English Renaissance Drama 1 страница

English Renaissance drama grew out of the established Medieval tradition of the mystery and morality plays. These public spectacles focused on religious subjects and were generally enacted by either choristers and monks, or a town's tradesmen (as later seen lovingly memorialized by Shakespeare's 'mechanicals' in A Midsummer Night's Dream). At the end of the XV c., a new type of play appeared. These short plays and revels were performed at noble households and at court, especially at holiday times. These short entertainments, called " Interludes ", started the move away from the didactic nature of the earlier plays toward purely secular plays, and often added more comedy than was present in the medieval predecessors. Since most of these holiday revels were not documented and play texts have disappeared and been destroyed, the actual dating of the transition is difficult. The first extant purely secular play, Henry Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres, was performed at the household of Cardinal Morton, where the young Thomas More was serving as a page. Early Tudor interludes soon grew more elaborate, incorporating music and dance, and some, especially those by John Heywood, were heavily influenced by French farce.

HEYWOOD, JOHN, English dramatist and epigrammatist, is generally said to have been a native of North Mimms, near St. Albans, Hertfordshire, though Bale says he was born in London. A letter from a John Heywood, who may fairly be identified with him, is dated from Malines in 1575, when he called himself an old man of seventy-eight, which would fix his birth in 1497. He was a chorister of the Chapel Royal, and is said to have been educated at Broadgates Hall (Pembroke College), Oxford. From 1521 onwards his name appears in the king's accounts as the recipient of an annuity of ten marks as player of the virginals, and in 1538 he received forty shillings for "playing an interlude with his children" before the Princess Mary. He is said to have owed his introduction to her to Sir Thomas More, at whose seat at Gobions near St. Albans he wrote his epigrams, according to Henry Peacham. More took a keen interest in the drama, and is represented by tradition as stepping on to the stage to take an impromptu part in the dialogue. William Rastell, the printer of four of Heywood's plays, was the son of More's brother-in-law, John Rastell, who organized dramatic representations, and possibly wrote plays himself. Mr. A.W. Pollard sees in Heywood's firm adherence to Catholicism and his free satire of legal and social abuses a reflection of the idea of More and his friends, which counts for much in his dramatic development. His skill in music and his inexhaustible wit made him a favorite both with Henry VIII and Mary. Under Edward VI, he was accused of denying the king's supremacy over the church, and had to make a public recantation in 1554; but with the accession of Mary his prospects brightened. He made a Latin speech to her in St. Paul's Churchyard at her coronation, and wrote a poem to celebrate her marriage. Shortly before her death she granted him the lease of a manor and lands in Yorkshire. When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne he fled to Malines, and is said to have returned in 1577. In 1587 he is spoken of as "dead and gone" in Thomas Newton's epilogue to his works. John Heywood is important in the history of English drama as the first writer to turn the abstract characters of the morality plays into real persons.

His interludes link the morality plays to the modern drama, and were very popular in their day. They represent ludicrous indicents of a homely kind in the style of the broadest farce, and approximate to the French dramatic renderings of the subjects of the fabliaux. The fun in them still survives in spite of the long arguments between characters and what one of their editors calls his "humour of filth." Heywood's name was actually attached to four interludes. The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler (not dated) is a contest in lying, easily won by Palmer, who said he had never known a woman out of patience. The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers (printed 1533) describes the chaotic results of Jupiter's attempts to suit the weather to the desires of a number of different people. The Play of Love (printed 1533) is an extreme instance of the author's love of wire-drawn argument. It is a double dispute between "Loving not Loved" and "Loved not Loving" as to which is the more wretched, and between "Both Loved and Loving" and "Neither Loving nor Loved" to decide which is the happier. The only action in this piece is indicated by the stage direction marking the entrance of "Neither loved nor loving," who is to run about the audience with a huge copper tank on his head full of lighted squibs, and is to cry "Water, water! Fire, fire!" The Dialogue of Wit and Folly is more of an academic dispute than a play. But two pieces universally assigned to Heywood, although they were printed by Rastell without any author's name, combine action with dialogue, and are much more dramatic. In The Mery Play between the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte (printed 1533, but probably written much earlier) the Pardoner and the Friar both try to preach at the same time, and, coming at last to blows, are separated by the other two personages of the piece. The Mery Play betwene Johan Johan the Husbande, Tyb the Wyfe, and Syr Jhan the Preest (printed 1533) is the best constructed of all his pieces. Tyb and Syr Jhan eat the "Pye" which is the central "property" of the piece, while Johan Johan is made to chafe wax at the fire to stop a hole in a pail. This incident occurs in a French Farce nouvelle très bonne at fort joyeuse de Pernet qui va au vin. Heywood has sometimes been credited with the authorship of the dialogue of Gentylnes and Nobylyte printed by Rastell without date, and Mr. Pollard adduces some ground for attributing to him the anonymous New Enterlude called Thersytes (played 1538). Heywood's other works are a collection of proverbs and epigrams, the earliest extant edition of which is dated 1562; some ballads, one of them being the "Willow Garland," known to Desdemona; and a long verse allegory of over 7000 lines entitled The Spider and the Flie (1556). A contemporary writer in Holinshed's Chronicle said that neither its author nor any one else could "reach unto the meaning thereof." But the flies are generally taken to represent the Roman Catholics and the spiders the Protestants, while Queen Mary is represented by the housemaid who with her broom (the sword) executes the commands of her master (Christ) and her mistress (the church). Dr. A.W. Ward speaks of its "general lucidity and relative variety of treatment." Heywood says that he laid it aside for twenty years before he finished it, and, whatever may be the final interpretation put upon it, it contains a very energetic statement of the social evils of the time, and especially of the deficiencies of English law.

NICHOLAS UDAL [or Udall], English schoolmaster, translator and playwright, author of the earliest extant English comedy, Roister Doister, came of the family of Uvedale, who in the 14th century became lords of Wykeham, Hants, by marriage with the heiress of the Scures. The name was probably pronounced Oovedale, as it appears as Yevedale, Owdall, Woodall, with other variants. He latinized it as Udallus, and thence anglicized it as Udall. He is described as Owdall of the parish of St Cross, Southampton, 12 years old at Christmas 1516, when admitted a scholar of Winchester College in 1517. He was therefore not 14 (as Anthony Wood says) but 16 years of age when admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in June 1520; he is called Wodall as a lecturer at that college in 1526 to 1528. With John Leland he produced "dites" (ditties) "and interludes" at Anne Boleyn's coronation on the 31st of May 1533. Leland's contributions are all in Latin; those of " Udallus," which form the chief part, are mostly in English, the speeches being each spoken by a 'child,' "at Cornhill beside Leadenhall," "at the Conducte in Cornhill" and "at the little Conducte in Cheepe." His Floures for Latine Spekynge, selected and gathered out of Terence and the same translated into Englysshe, published by Bartlet (in aedibus Bertheleti), were dedicated "to my most sweet flock of pupils, from the monastery of the monks of the order of Augustine," on the 28th of February 1533-1534. There were no monks of that order, and whether Austin Friars or Augustinian canons were meant is open to doubt. The book was prefaced with laudatory Latin verses by Leland and by Edmund Jonson. The latter was a Winchester and Oxford contemporary of Udal's, in 1528 lower master (hostiarius) at Eton, a post which he left to become master of the school of St Anthony's Hospital, then the most flourishing school in London. From the dedication we may infer that Udal was usher under Jonson and "the sweet flock" was at St Anthony's school next door to Austin Friars.

At Midsummer 1534 he became head master of Eton (informator puerorum or ludi grammaticalis; Eton Audit Book. 25-26 Hen. VIII.). It has been suggested (Dic. Nat. Biog.) that the Floures was dedicated to Eton boys in advance; but this is unlikely, as in those days schools never got their masters till the place was vacant, or on the verge of vacancy. At Eton Udal's salary was £10 and £1 for livery, with "petty receipts" of 8s. 4d. for obits, 2s. 8d. for laundress, 2s. for candles for his chamber, and 23s. 4d. "for ink, candles and other things given to the grammar school by Dr Lupton, provost." One of his school books, Commentaries on the Tusculan questions of Cicero (ed. Berouldus, 1509), with the inscription "sum Nicolai Udalli 1536," is in the King's Library at the British Museum. There was a yearly play, 3s. being paid for the repair of the dresses of the players at Christmas, and 1s. 4d. to a servant of the dean of Windsor for bringing his master's clothes for the players. A payment for repair of the players' dresses recurs every year. Udal has been credited (E. K. Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii. 144, 192) with producing a play at Braintree while vicar there, recorded in the churchwardens' accounts for 1534 as "Placidas alias Sir Eustace." The play is actually called in the accounts (only extant in 17th-century extracts) "Placy Dacy alias St Ewastacy," and is the old play of Placidas, mentioned in the 9th century. Udal did not become vicar of Braintree till the 27th of September 1537 (Newcourt's Repert. ii. 89). At Michaelmas he resigned the mastership of Eton to reside at Braintree, being called "late schole-master wose roome nowe enjoyeth and occupieth Mr Tindall" in a letter from the provost to Thomas Cromwell, then privy seal, on the 7th October 1537 (Lett. and Pa. Hen. VIII., 1537).

He returned to Eton, however, or rather to Hedgeley, the school being removed there on account of the plague, at Midsummer 1537, being paid for the third and fourth terms of the school year (Eton Audit Book, 29-30 Hen. VIII.). In October 1538 "Nicholas Uvedale, professor of the liberal arts, informator and schoolmaster of Eton," was licensed to hold the vicarage of Braintree, "with other benefices," without personal residence. The accounts of Cromwell for 1538 include "Woodall, the scholemaster of Eton, to playing before my lord, £5." Presumably he brought a troupe of Eton boys with him. In that year he published a second edition of his Floures of Terence for the benefit of Eton boys. The often-questioned account of Thomas Tusser (Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie) is typical of Eton at the time, as Udal's predecessor Cox is said in Ascham's Scholemaster to have been "the best scholemaster and greatest beater of our time". Udal's rule of the rod at Eton was brought to an abrupt conclusion by his being brought up before the privy council on the 14th of March 1540/1541 for being "counsail" with two of the boys, Thomas Cheney, a relation of the lord treasurer of the household, and Thomas Hoorde, for stealing some silver images and chapel ornaments. He denied the theft, but confessed to a much more scandalous offence with Cheney, and was sent to the Marshalsea prison.

He tried, but failed, to get restored to Eton. Attempts have been made to whitewash him. But his own confession, and an abject letter of repentance with promises of amendment, addressed, (probably) to Wriothesley, a Hampshire man and a family friend, cannot be got over. It shows that he was a bad schoolmaster as well as an immoral one, since he pleads "myn honest chaunge from vice to vertue, from prodigalitee to frugall lyving, from negligence of teachyng to assiduitee, from play to studie, from lightness to gravitee." In 1542-1543, after the bursar of Eton had ridden up to London to the provost, Udal was paid "53s. 4d. in full satisfaction of his salary in arrears and other things due to him while he was teaching the children"; but on the other side of the account appears an item of "60s. received from Dr Coxe for Udal's debts." So no money passed to Udal. He seems to have maintained himself by translating into English, in 1542, Erasmus's Apophthegms and other works. In 1544 he published a new edition of the Floures of Terence. He seems to have taken a schoolmastership in Northumberland or Durham, as Leland in one of his Encomia speaks of him, probably at this time, as translated to the Brigantes. He seems to have been made to resign his living at Braintree, a successor being appointed on the 14th of December 1544. He purged himself, however, by composing the Answer to the Articles of the Commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall (Pocock, Troubles of the Prayer Book of 1549, Camd. Soc., new series, 37, 141, 193), when they rose in rebellion in the summer of 1549 against the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. In 1551 he received a patent for printing his translation of Peter Martyr's two works on the Eucharist and the Great Bible in English (Pat. 4 Edw. VI. pt. 5, m. 5, Shakespeare Soc. iii. xxx.). He was rewarded by being made a canon of Windsor on the 14th of December 1551. On the 5th of January "after the common reckoning 1552" (i.e. 1551/2) he edited a translation of Erasmus's Paraphrases of the Gospels, himself translating the first three, while that on St John was being translated by the princess Mary, till she fell sick and handed her work over to Dr Malet. The work was done at the suggestion and expense of the dowager queen Katharine, in whose charge Mary was. A translation by Udal of Geminus's Anatomie or Compendiosa totius anatomiae delineatio, a huge volume with gruesome plates, was published in 1553." Udal's preface is dated the 10th of July 1552 "at Windesore." In June and September 1553 (Trevelyan Pap. Camd. Soc. 84, ii. 31, 33) "Mr Nicholas Uvedale" was paid at the rate of £13, 6s. 8d. a year as "scholemaster to Mr Edward Courtney, beinge within the Tower of London, by virtue of the King's Majesty's Warrant" - the young earl of Devon, who had been in prison ever since he was twelve years old.

Queen Mary on the 3rd of December 1554 issued a warrant on Udal's behalf reciting that he had "at soundrie seasons convenient heretofore shewed and myndeth hereafter to shewe his diligence in setting forth Dialogues and Enterludes before us for our royal disporte and recreacion," and directing "the maister and yeomen of the office of the Revells" to deliver whatever Udal should think necessary for setting forth such devices, while the exchequer was ordered to provide the money to buy them (Loseley MSS. Kempe 63, and Hist. MSS. Corn. Rep. vii. 612). One of these interludes was probably Roister Doister; for it was in January 1553, i.e. 1554, that Thomas Wilson, master of St Katharine's Hospital by the Tower, produced the third edition of The Rule of Reason, the first text-book on logic written in English,which contains, while the two earlier editions, published in 1551 and 1552 respectively, do not contain, a long quotation from Roister Doister. It gives under the heading of "ambiguitie," as " an example of such doubtful writing whiche, by reason of poincting, maie have double sense and contrarie meaning... taken out of an intrelude made by Nicholas Udal," the letter which Ralph Roister procured a scrivener to compose for him, asking Christian Constance, the heroine, to marry him. Roister's emissary read it "Sweete mistresse, where as I love you nothing at all, Regarding your substance and richnesse chiefe of all," and so on; whereas it was meant to read "Sweete mistresse, whereas I love you (nothing at all Regarding your substance and richnesse) chiefe of all, For your personage, beautie, demeanour and wit." The play was entered at Stationers' Hall, when printed in 1566. Only one copy is known, which was given to Eton by an old Etonian, the Rev. Th. Briggs, in 1818, who privately printed thirty copies of it. As the title-page is gone the only evidence of its authorship is Wilson's quotation. Wilson being an Etonian, it has been argued that his quotation was a reminiscence of his Eton days, and that the play was written for and first performed by Eton boys. But the occurrence of the quotation first in the edition of 1554, and its absence in the previous editions of 1551 and 1552, coupled with the absence of anything in the play to suggest any connexion with a school, while the scene is laid in London and among London citizens and is essentially a London play, furnish a strong argument that Roister Doister first appeared in 1553, and therefore could not have been written at Eton or for Eton boys.

Nor could it have been written at Westminster School or for Westminster boys, as argued by Professor Hales in Eng. Studien (1893) xviii. 408. For though Udal did become head master of Westminster, he only became so nearly two years after Wilson's quotation from Roister Doister appeared. He was at Winchester in the interval, for Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and chancellor, by will of the 8th of November 1555 (P.C.C. 3 Noodes), gave 40 marks (£26, 13s. 4d.) to "Nicholas Udale, my scholemaister." In what sense he was Gardiner's schoolmaster it is hard to guess. He was not head master or usher of Winchester College; but he may have been master of the old City Grammar or High School, to which the bishop appointed (A. F. Leach, Hist. Winch. Coll. 32, 48). The schoolhouse had been leased out for 41 years in 1544 but it is possible Gardiner had revived the school or kept a school at his palace of Wolvesey. At Westminster "Mr Udale was admitted to be scholemaster 16 Dec. anno 1555" (Chapter Act-Book). The last act of the secular canons, substituted by Henry VIII for the monks, was the grant of a lease on the 24th of September 1556. When the monks re-entered, on Mary's restoration of the abbey (Nov. 21, 1556), the school did not, as commonly alleged, cease, nor had Udal ceased to be master (Shakespeare Soc. iii. xxxiv.) when he died a month later. The parish register of St Margaret's, Westminster, under "Burials in December A.D. 1556" records "11 die Katerine Woddall," "23 die Nicholas Yevedale," i.e. Udal. Katharine was perhaps a sister or other relation, as Elizabeth Udall was buried there on the 8th of July 1559. The abbey cellarer's accounts ending Michaelmas 1557 contain a payment "to Thomas Notte, usher of the boys, £6, 10s., and to the scholars (scolasticis vocatis le grammer childern), £63, 6s. 8d.," showing that the usher carried on the school after Udal's death. Next year (1557-1558) the abbey receiver accounted for £20 paid to John Passey, (the new) schoolmaster, to Richard Spenser, usher, £15, and £133, 6s. 8d. for 40 grammar boys. So it is clear that the school never stopped. Udal therefore was master of Westminster for just over two years. He died at the age of 52. Roister Doister well deserves its fame as the first English comedy. It is infinitely superior to any of its predecessors in form and substance. It has sometimes been described as a mere adaptation of Plautus's Miles Gloriosus. Though the central idea of the play - that of a braggart soldier (with an impecunious parasite to flatter him) who thinks every woman he sees falls in love with him and is finally shown to be an arrant coward - is undoubtedly taken from Plautus, yet the plot and incidents, and above all the dialogue, are absolutely original, and infinitely superior to those of Plautus. Even the final incident, in which the hero is routed, is made more humorous by the male slaves being represented by maidservants with mops and pails. The play was printed by F. Marshall in 1821; in Thomas White's Old English Dramas (3 vols., 1830); by the Shakespeare Society, vol. iii., the introduction to which contains the fullest and most accurate account of his life; in Edward Arber's reprints in 1869; and Dodsley's Old Plays (1894), vol. iii. (A. F. L.)

THOMAS SACKVILLE, Lord Buckhurst, and Earl of Dorset, was the son of Sir Richard Sackville, and was born at Withyam, in Sussex. He was educated at both universities, and enjoyed an early reputation in Latin as well as in English poetry. While a student of the Inner Temple, he wrote his tragedy of Gorboduc, which was played by the young students, as a part of a Christmas entertainment, and afterwards before Queen Elizabeth I at Whitehall, in 1561. In a subsequent edition of this piece it was entitled the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex. He is said to have been assisted in the composition of it by Thomas Norton; but to what extent does not appear. T. Warton disputed the fact of his being at all indebted to Norton. The merit of the piece does not render the question of much importance. This tragedy and his contribution of the Induction and legend of the Duke of Buckingham to the "Mirror for Magistrates," compose the poetical history of Sackville's life. The rest of it was political. He had been elected to parliament at the age of thirty. Six years afterwards, in the same year that his Induction and legend of Buckingham were published, he went abroad on his travels, and was, for some reason that is not mentioned, confined, for a time, as a prisoner at Rome; but he returned home, on the death of his father, in 1566, and was soon after promoted to the title of Lord Buckhurst. Having entered at first with rather too much prodigality on the enjoyment of his patrimony, he is said to have been reclaimed by the indignity of being kept in waiting by an alderman, from whom he was borrowing money, and to have made a resolution of economy, from which he never departed.

The Queen employed him, in the fourteenth year of her reign, in an embassy to Charles IX of France. In 1587 he went as ambassador to the United Provinces, upon their complaint against the Earl of Leicester; but, though he performed his trust with integrity, the favourite had sufficient influence to get him recalled; and on his return, he was ordered to confinement in his own house, for nine or ten months. On Leicester's death, however, he was immediately reinstated in royal favour, and was made Knight of the Garter, and Chancellor of Oxford. On the death of Burleigh he became Lord High Treasurer of England. At Queen Elizabeth's demise he was one of the Privy Counsellors on whom the administration of the kingdom devolved, and he concurred in proclaiming King James. The new sovereign confirmed him in the office of High Treasurer by a patent for life, and on all occasions consulted him with confidence. In March, 1604, he was created Earl of Dorset. He died suddenly at the council table, in consequence of a dropsy on the brain [stroke]. Few ministers, as Lord Orford remarks, have left behind them so unblemished a character. His family considered his memory so invulnerable, that when some partial aspersions were thrown upon it, after his death, they disdained to answer them. He carried taste and elegance even into his formal political functions, and for his eloquence was styled the belle of the Star Chamber. As a poet, his attempt to unite allegory with heroic narrative, and his giving our language its earliest regular tragedy, evince the views and enterprize of no ordinary mind; but, though the induction to the Mirror for Magistrates displays some potent sketches, it bears the complexion of a saturnine genius, and resembles a bold and gloomy landscape on which the sun never shines. As to Gorboduc, it is a piece of monotonous recitals, and cold and heavy accumulation of incidents. As an imitation of classical tragedy it is peculiarly unfortunate, in being without even the unities of place and time, to circumscribe its dulness.

Not only were plays shifting emphasis from teaching to entertaining, they were also slowly changing focus from the religious towards the political. John Skelton's Magnyfycence (1515), for example, while on the face of it resembling the medieval allegory plays with its characters of Virtues and Vices, was a political satire against Cardinal Wolsey. Magnyfycence was so incendiary that Skelton had to move into the sanctuary of Westminster to escape the wrath of Wolsey.

The first history plays were written in the 1530's, the most notable of which was John Bale's King Johan. While it considered matters of morality and religion, these were handled in the light of the Reformation. These plays set the precedent of presenting history in the dramatic medium and laid the foundation for what would later be elevated by Marlowe and Shakespeare into the English History Play, or Chronicle Play, in the latter part of the century. Not only was the Reformation taking hold in England, but the winds of Classical Humanism were sweeping in from the Continent. Interest grew in the classics and the plays of classical antiquity, especially in the universities. Latin texts were being "Englysshed" and latin poetry and plays began to be adapted into English plays. In 1553, a schoolmaster named Nicholas Udall wrote an English comedy titled "Ralph Roister Doister" based on the traditional Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence. The play was the first to introduce the Latin character type miles gloriosus ("braggart soldier") into English plays, honed to perfection later by Shakespeare in the character of Falstaff. Around the same time at Cambridge, the comedy "Gammer Gurton's Needle", possibly by William Stevens of Christ's College, was amusing the students. It paid closer attention to the structure of the Latin plays and was the first to adopt the five-act division.

Writers were also developing English tragedies for the first time, influenced by Greek and Latin writers. Among the first forays into English tragedy were Richard Edwards' Damon and Pythias (1564) and John Pickering's New Interlude of Vice Containing the History of Horestes (1567). The most influential writer of classical tragedies, however, was the Roman playwright Seneca, whose works were translated into English by Jasper Heywood, son of playwright John Heywood, in 1589. Seneca's plays incorporated rhetorical speeches, blood and violence, and often ghosts; components which were to figure prominently in both Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

The first prominent English tragedy in the Senecan mould was Gorboduc (1561), written by two lawyers, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, at the Inns of Court (schools of law). Apart from following Senecan conventions and structure, the play is most important as the first English play to be in blank verse. Blank verse, non-rhyming lines in iambic pentameter, was introduced into English literature by sonneteers Wyatt and Surrey in the 1530's. Its use in a work of dramatic literature paved the way for "Marlowe's mighty line" and the exquisite poetry of Shakespeare's dramatic verse. With a new ruler on the throne, Queen Elizabeth I, who enjoyed and encouraged the theatrical arts, the stage was set for the body of dramatic literature we today call Elizabethan Drama.

In 1600, the city of London had a population of 245,000 people, twice the size of Paris or Amsterdam. Playwriting was the least personal form of writing, but clearly the most profitable for literary men since the demand was so great: 15,000 people attended the playhouses weekly. What is often exploited in the plays is the tension between a Court culture and a commercial culture, which in turn reflected the tension between the City government and the Crown. The period from 1576 (date of the first public theatre in London) to 1642 (date that the Puritans closed the theatres) is unparalleled in its output and quality of literature in English. The monarchy rested on two claims: that it was of divine origin and that it governed by consent of the people. The period was one of great transition. This period of history is generally regarded as the English Renaissance, which took place approximately 100 years later than on the continent. The period also coincides with the Reformation, and the two eras are of course mutually related. Imposed upon the Elizabethans was a social hierarchy of order and degree—very much medieval concepts that existed more in form than in substance. The society of Shakespeare's time had in many ways broken free of these rigidities. It was not that people were rejecting the past; rather, a new more rigid order was replacing the old. This was set into motion during Henry VIII's reign in the 1530s when he assumed more power than had hitherto been known to the monarchy. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 gave to Henry the power of the Church as well as temporal power.

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