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Abstract
This article expands on previous studies of repetition in mayoral shows by examining the manner by which the genre regularly brings London sites to life. As forms of environmental theatre that fashion civic sites into dramatic participants, the shows repeatedly represent London and its places as recurring characters, or actants, in the civic dramatic events. London locations take on a protean quality by addressing changing and topical circumstances in relation to their functions and topography, despite their seemingly fixed nature. The later shows of Thomas Middleton in particular are explored for the ways in which they blend person and place by merging space and speech through an anonymous speaker in a specific locale. In these instances, place — and by extension the city of London fully — becomes a living part of the drama that speaks and participates in the environmental theatre of the day and year ahead.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Tracey Hill and Andrew Gordon for thinking to include me in this special issue as well as for their editorial guidance in honing the present work, and I am also thankful to the two anonymous reviewers whose feedback helped to strengthen this article. The entire Map of Early Modern London team has offered frequent opportunities to talk about mayoral shows in the past few years, and I have benefited from all of those stimulating conversations. Finally, Paul Mulholland suggested to me one day that environmental theatre might be of interest to me with respect to mayoral shows. Thanks, as always, Paul for your wonderful guidance.
Notes
1 T. Dekker, Londons Tempe, or, the Feild of Happines (London, 1629), sig. C1v.
2 R. Schechner, Environmental Theater (New York: Applause, 1994), ix.
3 R. Knowles, ‘Environmental Theatre’, in A. Houston (ed.), Environmental and Site-Specific Theatre (Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2007), 69.
4 L. Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 226–27.
5 A. Lancashire, London Civic Theatre: City Drama and Pageantry from Roman Times to 1558 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 170.
6 Ibid., 153.
7 D.M. Bergeron, English Civic Pageantry, 1558–1642 (Tempe: Medieval Renaissance Texts Series, 2003), 215.
8 Ibid., 263.
9 T.B. Leinwand, ‘London Triumphing: The Jacobean Lord Mayor’s Show’, Clio, 11:2 (1982), 149.
10 T. Hill, Anthony Munday and Civic Culture: Theatre, History, and Power in Early Modern London, 1580–1633 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 173.
11 Ibid.
12 T. Hill, Pageantry and Power: A Cultural History of the Early Modern Lord Mayor’s Show, 1585–1639 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), 182.
13 L. Ellinghausen, ‘“Their Labour Doth Returne Rich Golden Gaine”: Fishmongers’ Pageants and the Fisherman’s Labor in Early Modern London’, Comparative Drama, 51:2 (2017), 141–42.
14 Ibid., 143.
15 S. Anderson, ‘Generic Spaces in Middleton’s The Triumphs of Truth (1613) and Michaelmas Term (1607)’, Cahiers Élisabéthains, 88 (2015), 38.
16 I. Smith, ‘Managing Fear: The Commerce in Blackness and the London Lord Mayors’ Shows’, in R. Arab, M. Dowd, and A. Zucker (eds.), Historical Affects and the Early Modern Theater (New York: Routledge, 2015), 217–19.
17 J.C. Finlayson, ‘Thomas Heywood’s Panegyric to London’s “University” in Londini Artium & Scientiarum Scaturigo: or, Londons Fountaine of Arts and Sciences (1632)’, London Journal, 39:2 (2014), 104.
18 J. Ingram, ‘Financial Encounter Customs: Tradition and Form in London’s Civic Pageantry’, in J.C. Finlayson and A. Sen (eds.), Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (New York: Routledge, 2020), 138.
19 J.L. Wood, ‘Arion’s Harp, Apollo’s Lute: The Instrumental Sounds of London’s Lord Mayor’s Shows’, in J.C. Finlayson and A. Sen (eds.), Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (New York: Routledge, 2020), 116–17.
20 I.W. Archer, ‘The Social and Political Dynamics of the Lord Mayor’s Show’, in J.C. Finlayson and A. Sen (eds.), Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (New York: Routledge, 2020), 101.
21 J. Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 9.
22 J. Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598–1642 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 23.
23 Andrew Houston defines ‘environmental theatre’ as ‘a way of being-in-the-world and bringing to bear a social, political and historical consciousness upon our navigations through and experiences of lived space’. A. Houston, ‘Introduction. The Thirdspace of Environmental and Site-Specific Theatre’, in A. Houston (ed.), Environmental and Site Specific Theatre (Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2007), vii.
24 J. Lopez, Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 8.
25 Lancashire, London Civic Theatre, 65.
26 Sarah Crover, ‘“Cleopatra in Her Barge”: Anne Boleyn’s Coronation Pageants and the Production of English Culture’, in J.C. Finlayson and A. Sen (eds.), Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (New York: Routledge, 2020), 58.
27 J. Stow, A Survay of London Contayning the Originall, Antiquity, Increase, Moderne Estate, and Description of that Citie, Written in the Year 1598 (London, 1598), sig. B6r.
28 A. Lancashire, ‘The Comedy of Love and the London Lord Mayor’s Show’, in K. Bamford and R. Knowles (eds.), Shakespeare’s Comedies of Love: Essays in Honour of Alexander Leggatt (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 8–9, 11.
29 Schechner, Environmental Theater, x.
30 Technically, John Squire was as well, since his one and only show features St Katherine, which is possibly where Heywood obtained inspiration to feature her in several shows for the livery company.
31 T. Heywood, Londini Speculum; or, Londons Mirror (London, 1638), sig. B3v.
32 Ibid.
33 Hill, Pageantry and Power, 166.
34 Bergeron, English Civic Pageantry, 214.
35 R. Rowland, Thomas Heywood’s Theatre, 1599–1639 (New York: Routledge, 2016), 318. Rowland likewise identifies that Heywood appears to have a greater sense of the ways in which Katherine connoted ‘communal responsibility’, even if ‘the Haberdashers themselves were probably unaware’ (319).
36 J. Robertson and D. J. Gordon (eds.), Malone Society Collections III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), 125.
37 D. Carnegie, ‘Galley-Foists, the Lord Mayor’s Show, and Early Modern English Drama’, Early Theatre, 7:2 (2004), 67.
38 Wood, ‘Arion’s Harp, Apollo’s Lute’, 128.
39 Heywood, Londini Speculum, sig. B3v.
40 Ibid., sig. B4r.
41 R.B. Forbes, Remarks on China and the China Trade (Boston, 1844), 22.
42 Heywood, Londini Speculum, sig. B4r; T. Heywood, A True Description of His Majesties Royall Ship, Built This Yeare 1637 (London, 1637), sig. B2r. Hill remarks that Heywood ‘takes the opportunity to plug’ this ‘other publication’ the following year in Porta Pietatis, thereby signalling an ongoing attention to both texts. Hill, Pageantry and Power, 99.
43 Heywood, A True Description, A3v.
44 T. Hill, ‘“To the Honour of Our Nation abroad”: The Merchant as Adventurer in Civic Pageantry’, in J.C. Finlayson and A. Sen (eds.), Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (New York: Routledge, 2020), 27.
45 A. Munday, Camp-Bell, or the Ironmongers Faire Feild (London, 1609), sig. B2v.
46 G. Edmundston, Anglo-Dutch Rivalry During the First Half of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), 93, 103–4.
47 Hill, ‘“To the Honour of Our Nation Abroad”’, 19–20.
48 M. Kaethler, ‘Critical Introduction to London’s Tempe’, J. Jenstad (ed.), Map of Early Modern London (Victoria, Forthcoming).
49 Squire portrays Oceanus as a central force of all streams and bodies of water whose ‘care shall be for euer to attend’ upon the lord mayor of this year, whereas Webster has Tethys begin the pageant believing they are in Venice, which Oceanus must then correct. J. Squire, Tes Irenes Trophaea. Or, the Tryumphes of Peace (London, 1620), sig. A4r; J. Webster, Monuments of Honor (London, 1624), sig. A4r. Although Webster names her Thetis, this is most likely a misnomer, as she accompanies Oceanus.
50 Although it is common for speakers, personages, or properties to reappear in land pageants after the mayor has been knighted at Westminster, it is rare for a speaker on the water to deliver the final speech. The only other occurrence I have located prior to 1629 is Middleton’s show The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity (1619), in which Love gives the first and last speeches. In 1619, with the Thirty Years’ War and James VI & I’s desire for peace (played out in Squire’s The Triumphs of Peace the next year), it is possible that there is a similar rhetoric in 1619 as I interpret in 1629, if Middleton was interested in continuing to uphold James’s intransigent irenic mission as he already had done with The Peacemaker (1618).
51 S. Crover, ‘Stage and Street: The Cultural History of the Early Modern Thames’ (Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of British Columbia, 2015).
52 T. Middleton, The Triumphs of Truth (London, 1613), sig. B1r.
53 B. Boehrer, ‘Middleton and Ecological Change’, in Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 572–75. The metaphorical value of the Thames as a purifying force seems to have been a common device as well. Kelly J. Stage illuminates the manner by which Jonson employs it onstage as a symbol of ‘purgation and replenishment’. K.J. Stage, Producing Early Modern London: A Comedy of Urban Space, 1598–1616 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 80.
54 K. Scott, ‘Soper Lane’, in J. Jenstad (ed.), Map of Early Modern London (Victoria, 2018), <https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/SOPE1.htm?searchString=soper%20lane> [accessed 30 August 2020].
55 Middleton, The Triumphs of Truth, sig. B1r.
56 Ibid. sig. D1v.
57 Likewise, these repetitions of London’s overarching purpose in the show serve as reminders of her emblematic purpose, for as Andrew Gordon points out, Middleton’s pageantry is preoccupied with civic memory, which means attending to forgetting as well. A. Gordon, Writing Early Modern London: Memory, Text, and Community (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 156–57.
58 Stage, Producing Early Modern London, 5.
59 A. Bozio, Thinking Through Place on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 5.
60 Ibid. 11.
61 T. Hill, ‘“Euer Obedient in His Studies”: Thomas Middleton and the City, 1620–1622’, London Journal, 42:2 (2017), 140.
62 The matter of Barkham, the Lord Mayor Middleton writes for in The Sun in Aries (1621), for instance, exemplifies this matter. As Hill identifies, the Drapers were reluctant to accept Barkham as Lord Mayor. Ibid. 146. Hill’s observation of the tension involved throughout the show, particularly in the pageant involving the place of Fitz-Alwine’s burial, illuminates that Middleton subtly remarks on Barkham as an afterthought of the company. Ibid. 147. The motion away from either persons, as Fitz-Alwine is not performed and Barkham is ignored, makes such an instance a moment where Middleton begins to move away from the person and toward the significance of the place as the ideological site of the company.
63 Middleton, of course, collaborated with Munday on his first show The Triumphs of Truth; my point here is that by allocating the water pageants to a separate author to compose and send to the printer, it is a departure from Middleton’s usual involvement and from civic pageantry in general — to our extant knowledge at least.
64 T. Middleton, The Triumphs of Integrity (London, 1623), sig. A4r.
65 T. Dekker, Troia-Nova Triumphans (London, 1612), sig. C3v.
66 Middleton, The Triumphs of Integrity, sig. A4r.
67 Anderson, ‘Generic Spaces in Middleton’, 38.
68 Middleton, The Triumphs of Integrity, sig. A4v.
69 M. Floyd-Wilson and G. Sullivan, Jr, ‘Introduction: Inhabiting the Body, Inhabiting the World’, in M. Floyd-Wilson and G. Sullivan, Jr. (eds.), Environment and Embodiment in Early Modern England (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 3–4.
70 Bergeron, English Civic Pageantry, 238–95.
71 Emily Bartels has written on the conflicted nature of Marlowe’s representation of Tamburlaine and how this portrait played upon early modern conceptions of ‘the East’. E. Bartels, ‘The Double Vision of the East: Imperialist Self-Construction in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Part One’, Renaissance Drama, 23 (1992), 3–4.
72 Middleton, Triumphs of Integrity, sig. A4v.
73 K. Rolfe, ‘“It Is No Time Now to Enquire of Forraine Occurrents”: Plague, War, and Rumour in the Letters of Joseph Mead, 1625’, in J. Raymond and N. Moxham (eds.), News Networks in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 564.
74 T. Dekker, A Rod for Run-Awayes Gods Tokens, of His Feareful Judgements (London, 1625), sig. A2v.
75 A Direction Concerning the Plague, or Pestilence, for Pooore and Rich (London, 1625), sig. A1r.
76 T. Middleton, The Triumphs of Health and Prosperity (London: N. Okes, 1626), sig. A4r.
77 Ibid., sig. A4v.
78 Stow, A Survay of London, sig. U6v.
79 Middleton, Triumphs of Health and Prosperity, sig. A4v.
80 For more on the forthcoming anthology and its ambitions, see my chapter written with Janelle Jenstad in Finlayson and Sen’s volume. J. Jenstad and M. Kaethler, ‘Building a Digital Geospatial Anthology of the Mayoral Shows’, in J. C. Finlayson and A. Sen (eds.), Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (New York: Routledge, 2020), 219–34.
81 F. Fairholt, Lord Mayors’ Pageants: Being a Collection Toward a History of These Annual Celebrations (London, 1863), ii.
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Mark Kaethler
Mark Kaethler is Department Chair, Arts, at Medicine Hat College. He serves as the Assistant Director of Mayoral Shows for the Map of Early Modern London, hosted at the University of Victoria. He is the author of Thomas Middleton and the Plural Politics of Jacobean Drama (2021) and co-editor, with Janelle Jenstad and Jennifer Roberts-Smith, of Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (2018).