d. ed., I, 430 note 2; Bullen, I, lxxx.

Note 21 in page 831 B.M., MS Egerton 2623, f. 28r. Noticed in J. P. Collier's New Particulars Regarding the Works of Shakespeare (London, 1836), 49 note. Printed in Dyce, I, xxxii; Collier, Hist. of English Dramatic Poetry, 2d ed., I, 431 note 1; Bullen, I, lxxxi; Gildersleeve, 119; Mary Sullivan, Court Masques of James I (New York, 1913), 135; Shakespeare's England (Oxford, 1916), I, 296, with (facing p. 296) a reproduction of the MS.

Note 22 in page 832 P. C. Register, VI, 428. Mentioned by Hornby, The Shakesp. Soc. Papers, II, 106. Printed in Bullen, I, lxxxiii; Chambers, 381; Mrs. Stopes, 107.

Note 23 in page 832 P. C. Register, VI, 429. Printed in Chambers, 500 note; Collier, I, 451 note, 2d ed., 430 note 1; Dyce, I, xxxv; Hornby, op. cit., 106; Bullen, I, lxxxii; Chambers, 381; Mrs. Stopes, 108.

Note 24 in page 832 Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other Libraries of Northern Italy, ed. Allen B. Hinds. Vol. XVIII (London, 1912), 425.

Note 25 in page 832 B.M., MS Addit. 27962, vol. C, f. 191v.

Note 26 in page 833 I quote from the impression with the engraved title-page. The Leyden edition reads: “A/Game at Chesse/as/It hath bine sundry times Acted/at/The Globe on the Banck side/.”

Note 27 in page 834 As Nethersole was writing sometime before the evening of the 14th (he says earlier “Mons Phiat [d'Effiat] returneth not hither from Court till this night”), it might be argued that the play could have been stopped that afternoon after the letter was penned, and so give the dates 4-7, 9-13 August. However, Conway's letter may have been delayed beyond the afternoon of the 14th by the difficulty of finding one of the lords of the Privy Council, who were generally absent from the city during a progress. Also we should expect Lowe, although he may have mistaken the opening by a day, to have known if the play had begun this early.

Note 28 in page 834 Fleay's suggestion (A Chronicle History of the London Stage [London, 1890], 266) that the play opened “c. 3rd August” has nothing to recommend it.

Note 29 in page 834 Printed in Edward Capell, The School of Shakespeare (London, 1783), 31; Edmund Malone [ed. James Boswell], The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (London, 1821), III, 176 note 3; Dyce, I, xxxv; Bullen, I, lxxxiii.

Note 30 in page 834 Since the materials for this paper were collected, Miss E. M. Albright in her Dramatic Publication in England, 1580-1640 (New York, 1927) has referred to, but not quoted nos. 8 and 13 (p. 166 note 180, 182), besides adding (p. 168) a later allusion by the Venetian ambassador, Alvise Valaresso, in a letter to the doge dated 6 Sept., 1624 (S. P. Venetian, XVIII, p. 432), as follows: “The comedians who presented what I reported [see no. 13], have been condemned not to perform until further order. The Council pronounced this sentence, the king having referred the case to them. He willingly refers such cases to them, in order to give them some employment and rid himself of the odium of such decisions.”

It may be noted that the quotation from Chamberlain's letter (no. 7) given in this volume (p. 165), includes by inadvertance part of a paraphrase by the author and not the text from which the quotation is made.