Cardinal's Conspiracy, The
Historical Records
Letter from Edmund Rossingham to Viscount Conway
This letter is dated 8 May, 1639, and includes various items of news. The last of them runs:
- Thursday last the players of the Fortune were fined 1,000l. for setting up an altar, a bason, and two candlesticks, and bowing down before it on the stage, and although they allege it was an old play revived, and an altar to the heathen gods, yet it was apparent that this play was revived on purpose in contempt of the ceremonies of the Church; and if my paper were not at an end I would enlarge myself on this subject, to show what was said of altars.
-Bentley, JCS, 5.1300-01; M. A. E. Green, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1639 (London: Longman, 1856), 140-1.
Vox Borealis (?1640)
Vox Borealis, printed in (probably) 1640, is a satirical news pamphlet:
- In the meane time, let me tell ye a lamentable Tragedie, acted by the Prelacie, against the poore Players of the Fortune play-house, which made them sing,
- Fortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me? &c.
- [f]or they having gotten a new old Play, called, The Cardinalls Conspiracie, whom they brought upon the stage in as great state as they could, with Altars, Images, Crosses, Crucifixes, and the like, to set forth his pomp and pride. But wofull was the sight, to see how, in the middest of all their mirth, the Pursevants came and seized upon the poore Cardinall, and all his Consorts, and carryed them away. And when they were questioned for it, in the High Commission Court, they pleaded Ignorance and told the Archbishop, that they tooke those examples of their altars, images, and the like, from Heathen Authors. This did somewhat asswage his anger, that they did not bring him on the Stage: But yet they were fined for it, and, after a little Imprisonment, gat their libertie. And having nothing left them but a few old Swords and Bucklers, they fell to Act the Valiant Scot…
- Vox Borealis, or the Northern Discoverie (n.pl.: "Margery Mar-Prelat", "1641"), B2r-B2v; internal evidence suggests that the pamphlet's date is 1640 not 1641; the EEBO version is deficient, and there is a full facsimile at The Internet Archive http://www.archive.org. The same account appears again in A Second discovery by the Northern Scout (London: B. W., 1642), 8.
Theatrical Provenance
Acted at the Red Bull Theatre by the Red Bull-King's Company.
Probable Genre(s)
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Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
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References to the Play
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Critical Commentary
Bentley thinks of the Red Bull-King's Company as lowbrow purveyors of "noise and vulgarity": this view has been opposed by John H. Astington.
For What It's Worth
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Works Cited
John H. Astington, "Playing the Man: Acting at the Red Bull and the Fortune," Early Theatre 9.2 (2006): 130-43. <List all texts cited throughout the entry, except those staple texts whose full bibliographical details have been provided in the masterlist of Works Cited found on the sidebar menu. Use the coding below to format the list>
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