Chamberlain, describing to Carleton James’s visit to Cambridge in March 1615, wrote (Birch, i. 304): ‘The second night [8 March] was a comedy of Clare Hall, with the help of two or three good actors from other houses, wherein David Drummond, on a hobby-horse, and Brakin, the recorder of the town, under the name of Ignoramus, a common lawyer, bore great parts. The thing was full of mirth and variety, with many excellent actors; among whom the Lord Compton’s son, though least, yet was not worst, but more than half marred by extreme length.’ On 31 March he told Carleton (Birch, i. 360) of the Oxford satires on the play, and of a possible second visit by the King, unless he could persuade the actors to visit London. And on 20 May he wrote to him (Birch, i. 363): ‘On Saturday last [13 May], the King went again to Cambridge, to see the play “Ignoramus”, which has so nettled the lawyers, that they are almost out of all patience.’ He adds that rhymes and ballads had been written by the lawyers, and answered. Specimens of the ‘flytings’ to which the play gave rise are in Hawkins, xxxvii, xlii, cvii, 259. Fuller, Church History (1655), x. 70, reports a story that the irritation caused to the lawyers also led to John Selden’s demonstration of the secular origin of tithes. The authorship of Ignoramus is indicated by the entry in a notice of the royal visit printed (Hawkins, xxx) from a manuscript in the library of Sir Edward Dering:
‘On Wednesday night, 2, Ignoramus, the lawyer, Latine, and part English, composed by Mr. Ruggle, Clarensis.’
Ignoramus was largely based on the Trappolaria (1596) of Giambattista Porta, into which Ruggle introduced his satire of the Cambridge recorder, Francis Brackyn, who had already been the butt of 3 Parnassus.
Doubtful and Lost Plays
There is no justification for ascribing to Ruggle Loiola (1648), which is by John Hacket, but Hawkins, lxxii, cites from a note made in a copy of Ignoramus by John Hayward of Clare Hall, c. 1741:
‘N.B. M^r. Geo. Ruggle wrote besides two other comedies, Re vera or Verily, and Club Law, to expose the puritans, not yet printed. MS.’
Club Law (cf. ch. xxiv) has since been recovered.
THOMAS SACKVILLE (1536–1608).
Thomas Sackville became Lord Buckhurst in 1567 and Earl of Dorset in 1604. He is famous in literature for his contributions to ed. 2 (1559) of A Mirror for Magistrates, and in statesmanship as Lord Treasurer under Elizabeth and James I.
Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. 1562