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LII. The Contemporary Significance of Middleton's Game at Chesse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John Robert Moore
John Robert Moore*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

Thomas Middleton's Game at Chesse (1624), expressing the national hatred of Spaniard and Jesuit alike, was played nine days straight before houses packed to suffocation for the first consecutive long run in English theatrical history. With England aroused over the religious wars of the Continent and the return of Prince Charles from his unsuccessful visit to Madrid in quest of the Spanish Princess, the play appeared as a satirical allegory in the form of a game of chess, in which the English have the White and the Spaniards and Jesuits the Black men. Black secures the treacherous Fat Bishop and the White King's Pawn. Overthrow of the English Church and State seems imminent. The White Knight and the White Duke visit the Black House (Madrid), where their capture is attempted; but they checkmate the Black King and overthrow the Black forces. Its most recent editor has said that “more is known about A Game at Chesse than about any other pre-Restoration play.” Even so, some promising approaches to a fuller understanding have been overlooked.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 1935 , pp. 761 - 768
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1935

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References

1 A Game at Chesse, edited by R. C. Bald (Cambridge, 1929), p. 19.

2 Ibid., p. ix.

3 See reproductions in editions of Dyce and Bald. That in Bullen's edition is less distinct.

4 R. C. Bald, “Middleton's Civic Employments,” MP, xxxi, No. 1, 65–78.

5 Conway's letter to the Privy Council, Aug. 12, 1624 (State Papers [Dom.], James I, Vol. 171, No. 39).

6 Chamberlain's letter to Carleton, Aug. 21, 1624 (State Papers [Dom.], James I, Vol. 171, No. 66).

7 Cf. the pictures of jacobuses in Shakespeare's England (Oxford, 1916), i, 340.

8 Cf. pictures of Philip IV in Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, lxvii, 626, 634; xxiii, 602.

9 Cf. the picture of Anne in Sir John Skelton, Charles I (London, 1898), p. 26.

10 J. R. Planché, British Costumes (London, 1849), p. 280: “The portrait of Anne of Denmark, queen of James I, exactly resembles, in the general character of the dress, that of Queen Elizabeth, painted by Holbein.” Cf. also Mary Evans, Costume throughout the Ages (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 148.

11 Between 1610 and 1630 there was a development from the pleated ruff to the fan-shaped ruff, the latter soon giving way to the falling collar. Cf. Rubens' portraits of his wives, Isabella Brant (1610) and Helene Fourment (1630), in Die Mode, by Max von Boehm (Münich, 1913), pp. 5, 50. Cf. also Carl Köhler and Emma Von Sichart, A History of Costume, trans. by A. K. Dallas (New York, 1928), pp. 286, 287, 317; H. Knackfuss, Van Dyke, trans, by Campbell Dodgson (Leipzig, 1899), p. 52; Evans, op. cit., Fig. 44.

12 Cf. the picture of Isabella in Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, lxvii, 652, and the portrait attributed to Velasquez in the Chicago Art Institute (on loan from Mr. Max Epstein).

13 Cf. the picture of Abbot in Edmund Lodge, Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain (London, 1850), iii, 285.

14 Cf. the picture of Olivares in Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, lxvii, 640.

15 Cf. the picture of Buckingham in Lodge, op. cit., iii, 223, and the group of Buckingham and his family in the National Portrait Gallery.

16 Bald, A Game at Chesse, p. 32.

17 Ibid., 30, 31.

18 Supra, Note 5.

19 Bald, A Game at Chesse, p. 121.

20 v, iii, 177–178 (ed. Bald).

21 A. W. Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature (London, 1899), ii, 530.

22 iii, ii.

23 The Modern Husband (ed. Leslie Stephen), iii, vi.

14 v, i.

25 iii, iv.

25 ii, ii. As in A Game at Chesse, the older name Duke is substituted for Rook to emphasize the personal allusion.

27 H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), pp. 817–820.

28 Louis Hoffman, The Games of Greco (London, 1900), Preface: “Greco was the Morphy of the seventeenth century, and it may safely be said that in brilliancy and fertility of invention he has never been surpassed.”

29 Murray, op. cit., p. 828.

30 He was born in Calabria, and was commonly called “the Calabrese.”

31 He left his fortune to the Jesuits (Murray, op. cit., p. 828).

32 Loc. cit.

33 Ibid., p. 829.

34 Ibid., p. 830.

35 The Royall Game of Chesse-Play, edited by Francis Beale.

36 Hoffman, op. cit., p. 234.

37 Saul, op. cit., Chap. xviii.

38 Saul speaks particularly of the stakes. Hoffman, op. cit., p. x, says that Greco left Paris richer by 5000 crowns.

39 The players chose their colors. Black received first move if he touched the hand in which his opponent held the Black King's Pawn. (Cf. the title-page of Saul, op. cit.)—I am indebted to Dr. Percy W. Long for an exceedingly interesting suggestion: “Note that this opening Queen's Gambit Declined is allegorical of the Spanish marriage.” Such an allusion would be too subtle for the average spectator, but it would be all the more amusing to the few who perceived it and to such a lover of chess as Middleton seems to have been.

40 Cf. Hoffman, op. cit., p. 204.

41 Ibid., p. 55: “A brilliant example of Greco's combinations, and his expert adaptation of means to end. At move 10 White's Q and Kt are both en prise, but the double check preserves them from all danger, and the next move gives the coup de grâce.” For somewhat similar double checks leading to mates, cf. pp. 34, 60, 66, 68, 89, 112, 161.

42 Cf. Saul's classification of the mates: “A Mate by discouery, the worthiest of all.”

43 Quoted by Murray, op. cit., p. 839, from the Apologie.

44 Bald, A Game at Chesse, pp. 11–12, establishes this identification.

45 Hubert, Hall, The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer (New York and London, 1891), p. 131, cites one example dating as late as 1676. Frequent references to counter-casting occur in 17th-century drama; e.g., Othello, i, i, 31; The Winter's Tale, iv, iii, 38.

46 Hall, op. cit., p. 132. The checkered board must have been a familiar symbol, used for such things as tavern signs; e.g., Pepys refers repeatedly to the “Exchequer” or “Chequers” at Charing Cross.

47 Thomas Madox, The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England, (second edition, London, 1769), i, 160.

48 Ibid., i, 160, Note 1; Hall, op. cit., 114–134.

49 Lodge, op. cit., iv, 170–173. Cf. p. 170: “a merchant he remained until he had nearly reached the fortieth year of his age.”

50 iii, i, 301–305 (ed. Bald).

51 Quoted by Murray, op. cit., p. 839.

52 Bald, A Game at Chesse, p. 19.

53 A chess-board figures prominently on the title-page of Quarto iii as well as on that of Quartos i and ii.

54 Lowe's letter to Ingram, Aug. 7, 1624 (Historical MSS. Commission, Report on MSS. in Various Collections, vii, 27); Nethersole's letter to Carleton, Aug. 14, 1624 (State Papers [Dom.], James I, Vol. 171, No. 49).

55 Chamberlain's letter to Carleton, Aug. 21, 1624 (State Papers (Dom.), James I, Vol. 171, No. 66).

56 “Spoke like heuens Substitute” (iii, i, 315, ed. Bald).

57 Valaresso's letter to the Doge and Senate, Aug. 20/30, 1624 (Cal. of S. P. [Ven.], 1623–25, No. 577).

58 Conway's letter to the Privy Council, Aug. 12, 1624 (State Papers [Dom.], James I, Vol. 171, No. 39).

59 Conway's letter to the Privy Council, Aug. 27, 1624 (State Papers [Dom.], James I, Vol. 171, No. 75).

60 Pembroke's letter to the President of the Council, Aug. 27, 1624 (B. M. Egerton MS. 2623 f. 28).

61 Bald, A Game at Chesse, p. 12.

62 Lodge, op. cit., iv, 176.

63 Ibid., iv, 171; A Game at Cheese, iii, i, 301–306.

64 F. H. Lyon, Diego de Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar (Oxford, 1910), p. 112.

65 Times Lit. Supplement, Feb. 16, 1928, p. 112.

66 The Library, Fourth Series, xi, 110–111.

67 Ibid., xii, 247–248.

68 Supra, Note 55.

69 v, iii, 63–64, 84–85, 116, 130–136.

70 iv, ii, 17–18.

71 ii, ii, 265; iii, i, 178–180, 187–190; iv, ii, 1; iv, ii, 103–104; iv, iii, 186–187.

72 Supra, Note 65.

73 Supra, Notes 6, 54, 57, 59.