Note 666 — Chapter XXV · HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM

Brewer, xvii. 79; Wilkins, iii. 860. About the same date a Discourse (Cotton MSS. Faustina, C. ii. 5) addressed by Sir Richard Morison to Henry VIII is described by Brewer xvii. 707 as proposing ‘a yearly memorial of the destruction of the bishop of Rome out of the realm, as the victory of Agincourt is annually celebrated at Calais, and the destruction of the Danes at Hoptide (sic: cf. vol. i. p. 154). It would be better that the plays of Robin Hood and Maid Marian should be forbidden, and others devised to set forth and declare lively before the people’s eyes the abomination and wickedness of the bishop of Rome, the monks, friars, nuns and such like, and to declare the obedience due to the King.’ In 1543 the Lord Mayor complained to the Privy Council of the ‘licentious manner of players.’ Certain joiners, who were the Lord Warden’s players, were imprisoned and reprimanded for playing on Sunday (P. C. Acts, i. 103, 109, 110, 122).