I
The arrest, on May 12, 1593, of Thomas Kyd, the first of the great Elizabethan dramatic poets, on the grave charges of atheism, of meddling in dangerous matters of state, and of publishing seditious libels tending to incite insurrection and rebellion in the English capital, had far more important causes and much more far-reaching consequences than have hitherto been suspected.
Among the causes which led to the inhuman torture on the rack and the untimely death of the popular dramatist, we must reckon—if my reading of the history of the period be right—the idyllic love of one of the most remarkable couples of whom we have any record, the fierce and vindictive resentment of England's greatest queen, as well as the fantastic ambitions and exalted dreams of one of the most gifted and brilliant men of all time.
Among the consequences of the passions thus brought into conflict, we must include the non-completion of the revision of one of the best and most characteristic historical dramas of the period—the tragedy of Sir Thomas Moore.[1] This play, undoubtedly written with political intent, was being rushed to completion by no less than six of England's most virile and most versatile poets: the veteran playwright, Anthony Mundy, young Thomas Heywood, fat Henry Chettle, kindly Thomas Dekker, industrious Thomas Kyd, and one—out of all whooping, the best of the group—who has not yet been identified and whom some very able scholars consider to have been none other than Shakspere himself.[2]
But the non-completion of the play was only a trifle in comparison with the effects Kyd's arrest had on his career as well as on that of the marvellous Christopher Marlowe, and therefore on the history of English letters. That its completion and performance would have affected the political history of the world in any way may well be doubted.
The more or less immediate circumstances leading to the imprisonment of "sporting Kyd" were these:
Living conditions in London, owing to the increase of population and to unwise legislation, were very hard on the native artisans, mechanics, petty tradesmen, and apprentices. As is usual in such cases, the presence of thrifty and prosperous foreigners was bitterly resented by the natives. This resentment had for several years taken the shape not only of public disturbances and riots, but of admonitions to the unwelcome aliens, mainly refugees from France and Belgium, to get out of the country. Unobserved by the authorities, during the small hours of a night in May 1593, some dissatisfied citizens posted up in various sections of the city placards which warned the foreigners to depart, with bag and baggage, before July 9. One of these posters, only a fragment of which has come down to us, was found on the wall of the Dutch churchyard. It read:
You strangers, that inhabit in this land,
Note this same writing, do it understand;
Conceive it well, for safe-guard of your lives,
Your goods, your children, and your dearest wives.
The Privy Council—in reality, the National Government—had for more than a year been protesting against the outrages perpetrated on the foreign residents and had solicited the Lord Mayor of the city to apprehend the disturbers and to seek out and imprison the agitators.[3] Their Lordships went so far as to instruct the Mayor to have the person guilty of having written the "libel" apprehended and tortured (though torture was no part of the English legal system) if he did not disclose his meaning and purpose and the identity of his accomplices. This was in the early part of April, 1593. But the Mayor, whose sympathies were evidently with the natives, made no arrests. On April 22, the Privy Council[4] again considered the matter and appointed a special commission "to examine by secret means who maie be authors for the saide [seditious] libelles." Less than two weeks after this, a highly alliterative and bombastic placard was displayed in London in which "the beastly Brutes, the Belgians, or rather Drunken Drones, and faint-hearted Flemings," as well as the "fraudulent Frenchmen" were ordered "to depart out of the Realm of England." Six days later, on May 11, the Council—fearing international complications even more than domestic broils—ordered another commission to use "extraordinary pains" (the equivocal wording may have been intentional) to apprehend the malefactors and to "put them to the Torture in Bridewell and by the extremitie thereof, to be used at such times and as often as you shall think fit, draw [!] them to discover their knowledge concerning the said libells."[5]
The very next day, May 12, 1593, officers of the law entered the study of Thomas Kyd with a warrant for his arrest and made a careful search of the premises for documents of a seditious nature. Inasmuch as it could not have been the literary qualities of the posters—verse tests had not yet been discovered—which made the authorities suspect Kyd, we are almost compelled to assume that he had been betrayed to the Commission by an informer. That Kyd probably thought so will appear from what follows. Whether his arrest was due solely to his connection, real or supposed, with the minatory placards, or whether it was also due to his share in the authorship and contemplated production of the incendiary play of Sir Thomas Moore, or both, it is impossible to say. But the combination is certainly suggestive.