364 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
It was such an organization to which Nobility and Civil Order 
resigned their independence, and by which poor Commonalty was 
rendered impotent. In attacking the evil, the bitter controversialist 
touches upon the political as well as the religious questions involved 
in England’s Reformation, defending the divinely appointed suprem- 
acy of kings as well as assailing the power of Rome. King John, 
then, illustrates the development of the morality during the course 
of the sixteenth century. Contrast the political personifications of 
the play with the stereotyped figures of the seven deadly sins; 
its historical background with the indefinite setting of its predecessors ; 
and the heightened reality of its action with the slow movement 
of the older play, and one sees at a glance the progress toward 
the real drama that the morality here made. Bale was the most 
original, as he was the most vigorous, of the Protestant dramatists 
of England.1 
The playwrights may have learned their first lessons in the al- 
legorical treatment of contemporary politics in the preparation of 
royal pageants. At a “disguising” at court during the visit of 
Charles V to London in 1523, an unruly horse, intended to typify 
the French king, was tamed by Amitie, in the interests of the 
alliance between Charles and Henry.? This, the earliest known ex- 
periment in the application of dramatic allegory to contemporary 
affairs, was soon followed by more serious essays. In 1527 the 
members of Gray’s Inn produced John Roo’s morality play, which 
represented Lord Governaunce as ruled by Dissipation and Negligence 
in a way that seemed to Wolsey unduly personal and disrespectful.* 
These distinctly political plays were soon followed by others that 
broached religious issues. In November, 1527, the master of St. 
Paul’s, John Ritwise, had his boys give before the French ambassador 
a Latin comedy, “the effect wherof was that ye pope was in 
captiuitie & the church brought vnder the foote, wherfore S. Peter 
appeared and put the Cardinal in authoritie to bryng the Pope to 
his libertie and to set vp the church againe”.t The piece has not 
been preserved; but the caste included, besides “the herretyke 
Lewtar” and “Lewtar’s wyfe, like a frowe of Spyers in Almayn,” 
and three Germans arrayed in notched clothes, such personifica- 
tions as Religion, Ecclesia, Veritas, Heresy, and False Interpreta- 

' A Protestant describes an interlude played in Cranmer’s house in 
1539 as “one of the best matiers that ever he sawe touching King John” 
(Chambers, 2. 221). The prologues of Bale’s miracle-plays are contro- 
versial. 
2 Chambers, 2. 219. Se hall, Cae 2 Halle (3a: 
