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The Royal Plays at Christ Church in 1636: A New Document

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

John R. Elliott Jr  and
John Buttrey
John R. Elliott Jr
Affiliation:
John Elliott is Professor of English atSyracuse University.
John Buttrey
Affiliation:
John Buttrey is a Professional musician and musicologist.
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Extract

On 29 August 1636, King Charles I and his Queen, Henrietta Maria, paid a royal visit to the University of Oxford at the invitation of Archbishop Laud, Chancellor of the University. They lodged in Christ Church, a royal foundation and the largest of the Oxford colleges, which was to become the seat of their court during the Civil War. During the two days they spent in Oxford on this occasion, the King and Queen and their entourage were entertained with three plays: William Strode's The Floating Island, in Christ Church hall on the night of 29 August; George Wilde's Love's Hospital, in St. John's College hall on the afternoon of 30 August; and William Cartwright's The Royal Slave, again in Christ Church hall on the night of 30 August.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Summer 1985 , pp. 93 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1985

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References

Notes to the Introduction

1. Laud, William, Remains, ed. Henry, Wharton (London, 1700), II, 100–101Google Scholar. The letter is dated 15 July 1636.

2. The shelf-mark of the document in the Christ Church Archives is D.P.xi.a.i5.f.23(b).

We would like to thank Mrs J. Wells, Assistant Archivist of Christ Church, for making this and other related documents available to us.

3. The initials are ‘SFT’, standing for Samuel Fell Thesaurarius (i.e. Treasurer). There are numerous documents signed in this way by Fell in the Christ Church Archives.

4. Oxford University Archives (OUA): W.P. beta.21.(4), p. 234 (‘Liber Computi Vicecancelarij Oxon’). This lists 718li 9s 4d as coming from the Colleges and Halls, in two installments.

5. OUA: Register R, fol. 132.

6. Smuts, Malcolm, ‘The Political Failure of Stuart Cultural Patronage,’ in Lytle, G. F. and Orgel, S., eds., Patronage in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1981). p. 174.Google Scholar

7. OUA: W. P. gamma.19.1; Bodleian MS. Twyne 17, p. 181; OUA: W.P. beta 21(4), p. 154. By contrast, in 1636 Laud himself paid 394li 13s for the single play, Wilde, George's Love's HospitalGoogle Scholar, performed at St. John's (PRO: SP/16/348, no. 85).

8. OUA: Register R, fol. 132.

9. Queen's College Library MS. 390, fol. 77.

10. Orrell, John, ‘The Theatre at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605’, Shakespeare Survey, 35 (1982), 129–40Google Scholar. For the usual procedures followed by these offices in fitting out court entertainments, see Orgel, S. and Strong, R., Inigo Jones, the Theatre of the Stuart Court (London and Berkeley, 1973), I, 37–9Google Scholar; and Colvin, H. M., ed. The History of the King's Works 1483–1660 (Part II) (London, 1982), IV, 339–41.Google Scholar

11. Orrell, , loc. cit.Google Scholar

12. Laud, , op. cit., II, 100.Google Scholar

13. Langbaine, Gerard, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Oxford, 1691), p. 53Google Scholar. Langbaine's source for Busby's role is the Latin translation of Wood, Anthony's Historia et Antiquitatis Universitatis Oxoniensis by R. Peers and R. Reeves (Oxford, 1674), p. 344Google Scholar. This information does not appear in the English edition (see note 14), or in either of the two surviving manuscripts of the work, Bodleian MS Wood Fi and MS Wood F38.

14. Wood, Anthony, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, ed. John, Gutch (Oxford, 1792), II, 411.Google Scholar

15. Feil, J. P., ‘Dramatic References from the Scudamore Papers’, Shakespeare Survey, 11 (1958), 109.Google Scholar

16. I.e., a ‘branched candlestick’: see O.E.D., candelabrum.

17. Public Record Office, A.O.3/908/18.

18. Letter from Queen Henrietta to the University, OUA: Register R, fol. 138; Laud, , Remains, II, 104.Google Scholar

19. Letter of George Garrard to Edward, second Viscount Conway and Killitagh, PRO: SP/16/331, art. 14, p. 3. The letter is dated 4 September 1636.

20. Bodleian MS Twyne 17, p. 201. Twyne was among those University officials appointed to greet the King at his entry into Oxford (Register R, fol. 133v).

21. Wood, , History, 11, 411.Google Scholar

22. Heylyn, Peter, Cyprianus Anglicus, or the History of the Life and Death of William Laud (London, 1668), p. 319.Google Scholar

23. Coronae Carolinae Quadraiura. Sive Perpetuandi Imperii Carolini Ex Quarto Pignore Feliciter Suscepto Captatum Augurium. (Oxford, 1636)Google Scholar, sig. d2. (STC 19036). We are indebted to John Orrell for pointing out this reference.

24. Wood, , p. 409Google Scholar. This statement does not occur in the published Latin translation of Wood's original MS (now lost), which constituted the first version of this work, nor in Wood's second version (Bodleian MS Wood F38), but only in the third version (Bodleian MS F1, fol. 861), from which Gutch's edition was set in 1792. Modern scholars have, understandably, taken various positions on this matter. C. H. Herford and E. S. Simpson follow Wood in asserting that The Floating Island ‘is not … a performance of Inigo Jones’ (Ben Jonson (Oxford, 1950), X, 410)Google Scholar. Bentley, G. E. agrees, commenting that ‘the devices must have been interesting, even though they cannot be expected to have greatly impressed the courtiers of Charles and Henrietta Maria, accustomed to the scenic spectacles of Inigo Jones’ (Jacobean and Caroline Stage (Oxford, 1941–1968), V, 1192)Google Scholar. Orgel and Strong, however, argue that Jones was ‘almost certainly’ the designer of The Floating Island, since he also designed The Royal Slave, ‘performed on the same stage the next evening’ (op. cit., II, 827).Google Scholar

25. Smuts, , loc. cit., p. 170.Google Scholar

26. Orgel, and Strong, , I, 18Google Scholar. (In quoting Wood's transcript of Twyne's description, this work misprints ‘shuts’ as ‘shouts’ (II, 829).)

27. Evans, Willa McClung, Henry Lawes, Musician and Friend of Poets (New York and London, 1941), p. 122.Google Scholar

28. This musical miscellany, copied in the mid-17th century, was in the possession of Dr John Wilson, Professor of Music at Oxford. The songs from The Royal Slave occupy fols. 89v–g4v.

29. City Council records give the names of the Oxford waits in 1628 as: John Baldwin, father and son, John Gerrard, Phillippe Colledge, Richard Burren, and Sampson Strong. Three more musicians were added in 1638, but it is not clear whether they replaced deceased members. See Hobson, M. G. and Salter, H. E., eds., Oxford Council Acts 1626–1665, Oxford Historical Society, vol. 95 (Oxford, 1933), pp. 17, 79Google Scholar; and Woodfill, Walter L., Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I (Princeton, 1953). pp. 82–3.Google Scholar