The author has
been described as a man of great learning, but little judgment; of
sour and austere principles, but wholly deficient in candour. His book
was judged libellous, for he had unwittingly aspersed the Queen in his
attack upon the masques performed at Court. He was cited in the Star
Chamber, and sentenced to stand in the pillory, to lose both ears, to
pay a heavy fine, and to undergo imprisonment for life. This severe
punishment probably stimulated the Puritans, when opportunity came to
them, to deal mercilessly with the actors by way of avenging Prynne's
wrongs, or of expressing sympathy with his sufferings.
And it is to be noted that early legislation in regard to the players
had been far from lenient. For such actors as had obtained the
countenance of "any Baron of this Realme," or "any other honourable
personage of greater degree," exception was to be made; otherwise, all
common players in interludes, all fencers, bearwards, and minstrels,
were declared by an Act passed in the 14th year of Elizabeth to be
rogues and vagabonds, and, whether male or female, liable on a first
conviction "to be grievously whipped and burned through the gristle of
the right ear with an hot iron of the compass of an inch about,
manifesting his or her roguish kind of life;" a second offence was
adjudged to be felony; a third entailed death without benefit of
clergy or privilege of sanctuary.
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