| Abstract |
This paper discuses how Henry VIII's government controlled the stage, as well as appropriating it for propaganda purposes. The Reformation and the break with Rome in the 1530s encouraged first-generat...ion Protestant leaders, such as Thomas Cromwell, to use the stage as a weapon in religious and political controversy. John Bale and his fellows under the patronage of Cromwell produced anti-Catholic plays in the latter half of the 1530s when Henry’s government enforced a series of anti-papal acts and policies. In 1539, Henry gave royal assent to an Act “abolishing diversity of opinions” (the Act of Six articles), marking a return to orthodoxy in religious policies. In the 1540s, Henry repressed radical Protestantism, making it difficult for Protestant sympathizers to use the stage to disseminate their political and religious ideas. After 1540, the number of anti-Catholic plays performed in English decreased sharply. Alfred Harbage’s Annals of English Drama assigns only one protestant play to the period 1541-47, as against twenty to the years 1533-40. Although there is evidence that protestant plays were produced even in the 1540s, there is no denying that anti-Catholic drama to decline soon after the triumph of religious conservatism in 1539-40. The traditional mystery plays were also affected by the Reformation movement in the 1530s. In 1535 in York, the Corpus Christi play was “not played forsomuch as [the] creed play was then played by the order of my lord mayor and his brethren.” In 1536, the city council agreed that the “Corpus Christi play shall be spared for this year and notplayed forsomuch as [the] Pater Noster play ought by course to be played this year.” The Corpus Christi play, however, seems to have been revived in 1537, when the anti-papal play was flourishing. This suggests that although Protestant Reformers were hostile to the religious plays of Catholic times, they did not make a sustained effort to suppress the traditional religious stage.show more
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