The play begins with Prince Edward in love with the country girl, Margaret of Fressingfield. He, Earl Lacy, and others have taken refreshment at her father's farm after a hunt, and the prince has fallen a captive to her beauty and simplicity. It is decided that a double attack must be made upon her heart, Prince Edward invoking the magic aid of Bacon, while Lacy stays behind to woo her on his behalf. Lacy's part is not easy. Disguised as a farmer he meets Margaret at a village fair and does his best to plead for 'the courtier all in green', only to be himself pierced by the arrow that struck his prince. When, therefore, Prince Edward arrives at the friar's cell and peers into his marvellous crystal, he sees Lacy and Margaret exchanging declarations of love, with Friar Bungay standing by ready to wed them. The power of Friar Bacon prevents the ceremony by whisking his cowled brother away, and the furious prince hurries back to Fressingfield. He is resolved to slay Lacy; nor does that remorseful earl ask for other treatment; Margaret, however, offers so brave and noble a defence of her lover, taking all blame upon herself and avowing that his death will be instantly followed by her own, that at length more generous impulses rise in the royal breast, and instead of death a blessing is bestowed. Together the prince and the earl repair to Oxford to meet the King, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Castile, and the latter's daughter, Elinor, who is to be Prince Edward's wife. In their absence other admirers appear upon the scene, a squire and a farmer being rivals for Margaret's hand. Quarrelling over the matter, they put it to the test of a duel and kill each other. By an unhappy coincidence their absent sons are looking into Bacon's magic crystal at that very time, and, seeing the fatal consequences of the conflict, turn their weapons hastily against each other, with the result that their fathers' fate becomes theirs. Margaret remains loyal to Lacy, but mischief prompts the latter to send her one hundred pounds and a letter of dismissal on the plea of a wealthier match being necessary for him. Unhappy Margaret, rejecting the money, prepares to enter a convent. Fortunately Lacy himself comes down to set matters in order for their marriage before she has taken the vows, and though his second wooing is done in a very peremptory, cavalier fashion, she returns to his arms. Their wedding is celebrated on the same day as that of Prince Edward and Elinor of Castile.—Independent of this romance, but linked to it through the person of Prince Edward, are the visit of the kings to Oxford, the wonder-workings of Friar Bacon, and the mischievous fooling of such light-headed persons as the king's jester, Ralph Simnell, and the friar's servant, Miles. Friar Bacon's power is exercised in the spiriting hither and thither of desirable and undesirable folk, the most notable victim being a much vaunted and self-confident German magician who has been brought over by the emperor to outshine his English rivals. There is some fun when Miles is set to watch for the first utterance of the mysterious brazen head, and, delaying to wake his master, lets the supreme moment pass unused. The curses which this mistake calls upon him from Friar Bacon bring about his ultimate removal to hell on a devil's back.
Here then is a slight but charming story of romance, supported through the length of a whole play by all the adventitious aids which Greene can command. One of the minor characters, Ralph Simnell, invites passing notice as the rough sketch of a type which Shakespeare afterwards perfected, the Court Fool: his jesting questions and answers may be compared with those of Feste in Twelfth Night. Disguised as the prince, to conceal the identity of the real prince at Oxford, he is served by the merry nobles and proves himself humorously unprincely. But that which has given most fame to the author is the love-plot. The Fressingfield scenes bring upon the stage a direct picture of simple country life—of a dairy-maid among her cheeses, butter and cream, and of a country fair with farm-lads eager to buy fairings for their lassies. Unfortunately, under the influence of the fashionable affectation, Margaret is unusually learned in Greek mythology, citing Jove, Danaë, Phoebus, Latona and Mercury within the compass of a bare five lines. The indebtedness of Greene to Lyly's Campaspe for the idea of a simple love romance as plot has been acknowledged. In the use of pastoralism, too, he borrowed a hint, perhaps, from Peele. Yet, when both debts have been allowed, the reader of Greene's comedy is still left with the conviction that his author had the secret of it all in himself. He had a hint from others, but he needed no more.
Our quotations illustrate the story of Margaret.
(1)
[Enter Prince Edward malcontented, with Lacy, Warren, &c.]
Lacy. Why looks my lord like to a troubled sky
When heaven's bright shine is shadow'd with a fog?
Alate we ran the deer, and through the lawnds
Stripp'd with our nags the lofty frolic bucks
That scudded 'fore the teasers like the wind:
Ne'er was the deer of merry Fressingfield
So lustily pull'd down by jolly mates,
Nor shar'd the farmers such fat venison,
So frankly dealt, this hundred years before;
Nor have
I seen my lord more frolic in the chase,—
And now chang'd to a melancholy dump.
Warren. After the prince got to the Keeper's lodge,
And had been jocund in the house awhile,
Tossing off ale and milk in country cans,
Whether it was the country's sweet content,
Or else the bonny damsel fill'd us drink
That seem'd so stately in her stammel red,
Or that a qualm did cross his stomach then,
But straight he fell into his passions.
. . . . . .
P. Edward. Tell me, Ned Lacy, didst thou mark the maid,
How lovely in her country-weeds she look'd?
A bonnier wench all Suffolk cannot yield:
All Suffolk! nay, all England holds none such....
Whenas she swept like Venus through the house,
And in her shape fast folded up my thoughts,
Into the milk-house went I with the maid,
And there amongst the cream-bowls she did shine
As Pallas 'mongst her princely huswifery:
She turn'd her smock over her lily arms
And div'd them into milk to run her cheese;
But whiter than the milk her crystal skin,
Checkéd with lines of azure, made her blush
That art or nature durst bring for compare.
(2)