Pleasing the Queen but Preserving Our Past
105
refurbish the festivities. Or perhaps the city fathers were “testing the waters”
every five or so years to see if their venerable traditions could be made to fit the
new “happie time of the gospell.” We can never know for sure, but the next
official reference to the Whitsun plays did appear only three years later, and
clearly indicated that the city fathers were seeking an accommodation with
Elizabeth’s official religious stance.
The Mayors List of 1575 states that Mayor John Savage “caused the
popish plays of Chester to be played the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday after Midsummer day in contempt of an Inhibition and letters from
the primate [archbishop] of York and from the Earl of Huntington [President of
the Council of the North],” but “leaving others un-played which were thought
might not be justified for the superstition that was in them” {REED Chester 91,
96-7, 109-10). Perhaps the mayor believed the omission of patently Catholic
plays and moving the staging of the plays from Whitsuntide to coincide with the
annual parade of the civic militia would transform them into a secular activity in
the eyes of the authorities. Just as the city fathers of Norwich moved its St.
George’s Day procession to coincide with the inauguration of the new mayor
{Reed Nonvich 47, 58, 63-102). If that were the case. Mayor Savage was greatly
mistaken, for “he was served by a pursuivant [legal messenger] from York, the
same day that the new Mayor was elected,” and “took his way towards London”
{REED Chester 109).
Ultimately, Savage was exonerated from single blame by a petition sent
from the aldermen of Chester to the Privy Council. The petition stated that
Mayor Savage acted “in execution of an order taken by assembly of the said
City . . . And by and with the consent and assent of his said brethren, the then
aldermen of the said City and common council of the same” {REED Chester
115-16). So, it seems. Mayor Savage had not acted on his own, but with the
urging consent of Chester’s citizenry and aldermen. Yet this incident marked the
end of performances of Chester’s Whitsun Cycle. Later in 1575 the carriage
houses owned by the Mercers and Drapers guilds, used heretofore to house their
pageant wagons, were converted to private use. The Mercers’ house was turned
into a stable. The Drapers’ house probably was tom down, for its land was
rented out to one Edward Martyn {REED Chester 101-02).
Like Cheshire, Lincolnshire in the Tudor period was largely an
agricultural county with towns scattered throughout its countryside. Unlike
Cheshire, for which Chester was the single urban center, two such centers
existed in Lincolnshire: Lincoln, the episcopal city, and Boston, a major market
town. Population figures for the two are not available from the Tudor period
(Cannon 579-80), but based on figures from other, comparable towns it is
unlikely they possessed more t han 2000 inhabitants (Bower 141-60). In Tudor
times two major roads ran through the county, one from east to west, the other
from north to south, making the county a kind of cross-roads for travel in the
mid-part part of England {Malone Lincoln x).