Elizabethan Age Essay Research Paper The Elizabethan free essay sample

Elizabethan Age Essay, Research Paper The Elizabethan Age underwent a go oning crisis of faith that was marked by a intensifying polarisation of idea between the protagonists of the late established Protestant Church and the larger figure of disciples to the Roman Catholic religion. Of these latter, Edmund Campion may be taken as the original. Well known as an Englishman who fled to the Continent for scruples # 8217 ; s interest, he returned to England as a Jesuit priest, was executed by the English authorities in 1581 and was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1970. It has been observed that the writer of the Shakespeare plays displays a considerable understanding and acquaintance with the patterns and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.i The purpose here is to demo a nexus between this English Catholic leader and the author of the play, Twelfth Night, as revealed by allusions to Edmund Campion in Act IV, scene two of that drama. A Brief Outline of Campion # 8217 ; s Life Though Edmund Campion ( 1540-1581 ) was a bookman at Oxford University under the backing of Queen Elizabeth I # 8217 ; s tribunal favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Campion # 8217 ; s surveies of divinity, church history, and the church male parents led him off from the places taken by the Church of England. From Campion # 8217 ; s point of position, to fulfill the new orthodoxy of the Church of England, a reconstructionist reading of church history was being set Forth, one confab he found hard to accommodate with what he really found in the Hagiographas of those male parents [ 2 ] . Had the head covering been swept off? Were St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom truly Anglicans instead than Roman Catholics? Or were the church governments paring their canvass to the exigencies of temporal policy? Questions such as these dogged Silene, and finally his place at Oxford became indefensible since he could non do the appropriate gestures of attachment to the established church [ 3 ] . Alternatively, Campion retreated from Oxford to Dublin in 1569, where he drew less attending and enjoyed the protection of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy for Ireland, and the backing of Sir James Stanihurst, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, who planned to hold Campion take part in the initiation of what was to go Trinity College in Dublin [ 4 ] . During this period a figure of important events took topographic point. In 1568, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, was driven from her kingdom into England, where she came under the protection and detention of the English Crown. Immediately after came the rebellion of the northern Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland in the winter of 1569, who sought to put Mary on the English throne. Then, in the spring of 1570, Pope Pius V issued a hull excommunicating Queen Elizabeth and let go ofing her topics from their duty of obeisance to her. After the decease of Pius V, an enquiry to Rome sing this bull elicited the response that # 8220 ; every bit long as the Queen [ Elizabeth ] remained de facto swayer, it was lawful for Catholics to obey her in civil affairs and cooperate in all merely things # 8230 ; that it was improper for any private individual, non have oning unvarying and authorized to make so as an act of war, to murder any tyrant whatsoever, unless the autocrat, for illustr ation, had invaded his state in weaponries # 8221 ; ( Waugh, p. 94-95 ) In short, English Catholics were rejoined to follow the way of Sir Thomas More, being the Crown # 8217 ; s loyal retainer in all affairs save faith. However, as Waugh concedes, # 8220 ; It was possible to infer from this determination that the [ English ] Catholics were a organic structure of possible Rebels, who merely waited for foreign invasion to declare themselves. This was the sense in which [ William ] Cecil [ Lord Treasurer and the Queen s most sure council member ] read it, for he was loath to acknowledge the possibility of anyone being both a loyal Englishman and an opposition of his government ( Waugh p. 95 ) . The English authorities so enacted Torahs more restrictive to English Catholics. In 1570, the twelvemonth of the Papal Bull, it was made an act of high lese majesty, punishable by decease, to convey into the state # 8220 ; any bull, composing, or instrument obtained from the Bishop of Rome # 8221 ; or # 8220 ; to shrive or accommodate # 8221 ; any of the Queen # 8217 ; s topics to the Bishop of Rome ( Waugh p. 117 ) . In this atmosphere even Dublin became unsafe for Campion. He fled Ireland for Belgium in June of 1572, geting at the English College founded by exiled English Catholics in Douai. The following twelvemonth he went on to Rome to fall in the Society of Jesus. After developing in Vienna, he became Professor of Rhetoric at the new Jesuit University in Prague, where he was ordained a priest in the Society of Jesus in 1578 ( Waugh p. 81-84 ) . It was in Prague in 1580 that he received the call to return to England to curate to English Catholics ( More p.72-73 ) . During his ministry, which lasted from the summer of 1580 to the summer of 1581, Campion traveled from town to town in camouflage, go throughing via an belowground web of English Catholics, offering the Mass and other Church sacraments to Catholics. He was arrested in the town of Lyford by English governments, with the aid of a paid source, in July 1581, and conveyed to the Tower of London [ 5 ] . Since his ministry had attracted a great trade of public attending, the authorities ab initio made an attempt to carry Campion to abandon his religion. Failing that, it made a 2nd attempt to discredit him. Four times in September, Campion was brought from his keep in the Tower for public # 8220 ; conferences, # 8221 ; at which bookmans and reverends stand foring the Crown and the Church of England disputed with him in an attempt to outdo him intellectually. William Cecil ( Lord Burghley ) and First Secretary Sir Francis Walsingham, Burghley # 8217 ; s spymaster, besides sought to defile Campion with the coppice of lese majesty by keeping that the primary end of his mission was to motivate the English to arise against Queen Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. While Campion # 8217 ; s ministry was in itself, by English jurisprudence, sufficient for the decease punishment ( in that he offered Mass and heard confessions ) , the authorities preferred to demo that his ministry besides involved stirring English Catholics to rebellion. Finally, on November 20th, a test was held in which Campion and seven other Catholics taken with him were charged with lese majesty. Suitable informants endeavored to do the label of treasonist stick ; the test ended in a guilty finding of fact, and Campion was executed by hanging at Tyburn on December 1, 1581 [ 6 ] [ 7 ] . Twelfth Night and Edmund Campion The allusions to Campion are found in a individual scene # 8211 ; Act four, Scene two in which Feste the Clown disguises himself as # 8220 ; Sir Topas the Curate # 8221 ; to harangue the unfortunate Malvolio, who has been shut up in a basement as a moonstruck as the consequence of buffooneries engineered by Feste, Sir Toby Belch and Maria. In the undermentioned address by Feste to Maria and Sir Toby, the Campion allusions are highlighted in bold face. Clown: Bonos dies, Sir Toby: for, as the old anchorite of Prague, that neer saw pen and ink, really wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, # 8220 ; That that is is # 8221 ; ; so I, being master Parson, am master Parson ; for, what is # 8220 ; that # 8221 ; but # 8220 ; that # 8221 ; ; and # 8220 ; is # 8221 ; but # 8220 ; is # 8221 ; ? ( IV.ii.15-19 ) [ 8 ] In this address of less than 50 words, which appears to resemble nil but buffoonish bunk, there are no less than five phrases which refer straight to Edmund Campion and his 158O-81 mission to England. The old anchorite of Prague: Praha was Campion # 8217 ; s last assignment before his mission to England ; so, about six of his less than nine old ages on the Continent were spent in Prague. He may be thought of as a anchorite in either of two ways in that anchorites were holy work forces who sought purdah in their pursuit for sanctity, or that Campion # 8217 ; s stay in Prague was considered to be an expatriate non merely from England but from Englishmen. Waugh notes that, while at Prague, # 8220 ; the lone Englishmen with whom he appears to hold had any contact ( besides Father Ware, who was at the college with him ) , is Philip Sidney [ boy of the former Lord Deputy for Ireland ] , who arrived in 1576 as English Ambassador to compliment the Emperor Rudolph on his sequence # 8221 ; ( Waugh p. 81-82 ) . Never saw pen and ink: This refers to an episode which occurred in the # 8220 ; conference # 8221 ; of September 24, 1581, the 3rd of four such conferences, in which Campion was opposed by one Master Fulke: # 8220 ; If you dare, allow me demo you Augustine and Chrysostom, # 8221 ; he [ Campion ] cried at one minute, # 8220 ; if you dare. # 8221 ; Fulke: # 8220 ; Whatever you can convey, I have answered already in composing against others of your side. And yet if you think you can add anything, put it in composing and I will reply it. # 8221 ; Silene: # 8220 ; Supply me with ink and paper and I will write. # 8221 ; Fulke: # 8220 ; I am non to supply you ink and paper. # 8221 ; Silene: # 8220 ; I mean, secure me that I may hold autonomy to write. # 8221 ; Fulke: # 8220 ; I know non for what cause you are restrained of that autonomy, and hence I will non take upon me to secure it. # 8217 ; 7 Silene: # 8220 ; Sue to the Queen that I may hold autonomy to oppose. I have been now thrice opposed. It is ground that I should oppose once. # 8221 ; Fulke: # 8220 ; I will non go a suer for you. # 8221 ; ( Allen 15 ) In this exchange, we see that Campion, holding been deprived of the agencies of fixing a defence, such as entree to books incorporating the instructions of St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, seizes upon Fulke # 8217 ; s evident offer of composing stuffs. Fulke instantly realizes that the has made a tactical mistake, for the authorities # 8217 ; s program in no manner involves supplying Campion with the agencies to compose, since much of Campion # 8217 ; s success ballad in his Hagiographas. First there had been an expounding and account of his mission, written by Campion in the summer of 1580 instantly after geting in England, which circulated throughout the state in handwritten transcripts, yet comes down in history under the dry rubric of # 8220 ; Campion # 8217 ; s Brag.77 In it, Campion disavows any political facet to his ministry. Then a book bearing the name Ten Reasons was published by an belowground Catholic imperativeness ( Edwards p. 19 ) . It foremost appeared at the Oxford University Commencement of June 27, 1581, holding been sneakily placed on the benches of the church at which the exercisings took topographic point. In the exchange quoted above, Campion obviously had bested Fulke in their conflict of marbless, for Fulke denies Campion the wherewithal to compose even though he himself had challenged Campion to make so. However, it may be said of Campion with good ground that he # 8220 ; Never saw pen and ink. # 8221 ; Niece of King Gorboduc: Gorboduc was a fabulous King of England and the topic of an early Elizabethan drama by Norton and Sackville [ 9 ] . Since the drama contains no function for a # 8220 ; niece, # 8221 ; the allusion is non to be found in the text. Let us look at the issue from another point of position: did Queen Elizabeth I have an uncle who can be identified as a # 8220 ; fabulous King of England? # 8221 ; Arthur, Prince of Wales, was the first boy of King Henry VII and older brother to Elizabeth # 8217 ; s male parent, Henry VIII. This prince would hold become # 8220 ; King Arthur # 8221 ; except that he died before his male parent, who was succeeded alternatively by the younger brother, Henry. If you are seeking the niece of a fabulous King of England, the niece of a possible King Arthur might make. A 2nd possible nexus between Elizabeth and the # 8220 ; niece to King Gorboduc # 8221 ; may be found through one of the playwrights, Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and subsequently 1st Earl of Dorset. The male parent of Lord Buckhurst, Sir Richard Sackville, had been a first cousin to Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth # 8217 ; s mother [ 10 ] . Given the preference of people of the clip for impreciseness in denominating household relationships ( cousin, uncle or niece was taken to intend about any blood relationship ) , it is non farfetched to see Queen Elizabeth I to be a # 8220 ; niece # 8221 ; of one of the writers of King Gorboduc. # 8220 ; That that is is # 8221 ; : Spoken by the Hermit of Prague, this is taken as a spiritual avowal, merely as Campion # 8217 ; s mission to England was a spiritual avowal. The reconstructed church history that Campion was expected to encompass at Oxford was, from the Catholic point of view, a denial of world, and his mission was to confirm the truth in the face of official displeasure. On a deeper degree, this could be an allusion to one of the most profound transitions in the Old Testament, in which the Lord, talking to Moses ( who had asked what name he should give for the Lord ) declares, # 8220 ; I am that I am. # 8221 ; [ 11 ] . This may be interpreted as, # 8220 ; Because I exist, I exist, # 8221 ; which really neatly identifies the topic # 8220 ; I # 8221 ; in scholastic logic. In other words, all that exists owes its being to a separate Creator, save one, the Creator of all, who is the beginning of all being, even his ain. The Hermit of Prague is non the Creator ; therefore, he renders the phrase in the 3rd individual, declaring that God Is, because He Is ; he owes his being to no earthly bureau, surely to no King or Queen. To such a Person, Campion owes a higher commitment than his commitment to the Crown. Thus, # 8220 ; That that is is # 8221 ; is the kernel of Campion # 8217 ; s place counterpart his God and his Queen. Master Parson: Robert Persons was a fellow Jesuit who traveled with Campion from Rome to France ; the two separated to come in England and, for grounds of security, pursued their ministries in England separately, run intoing each other on occasion. Persons, sometimes referred to as Parsons and a former Oxford schoolmate of Campion # 8217 ; s, was in charge of the Jesuit mission to England, including the clandestine imperativeness that was used to put forth the Catholic place until its gaining control [ 12 ] . Persons continued his ministry within and without England for several decennaries after Campion # 8217 ; s decease. The allusions referred to here should non be thought of every bit topical in being timely mentions from which the theatrical audience would be expected to acknowledge and pull delectation. Surely, events during 1580-1581 would no longer be seasonably in 1602, the first production of Twelfth Night, as noted in Manningham # 8217 ; s journal. Furthermore, sing the official attitude toward Campion and his fellow Jesuits, infixing sympathetic allusions to Campion into a drama would hold been rather hazardous during the 1580s, and would stay so good into the following century. However, one would hold needed specific background cognition about the Campion state of affairs to acknowledge the allusions, and by 1602, most of the principals in the gaining control, question and test of Campion # 8211 ; including Lord Burghley, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Earl of Leceister # 8211 ; were deceased. Others, such as Anth ony Munday, would non hold been admitted to a private public presentation at the Middle Temple intended for members and their invitees. Further, we should non anticipate that the Queen would be in attending at an Inns of Court public presentation. ( This is deduced from the historical record of the Gorboduc public presentations, in which the Inner Temple public presentation was followed by a 2nd public presentation at tribunal. ) I think alternatively that the allusions were intended for descendants, and were written into the text in the hope that the drama would some twenty-four hours look in print. It should besides be recognized that the allusions to Edmund Campion have small bearing on word pictures and allusions outside their immediate context. Therefore, Malvolio is identified as a Protestant, specifically as a Puritan, earlier in the drama ( II.iii.151-56 ) , but in the Campion allusions, he figures as a Catholic priest. This is non a contradiction since the audience for the drama was non expected to hear the Campion allusions. Indeed, it could hold boded ailment for the dramatist had they done so. On one degree, the playwright may hold been utilizing the Malvolio character as a imitation of the courtier Christopher Hatton, as some have proposed. For one scene, nevertheless, the writer has Malvolio imprisoned and sees the chance for infixing something he has been stamp downing for decennaries: his resentment over the test and executing of one he saw as an guiltless adult male. The mean audience member was expected to take the allusions as theatrical bunk and so to bury app roximately them as the following address was delivered. Further Allusions to Campion in Act Four, Scene Two Having established the allusions to St. Edmund Campion in the Clown # 8217 ; s opening address ( IV.ii.5-12 ) , the tenor of the balance of the scene, in the context of Campion # 8217 ; s imprisonment, becomes evident. The Clown is seen presuming the function of the erudite adult male to challenge with the captive, merely as work forces of larning brought Silene to challenge at the aforesaid conferences. The playwright # 8217 ; s attitude is revealed early on by Sir Toby, as the Clown, presenting as Sir Topas the Curate, begins his brush with the captive: Sir Toby: The Knave forgeries good, a good rogue. ( IV.ii.21-22 ) Therefore is established at the beginning that the dramatist regards the conference to be held, like the conferences Campion was brought to, as a fake, a forgery, with a rogue sitting as a erudite adult male moving as the tester. # 8220 ; Sir Topas # 8221 ; returns to cover with Malvolio as a adult male possessed and in demand of dispossession, even though, as the Clown, he knows full good that Malvolio, whatever his mistakes might be, is neither insane nor obsessed. Clown: Out, hyperbolical monster! How vesext 1000 this adult male! Talkest 1000 nil but of ladies? ( IV.ii.29-30 ) The sarcasm in the drama now develops to fit that of the Campion conferences, where Silene was called upon to accede to facts which, from his point of position as a bookman and a Catholic, were non facts at all. Malvolio: Good Sir Topas, do non believe I am huffy. They have laid me here in horrid darkness. Clown: Fie, 1000 dishonest Satan! # 8230 ; Say # 8217 ; st thou that house is dark? Malvolio: As snake pit, Sir Topas. Clown: Why, it hath bay Windowss transparent as barricadoes # 8230 ; Malvolio: I am non huffy, Sir Topas. I say to you, this house is dark. Clown: Madman, 1000 errest. I say, there is no darkness but ignorance, in which thou art more puzzl # 8217 ; vitamin D than the Egyptians in their fog. ( IV.ii.33-48 ) Next the playwright shows us the dishonesty of the state of affairs from his ain position. Malvolio asks for a trial of his clarity, and the Clown asks a inquiry, to which Malvolio gives what would be, to any Christian bookman, the right reply in footings of the instructions of their religion. Malvolio: # 8230 ; Make the test of it in any changeless inquiry. Clown: What is the sentiment of Pythagoras refering wild poultry? Malvolio: That the psyche of our grandam might haply populate a bird. Clown: What think # 8217 ; st 1000 of his sentiment? Malvolio: I think nobly of the psyche, and no manner O.K. his sentiment. Clown: Menu thee good. Remain thou still in darkness. Thou shalt keep Thursday # 8217 ; sentiment of Pythagoras ere I will let of thy marbless # 8230 ; ( IV.ii.52-63 ) Therefore, instead than keeping the Christian instruction of the Resurrection on the last twenty-four hours, the Clown chides Malvolio for non continuing the heathen instruction of Pythagoras refering the transmigration of psyches. Likewise, Campion, foremost during his yearss at Oxford and so at his conferences, was expected to supply replies which, by his position, were unlogical and untenable, but which accorded with the demands of the political powers of the twenty-four hours. The dramatist therefore demonstrates for us a universe turned upside down, with buffoons go throughing themselves off as work forces of acquisition, while work forces of larning such as Campion are pressed to deny what they believe to be true to function political terminals. I think the playwright # 8217 ; s sentiment about such proceedings is revealed early on in the scene, when the Clown Dons an academic gown for his caricature of Sir Topas: Clown: Well, I # 8217 ; ll set it on, and I will feign my ego in # 8217 ; t, and I would I were the first that of all time dissembled in such a gown ( IV.ii.5-7 ) Campion # 8217 ; s Innocence or Guilt As noted earlier, the English authorities wanted to convict Campion non for his faith but for lese majesty against the Crown ; specifically, for plotting the blackwash or overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I. Despite oppugning tonss of informants under duress, they were unable to demo any faithless facet in Campion # 8217 ; s address, composing or activities during his English ministry. The first indictment drawn up against Campion stated that he # 8220 ; did faithlessly feign to hold power to shrive the topics of the said Queen from their natural obeisance to her stateliness, # 8221 ; with a clean infinite left farther down the indictment for the name of a prosecution informant who had been absolved as stated ( Waugh p. 206-207 ) . No suited informant could be found to attest against Campion to this consequence, nevertheless, and so this count of the indictment was dropped. Finally, informants were obtained, the head being Anthony Munday, a journeyman author and traveller who had presented himself to expatriate English Catholics as a co-religionist. He accused Campion of holding formed a confederacy in Rome and Rheims in 1580 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, to promote a foreign Catholic invasion and besides foment a rebellion of English Catholics. The grounds brought Forth to back up these charges has been found desiring by the Dictionary of National Biography and The Encyclopedia Britannica. [ 13 ] Campion # 8217 ; s ain Hagiographas deny such a charge. In the antecedently mentioned Campion # 8217 ; s Brag he is # 8220 ; purely forbidden # 8230 ; to cover in any regard with affair of State or Policy # 8221 ; ( Waugh p. 236 ) . Simpson reports that Campion # 8220 ; determined, hence, every bit far as he m ight, to restrict himself to the simply spiritual facets of the contention # 8230 ; and to decline to do himself an umpire between two high postulating parties so far above him as Pope and Queen # 8221 ; ( Simpson p. 274 ) . Religious Attitudes in Twelfth Night If the transition cited alludes to Edmund Campion, one must besides inquire in what spirit is the allusion to be taken: as testimonial or mockery. To decently reply the inquiry, we should analyze the spiritual propensities of the writer indicated elsewhere in the drama every bit good as in the other Shakespeare dramas. Mutschmann and Wentersdorf see that # 8220 ; Sir Topas, # 8221 ; the airs of the clown Feste in the scene, # 8220 ; is of the same cast as other Protestant curates in Shakespeare # 8217 ; s dramas and was conceived with the calculated purpose of making an undignified and farcical feeling # 8221 ; ( 329 ) . The steward Malvolio, supporter of the drama, is portrayed as a Puritan with # 8220 ; overweening # 8221 ; pride, and given to amour propre and foppery # 8211 ; all in the most uncomplimentary spirit. In contrast, the priest who in secret marries Sebastian and Olivia, while looking merely in scenes IV.iii and V.i with a individual address, is depicted as pers on we can confide in with complete trust. Indeed, the full play is steeped in sympathy toward the Catholic religion. The amusing knight Sir John Falstaff is besides cited ( Mutschmann and Wentersdorf p. 345-349 ) as being a imitation of the Puritan type, taking a licentious life but numbering himself among the saved. Significantly, the original name given to the character was Sir John Oldcastle, a fifteenth century Lollard who was executed during the reign of Henry V. The writer was obviously compelled by authorization, in response to expostulations by Oldcastle # 8217 ; s posterities, to alter the character # 8217 ; s name to that of Falstaff. Interestingly, a rival drama, Sir John Oldcastle, written by the same Anthony Munday who testified against Campion, was staged in 1599 and portrayed the historical figure of Oldcastle in a much more favourable visible radiation. Yet this same Munday is regarded as the writer of the drama, Sir Thomas More, which offers a extremely favourable portrayal of this Catholic martyr [ 14 ] . ( In the drama, More is condemned for declining to impart his signature to certain unspecified articles ; historically, these constituted King Henry # 8217 ; s Act of Supremacy, leting them to presume supreme power over the Church in England. ) Whether Munday wrote the drama as writer or scribe has been the topic of much argument [ 15 ] . One must reason that Munday # 8217 ; s part to Sir Thomas More as writer or scribe was made when Munday was an evident Catholic, before his testimony against Edmund Campion Indeed, Munday # 8217 ; s later publications, including a booklet which detailed the executing of Edmund Campion and his comrades, were sharply anti-Catholic. Silene and Gorboduc The historical record offers other links between Gorboduc and the Campion allusions in Twelfth Night. There is the happenstance with the rubric of the latter drama, for Gorboduc originally was intended for a individual public presentation on Twelfth Night ; that is, January 6, 1562 [ 16 ] . A 2nd public presentation was given at Whitehall at the bid of the Queen, on January 12, 1562. ( The original public presentation of Gorboduc took topographic point in the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London. ) Unusually, the lone known public presentation of TN during its writer # 8217 ; s life-time was at another Inn, the Middle Temple, as reported by Manningham in his journal: # 8220 ; At our banquet we had a drama called Twelve Night, or What You Will # 8221 ; ( Neilson and Hill p. 279 ) . Such a public presentation would hold been a private one, limited to those connected with the Middle Temple or invited by its members. Yet another happenstance relates to one of the playwrights of Gorboduc # 8212 ; Thomas Norton, listed in the original edition of 1565 as the writer of Acts l-III ( Cauthen p. xxix ) . Norton played a outstanding function on the English authorities # 8217 ; s behalf in the suppression of Catholics, going in 1579 every bit far as Rome, where he sought out detrimental information about English Catholics life in the metropolis. In 1581, he was one of the commissioners at the test of Edmund Campion. The undermentioned twelvemonth he complained to Sir Francis Walsingham about the moniker, # 8220 ; Rackmaster General, # 8221 ; that was being applied to him for his portion in tormenting Catholics ( Simpson p. 266 ; Cauthen p. 80 ) . Reasoning Ideas During the Feast of the Epiphany in Elizabethan times, which took topographic point on January 6 and was normally known as Twelfth Day, gifts were exchanged in memorialization of the gifts of the Magi. It was a vacation of banqueting, jubilation and revelry. This is the tradition normally associated with the beginning of the name of the drama Twelfth Night. On the other manus, if the dramatist had allusions to Edmund Campion in head, so a covert significance for the rubric could hold been intended. In this respect, one should remember the spirit associated with these revelries: that nil is what it seems ; that significances are turned inside out. To cite Feste: # 8220 ; Nothing that is so is so # 8221 ; ( IV.ii.9 ) . Possibly this spirit explains the paradox of a drama which, on the face of it, is a rambunctious, frolicing comedy, yet besides contains allusions to that fatal clip of Campion # 8217 ; s mission, and so serving as the dramatist # 8217 ; s Ave Atque Vale for this tra gic figure of the period. Notes 1. H. Mutschmann and K. Wentersdorf, Shakespeare and Catholicism. 1969. 16-21, 329-351. Roland M. Frye, Shakespeare and Cristian Doctrine. 1963. Hugh R Williamson, The Day Shakespeare Died. London, 1962. 11-25. 2. Henry More, The Elizabethan Jesuits: Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu ( 1660 ) . Trans. Francis Edwards, SJ. London, 1981. 43. 3. Evelyn Waugh, Edmund Campion. London, 1946. 4. Dictionary of National Biography. Eds. Sir L. Stephen and Sir S. Lee. Oxford, 1921. III, 851. 5. William Cardinal Allen, A Brief History of the Glorious Martyrdom of the 12 Revenend Priests: Fr. Edmund Campion and his Companions. 1584. Ed. H. Pollen, SJ. London, 1908. 10. 6. Francis Edwards, SJ, The Jesuits in England: from 1580 to the Present Day. Kent, 1985. 20. 7. Richard Simpson, Edmund Campion. London, 1848. 279-313. 8. All citations of Shakespeare are taken from The Complete Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. Eds. W A. Neilson and C.J. Hill. 1942. 279. 9. Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex. 1565. Ed. Irby B. Cauthen Jr. Regents Renaissance Drama Series.1970. three. 10. DNB, XVII, 585-589. 11. Exodus, III, 14 ( King James ) . The phrase # 8220 ; I am that I am # 8221 ; besides appears in Shakespeare # 8217 ; s sonnet 121, a peculiarly affecting poetry about a good adult male unjustly perceived as an evil individual. # 8220 ; Tis better to be despicable than vile esteemed # 8230 ; # 8221 ; 12. The name # 8220 ; Persons, # 8221 ; sometimes rendered as # 8220 ; Parsons # 8221 ; in Hagiographas of the twenty-four hours, was pronounced with something of a Irish swing, the first syllable riming with # 8220 ; fair. # 8221 ; Harmonizing to Simpson ( 387 ) , # 8220 ; Pearsons # 8221 ; might good stand as a modern rendition of the name. Besides see DNB, III, 851. 13. DNB, III, 850-854 ; The Encylopaedia Britannica. 1973. 4, 721. 14. The drama Sir Thomas More survived as a manuscript written mostly in a manus identifiable as that of Anthony Munday, come uping in 1727 in the ownership of one Alexander Murray and his frequenter, the 2nd Earl of Oxford ( of the Harley creative activity ) . 15. Sir Thomas More. Attributed to Anthony Munday. Eds. V. Gabrieli and G. Melchiori. 1990. 12-16. 16. The Diary of Henry Machyn. 1565. Ed. J.G. Nichols. London, 1848.