“Come to the justice of the peace, Gammer Gurton, and I forgive you!”
They sank tenderly into each other’s arms, wholly forgetful of their master, who still stood near them, and looked on, laughing and nodding his head.
“Now, then, I have found the finest and most splendid materials for my piece,” said John Heywood, as he left the loving pair and betook himself to his own room. “Gammer Gurton has saved me, and King Henry will not have the satisfaction of seeing me whipped by those most virtuous and most lovely ladies of his court. To work, then, straightway to work!”
He seated himself at his writing-desk, and seized pen and paper.
“But how!” asked he, suddenly pausing. “That is certainly a rich subject for a composition; but I can never in the world get an interlude out of it! What shall I do with it? Abandon this subject altogether, and again jeer at the monks and ridicule the nuns? That is antiquated and worn out! I will write something new, something wholly new, and something which will make the king so merry, that he will not sign a death-warrant for a whole day. Yes, yes, a merry play shall it be, and then I will call it boldly and fearlessly a comedy!”
He seized his pen and wrote: “Gammer Gurton’s Needle, a right pithy, pleasant, and merry comedy.”
And thus originated the first English comedy, by John Heywood, fool to King Henry the Eighth. [Footnote: This comedy was first printed in the year 1661, but it was represented at Christ College fully a hundred years previously. Who was the author of it is not known with certainty; but it is possible that the writer of it was John Heywood, the epigrammatist and court-jester.—See Dramaturgic oder Theorie und Geschichte der dramatischen Kunst, von Theodore Mundt, vol i, p. 809. Flogel’s Geschichte der Hofnarren, p. 399.]
CHAPTER XVIII. LADY JANE.
All was quiet in the palace of Whitehall. Even the servants on guard in the vestibule of the king’s bedchamber had been a long time slumbering, for the king had been snoring for several hours; and this majestical sound was, to the dwellers in the palace, the joyful announcement that for one fine night they were exempt from service, and might be free men.