Pre-Shakespearean Interludes

Entertainments known as Interludes were staged for the amusement of the court of Henry VIII by the "Players of the King's Interludes." They contain witty, often obscene, sometimes tongue-twisting dialogue fraught with double entendre and amply opportunity for knockabout action. Six texts survive all of which are attributed to John Heywood. They include The Play of the Weather, A Dialogue concerning the Witty and the Witless (both published in 1533), and The Play Called the Four P.P. (c. 1520-22) This last deals with a debate between a Palmer (pilgrim), a Pardoner, an aPothecary and a Pedlar. It is resolved by means of a lying contest among three of the four with the Pedlar acting as judge.

The 'Pothecary begins with a somewhat bawdy tale of a woman he supposedly cured of the falling sickness (epilepsy) by giving her a glister (enema). Says the 'Pothecary::

The Pardoner took his turn next with a very long tale of going to rescue Margery Coorson, a woman friend to whose deathbed he had come too late. He sought her by journeying first to Purgatory, thence to hell and making a bargain with Lucifer for her soul. And having retrieved her, she can be found even now on Newmarket Heath.

Two fairly good yarns, but the contest was ultimately won by the Palmer when he lied:

A witty and sometimes ribald farce, the play deals humorously with the very real problems raised by the Reformation. In it, Heywood satirizes the religious charlatans of his day, but he also prays that the Church may heal itself from within without bloodshed and violence. Perhaps Heywood was flattering his monarch, the young Henry VIII, but The Play of the Four P.P. became a propaganda piece in Henry's battle with the pope.

Heywood remained a devout Roman Catholic to the end. His brother Thomas was a Roman priest who was executed for his faith. John Heywood had three children who carried the Roman faith into the reign of Charles I: Elizabeth (John Donne's mother), and two sons, Jasper (translator of Seneca) and Ellis both of whom were Jesuits and hence in danger of their lives every time they ventured into England. John himself narrowly escaped execution for his alleged involvement in a 1544 plot to assassinate Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. He ultimately left England early in the reign of Elizabeth I, never to return.

Heywood, reputed to be an accomplished singer and virginal player, is best known for his wit. There is a legend that has the ring of truth that on his deathbed in Malines, his confessor repeatedly lamented, "Flesh is frail. Flesh is frail." The dying Heywood is said to have roused himself and remarked, "Thou seemst to be sorry that God hadn't made me a fish."

Professional troupes also performed various popular interludes, e.g.. Henry Medwall's Fulgens and Lucrece and Nature. Medwall was chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, John Cardinal Morton. Fulgens and Lucrece, first performed at Lambeth Palace in 1497 on Christmas to entertain the ambassadors from Spain and Flanders, was only rediscovered in 1919. Performed in two parts at a banquet, perhaps like some of the court masques that were to follow in the next century, Fulgens and Lucrece deals with eh wooing of a Roman heiress (Lucrece) by an idle aristocrat (Publius) and a commoner (Gaius) who had risen to prominence because of his skills at governing. Lucrece chooses the commoner! The story was based on the real-life conflict between the old court and the new, talented humanist administrators who had risen to prominence at the court of Henry VII. Medwall and John Cardinal Morton were among the new class of administrators at court. It is not surprising that the old order, therefore, comes in for the bulk of the satire. It uses what seems like a very modern--almost Pirandelloesque--device of a comic subplot involving two character who come out of the audience, discuss the play lie the two old codgers on the old Muppet Show and force their way into the action as the servants of Publius and Gaius. And all this took place in front of the Roman Catholic ambassador from Spain and the Protestant ambassador from Flanders!

Still other interludes reflected the new humanism of the English Renaissance, e.g.. Wit and Science by John Redford and The Four Elements by John Rastell who had a little theatre built on the grounds of his estate and owned a number of "theatrical costumes." (He may also be related to John Heywood's wife, Elizabeth Rastell...?)

It was for John Bale to take the form to its most propagandistic extreme. A Cambridge educated ex-Carmelite monk, Bale wrote "scabrously anti-Catholic" plays such as Three Laws and King John. Aided and abetted by Lord Chancellor Thomas Cromwell and Archbishop (and author of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer) Thomas Cranmer, Bale's attacks on the clergy became alarming even to the king. In 1543, Parliament banned "interpretations of Scripture...contrary to the doctrine set forth or to be set forth [emphasis added] by the King's Majesty." Bale and others had already fled to the Geneva of Calvin.