Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 4).pdf/277



[1559, May 8. Extract from ''An Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church and Administration of the Sacraments'' (1 Eliz. c. 2), printed in Statutes, iv. 1, 355. Later clauses give concurrent power to deal with offences under the Act to justices of assize or mayors and other head officers of cities and boroughs, and to archbishops and bishops and other ordinaries by ecclesiastical process.]

It is ordained and enacted by the authority abovesaid, that if any person or persons whatsoever, after the said feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming [24 June 1559], shall in any interludes, plays, songs, rhymes, or by other open words, declare or speak anything in the derogation, depraving, or despising of the same book [of Common Prayer], or of anything therein contained, or any part thereof, then every such person, being thereof lawfully convicted in form aforesaid, shall forfeit to the queen our sovereign lady, her heirs and successors, for the first offence a hundred marks.

x.

[1559, May 16. Proclamation 509, printed in Collier, i. 166, and Hazlitt, E. D. S. 19.]

¶ By the Quene.

Forasmuche as the tyme wherein common Interludes in the Englishe tongue are wont vsually to be played, is now past vntyll All Hallou-*tyde, and that also some that haue ben of late vsed, are not conuenient in any good ordred Christian Common weale to be suffred. The Quenes Maiestie doth straightly forbyd all maner Interludes to be playde eyther openly or priuately, except the same be notified before hande, and licenced within any Citie or towne corporate, by the Maior or other chiefe officers of the same, and within any shyre, by suche as shalbe Lieuetenauntes for the Quenes Maiestie in the same shyre, or by two of the Justices of peax inhabyting within that part of the shire where any shalbe played.

And for instruction to euery of the sayde officers, her maiestie doth likewise charge euery of them, as they will aunswere: that they permyt none to be played wherin either matters of religion or of the gouernaunce of the estate of the common weale shalbe handled or treated, beyng no meete matters to be wrytten or treated vpon, but by menne of aucthoritie, learning and wisedome, nor to be handled before any audience, but of graue and discreete persons: All which partes of this proclamation, her maiestie chargeth to be inuiolably kepte. And if any shal attempt to the contrary: her maiestie giueth all maner of officers that haue authoritie to see common peax kepte in commaundement, to arrest and enprison the parties so offendinge, for the space of fourtene dayes or more, as cause shal nede: And furder also vntill good assuraunce may be founde and gyuen, that they shalbe of good behauiour, and no more to offende in the likes.

And further her maiestie gyueth speciall charge to her nobilitie and gentilmen, as they professe to obey and regarde her maiestie, to take good order in thys behalfe wyth their seruauntes being players, that