I said that the mass, and such trumpery as that,
Popery, purgatory, pardons, were flat
Against God's word and primitive constitution,
Crept in through covetousness and superstition
Of late years, through blindness, and men of no knowledge,
Even such as have been in every age.
It is with some surprise certainly that we find King John of England glorified, for purposes of Protestant propaganda, as a sincere and godly 'protestant'. So it is, however. In his play, King John (about 1548), Bishop Bale depicts that monarch as an inspired hater of papistical tyranny and an ardent lover of his country, in whose cause he suffered death by poisoning at the hands of a monk. Stephen Langton, the Pope and Cardinal Pandulph figure as Sedition, Usurped Power and Private Wealth. A summary of the play, provided by an Interpreter, supplies us with the following explanation of John's quarrel with Rome.
This noble King John, as a faithful Moses,
Withstood proud Pharaoh for his poor Israel,
Minding to bring it out of the land of darkness;
But the Egyptians did against him so rebel,
That his poor people did still in the desert dwell,
Till that duke Joshua, which was our late King Henry,
Closely brought us into the land of milk and honey.
As a strong David, at the voice of verity,
Great Goliah, the pope, he struck down with his sling,
Restoring again to a Christian liberty
His land and people, like a most victorious king;
To his first beauty intending the Church to bring
From ceremonies dead to the living word of the Lord.
This the second act will plenteously record.
As put into the mouth of the king himself, these other lines are hard to beat for deliberate partisan misrepresentation. The king feels himself about to die.
I have sore hungered and thirsted righteousness
For the office sake that God hath me appointed,
But now I perceive that sin and wickedness
In this wretched world, like as Christ prophesied,
Have the overhand: in me it is verified.
Pray for me, good people, I beseech you heartily,
That the Lord above on my poor soul have mercy.
Farewell noblemen, with the clergy spiritual,
Farewell men of law, with the whole commonalty.
Your disobedience I do forgive you all,
And desire God to pardon your iniquity.
Farewell, sweet England, now last of all to thee:
I am right sorry I could do for thee no more.
Farewell once again, yea, farewell for evermore.
Prompted by a different motive, yet not far removed in actual effect from the politico-religious class of play represented by New Custom, are the early Interludes of John Heywood. It is quite impossible to read such a play as The Pardoner and the Friar and believe that its author wrote under any such earnest and sober inspiration as did the author of New Custom. His intention was frankly to amuse, and to paint life as he saw it without the intrusion of unreal personages of highly virtuous but dull ideas. Yet he swung the lash of satire as cuttingly and as merrily about the flanks of ecclesiastical superstition as ever did the creator of Perverse Doctrine.[47]
The simplest plot sufficed Heywood, and the minimum of characters. The Pardoner and the Friar (possibly as early as 1520) demands only four persons, while the plot may be summed up in a few sentences, thus: A Pardoner and a Friar, from closely adjoining platforms, are endeavouring to address the same crowd, the one to sell relics, the other to beg money for his order. By a sort of stichomythic alternation each for a time is supposed to carry on his speech regardless of the other, so that to follow either connectedly the alternate lines must be read in sequence. But every now and then they break off for abuse, and finally they fight. A Parson and neighbour Prat interfere to convey them to jail for the disturbance, but are themselves badly mauled. Then the Pardoner and the Friar go off amicably together. There is no allegory, no moral; merely satire on the fraudulent and hypocritical practices of pardoners and friars, together with some horseplay to raise a louder laugh. The fashion of that satire may be judged from the following exchange of home truths by the rival orators.
Friar. What, should ye give ought to parting pardoners?—
Pardoner. What, should ye spend on these flattering liars,—
Friar. What, should ye give ought to these bold beggars?—