"A Plaie at Gray's Inn. This Christmas was a goodly disguising played at Gray's Inn, which was compiled by John Roo, Serjeant at the Law, twenty years past. This plae was so set forth with rich and costly apparel, and with strange devices of masks and morrisches, that it was highly praised by all men, except by the Cardinal (Wolsey), who imagined the play was devised of him. In a great fury he sent for Master Roo, and took from him his Coif, and sent him to the Fleet, and afterwards he sent for the young gentlemen that played in the play, and highly rebuked and threatened them, and sent one of them, called Master Moyle of Kent, to the Fleet, but by means of friends Master Roo and he were delivered at last.
"This play sore displeased the Cardinal, and yet it was never meant for him; wherefore many wise men grudged to see him take it so to heart; and even the Cardinal said the King (Henry VIII.) was highly displeased at it, and spake nothing of himself."
This unfortunate play seems to have made a great stir at the time, for not only Hall, but Fox, in his "Acts and Monuments," thus alludes to the performance when writing of a certain Simon Fish, who also belonged to Gray's Inn. Fox says:
"It happened the first year this gentleman came to London to dwell, which was about the year of our Lord, 1525, that there was a certain play, or interlude, made by one M. Roo, of the same Inn, gentleman, in which play partly was matter against the Cardinal Wolsey; and when none durst take upon them to play that part which touched the said Cardinal, this aforesaid Mr. Fish took upon him to do it. Whereupon great displeasure ensued against him on the Cardinal's part, insomuch as he, being pursued by the said Cardinal the same night that this tragedy was played, was compelled of force to avoid his own house, and so fled over the sea to Tindal."
It is singular that neither Hall nor Fox makes any mention of the name of the play that had such unhappy results for the luckless gentlemen who took part in it.
The powerful Cardinal was a dread enemy. He brooked neither insult nor slight, and, when angered, was apt to carry out his vengeance with a completeness that, at the least, brought ruin on his victims. Happy indeed were they did they escape with their lives.
The two offenders on this occasion paid a heavy price for their night's amusement. Their professional prospects were destroyed for ever, their names were erased from the list of Gray's Inn, and never again appeared on it. To Roo, a Serjeant in the Law of twenty years' standing, such a penalty must have been a cruel blow.
Hard work seems to have been seasoned with much amusement in the merry days of Queen Bess, for at no period do we read of so many masques, revels, and such like entertainments as during the reign of our maiden Queen.
Men of all ages and ranks, even those devoted to the learned and severe study of the law, indulged themselves to the full in these amusements. Judges and statesmen condescended to arrange and fashion the festivities, and occasionally indeed took part in them, nothing daunted by the fact that they not unfrequently ended in brawls and fighting. Men fought fiercely too in these turbulent times, and the arms then in common use were formidable weapons. It was the custom to carry bucklers with a point or poke, as it was called, in the centre, from ten to twelve inches in length. Every haberdasher sold these bucklers, and their use became so much abused, that, in the eighth year of Elizabeth, a proclamation was issued prohibiting the sale of any of which the poke exceeded two inches in length. At the same time, the length of swords was limited to one yard and half a quarter, nor was any dagger to have a blade above twelve inches long.
In the records we have respecting many of these gay doings and magnificent festivals, Gray's Inn and the Temple appear to have taken the lead, and at last a sort of union was entered into between the two Inns. Over the great gates of the gardens of the Inner Temple appears the "Griffin" of Gray's Inn, whilst over the principal entrance in Gray's Inn Square, is carved in bold relief the "Winged Horse" of the Inner Temple.