183-422: Volpone ( [volˈpoːne] , Italian for "sly fox") is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable . A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies. Volpone (The Fox) is a Venetian gentleman who pretends to be on his deathbed after
366-575: A Roman Catholic , generated antipathy and mistrust from Reformed religious groups such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters , who thought his views too Catholic. He supported high church Anglican ecclesiastics and failed to aid continental Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years' War . His attempts to force the Church of Scotland to adopt high Anglican practices led to
549-568: A French film version was released, under the direction of noted filmmaker Maurice Tourneur . Begun in 1938 by Jacques de Baroncelli , the production shut down because of financial difficulties. Tourneur took over and the shooting resumed in 1940. This version also used portions of the adaptation by Romains and Zweig. An adaptation by Alphons Silbermann ran at the Independent Theatre , Sydney from 3 April to 21 June 1947. A short-lived 1964 Broadway musical adaptation entitled Foxy moved
732-546: A London setting, themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim in the Prologue to Volpone to "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or " dotages ", particularly The Magnetic Lady and The Sad Shepherd , exhibit signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy . Within this general progression, however, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognisable. He announces his programme in
915-635: A Parliament, are known as the Personal Rule or the "eleven years' tyranny". Ruling without Parliament was not exceptional, and was supported by precedent. But only Parliament could legally raise taxes, and without it Charles's capacity to acquire funds for his treasury was limited to his customary rights and prerogatives. A large fiscal deficit had arisen during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Notwithstanding Buckingham's short-lived campaigns against both Spain and France, Charles had little financial capacity to wage wars overseas. Throughout his reign, he
1098-490: A beautiful wife, Celia. Disguised as Scoto the Mountebank, Volpone goes to see Celia. Corvino drives away "Scoto" (Volpone), who then becomes insistent that he must possess Celia as his own. Mosca deceives Corvino into believing that the moribund Volpone will be cured of his illness if he lies in bed beside a young woman. Believing that Volpone has been rendered impotent by his illness, Corvino offers his wife in order that, when he
1281-552: A bride and to a rapturous and relieved public welcome, he and Buckingham pushed the reluctant James to declare war on Spain. With the encouragement of his Protestant advisers, James summoned the English Parliament in 1624 to request subsidies for a war. Charles and Buckingham supported the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer , Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex , who opposed war on grounds of cost and quickly fell in much
1464-550: A brief Bible verse (the neck-verse ), forfeiting his "goods and chattels" and being branded with the so-called Tyburn T on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright , a Jesuit priest. In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in His Humour , capitalising on the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with An Humorous Day's Mirth . William Shakespeare
1647-553: A brief spell of imprisonment imposed to mark the authorities' displeasure at the work, in the second week of October 1605, he was present at a supper party attended by most of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. After the plot's discovery, he appears to have avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of the affair to the investigator Robert Cecil and the Privy Council. Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession,
1830-423: A charge of recusancy , with Jonson alone additionally accused of allowing his fame as a Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause. This was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that his failure to take communion was only because he had not found sound theological endorsement for the practice, and by paying a fine of thirteen shillings (156 pence ) he escaped
2013-717: A clandestine attempt to aid Catholicism's resurgence. Rather than direct involvement in the European land war, the English Parliament preferred a relatively inexpensive naval attack on Spanish colonies in the New World , hoping for the capture of the Spanish treasure fleets . Parliament voted to grant a subsidy of £140,000, an insufficient sum for Charles's war plans. Moreover, the House of Commons limited its authorisation for royal collection of tonnage and poundage (two varieties of customs duties) to
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#17328584409662196-517: A compromise whereby the king would agree to forfeit ship money in exchange for £650,000 (although the cost of the coming war was estimated at £1 million). Nevertheless, this alone was insufficient to produce consensus in the Commons. The Parliamentarians' calls for further reforms were ignored by Charles, who still retained the support of the House of Lords. Despite the protests of the Earl of Northumberland,
2379-649: A controversial anti-Calvinist ecclesiastic, Richard Montagu , who was in disrepute among the Puritans . In his pamphlet A New Gag for an Old Goose (1624), a reply to the Catholic pamphlet A New Gag for the New Gospel , Montagu argued against Calvinist predestination , the doctrine that God preordained salvation and damnation . Anti-Calvinists—known as Arminians —believed that people could accept or reject salvation by exercising free will . Arminian divines had been one of
2562-878: A cousin of King James, in Leith, and was made an honorary burgess of Edinburgh at a dinner laid on by the city on 26 September. He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, and the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden , sited on the River Esk . Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond noted he
2745-684: A critic of the king, Strafford defected to royal service in 1628, in part due to the Duke of Buckingham's persuasion, and had since emerged, alongside Laud, as the most influential of Charles's ministers. Bolstered by the failure of the English Short Parliament, the Scottish Parliament declared itself capable of governing without the king's consent, and in August 1640 the Covenanter army moved into
2928-575: A defence against innovation and disorder. Parliament quickly seized London, and Charles fled the capital for Hampton Court Palace on 10 January, moving two days later to Windsor Castle . After sending his wife and eldest daughter to safety abroad in February, he travelled northwards, hoping to seize the military arsenal at Hull . To his dismay, he was rebuffed by the town's Parliamentary governor , Sir John Hotham , who refused him entry in April, and Charles
3111-408: A family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School , where the antiquarian , historian, topographer and officer of arms William Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters. The pupil and master became friends, and the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death in 1623. At Westminster School he met
3294-399: A famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is included among the epigrams, " On My First Sonne " is neither satirical nor very short; the poem, intensely personal and deeply felt, typifies a genre that would come to be called "lyric poetry." It is possible that the spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' is meant to allude to
3477-642: A fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men , then performing under Philip Henslowe 's management at The Rose . John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was more valuable to the company as a writer. By this time Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Admiral's Men; in 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, The Case
3660-600: A great number of commendatory verses , in English and Latin, by fellow-poets such as Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher . Its next appearance was in the folio of 1616, and the latter, presumably having been subject to Jonson's careful review, forms the basis of most modern editions. The play premiered at the Globe Theatre in Spring 1606. It was performed by the King's Men , but casting
3843-454: A line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!" However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie ; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopp'd". Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he said, "He
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#17328584409664026-568: A long illness in order to dupe Voltore (The Vulture) , Corbaccio (The Raven) and Corvino (The Crow) , three men who aspire to inherit his fortune. In their turns, each man arrives to Volpone's house bearing a luxurious gift, intent upon having his name inscribed to the will of Volpone, as his heir. Mosca (The Fly) , Volpone's parasite servant, encourages each of the visitors to believe that he has been named heir to Volpone's fortune. Mosca even persuades Corbaccio to disinherit his own son in favor of Volpone. To Volpone, Mosca mentions that Corvino has
4209-506: A man who had great influence over the prince, travelled incognito to Spain in February 1623 to try to reach agreement on the long-pending Spanish match. The trip was an embarrassing failure. The infanta thought Charles little more than an infidel, and the Spanish at first demanded that he convert to Catholicism as a condition of the match. They insisted on toleration of Catholics in England and
4392-440: A mix-up between them which leaves Peregrine, a more sophisticated traveller, feeling offended. He humiliates Sir Politic by telling him he is to be arrested for sedition and making him hide inside a giant tortoise shell. Volpone insists on disguising himself and having it announced that he has died and willed his wealth to Mosca, which enrages the would-be heirs Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino, and everyone returns to court to dispute
4575-549: A new departure for Irish politics whereby all sides joined to present evidence against him. In a similar manner to the English Parliament, the Old English members of the Irish Parliament argued that while opposed to Strafford they remained loyal to Charles. They argued that the king had been led astray by malign counsellors, and that, moreover, a viceroy such as Strafford could emerge as a despotic figure instead of ensuring that
4758-590: A nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill). In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber , which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out)
4941-470: A number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which ( Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall ) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated. Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio . This poem, "To
5124-436: A platform for popular protest, and the judges found against Hampden only by the narrow margin of 7–5. Charles also derived money by granting monopolies, despite a statute forbidding such action , which, though inefficient, raised an estimated £100,000 a year in the late 1630s. One such monopoly was for soap, pejoratively referred to as " popish soap " because some of its backers were Catholics. Charles also raised funds from
5307-506: A portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays and calling attention to himself in any available way. This " War of the Theatres " appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker
5490-464: A remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s, he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell , who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones. According to a contemporary letter written by Edward Thelwall of Gray's Inn , Jonson died on 18 August 1637 (O.S. 6 August). He died in London. His funeral was held the next day. It
5673-447: A rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho! , a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both Jonson and Chapman in jail. At the beginning of the English reign of James VI and I in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masques and entertainments introduced with
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5856-640: A secret marriage treaty with his brother-in-law Louis XIII of France . Moreover, the treaty loaned to the French seven English naval ships that were used to suppress the Protestant Huguenots at La Rochelle in September 1625. Charles was crowned on 2 February 1626 at Westminster Abbey , but without his wife at his side, because she refused to participate in a Protestant religious ceremony. Distrust of Charles's religious policies increased with his support of
6039-430: A series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I 's England. The Staple of News , for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to
6222-514: A venture. Both the English and Irish parliaments were summoned in the early months of 1640. In March 1640, the Irish Parliament duly voted in a subsidy of £180,000 with the promise to raise an army 9,000 strong by the end of May. But in the English general election in March, court candidates fared badly, and Charles's dealings with the English Parliament in April quickly reached stalemate. The earls of Northumberland and Strafford attempted to broker
6405-516: A year, although previous sovereigns since Henry VI had been granted the right for life. In this manner, Parliament could delay approval of the rates until after a full-scale review of customs revenue. The bill made no progress in the House of Lords past its first reading . Although no act of Parliament for the levy of tonnage and poundage was obtained, Charles continued to collect the duties. A poorly conceived and executed naval expedition against Spain under Buckingham's leadership went badly, and
6588-425: Is Altered , is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its foreign setting, emphasis on genial wit and love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such as English history with which he is not otherwise associated. The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass are for the most part city comedy , with
6771-499: Is Altered , may be his earliest surviving play. In 1597, a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe , The Isle of Dogs , was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I 's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe . Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude and mutynous behaviour", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth . Two of
6954-409: Is Altered , Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots and other staples of Elizabethan comedy, focusing instead on the satiric and realistic inheritance of new comedy . He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognisable types, and set them to actions that, if not strictly realistic, involved everyday motives such as greed and jealousy . In accordance with
7137-422: Is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox ( c. 1606 ), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare , during the reign of James I ." Jonson was a classically educated , well-read and cultured man of
7320-436: Is revived, Volpone will recognise Corvino as his sole heir. Just before Corvino and Celia are due to arrive at Volpone's house, Corbaccio's son Bonario arrives to catch his father in the act of disinheriting him. Mosca guides Bonario to a sideroom, and Volpone and Celia are left alone. Upon failing to seduce Celia with fantastic promises of luxury and wealth, Volpone attempts to rape her. Bonario comes forward to rescue Celia. In
7503-543: Is uncertain. John Lowin may have performed the title role, as he is associated with the role in James Wright's Historia Histrionica (1699). William Gifford hypothesized that Alexander Cooke may have played Lady Would-be. Either that summer or the next, an outbreak of plague closed the London theatres, and the company performed the play at Oxford and Cambridge. Jonson may have added the first act's satire on Pythagoras for these audiences. The play certainly remained in
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7686-615: The Bishops' Wars , strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments, and helped precipitate his own downfall. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War . After his defeat in 1645 at the hands of the Parliamentarian New Model Army , he fled north from his base at Oxford. Charles surrendered to a Scottish force and after lengthy negotiations between
7869-615: The Electoral Palatinate were invaded by a Habsburg force from the Spanish Netherlands . James, however, had been seeking marriage between Prince Charles and Ferdinand's niece, Infanta Maria Anna of Spain , and began to see the Spanish match as a possible diplomatic means of achieving peace in Europe. Unfortunately for James, negotiation with Spain proved unpopular with both the public and James's court. The English Parliament
8052-470: The English Parliament , which sought to curb his royal prerogative . He believed in the divine right of kings , and was determined to govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without Parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch . His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to
8235-635: The English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642). Jonson was born in June 1572 —possibly on the 11th —in or near London. In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry 8 and
8418-662: The First Bishops' War in 1639. He did not seek subsidies from the English Parliament to wage war, instead raising an army without parliamentary aid and marching to Berwick-upon-Tweed , on the Scottish border. The army did not engage the Covenanters , as the king feared the defeat of his forces, whom he believed to be significantly outnumbered by the Scots. In the Treaty of Berwick , Charles regained custody of his Scottish fortresses and secured
8601-526: The Grand Remonstrance , a long list of grievances against actions by Charles's ministers committed since the beginning of his reign (that were asserted to be part of a grand Catholic conspiracy of which the king was an unwitting member), but it was in many ways a step too far by Pym and passed by only 11 votes, 159 to 148. Furthermore, the Remonstrance had very little support in the House of Lords, which
8784-643: The Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand of Austria , a Catholic , was elected king of Bohemia . The next year, the Bohemians rebelled , defenestrating the Catholic governors . In August 1619, the Bohemian diet chose Frederick, who led the Protestant Union , as their monarch, while Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor in the imperial election . Frederick's acceptance of the Bohemian crown in defiance of
8967-626: The Kirk . Although it had been written, under Charles's direction, by Scottish bishops, many Scots resisted it, seeing it as a vehicle to introduce Anglicanism to Scotland. On 23 July, riots erupted in Edinburgh upon the first Sunday of the prayer book's usage, and unrest spread throughout the Kirk. The public began to mobilise around a reaffirmation of the National Covenant , whose signatories pledged to uphold
9150-564: The Short Parliament (as it came to be known) was dissolved in May 1640, less than a month after it assembled. By this stage the Earl of Strafford, Lord Deputy of Ireland since 1632, had emerged as Charles's right-hand man and, together with Archbishop Laud, pursued a policy that he termed " Thorough ", which aimed to make central royal authority more efficient and effective at the expense of local or anti-government interests. Although originally
9333-468: The Stratford Memorial Theatre . At the same theatre in 1955, Eric Porter played Volpone. In 1968, Sir Tyrone Guthrie 's National Theatre production emphasized the beast-fable motif; this production featured stage design by Tanya Moiseiwitsch . In the same year, David Raeburn directed a modern dress performance featuring rock music settings of the songs at Beckenham Boys Grammar. In 1972,
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#17328584409669516-561: The Wolf Trap Opera Company , Vienna, Virginia , commissioned and produced a new opera based on the play. The score was written by John Musto with libretto by Mark Campbell. The world premiere took place at The Barns at Wolf Trap on 10 March 2004. The opera was produced again in 2007 by the Wolf Trap Opera Company with a new cast featuring Joshua Jeremiah, Jeremy Little, Faith Sherman, and Lisa Hopkins . This production
9699-654: The mint in the Tower of London , promising its later return at 8% interest to its owners. In August, after the East India Company refused to grant a loan, Lord Cottington seized the company's stock of pepper and spices and sold it for £60,000 (far below its market value), promising to refund the money with interest later. Throughout Charles's reign, the English Reformation was in the forefront of political debate. Arminian theology emphasised clerical authority and
9882-518: The plantation of Ulster , coupled with resentment at moves to ensure the Irish Parliament was subordinate to the Parliament of England, sowed the seeds of rebellion. When armed conflict arose between the Gaelic Irish and New English in late October 1641, the Old English sided with the Gaelic Irish while simultaneously professing their loyalty to the king. In November 1641, the House of Commons passed
10065-480: The sonnet form, with which it shares some features. A few other so-called epigrams share this quality. Jonson's poems of "The Forest" also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house poem "To Penshurst" and the poem " To Celia " ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in Volpone . Underwood , published in
10248-582: The "Distraint of Knighthood", in abeyance for over a century, which required any man who earned £40 or more from land each year to present himself at the king's coronation to be knighted. Relying on this old statute, Charles fined those who had failed to attend his coronation in 1626. The chief tax Charles imposed was a feudal levy known as ship money , which proved even more unpopular, and lucrative, than tonnage and poundage before it. Previously, collection of ship money had been authorised only during wars, and only on coastal regions. But Charles argued that there
10431-458: The "wicked counsels" of Charles's "arbitrary and tyrannical government". While those who signed the petition undertook to defend the king's "person, honour and estate", they also swore to preserve "the true reformed religion", Parliament, and the "rights and liberties of the subjects". Fearing for his family's safety in the face of unrest, Charles reluctantly assented to Strafford's attainder on 9 May after consulting his judges and bishops. Strafford
10614-549: The 'théâtre de boulevard' style for the Théâtre de Marigny and Panorama (Au Théâtre ce soir), starring himself as Corbaccio, Jean Le Poulain as Volpone, Francis Huster as Mosca and Claude Jade as Colomba (Celia). This was followed in 2001 by a production directed by Francis Perrin with a script that resembles the Zweig/Romains text but rewritten in pseudo-Elizabethan style by Jean Collette and Toni Cecchinato. Bernard Haller plays
10797-414: The 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including
10980-613: The Church of England); the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare". A monument to Jonson was erected in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford and is in the eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner . It includes a portrait medallion and the same inscription as on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after his death but the English Civil War intervened. Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline , that largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for
11163-518: The Commons launched a direct protestation attacking Buckingham, stating, "We protest before your Majesty and the whole world that until this great person be removed from intermeddling with the great affairs of state, we are out of hope of any good success; and do fear that any money we shall or can give will, through his misemployment, be turned rather to the hurt and prejudice of this your kingdom than otherwise, as by lamentable experience we have found those large supplies formerly and lately given." Despite
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#173285844096611346-659: The Commons passed the bill as an ordinance, which they claimed did not require royal assent. The Militia Ordinance appears to have prompted more members of the Lords to support the king. In an attempt to strengthen his position, Charles generated great antipathy in London, which was already fast falling into lawlessness, when he placed the Tower of London under the command of Colonel Thomas Lunsford , an infamous, albeit efficient, career officer. When rumours reached Charles that Parliament intended to impeach his wife for supposedly conspiring with
11529-399: The Commons' walls, demanding war with Spain and a Protestant princess of Wales . Like his father, Charles considered discussion of his marriage in the Commons impertinent and an infringement of his father's royal prerogative . In January 1622, James dissolved Parliament, angry at what he perceived as the members' impudence and intransigence. Charles and Buckingham, James's favourite and
11712-457: The Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Spanish Tragedy ( c. 1586 ), by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the first revenge tragedy in English literature. By 1597, he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe , the leading producer for the English public theatre; by
11895-603: The English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in Brief Lives . By 1700, Jonson's status began to decline. In
12078-739: The English and Scottish parliaments he was handed over to the Long Parliament in London. Charles refused to accept his captors' demands for a constitutional monarchy , and temporarily escaped captivity in November 1647. Re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight , he forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648, the New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted , and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy
12261-505: The English county of Northumberland . Following the illness of Lord Northumberland, who was the king's commander-in-chief, Charles and Strafford went north to command the English forces, despite Strafford being ill himself with a combination of gout and dysentery. The Scottish soldiery, many of whom were veterans of the Thirty Years' War, had far greater morale and training than their English counterparts. They met virtually no resistance until reaching Newcastle upon Tyne , where they defeated
12444-506: The English forces at the Battle of Newburn and occupied the city, as well as the neighbouring county of Durham . As demands for a parliament grew, Charles took the unusual step of summoning a great council of peers . By the time it met, on 24 September at York , Charles had resolved to follow the almost universal advice to call a parliament. After informing the peers that a parliament would convene in November, he asked them to consider how he could acquire funds to maintain his army against
12627-437: The First Folio, and he may have been inspired to write this poem by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form. Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was enormous for he has been described as "One of the most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature". Before
12810-425: The French with English ships as a condition of marrying Henrietta Maria, in 1627 he launched an attack on the French coast to defend the Huguenots at La Rochelle. The action, led by Buckingham, was ultimately unsuccessful. Buckingham's failure to protect the Huguenots—and his retreat from Saint-Martin-de-Ré —spurred Louis XIII's siege of La Rochelle and furthered the English Parliament's and people's detestation of
12993-429: The Garter . Eventually, Charles apparently conquered his physical infirmity, which might have been caused by rickets . He became an adept horseman and marksman, and took up fencing. Even so, his public profile remained low in contrast to that of his physically stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales , whom Charles adored and attempted to emulate. But in early November 1612, Henry died at
13176-487: The House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." Charles abjectly declared "all my birds have flown", and was forced to retire empty-handed. The botched arrest attempt was politically disastrous for Charles. No English sovereign had ever entered the House of Commons, and his unprecedented invasion of the chamber to arrest its members was considered a grave breach of parliamentary privilege . In one stroke Charles destroyed his supporters' efforts to portray him as
13359-446: The House of Commons began proceedings for the impeachment of the duke. In May 1626, Charles nominated Buckingham as Chancellor of Cambridge University in a show of support, and had two members who had spoken against Buckingham— Dudley Digges and Sir John Eliot —arrested at the door of the House. The Commons was outraged by the imprisonment of two of their members, and after about a week in custody, both were released. On 12 June 1626,
13542-713: The Incident , Charles's credibility was significantly undermined. Ireland's population was split into three main sociopolitical groups: the Gaelic Irish , who were Catholic; the Old English , who were descended from medieval Normans and also predominantly Catholic; and the New English , who were Protestant settlers from England and Scotland aligned with the English Parliament and the Covenanters. Strafford's administration had improved
13725-503: The Irish army to subdue England was not corroborated, and on 10 April Pym's case collapsed. Pym and his allies immediately launched a bill of attainder, which simply declared Strafford guilty and pronounced the sentence of death. Charles assured Strafford that "upon the word of a king you shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune", and the attainder could not succeed if Charles withheld assent. Furthermore, many members and most peers opposed
13908-458: The Irish economy and boosted tax revenue, but had done so by heavy-handedly imposing order. He had trained up a large Catholic army in support of the king and weakened the Irish Parliament's authority, while continuing to confiscate land from Catholics for Protestant settlement at the same time as promoting a Laudian Anglicanism that was anathema to presbyterians. As a result, all three groups had become disaffected. Strafford's impeachment provided
14091-501: The Irish rebels, he decided to take drastic action. Charles suspected, probably correctly, that some members of the English Parliament had colluded with the invading Scots. On 3 January 1642, Charles directed Parliament to give up five specific members of the Commons—Pym, John Hampden , Denzil Holles , William Strode and Sir Arthur Haselrig —and one peer, Lord Mandeville , on the grounds of high treason. When Parliament refused, it
14274-586: The King was in residence. The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing and spectacle. On many of these projects, he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones . For example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonson's masque Oberon, the Faery Prince performed at Whitehall on 1 January 1611 in which Prince Henry , eldest son of James I, appeared in
14457-521: The King's Men's repertoire throughout the period. It was performed for Charles in 1624 while he was still Prince of Wales , in 1630, and again at the Cockpit-in-Court in 1637. After the Restoration , the play enjoyed a lengthy prominence: John Genest records over fifty performances before 1770. John Evelyn saw it performed at the court of Charles II on 16 October 1662. When the theatres reopened,
14640-551: The Lord Keeper and 12 peers to summon Parliament if the king failed to do so. The Act was coupled with a subsidy bill, and to secure the latter, Charles grudgingly granted royal assent in February 1641. Strafford had become the principal target of the Parliamentarians, particularly John Pym , and he went on trial for high treason on 22 March 1641. But the key allegation by Sir Henry Vane that Strafford had threatened to use
14823-513: The Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us" , did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke", had a natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of
15006-600: The Phoenix Society at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1921; W. B. Yeats was in the audience and mentions the production approvingly in a letter to Allan Wade . The Birmingham Repertory Theatre staged the play at the Malvern Festival in 1935. A 1938 production introduced two of the dominant elements of twentieth-century productions: the performance of Donald Wolfit and animal imagery. Wolfit's dynamic performance in
15189-592: The Protestant cause abroad effectively. In 1633, Charles appointed William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury . They initiated a series of reforms to promote religious uniformity by restricting non-conformist preachers, insisting the liturgy be celebrated as prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer , organising the internal architecture of English churches to emphasise the sacrament of the altar, and reissuing King James's Declaration of Sports , which permitted secular activities on
15372-501: The Remonstrance attacked. The tension was heightened by news of the Irish rebellion, coupled with inaccurate rumours of Charles's complicity. Throughout November, a series of alarmist pamphlets published stories of atrocities in Ireland, including massacres of New English settlers by the native Irish who could not be controlled by the Old English lords. Rumours of "papist" conspiracies circulated in England, and English anti-Catholic opinion
15555-630: The Romantic era, Jonson suffered the fate of being unfairly compared and contrasted to Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at times greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but overall he was denigrated for not writing in a Shakespearean vein. In 2012, after more than two decades of research, Cambridge University Press published the first new edition of Jonson's complete works for 60 years. Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649)
15738-456: The Scots in the meantime. They recommended making peace. A cessation of arms was negotiated in the humiliating Treaty of Ripon , signed in October 1640. This stated that the Scots would continue to occupy Northumberland and Durham and be paid £850 per day indefinitely until a final settlement was negotiated and the English Parliament recalled, which would be required to raise sufficient funds to pay
15921-467: The Scottish forces. Consequently, Charles summoned what later became known as the Long Parliament . Once again, his supporters fared badly at the polls. Of the 493 members of the Commons returned in November, over 350 were opposed to the king. The Long Parliament proved just as difficult for Charles as had the Short Parliament. It assembled on 3 November 1640 and quickly began proceedings to impeach
16104-478: The Scottish nobility, at the price of considerable acrimony, by the Act of Revocation (1625), whereby all gifts of royal or church land made to the nobility since 1540 were revoked, with continued ownership being subject to an annual rent. In addition, the boundaries of the royal forests in England were restored to their ancient limits as part of a scheme to maximise income by exploiting the land and fining land users within
16287-613: The Tonnage and Poundage Act. The House of Commons also launched bills attacking bishops and episcopacy, but these failed in the Lords. Charles had made important concessions in England, and temporarily improved his position in Scotland by signing a final settlement of the Bishops' Wars , then securing the Scots' favour on a visit from August to November 1641 during which he conceded to the official establishment of presbyterianism in Scotland. But after an attempted royalist coup in Scotland, known as
16470-465: The Welsh poet Hugh Holland , with whom he established an "enduring relationship". Both of them would write preliminary poems for William Shakespeare 's First Folio (1623). On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson attended St John's College, Cambridge , to continue his book learning. However, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he returned after a month. According to
16653-528: The actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison , for killing Gabriel Spenser in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields (today part of Hoxton ). Tried on a charge of manslaughter , Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy , a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting
16836-481: The age of 18 of what is suspected to have been typhoid (or possibly porphyria ). Charles, who turned 12 two weeks later, became heir apparent . As the eldest surviving son of the sovereign, he automatically gained several titles, including Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay . In November 1616, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester . In 1613, Charles's sister Elizabeth married Frederick V, Elector Palatine , and moved to Heidelberg . In 1617,
17019-473: The attainder, not wishing, in the words of one, to "commit murder with the sword of justice". But increased tensions and an attempted coup by royalist army officers in support of Strafford and in which Charles was involved began to sway the issue. The Commons passed the bill on 20 April by a large margin (204 in favour, 59 opposed, and 230 abstained), and the Lords acquiesced (by 26 votes to 19, with 79 absent) in May. On 3 May, Parliament's Protestation attacked
17202-416: The careful attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey . Accepting both rhyme and stress, Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity, restraint and precision. "Epigrams" (published in
17385-586: The case of John Rolle , a Member of Parliament whose goods had been confiscated for failing to pay tonnage and poundage. Many MPs viewed the imposition of the tax as a breach of the Petition of Right. When Charles ordered a parliamentary adjournment on 2 March, members held the Speaker, Sir John Finch , down in his chair so that the session could be prolonged long enough for resolutions against Catholicism, Arminianism, and tonnage and poundage to be read out and acclaimed by
17568-513: The chamber. The provocation was too much for Charles, who dissolved Parliament and had nine parliamentary leaders, including Sir John Eliot, imprisoned over the matter, thereby turning the men into martyrs and giving popular cause to their protest. Personal rule necessitated peace. Without the means in the foreseeable future to raise funds from Parliament for a European war, or Buckingham's help, Charles made peace with France and Spain. The next 11 years, during which Charles ruled England without
17751-646: The churchman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at this time built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn . After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the Netherlands and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders . England was allied with the Dutch in their fight for independence as well as the ongoing war with Spain . The Hawthornden Manuscripts (1619), of
17934-460: The comedies Volpone (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil Is an Ass (1616). The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately successful. Of Epicoene , Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate since its audience had refused to applaud
18117-529: The conversations between Ben Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), report that, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in single combat , and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier. Johnson is reputed to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a residence of his in Chester early in the 17th century. After his military activity on
18300-405: The death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales . An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to Infanta Maria Anna of Spain culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, shortly after his accession, he married Henrietta Maria of France . After his succession in 1625, Charles quarrelled with
18483-490: The dismal failure of The New Inn ; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience ( An Ode to Himself ), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew , one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his own decline. The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Jonson felt neglected by
18666-532: The dissolution of the Covenanters' interim government, albeit at the decisive concession that both the Scottish Parliament and General Assembly of the Scottish Church were called. The military failure in the First Bishops' War caused a financial and diplomatic crisis for Charles that deepened when his efforts to raise funds from Spain while simultaneously continuing his support for his Palatine relatives led to
18849-646: The duke. Charles provoked further unrest by trying to raise money for the war through a "forced loan": a tax levied without parliamentary consent. In November 1627, the test case in the King's Bench , the " Five Knights' Case ", found that the king had a prerogative right to imprison without trial those who refused to pay the forced loan. Summoned again in March 1628, Parliament adopted a Petition of Right on 26 May, calling upon Charles to acknowledge that he could not levy taxes without Parliament's consent, impose martial law on civilians, imprison them without due process, or quarter troops in their homes. Charles assented to
19032-474: The emperor marked the beginning of the turmoil that would develop into the Thirty Years' War . The conflict, originally confined to Bohemia, spiralled into a wider European war, which the English Parliament and public quickly grew to see as a polarised continental struggle between Catholics and Protestants. In 1620, King Frederick was defeated at the Battle of White Mountain near Prague and his hereditary lands in
19215-451: The end of the 18th century. Earlier in the century, critics had complained about the improbability of the fifth act, frequently likened to farce, and to Jonson's highly Latinate language. An updated version by George Colman the Elder failed at Drury Lane in 1771. By the end of the century, the objections appeared insurmountable to producers, and the play fell into disuse. The play was revived by
19398-506: The ensuing trial at court, the truth of the matter is well-buried by Voltore, using his prowess as a lawyer to convince the Avocatori, with false evidence given by Mosca, Volpone and the other dupes. There are episodes involving the English travellers Sir and Lady Politic Would-Be and Peregrine. Sir Politic constantly talks of plots and his outlandish business plans, while Lady Would-Be annoys Volpone with her ceaseless talking. Mosca co-ordinates
19581-812: The expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains A Celebration of Charis , Jonson's most extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems including the poem to Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth ; the Execration against Vulcan and others. The 1640 volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne (one of them appeared in Donne's posthumous collected poems). There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare . William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays:
19764-405: The few sources of support for Charles's proposed Spanish marriage. With King James's support, Montagu produced another pamphlet, Appello Caesarem , published in 1625 shortly after James's death and Charles's accession. To protect Montagu from the stricture of Puritan members of Parliament, Charles made him a royal chaplain, heightening many Puritans' suspicions that Charles favoured Arminianism as
19947-448: The first time, and the bond between them grew stronger. Together, they embodied an image of virtue and family life, and their court became a model of formality and morality. In January 1629, Charles opened the second session of the English Parliament, which had been prorogued in June 1628, with a moderate speech on the tonnage and poundage issue. Members of the House of Commons began to voice opposition to Charles's policies in light of
20130-524: The first volume of the folio-collected edition of his works that year. Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. (See: Ben Jonson folios ) On 8 July 1618 Jonson set out from Bishopsgate in London to walk to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. For the most part he followed the Great North Road , and was treated to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses. On his arrival he lodged initially with John Stuart,
20313-457: The form of a bill of attainder . The incident set an important precedent as the process of impeachment would later be used against Charles and his supporters the Duke of Buckingham , Archbishop William Laud , and the Earl of Strafford . James insisted that the House of Commons be concerned exclusively with domestic affairs, while the members protested that they had the privilege of free speech within
20496-493: The individual's ability to reject or accept salvation, which opponents viewed as heretical and a potential vehicle for the reintroduction of Catholicism. Puritan reformers considered Charles too sympathetic to Arminianism, and opposed his desire to move the Church of England in a more traditional and sacramental direction. In addition, his Protestant subjects followed the European war closely and grew increasingly dismayed by Charles's diplomacy with Spain and his failure to support
20679-447: The inscription. Another theory suggests that the tribute came from William Davenant , Jonson's successor as Poet Laureate (and card-playing companion of Young), as the same phrase appears on Davenant's nearby gravestone, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented no more than Young's coinage, cheaply re-used. The fact that Jonson was buried in an upright position was an indication of his reduced circumstances at
20862-525: The king was directly involved in governance. Strafford's fall from power weakened Charles's influence in Ireland. The dissolution of the Irish army was unsuccessfully demanded three times by the English Commons during Strafford's imprisonment, until lack of money eventually forced Charles to disband the army at the end of Strafford's trial. Disputes over the transfer of land ownership from native Catholic to settler Protestant, particularly in relation to
21045-563: The king's leading counsellors for high treason. Strafford was taken into custody on 10 November; Laud was impeached on 18 December; Finch, now Lord Keeper of the Great Seal , was impeached the next day, and consequently fled to The Hague with Charles's permission on 21 December. To prevent the king from dissolving it at will, Parliament passed the Triennial Act , which required Parliament to be summoned at least every three years, and permitted
21228-481: The main role, Cliff Robertson as Mosca ("McFly"), and Maggie Smith as the love interest. A portion of the original play is presented in private performance for Harrison's character, who states that it is his favourite. In France, there have been three further video and DVD adaptations of Volpone based on versions of the Stefan Zweig/Jules Romains script: in 1978, Jean Meyer directed a production in
21411-449: The masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view: Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit
21594-458: The more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson". Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered forfeiture under Queen Mary . Becoming a clergyman upon his release, he died a month before his son's birth. His widow married a master bricklayer two years later. Jonson attended school in St Martin's Lane in London. Later,
21777-478: The more serious penalties at the authorities' disposal. His habit was to slip outside during the sacrament, a common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed by the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark , herself—to show political loyalty while not offending the conscience. Leading church figures, including John Overall , Dean of St Paul's , were tasked with winning Jonson back to Protestantism, but these overtures were resisted. In May 1610 Henry IV of France
21960-563: The new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine and beer. Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd . Though only two acts are extant, this represents
22143-526: The new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort Anne of Denmark . In addition to his popularity on the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney ) and Lady Mary Wroth . This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem To Penshurst . In February 1603 John Manningham reported that Jonson
22326-632: The next year, the production of Every Man in His Humour (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist. Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The identity of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she sometimes is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in 1594, at the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr , near London Bridge . The registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. A decade later, in 1603, Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of bubonic plague when he
22509-418: The opening of his first Parliament until after the marriage was consummated, to forestall any opposition. Many members of the Commons opposed his marriage to a Catholic, fearing that he would lift restrictions on Catholic recusants and undermine the official establishment of the reformed Church of England . Charles told Parliament that he would not relax religious restrictions, but promised to do exactly that in
22692-458: The orders of Lord Burghley , was permitted to minister to the inmates of London prisons. It may have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could offer if he were sentenced to death. Alternatively, he could have been looking to personal advantage from accepting conversion since Father Wright's protector, the Earl of Essex ,
22875-502: The part of Volpone, Francis Perrin plays Mosca, and Thibaut Lorain plays Lady Would-Be. In 2003, the play was rewritten for television by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt for a production starring Gérard Depardieu as Volpone and Daniel Prévost as Mosca. The ending is changed to see Volpone and Mosca escaping together with Corbaccio's wife. In 1974 György Fehér adapted the play for the Hungarian Television with title Volpone . Volpone
23058-456: The petition on 7 June, but by the end of the month he had prorogued Parliament and reasserted his right to collect customs duties without authorisation from Parliament. On 23 August 1628, Buckingham was assassinated. Charles was deeply distressed. According to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon , he "threw himself upon his bed, lamenting with much passion and with abundance of tears". He remained grieving in his room for two days. In contrast,
23241-414: The play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene , along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the 1590s, his financial security was still not assured. Jonson recounted that his father had been a prosperous Protestant landowner until
23424-711: The play was owned by the King's Men of Thomas Killigrew ; it was performed at Drury Lane in 1663. Michael Mohun played Volpone to Hart's Mosca; Katherine Corey played Celia, and Rebecca Marshall played Lady Would-be. The same cast was seen by Samuel Pepys in 1665. The play continued in performance throughout the 18th century. Richard Steele mentions a performance in a 1709 edition of Tatler . Famous eighteenth-century Volpones included James Quin ; famous Moscas included Charles Macklin . Colley Cibber played Corvino in his productions; his wife Katherine Shore played Celia, as later did Elizabeth Inchbald . As with many other Jacobean plays, Volpone had lost its appeal before
23607-580: The play was staged at the Bristol Old Vic . A most memorable production of the 1970s was Peter Hall 's staging for the Royal National Theatre in 1974, with Paul Scofield as Volpone, Ben Kingsley as Mosca, Sir John Gielgud as Sir Politick, and Ian Charleson as Peregrine. In 1971, the Stratford Festival mounted a Canadian production directed by David William , with William Hutt in
23790-517: The play's setting to the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898. It was adapted for Australian television in 1968 . The stage adaptation Sly Fox , by Larry Gelbart , updated the setting from Renaissance Venice to 19th century San Francisco , and changed the tone from satire to farce. The Honey Pot is a 1967 film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz based on Volpone , although with a romantic subplot and sentimental trappings. It featured Rex Harrison in
23973-402: The plot mostly takes second place to a variety of incident and comic set-pieces. They are, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Augustus Caesar , Maecenas , Virgil , Horace , Ovid and Tibullus , are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment". Another early comedy in a different vein, The Case
24156-517: The priest alone drinks the wine. The exact date of the ceremony is unknown. However, his interest in Catholic belief and practice remained with him until his death. Jonson's productivity began to decline in the 1620s, but he remained well-known. In that time, the Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick , Richard Lovelace , and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson, rose to prominence. However,
24339-442: The prologue to the folio version of Every Man in His Humour : he promises to represent "deeds, and language, such as men do use". He planned to write comedies that revived the classical premises of Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, since all but the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Plautus and Terence , he intended to apply those premises with rigour. This commitment entailed negations: after The Case
24522-477: The propertied classes for inflicting degrading punishments on gentlemen. For example, in 1637 William Prynne , Henry Burton and John Bastwick were pilloried , whipped and mutilated by cropping and imprisoned indefinitely for publishing anti-episcopal pamphlets. When Charles attempted to impose his religious policies in Scotland he faced numerous difficulties. Although born in Scotland, Charles had become estranged from it; his first visit since early childhood
24705-425: The protests, Charles refused to dismiss his friend, dismissing Parliament instead. Meanwhile, domestic quarrels between Charles and Henrietta Maria were souring the early years of their marriage. Disputes over her jointure , appointments to her household, and the practice of her religion culminated in the king expelling the vast majority of her French attendants in August 1626. Despite Charles's agreement to provide
24888-449: The public humiliation of the Battle of the Downs , where the Dutch destroyed a Spanish bullion fleet off the coast of Kent in sight of the impotent English navy. Charles continued peace negotiations with the Scots in a bid to gain time before launching a new military campaign. Because of his financial weakness, he was forced to call Parliament into session in an attempt to raise funds for such
25071-655: The public rejoiced at Buckingham's death, accentuating the gulf between the court and the nation and between the Crown and the Commons. Buckingham's death effectively ended the war with Spain and eliminated his leadership as an issue, but it did not end the conflicts between Charles and Parliament. It did, however, coincide with an improvement in Charles's relationship with his wife, and by November 1628 their old quarrels were at an end. Perhaps Charles's emotional ties were transferred from Buckingham to Henrietta Maria. She became pregnant for
25254-474: The public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players , present somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written later, for adult companies. Already in the plays which were his salvos in the Poets' War, he displays the keen eye for absurdity and hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however,
25437-781: The reasserted boundaries for encroachment. The programme's focus was disafforestation and sale of forest lands for conversion to pasture and arable farming, or in the case of the Forest of Dean , development for the iron industry. Disafforestation frequently caused riots and disturbances, including those known as the Western Rising . Against the background of this unrest, Charles faced bankruptcy in mid-1640. The City of London, preoccupied with its own grievances, refused to make any loans to him, as did foreign powers. In this extremity, in July Charles seized silver bullion worth £130,000 held in trust at
25620-466: The reformed religion of Scotland and reject any innovations not authorised by Kirk and Parliament. When the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in November 1638, it condemned the new prayer book, abolished episcopal church government , and adopted presbyterian government by elders and deacons. Charles perceived the unrest in Scotland as a rebellion against his authority, precipitating
25803-414: The reign of " Bloody Mary " and had suffered imprisonment and the forfeiture of his wealth during that monarch's attempt to restore England to Catholicism. On Elizabeth 's accession, he had been freed and had been able to travel to London to become a clergyman. (All that is known of Jonson's father, who died a month before his son was born, comes from the poet's own narrative.) Jonson's elementary education
25986-586: The repeal of the English penal laws , which Charles knew Parliament would not agree to, and that the infanta remain in Spain for a year after any wedding to ensure that England complied with all the treaty's terms. A personal quarrel erupted between Buckingham and the Count of Olivares , the Spanish chief minister, and so Charles conducted the ultimately futile negotiations personally. When he returned to London in October, without
26169-507: The sabbath. The Feoffees for Impropriations , an organisation that bought benefices and advowsons so that Puritans could be appointed to them, was dissolved. Laud prosecuted those who opposed his reforms in the Court of High Commission and the Star Chamber , the two most powerful courts in the land. The courts became feared for their censorship of opposing religious views and unpopular among
26352-492: The same manner Bacon had. James told Buckingham he was a fool, and presciently warned Charles that he would live to regret the revival of impeachment as a parliamentary tool. An underfunded makeshift army under Ernst von Mansfeld set off to recover the Palatinate, but it was so poorly provisioned that it never advanced beyond the Dutch coast. By 1624, the increasingly ill James was finding it difficult to control Parliament. By
26535-492: The south-east and East Anglia, as well as the English navy. After a few skirmishes, the opposing forces met in earnest at Edgehill , on 23 October 1642. Charles's nephew Prince Rupert of the Rhine disagreed with the battle strategy of the royalist commander Lord Lindsey , and Charles sided with Rupert. Lindsey resigned, leaving Charles to assume overall command assisted by Lord Forth . Rupert's cavalry successfully charged through
26718-449: The temper of his age, he was often so broad in his characterisation that many of his most famous scenes border on the farcical (as William Congreve , for example, judged Epicoene ). He was more diligent in adhering to the classical unities than many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of incident. To this classical model, Jonson applied
26901-582: The time of his death in March 1625, Charles and Buckingham had already assumed de facto control of the kingdom. With the failure of the Spanish match, Charles and Buckingham turned their attention to France. On 1 May 1625 Charles was married by proxy to the 15-year-old French princess Henrietta Maria in front of the doors of Notre Dame de Paris . He had seen her in Paris while en route to Spain. They met in person on 13 June 1625 in Canterbury . Charles delayed
27084-415: The time of his death, although it has also been written that he asked for a grave exactly 18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space. It has been pointed out that the inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion to Jonson's acceptance of Catholic doctrine during his lifetime (although he had returned to
27267-519: The title role and Douglas Rain as Mosca. Matthew Warchus received an Olivier Award nomination for his 1995 production at the Royal National Theatre; it featured Michael Gambon and Simon Russell Beale . Volpone was adapted by Jules Romains and Stefan Zweig in their 1928 production, with the ending changed so that Mosca ends up with Volpone's money. This version was used by George Antheil in his 1953 opera Volpone . In 1941
27450-400: The title role, repeated several times over the next decades, set the standard for modern interpretations of Volpone: Politick's plot was truncated or eliminated, and Mosca (played in 1938 by Alan Wheatley ) relegated to a secondary role. The play has since been staged by a number of famous companies. In 1952, George Devine directed Anthony Quayle (Mosca) and Ralph Richardson (Volpone) at
27633-422: The title role. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together. In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate . This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to publish
27816-464: The troublesome twelve years he remained a Catholic. His stance received attention beyond the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that faith were exposed. The first draft of his play Sejanus His Fall was banned for " popery ", and did not re-appear until some offending passages were cut. In January 1606 he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Court in London to answer
27999-459: The two features of his style which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which he depicted the lives of his characters and the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed that The Alchemist had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-known poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models; all display
28182-532: The will of Volpone, who becomes entangled in the circumstances of the plots that he and Mosca devised. Despite Volpone's pleas, Mosca refuses to relinquish his new role as a rich man. Volpone reveals himself and his deceits in order to topple the rich Mosca. In the event, Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino, Mosca and Volpone himself finally are punished. The play appeared in quarto in early 1607, printed by George Eld for publisher Thomas Thorpe . The quarto contains Jonson's dedication to Oxford and Cambridge , as well as
28365-446: Was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others". On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University. The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved limited success and
28548-402: Was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland , but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon
28731-514: Was a gentleman", was a member of the extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Galloway , a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles ( rhombi ) in the Jonson family coat of arms : one spindle is a diamond-shaped heraldic device used by the Johnston family. His ancestors spelt the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the spelling had eventually changed to
28914-404: Was a weak and sickly infant, and while his parents and older siblings left for England in April and early June that year, due to his fragile health, he remained in Scotland with his father's friend Lord Fyvie appointed as his guardian. By 1604, when Charles was three-and-a-half, he was able to walk the length of the great hall at Dunfermline Palace without assistance, and it was decided that he
29097-574: Was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic . The monarchy was restored in 1660, with Charles's son Charles II as king. The second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark , Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace , Fife, on 19 November 1600. At a Protestant ceremony in the Chapel Royal of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh on 23 December 1600, he
29280-468: Was actively hostile towards Spain and Catholicism, and thus, when called by James in 1621, the members hoped for an enforcement of recusancy laws, a naval campaign against Spain, and a Protestant marriage for the Prince of Wales. James's Lord Chancellor , Francis Bacon , was impeached before the House of Lords for corruption. The impeachment was the first since 1459 without the king's official sanction in
29463-451: Was also slow, and he had a stammer for the rest of his life. In January 1605, Charles was created Duke of York , as is customary in the case of the English sovereign's second son, and made a Knight of the Bath . Thomas Murray , a presbyterian Scot, was appointed as a tutor. Charles learnt the usual subjects of classics, languages, mathematics and religion. In 1611, he was made a Knight of
29646-416: Was among the first actors to be cast. Jonson followed this in 1599 with Every Man out of His Humour , a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes . It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and went through several editions. Jonson's other work for the theatre in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthia's Revels
29829-401: Was among those who might hope to rise to influence after the succession of a new monarch. Jonson's conversion came at a weighty time in affairs of state; the royal succession, from the childless Elizabeth, had not been settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful that a sympathetic ruler might attain the throne. Conviction, and certainly not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during
30012-467: Was assassinated, purportedly in the name of the Pope; he had been a Catholic monarch respected in England for tolerance towards Protestants, and his murder seems to have been the immediate cause of Jonson's decision to rejoin the Church of England. He did this in flamboyant style, pointedly drinking a full chalice of communion wine at the eucharist to demonstrate his renunciation of the Catholic rite, in which
30195-488: Was attended by "all or the greatest part of the nobility then in town". He is buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey , with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson [ sic ]" set in the slab over his grave. John Aubrey , in a more meticulous record than usual, notes that a passer-by, John Young of Great Milton , Oxfordshire , saw the bare grave marker and on impulse paid a workman eighteen pence to make
30378-410: Was baptised by David Lindsay , Bishop of Ross , and created Duke of Albany , the traditional title of the second son of the king of Scotland , with the subsidiary titles of Marquess of Ormond , Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch. James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England , and when she died childless in March 1603, he became King of England as James I. Charles
30561-486: Was beheaded three days later. Also in early May, Charles assented to an unprecedented Act that forbade the dissolution of the English Parliament without its consent. In the following months, ship money, fines in distraint of knighthood and excise without parliamentary consent were declared unlawful, and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were abolished. All remaining forms of taxation were legalised and regulated by
30744-508: Was for his Scottish coronation in 1633. To the dismay of the Scots, who had removed many traditional rituals from their liturgical practice, Charles insisted that the coronation be conducted using the Anglican rite. In 1637, he ordered the use of a new prayer book in Scotland that was almost identical to the English Book of Common Prayer , without consulting either the Scottish Parliament or
30927-621: Was forced to withdraw. In mid-1642, both sides began to arm. Charles raised an army using the medieval method of commission of array , and Parliament called for volunteers for its militia. The negotiations proved futile, and Charles raised the royal standard in Nottingham on 22 August 1642. By then, his forces controlled roughly the Midlands, Wales, the West Country and northern England. He set up his court at Oxford . Parliament controlled London,
31110-436: Was in a small church school attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields parish, and at the age of about seven he secured a place at Westminster School , then part of Westminster Abbey . Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Jonson maintained an interest in Catholic doctrine throughout his adult life and, at a particularly perilous time while a religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution of Catholics
31293-495: Was intensifying, he converted to the faith. This took place in October 1598, while Jonson was on remand in Newgate Gaol charged with manslaughter . Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that the conversion was instigated by Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest who had resigned from the order over his acceptance of Queen Elizabeth's right to rule in England. Wright, although placed under house arrest on
31476-416: Was known to Jonson from prison in 1598 and Cecil may have directed him to bring the priest before the council, as a witness. At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career, writing masques for James's court. The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) are two of about two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace when
31659-419: Was living on Robert Townsend, son of Sir Roger Townshend , and "scorns the world." Perhaps this explains why his trouble with English authorities continued. That same year he was questioned by the Privy Council about Sejanus , a politically themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. Shortly after his release from
31842-492: Was no legal bar to collecting the tax for defence during peacetime and throughout the whole of the kingdom. Ship money, paid directly to the Treasury of the Navy, provided between £150,000 to £200,000 annually between 1634 and 1638, after which yields declined. Opposition to ship money steadily grew, but England's 12 common law judges ruled the tax within the king's prerogative, though some of them had reservations. The prosecution of John Hampden for non-payment in 1637–38 provided
32025-424: Was not of an age, but for all time." Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern ; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced
32208-403: Was obliged to rely primarily on volunteer forces for defence and on diplomatic efforts to support his sister Elizabeth and his foreign policy objective for the restoration of the Palatinate. England was still the least taxed country in Europe, with no official excise and no regular direct taxation. To raise revenue without reconvening Parliament, Charles resurrected an all-but-forgotten law called
32391-498: Was played by Tamás Major . In 1988 the film was adapted for Italian cinema by Maurizio Ponzi , with the title Il volpone . Set in modern Liguria , it features Paolo Villaggio as Ugo Maria Volpone and Enrico Montesano as Bartolomeo Mosca. On 24 March 2004, Ian McDiarmid starred as Volpone in a BBC Radio 3 production directed by Peter Kavanagh that included Tom Hollander as Mosca, Malcolm Sinclair as Corvino, Patrick Barlow as Voltore and John Rowe as Corbacchio. In 2004
32574-551: Was possibly Henrietta Maria who persuaded Charles to arrest the five members by force, which he resolved to do personally. But news of the warrant reached Parliament ahead of him, and the wanted men slipped away by boat shortly before Charles entered the House of Commons with an armed guard on 4 January. Having displaced Speaker William Lenthall from his chair, the king asked him where the MPs had fled. Lenthall, on his knees, famously replied, "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as
32757-442: Was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirised both John Marston , who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix , and Thomas Dekker . Jonson attacked the two poets again in Poetaster (1601). Dekker responded with Satiromastix , subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of this play, while certainly not to be taken at face value as
32940-420: Was recorded live at The Barns at Wolf Trap for Wolf Trap Recordings and was nominated in 2010 for a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording . Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( c. 11 June 1572 – 18 August [ O.S. 6 August] 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours ; he
33123-400: Was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac " On My First Sonne " (1603). A second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635. During that period , Jonson and his wife lived separate lives for five years; Jonson enjoyed the residential hospitality of his patrons, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend. By summer 1597, Jonson had
33306-438: Was strengthened, damaging Charles's reputation and authority. The English Parliament distrusted Charles's motivations when he called for funds to put down the Irish rebellion; many members of the Commons suspected that forces he raised might later be used against Parliament itself. Pym's Militia Bill was intended to wrest control of the army from the king, but it did not have the support of the Lords, let alone Charles. Instead,
33489-407: Was strong enough to journey to England to be reunited with his family. In mid-July 1604, he left Dunfermline for England, where he was to spend most of the rest of his life. In England, Charles was placed under the charge of Elizabeth, Lady Carey , the wife of courtier Sir Robert Carey , who put him in boots made of Spanish leather and brass to help strengthen his weak ankles. His speech development
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