The Shrewsbury playwright was Thomas Ashton the first master of the grammar school. His theatre was the open ground without the walls, the Quarrell or Quarry. The season of the year at which these performances of Thomas Ashton took place was Whitsuntide, at which time Chester was also engaged in its more famous productions. It is to be regretted that no records[189] remain of these Shrewsbury plays, or a valuable addition might be made to the scanty collections of such antiquities which have been made public. These academic entertainments did not supplant the old annual procession (the date of which was transferred to the Monday following the feast of Corpus Christi) which continued apparently until the power of the Puritans became too strong to admit of its longer existence. Already that influence was at work, and Elizabeth had many detractors among those of the stricter persuasion. The character of their sternness, as well as the nature of their dissatisfaction at the gaiety which Elizabeth fostered, is well exemplified at Shrewsbury in the incident of the Shearmen’s tree. The event is also noteworthy as being the only occasion until later days on which anything like friction occurred between the companies and the municipal corporation[190].
The Shearmen’s tree.
The woollen trade, as we have seen[191], gave occupation to a very large number of Shearmen. These belonged to the more unskilled class of labourers, the work they performed being simply that of preparing the wool for the later stages of manufacture. They were precisely the class to fail to appreciate the religious changes, and such as would be likely to resort to the physical force argument on any occasion. It was also to such men that the revelry of Christmastide, Maytime, and the like were most precious. Their life was a hard and colourless one, and they would for this reason cling desperately to the old occasions of merriment. The festival which appears to have been particularly odious to the Puritans was that of May Day, when, Stow[192] tells us, it was the custom for the citizens “of all estates” to have their “Mayings,” and to “fetch in Maypoles, with divers warlike shows, with good archers, morris dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long; and toward the evening they had stage plays, and bonfires in the streets.” To the youth of the town it was a sufficiently harmless summer holiday. To the precise it was plainly and purely a heathen survival. At Shrewsbury they were early in active antagonism to it. In 1583 there occurred “soom contrav’sie about the settinge upp of maye poales and bonfyers mackinge and erection of treese before the sherman’s haule and other places[193],” though apparently without immediate effect, for two years later appears another entry “Pd. for cutting down the tree, and the journeymen to spend xvd.[194]”
But it was not long before the Puritans prevailed. The May Day merry-making was stopped and even the Gild festival prohibited. “This yeare [1590-1] and the 6 day of June beinge Soondaye and the festivall day of the Coy of the Shearmen of Salop aboute the settinge upp of a greene tree by serte yonge men of the saide Coy before their hall doore as of many years before have been acostomid but preachid against by the publicke precher there and commawndid by the baylyffs that non sutche shoulde be usid, and for the disobedience therein theye were put in prison and a privey sessions called and there also indicted and still remayne untill the next towne sessions for further triall[195].” The letter of the law however was in their favour. At the sessions the judges decided that the tree should be erected and “usyd as heretofore have be’ so it be don syvely and in lovynge order wthout contencion[196].” But the soreness remained and the Shearmen were very turbulent for a long period. A curious entry in 1596 betokens a continuance of the friction: “Pd oure fyne for not rerynge of Cappes to Mr Bayliffe 3/4[197].” For Puritan influence had waxed stronger, and at length it was “agreed that there shall not be hereafter any interludes or playes within this town or liberties uppon anye Soundays or in the night tyme. Neyther shall there be any playinge at footballe, or at hiltes or wastrells, or beare baytinge, within the walles of this towne[198].”
Commonwealth.
The Restoration.
During the civil wars and under the rule of the Commonwealth the inhabitants of the town were too heavily burdened with taxes for the maintenance of soldiers and for the repairs of the walls (for which the companies were severally assessed) to have much wealth to expend on revelry and merry-making, even had Puritan sourness admitted any such. But the reaction consequent on the Restoration brought back the glory to Shrewsbury. The agriculture of the district had now quite recovered from the long-distant Welsh ravages: the internal trade of the town was also very considerable. Shrewsbury was therefore a place of no small importance. It played the part of a local metropolis in which the fashions of the capital were mimicked by the wealthy tradesfolk, their wives and daughters, and the country gentry and their families. For neither class could often go to London. Travelling was a serious affair not lightly to be undertaken. Consequently, just as the country gentleman now spends a portion of the year in London, so his ancestor in the seventeenth century made the adjacent county town his residence at certain seasons. Besides “he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals and races.... There were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed for sale.... There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery[199].” In Shrewsbury did the provincial beaux and belles promenade by the side of the Severn and in the abbey gardens. These latter were especially attractive. They were laid out “with gravell walks set full of all sorts of greens—orange and Lemmon trees.... Out of this went another garden much larger with severall fine grass walks kept exactly cut and roled for company to walk in: every Wednesday most of ye town ye Ladies and Gentlemen walk there as in St James’s Parke, and there are abundance of people of quality lives in Shrewsbury[200].”
Farquahar in his sprightly comedy The Recruiting Officer describes the lively doings of the same “people of quality,” and also of the more stolid burghers. “I have drawn,” he says, “the Justice and the Clown in their Puris Naturalibus; the one an apprehensive, sturdy, brave blockhead; and the other a worthy, honest, generous gentleman, hearty in his country’s cause and of as good an understanding as I could give him, which I must confess is far short of his own.” Farquahar seems to have obtained a particularly good impression of the worthy Salopians. He dedicates his comedy to “All Friends round the Wrekin.” “I was stranger to everything in Salop but its Character of Loyalty, the Number of its Inhabitants, the Alacrity of the Gentry in Recruiting the Army, with their generous and hospitable Reception of Strangers. This Character I found so amply verify’d in every Particular that you made Recruiting, which is the greatest Fatigue upon Earth to other, to be the greatest Pleasure in the World to me[201].” Shrewsbury was one of the gayest of those many provincial capitals “out of which the great wen of London has sucked all the life[202].”
Shrewsbury Show in 17th century.
Farquhar may have seen the old Show, which the Restoration had naturally brought back, wend its noisy way to Kingsland. The procession itself was easily rehabilitated, but the arbours on Kingsland, where the day was spent in merrymaking, called for much attention. Great activity was evinced in their repair, for they had fallen into sad decay during the hard rule of the Puritans. Some of the companies adorned their arbours with gateways, arms and mottoes, “dyalls,” and the like. Most of the gateways were of wood, but in 1679 the Shoemakers company erected a handsome stone portal, which a few years subsequently they adorned with figures of their patron saints, Crispin and Crispianus. As though the events of a century previous were still fresh in men’s minds, the legend was painted underneath,
“We are but images of stonne
Do us no harme—we can do nonne.”