Pleasing the Queen but Preserving Our Past
101
approached sanctification, and some reformers began to believe it was sacrilege
for anyone to portray (‘‘counterfeit” was the word often used) God the Father or
Christ (Ashton 5, 6). A parliamentary act of 1543 specified that “in no plays nor
interludes they might make any expositions of Scripture” (Burnett 1: 583).
Early Protestant reformers like John Bale used religious plays
presenting anti-papal, pro-Protestant messages in the late 1530s (White 12-^1).
However, when Henry VIII swung back towards a more Catholic stance in the
1540s, these plays were banned (Collinson Birthpangs 102-04). The shifting
religious policies of the 1530s and 1540s must have made people fearful of
presenting any kind of religious theme, whether of Catholic or Protestant bent.
The government of Henry’s son and successor Edward VI was
pronouncedly Protestant, as was Edward himself For example, Spain’s
ambassador to England noted that Edward played an active role in the plan to
name his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as his successor (Taylor 70-1,
Plowden 147-52). Edward’s government introduced wide-sweeping changes in
worship. Parishes were ordered to remove and sell off all statues, religious
images and ornaments, and any other accoutrements that bore “popish” symbols
including “popish” vestments, and the costumes and properties owned by, or
stored in, churches, which previously had been used in religious plays—in short,
anything that represented the old religious order. Further, the libraries of the
monasteries and other religious establishments were dissolved by Henry VIll
and Edward VI, and those of several parish churches as well, were sold off.
Most play scripts used by players in towns and cities now disappeared into
private hands never to be seen again. In 1549 penalties were enacted to punish
anyone who performed plays that could be construed as criticisms of the new
Protestant liturgy and practice (White 57). Two years later, in 1551, a
proclamation outlawed all players except the King’s Players and a small number
of troupes under the patronage of Protestant lords (Lancashire 70-72), but even
the performances and scripts of these “authorized” players needed the prior
approval of Edward’s Privy Council (White 42-63). All of these measures, and
more, were reinforced by English bishops, their deputies, and royal officials who
made frequent parish visitations to ensure local compliance with the mandated
reforms (Haigh 166-83, 208-11). Hence, the religious policies of Henry VIll
and Edward VI deprived local, civic-sponsored drama of holidays on which it
could be performed and of locations for its performance, of its traditionally
accepted dramatic content, of the costumes and properties necessary for its
performance, and of its scripts, (Lancashire 63, 68, 203, 205, 289). It is no
wonder that the parish and civic theatrical activity that had flourished for 200
years disappeared all over England before the death of Edward VI in 1553.
Recent scholarship argues that with the succession of the Catholic
Mary most Englishmen returned to the Mass with far more enthusiasm than
Elizabethan propaganda would admit, but restoring the ruined and scattered
accoutrements of traditional Catholicism was expensive and time-consuming.