''The Lady Mother'' is a

Caroline Caroline may refer to: People * Caroline (given name), a feminine given name * J. C. Caroline (born 1933), American college and National Football League player * Jordan Caroline (born 1996), American (men's) basketball player Places Antarctica * ...

era stage play, a

tragicomedy Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragedy, tragic and comedy, comic forms. Most often seen in drama, dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the ov ...

generally attributed to

Henry Glapthorne Henry Glapthorne (baptised, 28 July 1610 – c. 1643) was an English dramatist and poet, baptized in Cambridgeshire, the son of Thomas Glapthorne and Faith ''née'' Hatcliff. His father was a bailiff of Lady Hatton, the wife of Sir Edward Cok ...

, and dating from the middle 1630s. Never printed in its own era, the play survived in a

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

marked as a theatre prompt-book, revealing significant details about the stage practice of its time. ''The Lady Mother'' was licensed for performance by the office the

Master of the Revels The Master of the Revels was the holder of a position within the English, and later the British, royal household, heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels". The Master of the Revels was an executive officer under the Lord Chamberlain. ...

on 15 October

1635 Events January–March * January 23 – 1635 Capture of Tortuga: The Spanish Navy captures the Caribbean island of Tortuga off of the coast of Haiti after a three-day battle against the English and French Navy. * January 25 ...

. It was originally staged by the

King's Revels Men The King's Revels Men or King's Revels Company was a playing company or troupe of actors in seventeenth-century England. In the confusing theatre nomenclature of that era, it is sometimes called the ''second'' King's Revels Company, to distingui ...

at the

Salisbury Court Theatre The Salisbury Court Theatre was a theatre in 17th-century London. It was in the neighbourhood of Salisbury Court, which was formerly the London residence of the Bishops of Salisbury. Salisbury Court was acquired by Richard Sackville in 1564 du ...

, and was acted for the royal court at

Whitehall Palace The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Hen ...

that year. Yet the play was not published for more than two centuries; it was first issued in 1883 by editor

A. H. Bullen Arthur Henry Bullen, often known as A. H. Bullen, (9 February 1857, London – 29 February 1920, Stratford-on-Avon) was an English editor in chief, editor and publisher, a specialist in 16th and 17th century literature, and founder of the Shakespe ...

in his ''Old English Plays'' Vol. 2. Bullen first assigned the play to Glapthorne. The Malone Society produced a modern text in 1959, edited by Arthur Brown. The drama survived the centuries in manuscript form, part of

MS. Egerton 1994 Egerton MS 1994 is a manuscript collection of English Renaissance theatre, English Renaissance plays, now in the Egerton Collection of the British Library. Probably prepared by the actor William Cartwright (actor), William Cartwright around 1642, ...

(folios 186–211) in the collection of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

. In the MS., the entrances and exits are consistently marked, the entrances in advance so that the prompter could cue the actors; the necessary properties are also marked, in advance of their needs. Cues for music and dancing are also included – all the details that the prompter would have needed to guide the performance. The MS. displays its license on the final page. The MS. is a scribal copy, and shows repeated revision; it reveals Glapthorne working with his scribe to shape the final text. The Revels office (specifically William Blagrave, the assistant of the Master, Sir Henry Herbert) demanded some changes in the text,Bawcutt, p. 60. and several lines are crossed out, to be omitted from performance. F. G. Fleay speculated that ''The Lady Mother'' was an alternative title for ''The Noble Trial'', a Glapthorne play that was among those in the collection of John Warburton that were destroyed by fire. Bullen argued that Glapthorne's play showed the influence of the drama of

James Shirley James Shirley (or Sherley) (September 1596 – October 1666) was an English dramatist. He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Charles Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so m ...

, a dominant figure in Caroline drama. The play's plot involves the marital fortunes of Lady Marlove (The title character) and her daughters Belisea and Clariana. One of her suitors is a foolish old country knight, Sir Geffrey – a figure who provides the play's lighter comic element. The more serious element of the plot involves Lady Marlove and her son facing execution for a supposed murder. The play concludes in a "death

masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...

" in which a personified Death invokes despair and the

Furies The Erinyes ( ; sing. Erinys ; grc, Ἐρινύες, pl. of ), also known as the Furies, and the Eumenides, were female chthonic deities of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the ''Iliad The ''Il ...

, only to be dispelled by

Hymen The hymen is a thin piece of mucosal tissue that surrounds or partially covers the external vaginal opening. It forms part of the vulva, or external genitalia, and is similar in structure to the vagina. In children, a common appearance of the h ...

, the god of marriage. It is then revealed that Thurston, the supposedly dead man, is alive and married to Clariana; happy ending.

Notes

References

* Bawcutt, N. W., ed. ''The Control and Censorship of Caroline Drama: The Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels 1623–73.'' Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996. * Drew-Bear, Annette. ''Painted Faces on the Renaissance Stage: The Moral Significance of Face-Painting Conventions.'' Lewisburg, PA, Bucknell University Press, 1994. * Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood.'' London, Routledge, 2006. * Long, William B. "'Precious Few:' English Manuscript Playbooks," in: ''A Companion to Shakespeare'', edited by David Scott Kasdan; London, Blackwell, 1999; pp. 414–33. * Stevens, David. "The Staging of Plays at the Salisbury Court Theatre, 1630–1642," ''Theatre Journal'' Vol. 31 No. 4 (December 1979), pp. 511–25. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lady Mother, The English Renaissance plays 1635 plays Plays in manuscript