This beinge a thinge verye unfitte, offensive and
contrary, to such direction as have been heretofore taken, that no
plaies should be openly shewed but such as were first perused and
allowed, and that minister no occasion of offence or scandall, wee do
hereby require you that you do forthwith forbidd those players to
whomsoever they appertaine that do play at the Curtaine in Moorefeildes
to represent any such play, and that you will examine them who made that
play and to shew the same unto you, and as you in your discrecions shall
thincke the same unfitte to be publiquely shewed to forbidd them from
henceforth to play the same eyther privately or publiquely; and if upon
veiwe of the said play you shall finde the subject so odious and
inconvenient as is informed, wee require you to take bond of the
chiefest of them to aunswere their rashe and indiscreete dealing before
us."
We know nothing of the result of this prosecution, but we may be allowed
to assume that it did not result in very severe measures. We seem to
read a certain concealed sympathy in the writ of the great lords, and we
cannot help suspecting that it was the Puritan citizens who felt
themselves hit and who brought the complaint. If the lords had been the
butt of the mockery, no doubt the proceeding of the actors would have
appeared to them much worse than "rashe and indiscreete.
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