A New Play

called Canterburie His Change of Diot. Which sheweth variety of wit and mirth : privately acted neare the Palace-yard at Westminster….Anon  (well it would be wouldn’t it?) 1641

Not so much a play, more a short series of sketches which probably lasted no more than five minutes, this is a scurrilous portrait and morality tale of Archbishop Laud in four acts. There are three illustrations that go with the text.

Act 1, the Bishop of Canterbury having a variety of dainties, is not satisfied till he be fed with tippets of mens ears. Enter the Bishop of Canterbury, and with him a Doctor of Physicke, a Lawyer and a Divine; who being set down, they bring him variety of Dishes to his Table…He knocking there enter divers Bishops with muskets on their necks, bandeleeres and swords by their sides.

Here is the jolly crew around the table. Archbish second on the left, I assume the  divine next with the ruff and the lawyer seated to his left. I think the doctor is standing far left, but he also looks like a serving man in doublet and breeches. A doctor ought to be wearing a gown. The  two bishops on the right have the aforementioned muskets and bandoliers.

 

 

Act 2, he hath his nose held to the Grinde-stone. Enter the Bishop of Canterbury into a Carpenters yard by the water side, where he is going to take water, and seeing a Grindle-stone, draweth his knife, and goeth thither to whet it, and the Carpenter follows him.

This is in retaliation for the cutting off of the ears in act one it would seem. The Carpenter is in doublet and breeches with a small brimmed hat and wide linen band. The boy turning the wheel is dressed similarly, though it would seem he has the short “roundhead” hair cut of an apprentice and is also wearing a short apron.

 

 

Act 3 he is put into a bird Cage with the Confessor. Enter the Bishop of Canterbury, and the Jesuit in a great Bird Cage together and a fool standing by, and laughing at them, Ha ha, ha, he, who is the fool now.

Here they are in the cage, the fool on the right is wearing the standard cap with bells and a cloak over doublet and breeches.

 

Act 4 The Jester tells the King the Story.

Sadly no pictures!

 

 

See Heer Malignants Foolerie

retorted on them properly. Satirical pamphlet from 1642 showing Archbishop Laud as a closet catholic. There are three figures shown in the picture increasing in their obvious Catholicism as you look from left to right.  As the title says:

The Sound-Head, Round-Head, Rattle-Head, well plac’d where best is merited

The left hand figure is an independant cleric, dressed in his gown over a doublet with some nice long buttons, a wide brimmed hat and a ruff.

The text underneath reads:

This foolish world is full of foul mistakes

Calls virtue, vice, & Goodnes, Badnes makes

The Orthodox, Sound and Religious Man

Atheists call Round-Head (late) a Puritan

Because Hee (roundly) Rattle-Heads, Truth’s foes

Plainly depaints, As this next figure showes

The next figure in the centre on one side represents Archbishop Laud in his bishop’s rochet (the bishop’s surplice), chimere (the black gown) and square cap, and on the right a catholic priest in cassock and biretta. It’s thought that he is supposed to be Robert Philips who was the Queen’s confessor who had been locked in the Tower for refusing to swear on a “heretical” English bible.

This time the text reads:

See heer, the Rattle-Head’s most Rotten-Heart,

Acting the Atheists or Arminians part;

Under One Cater-cap a Ianus-face,

Rejecting Truth a Crucifixe t’embrace

Thus Linsey-Wolsie, Priestly-Prelates vile,

With Romish-rubbish did men’s Soules beguile

At the bottom, the details of the shoes are nice too. The puritan has the widest side openings though.

A Prophecie

Of the Life, Reigne, and Death of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the anti-Laud tracts printed after the Archbishop’s execution. This one from 1644.

Poor Laud is depicted as the great beast with the number engraved on his forehead and a set of antlers growing out of his Canterbury cap. He’s wearing his bishop’s weeds, rochet and chimere with a starched ruff around his neck. The guy on the right hand side offers some of the hated symbols of the high church, prayer beads, a crucifix, and the surplice, whilst the Devil proffers a cardinal’s hat He and the other chap, who is holding a barrel representing the monopolies that Laud was connected with, have short tabbed doublets, breeches, hose and shoes. Spot also the corded hat band.

This Canon’s Seal’d

…well forg’d, not made of lead. Give fire, O noe ’twill break and strike vs dead. Hollar’s satirical broadside from 1640 on the Laudian Canons which attempted to enshrine in canon law what William Laud and Charles I thought was the way ahead for the Church of England. Their ideas of government by bishops, service by the prayerbook and an attempt to reestablish a more aesthetic form of worship proved deeply unpopular and led not only to the execution of Laud, but was also one of the main causes of conflict in the 1640s.

Here the good Archbishop attempts to distribute an oath, presumably to legitimise the canons, by firing it out of a cannon. See where they went with the pun? Sadly the cannon is not up to the job and explodes as the ball leaves the barrel.

Several clerics are clustered around the cannon. Firstly the Archbishop of Canterbury in his square canterbury cap, rochet and chimere of an Anglican bishop, as well as a nice ruff pushed up by his standing collar. On his left a cleric in standard outdoor garb, doublet, breeches, open cloak, falling band and hat.

Here are two more academic clerics, the guy on the left in what looks like a university gown and hood and on the right in a preaching or geneva gown. These two are often said to be puritans, but I can see nothing here that wouldn’t have been worn by an episcopalian churchman. As in the case of the armies, there was little to distinguish either side at first glance.

Three bishops stand in the foreground. They have been identified as Matthew Wren, Bishop of  Ely, Thomas Morton, Bishop of Durham and John Williams, Archbishop of York. Wren and Morton are wearing gowns and Williams what looks like a fur lined tippet. All in regulation square caps.

All The Memorable Wonderstrikings Part 5

I’ve missed out a few pages, but these two are worth looking at. First the Court of High Commission and Star Chamber Courts being closed down by the Long Parliament. Both were long running institutions that had become unpopular. Charles had used the Court of Star Chamber as a means to raise revenue without calling parliament so was an obvious target for his opponents whilst the Court of High Commission as the supreme Ecclesiastical Court similarly attracted the anti-Laudians. Anyway, here is a picture of the top bishops in the land in their white rochets and black chimeres, ruff collars and square canterbury caps.

 

And here a group of workmen remove arms form the storehouse of a practising catholic. Presumably it wasn’t as easy as the operation shown here, but we see three simply dressed gents in doublet and breeches, and possibly the middle two in shirt and breeches. It’s tricky to tell which in this engraving, but they are making off with a stack of muskets, pikes and armour. The guy at the front with the muskets looks like he’s wearing a knitted monmouth cap.

 

Come Friend Array Your Selfe

From the Thomason tracts, an anonymous single page pamphlet from 1642. Real quality clothes on the soldier, Col Thomas Lunsford of the Tower of London in the only real depiction I know of an English montero cap. Nice bandolier of “boxes” on the bishop too!