that island. Stukeley, as a good Catholic, an English rebel, an experienced pirate and captain of adventure, a schemer who had lived in Ireland, and who understood its people and its parties, seemed exactly the right instrument for the Pope's plan of conquest. Gregory conferred upon his favourite many sounding titlesBaron of Ross and Idron, Viscount of the Morough and Kenshlagh, Earl of Wexford and Catherlough, and Marquess of Leinster. Then, adding the commission of General in his army, he sent Stukeley to join the Portuguese King Sebastian's expedition against Morocco. What followed is matter of history. Stukeley breathed his last in the ill-conducted and fatal battle of Alcazar in 1578. By no means all the foregoing details were known to Stukeley's dramatic biographers; nor did these concern themselves with the political aspects of their hero's career. The rebel disappears. The traitor to his queen and country is forgotten. Only the bold Englishman, climbing to the height of an adventurous ambition, and dying chivalrously in conflict with the Moors, survives. The first play on this subject is entitled 'The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley.' It was printed in 1605. and was the work of an unknown author. The first scenes are presented in a round clear English style of portraiture. The old Devonshire knight, on a visit to his son's chambers in the Temple, finding swords and bucklers there in lieu of law-books-the scapegrace hero's meeting with his father--the part of the page between them--the wooing and wedding of the rich heiress, Mistress Anne Curtis-Stukeley's quarrel at the STUKELEY ON THE STAGE. 403 marriage feast with her former suitor Herbert, and the payment of his bachelor debts with the bride's dowry money-and afterwards his exit on a filibustering excursion before three days of the honeymoon are over -all these details form a pleasing bustling introduction to a pageant of adventures, which had subsequently to be helped out hobbling on the crutches of a chorus. There is one striking piece of braggadocio in the desert of dull business, which concludes this history. Stukeley has undertaken a mission from Philip to the Pope of Rome. He sets forth on his journey, and is followed by an envoy bearing a gift of five thousand ducats, upon which a percentage has been discounted. The interview between Valdes, the King's Commissioner, and the English donatee must have brought down the gallery : Stukeley. How many ducats did the king assign? Stuk. Are they all within these bags? Val. Well near. Stuk. How near? Val. Perhaps some twenty want. [The bags are set on the table. Stuk. Why should there want a marmady, a mite? Doth the king know that any ducats lack? Val. He doth, and saw the bags would hold more, And sealed them with his signet, as you see. Stuk. Valdes, return them; I will have none of them; And tell thy master, the great King of Spain, I honour him, but scorn his niggardise, [Casts the bags down. And spurn abridged bounty with my foot. DD 2 Or any kingdom, England sole excepted, I would have perished or performed my word, Nor so much ground as would have made my grave. Peele, if Peele was author of the Battle of Alcazar,' has given a distinguished place to Stukeley in the last act of that play, dramatising the circumstances of his death, and condensing the legend of his life in a long dying speech. That the 'rake-hell,' as Cecil styled him, was a favourite of the public, is proved by the frequency of ballads and pamphlets touching on his story, no less than by a casual reference which shows he was a hero of the stage: Bid theatres and proud tragedians, Bid Mahomet, Hoo, and mighty Tamburlain, XI. The plays of the fourth group, dealing with legendary heroes and the apocryphal history of England, are for the most part poor. It is, for instance, hardly needful to mention such feeble performances as 'Fair Em,' in which an unknown author of Greene's epoch exhibited William the Conqueror in love at the Danish Court; or Day's and Chettle's worthless 'Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,' founded on the mythical adventures of Lord Mumford and his daughter. Three pieces drawn from the history of Robin Hood deserve more attention. These are Anthony Munday's Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon; The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon,' written by the same 'ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGDON: 405 author with Henry Chettle's assistance; and the anonymous George a Greene, Pinner of Wakefield,' attributed on somewhat slender evidence to Robert Greene. Taken together, these three dramas form a fairly comprehensive digest of the legend of England's most popular medieval hero. Whether the famous outlaw was a myth, as Mr. Thomas Wright has been at pains to prove, or whether he had a real historical existence, does not concern the present study. What is certain is, that Robin Hood, the ideal English robber, was a very different personage from a Greek Klepht or an Italian bandit. He represented all the virtues of the national character, and some of its absurdities. He was an 'unfortunate nobleman,' deprived of his rights by unjust relatives and a tyrannous usurper, whose only fault in his more prosperous days had been overliberality, or love of generous living, Driven from his home, he gathered jolly mates around him in Sherwood forest, chasing the deer, and doing simple justice under the greenwood tree.' He lived, as Stow relates, by spoils and thefts; but he spared the poor and plundered the rich. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested. Poor men's goods he spared abundantly, relieving them with that which he got by theft from abbeys and the houses of rich carles.' Though he made free perforce with the king's venison, he remained a loyal subject; and while wandering beyond the pale of society, he and his merry men observed unwritten laws of natural justice, charity, and mercy. His sweetheart, the daughter of an earl, became Maid Marian, and dwelt a virgin huntress in his company, until such time as marriage rites could be performed. The Anglo-Saxon features of this legendary character, law-abiding in outlawry, loyal in resistance to authority, respecting Judge Lynch in the desert, gentle to women, hospitable to the homeless, generous to the needy, organising vigilance committees to restrain indecency and outrage, unembittered by injustice, hopeful and self-helpful in adversity, exulting in the freedom of field, fell, and forest, are unmistakable and firmly traced. Robin Hood, as his myth presents him to us, had probably no real existence. But the spirit of the people which created him, has since expressed itself in many a Western ranch and Rocky Mountain canyon. Nothing illustrates the wholesome and cheerful tone of English popular literature more strongly than the three Robin Hood plays which I have mentioned. In the first of these, the Earl of Huntingdon is expelled from his fiefs and outlawed. He forms his republic and gives laws to his followers. Little John declares the articles: First, no man must presume to call our master By name of Earl, Lord, Baron, Knight, or Squire ; Next, 't is agreed, if thereto she agree, That fair Matilda henceforth change her name, |
