To study the interaction of drama and politics in the reign of Henry VIII is to study a period of considerable significance in both spheres of activity. The political and religious events of the 1520s and 1530s; the royal ‘divorce(s)’; the break with Rome; the sessions of the Reformation Parliament and the religious innovations and reactions of the late 1530s and 1540s have all received detailed scholarly analysis, and will continue to do so as we still have much to learn about each. The drama of the period, although less well known, is no less vibrant.

The years between 1509 and 1547 saw the continuation, and in some cases the growth, of a wide range of dramatic and quasi-dramatic activities. There were the magnificent Corpus Christi play cycles performed in York, Chester, Wakefield and many other provincial towns and cities. There were also the moral plays designed for open-air performance, generally by touring companies, of which the fifteenth-century Castle of Perseverance is perhaps the most obvious extant example, and shorter moral and religious plays put on an occasional basis by members of the religious orders, townsfolk or professional players. Again, there were the folk plays, whose content may now be approached only through eighteenth-century texts, but which must have formed an important part of agrarian festive culture throughout the realm at this time.