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n4341   ACT TWO Scene 1 opens in Fitchow's household, therefore picking straight up from the end of the first act. A little time appears to have passed, but Fitchow is still pondering Triedwell's visit and its possible meaning. She wonders if the whole thing could have been a test on the part of her husband-to-be. Her brother, Wigeon, and Captain Anvil enter with the news that Sir Philip Luckless has sent a coach to collect her and take her to be married immediately. Comic business follows in which Fitchow tries to prepare with the help (or hindrance) of her servants for the wedding ceremony. A discussion also ensues about the marriage Fitchow hopes to effect for her brother with Sir Paul Squelch's niece, Constance, who is the 'northern lass' of the play's title. She is currently resident in Squelch's London home and since he is childless he intends to settle a considerable dowry on her. This would make her a considerable 'catch' in financial as well as social terms, though Wigeon has also heard that she has a lovely singing and speaking voice, noted not least for its northern dialect. Although he has never seen her, Wigeon immediately decides that he will marry her and then commence his intended European travels. In the second scene the action moves to Sir Paul Squelch's residence and we see the northern lass for the first time. Constance is in the company of her nurse and confidant, Mistress Trainwell, and they are discussing the first time she met Sir Philip and the progress of her love and their supposed courtship since. The scene appears to take place in the gardens of the property, certainly in an exterior space, since later on Constance and Trainwell will retire to a balcony of the property to look down on Captain Anvil who has arrived at the house believing it to be a brothel and is clearly contemplating its exterior facade when he first speaks. It dawns on Trainwell during the course of her exchange with Constance that her young charge has completely over-read and over-determined the significance of her encounter with Sir Philip and that her own angry appearance at Luckless's house in Act 1 was very ill-judged. However, audiences do not note Constance down as a fool for this behaviour; rather, the scene reveals a touchingly innocent young woman, who is not at all au fait with London society and its customary practices. As Constance recalls the scene when she met Sir Philip in her uncle's orchard in flashback it becomes clear to us (and Trainwell) that she took an innocent kiss on the hand to be the equivalent of a betrothal in marriage, a 'hand fasting' as it was referred to in the early modern period and a version of which we have already heard Fitchow and Luckless have been involved in prior to their formal marriage ceremony (which the audience knows to be under way just as Constance is pouring out her heart to Trainwell). Beavis the servant to the household announces the arrival of Luckless at the property. He is very surprised at his behaviour, which is more akin to a 'roaring boy', an all too familiar swaggering type of gallant in Caroline London. Trainwell immediately suspects that all is not as it seems on the surface. When we see 'Sir Philip' outside the house it is Anvil, who, encouraged by Triedwell, mistakenly thinks he has come to the upmarket brothel presided over by Trainwell 'the bawd', as she was wrongly identified by Luckless in Act 1. Anvil will presumably be dressed in the red cloak and white feather mentioned in Act 1, thereby offering the audience visual assistance in making all these links. There is much amusement for the audience in watching Anvil persist in this misunderstanding and sharing his pompous asides with them. Constance sings to Anvil from the balcony, the first time in the play when we are also party to the beauty of her singing voice, which clearly enchants all those who hear it. Anvil's response is typically misplaced in that he comments on the skills of modern-day prostitutes. Beavis then asks him to hide in a closet to obscure his identity from other male visitors to the house in an action suggestive of farce. The visitor is, in fact, Triedwell, who stresses he had nothing to do with Anvil's appearance. Anvil is eventually exposed and subjected to a beating from both Triedwell and Beavis until the women intervene and he is instead employed to help them in their attempt to win Sir Philip for Constance. Triedwell is keen to achieve this end since he hopes to win Fitchow for himself, although at this point in the proceedings we the audience can only assume they plot in vain since the marriage of Luckless and Fitchow is apparently taking place at this very same moment offstage. Scene 3 finds us back in the Luckless residence after that same wedding has taken place. Pate and Howdee, servants attached to different households which now find themselves merged, discuss their new master and mistress. Howdee paints a particularly negative view of Fitchow as a demanding and often violent mistress (though we should note we never see actual proof of this assertion in the play). Luckless and his new wife arrive, along with wedding guests and others who have come to celebrate the marriage, including Sir Paul Squelch. Squelch introduces a young Cornish gentleman, Salamon Nonsense, who he hopes will be a good match in marriage for his niece. Wigeon is distraught since his appetite has been whetted to marry the northen lass. As all this discussion of Constance takes place in her absence, it dawns on Sir Philip that he has made a terrible mistake and confused the letter sent to him in Act 1 from the northern lass with a communication from a prostitute who he also knew by the name of Constance. He suggests that had he realised Squelch's niece held him in such affection he would have reconsidered his match with Fitchow. Understandably this does not go down well with Fitchow herself and the newlyweds have their first argument, one in which their relative servants become veritable pawns. It is announced that masquers have arrived at the household to celebrate the wedding, as was typical of well-to-do households at this time. The masques include Triedwell and Constance, as well as Trainwell and Anvil, all literally masked and bearing willow garlands symbolic of unrequited or rejected love. Constance delivers a song as part of the performance and the masquers dance. They give paper notes to the disguised Anvil before departing. Anvil remains behind, revealing his real identity to the group and then distributing the paper notes. Squelch remarks on the similarity of the singer to his niece Constance's singing voice but fails to make the direct link. Fitchow's note appears to contain a confession of love for her from Triedwell. Luckless is given another note from Constance - the similarity of the handwriting to the letter he read earlier in the day confirms his mistake. Luckless is desperate to see Constance, despite the fact he has just married someone else, and Fitchow is understandably furious and storms off to bed alone. Wigeon asks to be taken to see the northern lass too with Sir Paul and the guests depart the troubled household. [go to text]

n1834   FITCHOW enters. The taking of the act break at the point of Triedwell's exit from his remarkable duologue with Fitchow raises some questions since Fitchow seems still to be on stage when Act 2 commences. However, her use of the past tense when discussing Triedwell's strange behaviour suggests at least a little time has passed and therefore the modern editor needs to allow for her to exit at the end of 1.2 and re-enter here, still flustered from the recent exchange which is also of course at the uppermost of the audience's mind. It was traditional to play music in the inter-acts in the indoor Caroline theatres so there would have been a marking of the passing of time in this way which is harder to indicate to readers of a play. [go to text]

gg504   earnest money or sum of money paid as an instalment (OED n. 2) [go to text]

n535   earnest This is the second occasion on which the term 'earnest' has been used in the play though each time with entirely different meanings. Here Fitchow's meaning is financial, whereas the earlier reference deployed the alternate meaning of 'seriousness'. The complex interplay of meanings of this word is a notable feature of another Caroline playtext, James Shirley's The Bird in a Cage (1633); see the discussion in Chalmers, Sanders, and Tomlinson, Three seventeenth-century plays on women and performance, p. 32. [go to text]

gg505   troth loyalty (OED n1. I 1) [go to text]

n11649   Hyde Park Hyde Park was a new, fashionable leisure resort consisting of pleasure gardens, open in the spring and summer seasons and used for walking, horse-racing, and coach races. See James Shirley's play from 1632, Hyde Park. [go to text]

n264   Marylebone Like Hyde Park, Marylebone (or Maribone) had been a rural village in the late sixteenth century, but with the massive expansion of London and the seepage of the city out into its environs not least in pursuit of leisure it too became a fashionable green space and resort. As with Hyde Park, visitors were often served with food and drink provided by locals who adjusted their trade to the new situation. [go to text]

n269   your knight is ready present on his adventures Anvil's vocabulary here is mock-chivalric. The language of texts of romance and chivalry are a common focus of mocking reference and allusion in Caroline comedies; see, for example, James Shirley, The Bird in a Cage, 1.1.368-9. [go to text]

n270   Mirror The Espejo de Principes y Caballeros (Zaragoza, 1562) was translated into English as The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthoods and published ten times between 1578 and 1601. Brome appears to refer to the text again in The Weeding of Covent Garden, 3.1. See also Jonson, The New Inn, 1.6.125. [go to text]

gg1611   cozened beguiled, deceived [go to text]

n11653   town The Caroline period is largely recognised as the time when that area of London identified by the term 'town' came in to existence, focused as it was in particular in those areas to the west of the old city walls, which connected the City of London to Westminster, and with its focal point in the Strand. See Brett-James (1935). [go to text]

n265   Flaps The chambermaid to Mistress Fitchow was not named in the original cast list in the quarto publication of The Northern Lass. However, since Mistress Fitchow appears to summon her as 'Flaps' in 2.1, I have decided to accord her this name throughout. The name is fitting since it means 'a strike or blow' and is therefore very much in keeping with the casual violence associated with the London society of this play, not least in its treatment of servants. See Pate and Beavis's discussion of the violent tendencies of their respective master and mistress at 2.2. On this theme in general, see Steggle (2004), pp. 26-8. [go to text]

n4338   fellow i.e. fellow servant [go to text]

n271   Does he make large suppers On the significance of dining clubs in the early seventeenth-century, see O'Callaghan, 2007. [go to text]

n272   Exchange Could refer to the Royal Exchange, founded in 1566, by Sir Thomas Gresham and modelled on the Antwerp Bourse, as a place where the changing of money as well as sale of goods might take place. In 1609, however, Sir Robert Cecil had opened the rival venture, the New Exchange on the Strand (its opening was marked by an entertainment commissioned from Ben Jonson), which was to all intents and purposes an early modern shopping mall on a courtyard design (see Dillon, 2000, esp. ch, 6; and Howard, 2007). The reference to bidding for goods at auction here suggests that Gresham's Royal Exchange may be the direct reference in this case. [go to text]

n273   thumb-ring Wealthy individuals in the early modern period wore gold thumb-rings as a mark of their personal fortune. [go to text]

n274   grandsire’s sheepmark or grannam’s butter-print on’t, to seal bags A sheepmark was a mark used by owners to distinguish their sheep from those of other farmers. It was used by some illiterate people as a subsititute for their signature, hence Wigeon's jest here that Sir Paul's provincial origins are betrayed by his using his grandfather's sheepmark on his thumb-ring in place of a royal seal. Similarly, butter-prints were carved wooden stamps used to identify a maker's butter and are again indicative of traditional country customs rather than the urban world of London. [go to text]

gg465   acquittances legal documents settlings debts, repayments etc. [go to text]

gg457   counterpanes copies of legal deeds [go to text]

n275   cunning herald could find better arms This continues Wigeon's previous references to butterprints and sheepmarks. Here he suggests that they are the most apposite emblems to be incorporated in the coat of arms of a person of provincial origin. Applications were made to the Court of Heraldry for a coat of arms of to be made up for a family, in the seventeenth century as today. The tradition is to include images and icons connected to the family in some way. [go to text]

n276   quarter a coat Provide a quarter of a coat of arms by means of his wife's proven lineage. [go to text]

gg466   grazier a person who grazes or feeds cattle ready for sale at market (OED 2) [go to text]

n325   whistled to a team of horses i.e. calling a team of horses to the plough (Wigeon is acknowledging his own provincial and country origins here). Vanessa Harding notes that 'in the early seventeenth century, three-quarters of the civi hierarchy has been born outside London' (2002, p. 131). [go to text]

gg1612   unsight and unseen without inspection or examination [go to text]

gg1607   withal along with the rest [go to text]

gg467   wimple a garment of linen or silk, worn by women, and folded so that it envelops the head, chin, sides of face and neck [go to text]

n327   cockney A cockney was defined as being someone born within the sound of Bow Church's bells. Bruce R. Smith has speculated that the term may derive from a cock-shaped weathervane on that church's belfry. He adds that 'the bow-bell rang out over an acoustic community that was also an identifiable speech community with its own dialect, its own varieties, its own registers' (1999, p. 52). Presumably Wigeon's lines could be delivered in a recognisably cockney accent, though Brome does not indicate through spelling or phonetics that he speaks in a specific dialect type like Constance. Other characters would also presumably have accents denoting their origins or backgrounds, in particular the young Cornish gentleman who also woos Constance, Salamon Nonsense. Of course, Wigeon could also be guilty of claiming kinship with a London community to which he does not really belong since as he himself acknowledges his family is predominantly from Lincolnshire. On the role of accent and dialect more generally on the early modern stage, see Smith, 1999. [go to text]

n11654   Hammersmith A village approximately seven miles west of St. Paul's, on the northern bank of the Thames. [go to text]

n328   The Countryman’s Commonwealth This appears to be one of the many manuals for self-improvement published in this period. Fried suggests Wigeon refers to W.S. 'The Countrey-mans Commonwealth, Containing diuers golden Sentences, very usefull and profitable both to read and practise.' On the availability of agricultural and self-improvement manuals more generally in the period, see McRae, 'Husbandry Manuals', 1992. [go to text]

gg468   socage a form of land tenure [go to text]

gg469   demeans probably a form of 'demesne', meaning land possessed by the owner and not held by any subordinate tenant (Fried) [go to text]

gg470   fee-simple an estate of land belonging to the owner and his heirs for ever, that is in absolute possession (OED) [go to text]

gg471   fee-tail an estate of inheritance entailed or limited to a particular class of heirs (OED) [go to text]

gg472   diking the act of making a dike [go to text]

gg473   grubbing clearing ground of roots and stumps (as in the 'grubbing up' of fruit trees) [go to text]

n4338   fellow i.e. fellow servant [go to text]

n329   shrink i’the wetting Proverbial: 'Like northern cloth, shrink in the wetting' (Tilley, p. 104). The anecdotal association of Northerners and their language with climatic conditions is 'pervasive' according to Katie Wales (2006, p. 25). Though she notes that Anvil's joke might appeal to southern members of the theatre audience (p. 79), Anvil has clearly been established by this point in the play as an unreliable guide to cultural matters. [go to text]

gg474   wimble an auger or carpenter's tool for boring holes in wood [go to text]

gg475   sweetmeats sweet food such as sugared cakes or pastries, candied fruit or marzipan, or any other confectionary [go to text]

n536   Is this my wimple? Do you bring carpenter’s tools to dress me withall? This is yet another example in the play of slapstick stage business involving the servant characters. [go to text]

gg476   gear apparel, clothing (OED I, 1a) [go to text]

n330   have a great many southern songs In the late sixteenth century, ballads had started to circulate in printed or 'broadside' forms and many people collected them in large numbers (see Watt). Wigeon's earlier references to agricultural and husbandry manuals has indicated that he is a fervent collector of printed items at the lower end of the market. The distinction he makes here between sourthern and northern ballads is intriguing. Lindley indicates that ballad music did have great 'mobility' and often altered between areas and regions (Shakespeare and Music, 2006, pp. 72-6). Bruce Smith also comments on the 'implicit geography' of sixteenth and seventeenth-century ballads, noting that many transmitted ideas of the North (1999, 185). [go to text]

gg477   airs harmonised melodies or part-songs (OED n1. 21) [go to text]

n331   airs Wigeon refers to the musical term for a harmonised melody or part-song (OED n1, 21) but with the punning reference to the sense of 'airs' as temperature and climate relating to specific place or environment (such as the cold North out of which Constance derives) (see OED n1, 4). [go to text]

n332   ‘York, York, for my money!’ The ballad 'York York for my money' was entered on the Stationers' Register in 1582 and has the opening line 'As I came thorow the North country'. The ballad tells of finding that the city of York has as much to offer by way of gallants, entertainment, and hunting fayre as the City of London and in its final stanza it promises to print this fact in the form of a ballad to be played by London musicians. Dated 1584 and credited to 'W.E' the full text of the ballad with its choric refrain: 'York, York, for my money; Of all the cities that ever I see,/ For merry pastime and company, except the city of London' can be found in 'The Roxburghe Ballads' ed. Charles Hindley (Vol. 1) (London: Reeves and Turner, 1873), pp. 1-7. On the significance of ballads generally for the dissemination of Northern forms of English at this time, see Wales, 2006. [go to text]

gg506   bishopric the province of a bishop; a diocese (OED 1) [go to text]

n4339   though I have never seen her Another plot element that depends on characters never having met or seen each other before; in this case Wigeon and Constance. [go to text]

n4340   am I no sooner married, governor, but we will set our travels afoot Wigeon clearly has no intention of sacrificing his planned European travels once he is married. [go to text]

n1835   And so in height of compliment grow complete, It is not untypical for scenes and acts in Caroline comedies to end on couplets. It does add to the self-aware tone of much of the comedy but also contributes to the semi-operatic quality of many of these plays where characters are on the edge of song in moments like these. Compare the cluster of short scenes ending on rhyming couplets to be found in Thomas Heywood's Caroline sequel to The Fair Maid of the West. That Wigeon here should speak in this self-consciously artificial way befits his character and his love of balladry declared earlier in this scene. Compare the use of rhyming couplets by the comic character Morello in James Shirley's 1633 The Bird in a Cage. [go to text]

n345   2.2 This scene was one of those workshopped very early on in the project with student actors and it proved very revealing in terms of the intimate relationship between the two characters that it established. Attempting the scene to depict Constance as aloof and detached from Trainwell (exhibiting as it were almost the first signs of her later state of mental and emotional distraction) was less successful than projecting a relationship of intimacy. The scene in that version lacked the force and gentle humour of those versions where the interlocuters were physically and emotionally engaged with each other. Playing the scenes confirmed a general sense that Brome has a great deal of sympathy and understanding for the female characters in this play. Keeping the ages of Trainwell and Constance distinct was helpful in establishing the maternal role that Trainwell plays towards Constance throughout as well as contrasting her world-weariness with Constance's charming but hapless innocence. There is a general case to be made for the importance of 'two-hander' scenes in the structure and dramatic effect of this play, witness the earlier scene between Triedwell and Fitchow at 1.2 [go to text]

n333   But I mun tell yee Constance speaks throughout the play in a northern dialect form, identified by many linguists as a reasonably accurate version of a Yorkshire dialect in the early seventeenth century (see, e.g. Blank (1996), pp. 111-12; Wales (2006), pp. 78-80). Brome indicates her pronunciation via a fairly idiosyncratic form of spelling which poses some difficulties for the modern editor. While it would render Constance archaic both in tone and appearance by comparison with other characters in a modern edition not to subject her speeches to any form of modernisation it was felt equally disruptive to her dramatic effects to 'write out' the dialect terms completely as was the decision with regard to the dialect forms in The Witches of Lancashire, Gabriel Egan's Globe Texts edition of The Late Lancashire Witches. A balance has therefore been sought between modernising the spelling on words that are not specifically dialect terms and retaining distinct spelling in those instances which are. All the words should however be delivered consistently in a soft Yorkshire accent. On the sympathetic handling of Constance's dialect speech, see Steggle (2004), p. 24, and Wales (2006), p. 78. Constance's speeches have also all been tagged for their distinct dialect type for the purposes of linguistic research and comparison. On the history of the Northern dialect, see Wales and on the importance of the Northern dialect to the early seventeenth century and in particular Ben Jonson, see Fumerton (1999), p. 95. In 1619, Alexander Gill had published his Logonomia Anglica which promoted the use of Northern dialect as the closest to Saxon forms. In Constance's case, Brome is participating in what Wales categorises as 'dialect for characterization' (p. 67); 'Linguistic features, like cultural artefacts such as caps and braces, leeks and whippets, serve ... as metonyms or synecdoche, standing for the whole image ...' (p. 29). [go to text]

n4516   Feath, Video That is: Faith (dialect). Constance switches into verse register here which seems to be the linguistic mode she adopts when remembering Sir Philip and when seeking to console herself. It is as if verse signifies the past and/or escapism, whereas the prose register is all too obviously located in an unhappy present for her. We explored these shifts of register in the voice workshop with Lynn Darnley and also looked at examples in the scenes of Constance's love-melancholy of what we have come to describe as Brome's tendency to switch into 'metrical prose' if not full verse at comparable moments of high emotion and/or remembrance. Linguistic form itself becomes a site of memory in this way for Constance. We explored other ways in which theatrical memory was also key to this scene, with Constance's state of mind expressed through song drawing obvious parallels for theatre-literate audiences with both Ophelia in Hamlet and the Jailer's Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen. The comparison with the latter is further enhanced by Nonsense's instruction to play the role of Sir Philip in this scene to 'cure' her of her melancholy, just as the Wooer is instructed to perform the role of Palamon to soothe the distressed Jailer's daughter in the Shakespeare and Fletcher tragicomedy. We chose to heighten this sense of intertheatricality when workshopping the scene by dressing Constance in a white nightgown and having her carry the salient prop of a bunch of flowers, in an obvious visual reference to Ophelia . In reality, in concentrating on the high emotion of this scene, we did not capture the sense that Nonsense is a comic character in the rest of the play, although Adam Kay's performance as the silent witness of Constance's distress was in its own right very moving . [go to text]

n334   bare eance nother 'Just once, no other' (dialect; Wright). [go to text]

n335   lee lie (dialect; Wright). [go to text]

n4342   but tuke me thus by th’ haund Video This is the action of hand-kissing that Constance has mistaken for the more formal act of 'hand-fasting' or securing a betrothal. For a more detailed discussion of the relevance of handfasting rituals to this play see the introductory essay and for a discussion of the practice more generally in the early seventeenth century, see Nicholl (2007), pp. 251-8. In the workshops we experimented with a range of ways of performing this leading me as editor to delete a prescriptive stage direction I had originally created stating that Constance kisses Trainwell on the hand to allow actors greater freedom with this moment. The discussion on this topic followed a suggestion by editor Marion O'Connor that Constance was like a teenage girl who, having been kissed on a certain hand by her hero, would not now wash that hand for weeks . Constance will recall the action of hand-kissing in her state of distraction in 3.2 of the play and in workshopping that scene we laid great emphasis on the handgestures, thus suggesting that the body itself performs the act of memory and memorializing for Constance . [go to text]

n4517   and thus he kust me Video Initially as editor my inclination had been to insert a stage direction at this point, along the lines of [Takes Mistress Trainwell by the hand and kisses her on it.] However, workshoping the scene suggested there was potential for other gestures at this point so I deleted it and simply offer it here as one possible way of performing the moment. . [go to text]

n336   deaft Fried, following Wright, suggests this word means 'pretty' in Northern dialect. Wales, however, suggests it is used as it is today as an affectionate term for 'stupid' or 'daft' (2006, p. 81). [go to text]

n337   likest most pleasing (dialect). [go to text]

n338   unbeggen unbegged (dialect). [go to text]

n4512   he asked mine uncle Video There are a myriad ways to perform this particular moment in which Constance recalls, performs even, her past encounter with Sir Philip Luckless and Trainwell's dawning realisation of the extent to which Constance has misinterpreted his actions. Initially we performed the scene in a standing position , but to give the scene and the relationship more dynamics the actors suggested the use of a bench . We also played with different tones to Constance's performance with varying depths of comedy and lightness and darker tones of despair hinted at in the interpretations. To play the scene only in a 'bouncy' way was too exaggerated yet we did want to achieve something of Constance's youth and vulnerability, something which Sam Alexander achives with genuine skill in the video extracts. Sam discussed issues of gender and tone afterwards reflecting on the high impact of playing this scene 'straight' . Robert Lister as the older, world-weary governess Trainwell also bought to the scene a touching sense of female empathy and understanding. [go to text]

gg1613   gin if, whether (OED, conj.; Scottish and dialect term; and records 1674 as its earliest example but this is clearly the sense here in Brome's usage) [go to text]

n339   till for him (dialect; Wright, who notes this is a West Yorkshire form). [go to text]

gg1614   gin against, by (OED, prep.)[e.g. 'God gin the priest had been by' = 'By God, if the priest had been by!'] [go to text]

n340   Spanish Lady’s joincture Presumably a reference to the dowry of the Infanta Maria of Spain whom Charles I, then Prince of Wales, had intended to marry in 1623, and who was the cause of the ill-fated venture to Madrid by Charles and the Duke of Buckingham. The entire affair became known as the 'Spanish Match'; see Redworth. Compare Constance's reference to the King of Spain's wealth in 3.2. The Spanish court is being deployed proverbially here as both a symbol of great wealth and source of financially supported dynastic marriages. [go to text]

n1836   ere sine ere since, before now (dialect). [go to text]

n4513   And, God pardon me, Video What this workshop version of the exchange reveals is both the potential for deep emotion in this scene, but also the effect of the entrance of a third party - the servant Beavis - to the scene of female intimacy . [go to text]

gg485   common courtship general flirtation [go to text]

n537   discretion Trainwell's catchphrase, used frequently in the play and mocked by Anvil himself when he calls her 'Good Discretion'. [go to text]

gg478   roarers a noisy, riotous bully or reveller; a wild roisterer; the term was particularly associated with tavern culture in the Caroline period (OED, 1b) [go to text]

gg479   swaggerers one who swaggers, a quarreller (particularly associated with tavern culture in the Caroline period) [go to text]

gg480   assurer one who underwrites life insurance [go to text]

n342   the Exchange The reference is to the Royal Exchange, built by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1566, where financial transactions such as the underwriting of life insurance could take place. Or possibly this is a reference to the New Exchange, another retail space opened near the Strand by Sir Robert Cecil in 1609 and celebrated in Jonson and Jones's inaugural masque, the 'Entertainment at Britain's Bourse', re-discovered by James Knowles in 1997 and known about due to references in letters in the Hatfield House archive. [go to text]

n398   go you to your chamber Constance's chamber in terms of stage space is represented by the balcony or the space above the stage, since she comes out from there to look down on Anvil with Trainwell in the next scene, and delivers her distracting song from that vantage point. [go to text]

n1219   CONSTANCE [TRAINWELL, and BEAVIS] exit. Brome indicates that only Constance should exit here, as she has been instructed by Trainwell to wait in her chamber offstage. However, Trainwell has also instructed Beavis to call Anvil into her; and in the very next scene we see Anvil outside the residence and Beavis with him so there needs to be an exit and re-entrance provided for both these characters. [go to text]

n1220   ANVIL [and] BEAVIS enter. The scene, it is suggested, takes place just outside the Squelch residence where Constance and Trainwell reside. Anvil's reactions are to the exterior or front sections of the residence. This sequence allows for Trainwell to presumably move through the house to enter soon after the scene opening, visible and audible to the audience but not yet to Anvil. [go to text]

n538   never discovered this place before Anvil is under the mistaken apprehension that he is looking at a high-class brothel. [go to text]

n1167   place royal i.e. La Place Royale in Paris (now Place des Vosges), a square created by Henri IV as a place to walk though also a site of shops and boutiques. In the 1630s it would itself become the subject and site for drama in Pierre Corneille's comedy of the same name (1633, pub. 1637). See Lichtenstein, 1991. There is obvious hyperbole in Anvil's comparison. [go to text]

n343   ladies might come to see the pictures There was a new vogue in seventeenth-century building for long galleries in an upper story where guests might walk or see pictures. They could also become suitable cover for other forms of assignation and Brome alludes to this elsewhere in his work. [go to text]

n1837   Descend Anvil instructs Beavis to go downstairs in an effort to patronise him as a member of the household staff, that is to say one who would work in the downstairs regions of the house. In fact, the next place the audience will see Beavis is in the above with Trainwell and Constance later in this same scene, further undermining Anvil's position with the audience. [go to text]

n344   What fees belong to your key? i.e. 'What bribe will you accept?' [go to text]

gg1194   party an individual concerned in a proceeding (sometimes legal) [go to text]

n1171   party Although in the 1629 context, Anvil's meaning by this term is clearly the glossary definition of 'individual concerned in the proceedings', in a modern production the term takes on an intriguingly resonant new sense, as the laddish culture of Anvil manifests itself in his gatecrashing of the residence where Trainwell and Constance are housed. [go to text]

gg409   gamester one who gambles (OED 3); lewd person of either sex (OED 5) [go to text]

gg80   piece of gold or silver, i.e. money (OED n. 1b) [go to text]

gg482   complexion a colouring preparation used by women to give themselves a fairer complexion (OED, 6) [go to text]

gg483   sack white wine from Spain: sack is derived from 'sec', and usually meant a dry white wine; hence Falstaff's enjoyment of 'sack and sugar' [go to text]

gg484   aqua-vitae a term from alchemy to refer to unrefined alcohol [go to text]

gg507   ill-given addicted to evil courses or conduct; ill-disposed (archaic) [go to text]

gg508   piece a woman, usually with the connotation of being a sexual object (OED II 9b) [go to text]

gg80   pieces of gold or silver, i.e. money (OED n. 1b) [go to text]

n4514   and I will tell thee, good Discretion. Video The workshopping of this section of the scene - where Anvil mistakenly believes he has come to a high-class brothel - revealed huge possibilities for involving the audience through direct address . Of course, Anvil believes the audience is on his side whereas in truth they are laughing at him rather than with him. [go to text]

n1168   [Aside] In the workshopping of this scene, the actor delivered this typically hubristic speech straight to the audience. This captured beautifully Anvil's seeming inability to recognise the truth of the situation he is in as well as revealing or confirming to an already uncomfortable audience the extent of his character as a braggart and a man of dissolute behaviour. These asides help shape later responses to Anvil in the play and indeed audience enjoyment of his downfall later in the scene when Beavis shuts him in the closet. [go to text]

n1169   armed the phrase befits Anvil's self-assigned role as a 'Captain' and a mock-soldier in the London fraternities in which he moves. [go to text]

gg1615   dry-beaten to inflict 'dry blows' upon, to be soundly beaten [go to text]

gg510   oblivion forgetfulness [go to text]

gg511   unadvisedness imprudence, rashness [go to text]

n539   She speaks like the wife of an orator that could dictate her husband’s speeches! Anvil's misogyny here in believing no woman could be capable of rhetorical eloquence in her own right is blatant. He is of course proved wrong by the female protagonists of the play who are skilful in their management of discourse and context, far more so than he. [go to text]

gg1194   party an individual concerned in a proceeding (sometimes legal) [go to text]

n540   porters and cudgels may be had for money Trainwell is conscious that she may need to hire armed gatekeepers to guard the threshold to her property against Anvil's importunate intrusion. Once again the vision of Caroline society is a surprisingly violent one in which beatings and attacks, both sanctioned and otherwise, appear commonplace. [go to text]

gg1616   fit (v) punish accordingly (OED v1. 12) [go to text]

n541   furnished with blankets Tossing in a blanket was a common punishment for those who committed minor offenses, often of a sexual nature. Witness the punishment of the errant tailor Nick Stuff in Ben Jonson's The New Inn, 4.3.88. [go to text]

n542   [TRAINWELL] exit[s]. Clearly she exits the main stage here only to reappear in the balcony or above, having entered Constance's bedchamber to acquaint her with events. In the workshopping of this scene with actors, it was remarked on that it was highly unusual for an exit to take place on an aside. There is, of course, the question as to whether an aside is to the audience or simply a character talking to him or herself - Brome seems to be fond of both possibilities in his use of the convention. Here Trainwell seems almost to be talking to herself, railing on the abuse she feels Anvil has performed against her, but it serves beautifully to involve the audience once again with her in a conspiratorial move against Anvil's braggart character. [go to text]

gg1617   charges expenses (OED 10a) [go to text]

gg930   returns yield, interest or profit [go to text]

gg436   wigeon (1) a wild duck; (2) applied to a person, in allusion to the supposed stupidity of the bird; a fool, simpleton, ninny [go to text]

n4343   [TRAINWELL and CONSTANCE enter above.] The women appear to emerge in a space above the stage, representative of a balcony on the property of Sir Paul Squelch. Brome was fond of incorporating the latest architectural and spatial innovations such as balconies into his plays; compare similar moments in The Novella and The Weeding of Covent Garden. For a fuller discussion of this architectural phenomenon in Brome's staging techniques, see Steggle (2004), pp. 49-50. [go to text]

n543   geane gone (dialect). [go to text]

n544   dee die (dialect). [go to text]

gg512   undertaker helper [go to text]

n337   likest most pleasing (dialect). [go to text]

n546   saw days o’your life saw [during the] days of your life, 'in your lifetime'. [go to text]

gg513   lozel good-for nothing individual; profligate; rake; scoundrel (OED) [go to text]

n545   lozel The OED notes that this term is Yorkshire dialect, which is consistent with Brome's handling of Constance's dialect throughout the play. [go to text]

gg990   trim fine, neat, smart (clever) [go to text]

n1176   [TRAINWELL and BEAVIS exit from the above.] When we initially workshopped this scene, since no obvious exit for Beavis had been provided in the text, but he obviously has to exit to reappear on the mainstage with Anvil a few lines later, we had Beavis exit immediately he had delivered his speech. It makes more sense for him as a servant, however, to remain to receive Trainwell's response (which is that she'll go down and speak with this man) and so I have given them a joint exit at this point instead. [go to text]

gg514   politic expedient, sagacious [go to text]

n4366   You say my love is but a man, 'Some say my love is but a man' has been identified in New York Public Library MS Drexel 4041, no. 11 and is attributed to John Wilson (1595-1674) who was the main songwriter for the King's Men in this period, also contributing songs to plays by John Fletcher and John Ford.. See Duckles (1968), 134; and Wood (1991), vol. 2, Appendix 2, no. 6 (p. 557). [go to text]

gg1194   party’s an individual concerned in a proceeding (sometimes legal) [go to text]

gg1194   party an individual concerned in a proceeding (sometimes legal) [go to text]

n1177   please you to obscure yourself in this dark closet Compare the treatment of Anvil here with that of the clerk, Dapper, in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist at 3.5. A closet was a small, more private room, usually leading directly off a more public space or area in the early modern household. Their presence in households was increasingly common in the 1620s and there were examples of both male and female closets in terms of design, occupation, and usage. In practical, spatial terms on the stage, the suggestion of a closet is a useful invocation of the offstage space as an extension into the wider household or building of the room that we are being asked as audience members to imagine onstage. On the significant use of the offstage space in Caroline drama, in particular the plays of Ben Jonson, see Sanders (2003), pp. 51-67. [go to text]

gg515   top gallant top sail (in a metaphorical sense, the peak or pinnacle) [go to text]

n547   are they wholesome Lords i.e. 'are they free from the pox?' [go to text]

gg514   politic expedient, sagacious [go to text]

n1177   closet.] Compare the treatment of Anvil here with that of the clerk, Dapper, in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist at 3.5. A closet was a small, more private room, usually leading directly off a more public space or area in the early modern household. Their presence in households was increasingly common in the 1620s and there were examples of both male and female closets in terms of design, occupation, and usage. In practical, spatial terms on the stage, the suggestion of a closet is a useful invocation of the offstage space as an extension into the wider household or building of the room that we are being asked as audience members to imagine onstage. On the significant use of the offstage space in Caroline drama, in particular the plays of Ben Jonson, see Sanders (2003), pp. 51-67. [go to text]

n4344   in the doubtful light of the evening Triedwell's reference to the poor light adds to the feasibility of the mistaken identities and impersonations on which the complicated plotlines of this play depend. [go to text]

n548   But were I one of ne'er a mickle, heest eene have all 'But were I never so important (by birth or wealth) he would have everything.' [go to text]

gg516   benison blessing [go to text]

n1221   [Hands him] a rope’s end. The appearance of this hand-held stage property with seemingly no implicit preparation in the text might be explained by events in 1.2 when Triedwell sought to dissuade Fitchow from marrying Luckless. He appears to make reference to the 'yoke' or noose of marriage and it is entirely feasible that he produced the rope prop at this stage in the proceedings also. It would then be a visual as well as verbal echo of 2.2 of Ben Jonson's Epicoene, where Truewit seeks to dissaude Morose from the course of 'goblin matrimony'. On handheld properties more generally in this period, see Gil Harris and Korda (2002). [go to text]

n549   for a large window, one of the last edition Large windows had recently become very fashionable, a product both of Italianate influences on building practices and the reduction in the cost of windows when foreign glass manufacture began to compete with the home-grown industry (Fried). [go to text]

gg517   preparative a medicinal treatment administered before further medication or treatment [go to text]

n550   The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me — Anvil's words of course repeat the solemn oath sworn before giving witness in a court of law, thereby continuing the extensive legal allusions in the play. He is stopped by Triedwell before he can complete the phrase - 'so help me God' - which would constitute an infringement of the law against the swearing of oaths on the early Stuart commercial stage. [go to text]

gg518   bravest acts with bravado [go to text]

n592   call him ‘Captain’ On the link between men's clubs, associational culture, and the military in the 1620s and 1630s, see O'Callaghan, 2007. [go to text]

n1175   Beavis Beavis has clearly remained onstage throughout after ushering Anvil into the closet at the end of 2.3. [go to text]

n593   try my blade test my sword (with an obvious pun on Anvil's name). [go to text]

n551   lady’s favour usually a ribbon, but here the rope's end that Trainwell handed Triedwell a little earlier in the scene. [go to text]

gg519   muttonship a mock-term of respect, usually for a woman (OED's only recorded usage is in Brome's The Northern Lass where it is in fact parodically applied to a male character) [go to text]

n552   muttonship This is OED's sole recorded usage of the phrase and is in fact applied ironically to a male character (Anvil). [go to text]

n553   lion’s case 'lion's skin'. Anvil is of course disguised as Sir Philip Luckless and so dressed above his social status or rank which transgresses the sumptuary laws of the day. [go to text]

n554   makes doubt 'confuses him [Sir Philip Luckless]' [go to text]

n555   Triedwell Interestingly Triedwell reverts back to a verse register here as he did in 1.2 in his exchanges with Fitchow. He does this at the very moment that he is trying to save the situation with regard to his love for Fitchow and the verse lines are therefore a brilliant reminder to the audience of that earlier scene and the depth and force of his attraction to her, as well as providing a scene ending, echoing the effects of Wigeon's closing verse couplet in that previous scene. [go to text]

n1838   Then, sir, for this time you shall be reprieved Triedwell's reversion to verse form here and his closing rhyming couplet all serve to mark the scene ending in a very formal and self-aware manner typical of Caroline comedy. [go to text]

gg1619   smart (n) sharp physical pain [go to text]

n11382   the Strand A linking street between the city and Westminster and the site of many noblemen and women's houses, themselves appropriations of bishop's palaces, the Strand became the central street of the area that came to be known as the Town. This area, emergent in Ben Jonson's Epicoene in 1609 was fully established in Brome's time and the location for many scenes in Caroline city comedies, see for example Brome's own The Sparagus Garden (1635) and James Shirley's contemporaneous The Lady of Pleasure. [go to text]

gg520   gait manner of walking, stepping [go to text]

n557   between Temple Bar and Charing Cross Temple Bar was a gate at the western end of Fleet Street, which marked the perimeter of the City of London's jurisdiction. Charing Cross was a monument erected by Edward I in honour of Queen Elinor and stood at the western end of the Strand at its junction with Whitehall. The places invoked by Pate in this speech are the fashionable resorts and residences of the socially mobile in the Caroline period which fits his topic of conversation which is the training up of Humphrey Howdee to be a top-ranking servant in the employment of such families and households. [go to text]

gg1620   smoke burn (figurative) [go to text]

n558   he glad of peace at that rate 'he glad to be dead for that reason' [go to text]

n595   rankest jade that e’er was curried could not come near her the most inferior of horses (and therefore prone to bite and kick) that was ever combed down (as if being prepared for riding) could not compare with her (Mistress Fitchow) for violence. [go to text]

gg532   jade on the analogy with an exhausted horse, a jade is an overused prostitute (or more crudely: a clapped-out tart) [go to text]

gg533   curried rubbed down with a comb (as in a horse) (OED ppl a, 1) [go to text]

n559   death’s-head ring a mourning ring, presumably worn by Fitchow in memory of her late husband, though according to Howdee used inappropriately to violent effect. Steggle (2004), p. 22, remarks on the fact that this violent account of Fitchow sits in tension with the intelligent and sensible woman audiences witness onstage and in dialogue with Triedwell in 1.2. Three further points might be made: 1) the violence reputed to be in Fitchow's nature is not seen directly onstage so audiences have no visual proof or confirmation of her character in this regard; 2) the account of her violence is given by the somewhat inventive and creative Humphrey Howdee, her servant (Ira Clark, for example, appears to accept Howdee's and others' misogynist comments on Fitchow without question; see Clark, 2001, 411), 3). Her violence, even if confirmed, does not look terribly out of step with the world of beatings and aggressive behaviour depicted as typical of London life in the play. [go to text]

n560   true memento The 'memento mori' (literally, 'remember that you have to die') was a death's-head ring. Fried notes that it was commonly worn by Elizabethan prostitutes and this may add to the implicit misogyny of Howdee's speech. [go to text]

gg521   Bobs blows with the fist (OED n3. 1) [go to text]

gg522   trenchers plate or piece of wood (flat or circular) on which food was served (OED II 2) [go to text]

n561   methinks they look as if they were fallen out already Presumably, Pate sees Luckless and Fitchow just off-stage and their entry in the printed quarto edition of the play marked a new scene (Act 2, Scene 6). In this modern edition we have simply kept the action flowing. [go to text]

n1839   At the other door The indoor commercial theatres of the Caroline period tended to have two doors for the purposes of entry and exit at the back of the stage. By insisting that characters enter by separate doors during a massed entry as in this example, Brome is able to imply the arrival of different groupings from different places via an easy visual signifer to the audience. [go to text]

n596   a father’s part i.e. the act of formally giving away the bride within the marriage ceremony. [go to text]

n240   bulfinch A bulfinch is a member of the genus of birds allied to grosbeaks. They can be easily trained as songbirds and therefore became a proverbial name for persons easy to influence or persuade. That Apprehension Bulfinch as a Justice of the Peace should be so malleable is a cause for concern in social terms. [go to text]

n597   bull-speaking 'speaking bull' remains proverbial today for speaking rubbish or nonsense. [go to text]

n600   never credit me 'Never trust me'. This is Salomon Nonsense's (unfortunate) catchphrase. [go to text]

n606   most answerable to her kindred 'as foolish as her relatives' [go to text]

gg536   answerable correspondent with (OED 3) [go to text]

gg1038   Certes certainly [go to text]

gg534   broker a retailer of commodities, a second-hand dealer, pedlar [go to text]

gg535   joiner a craftsman who works with wood [go to text]

n598   Constance! It suddenly dawns on Sir Philip at this moment the confusion he has made over the two Constances, hence this line must be delivered as an aside. [go to text]

n607   country thing Fried suggests there may be a sexual pun here, a reference to female genitalia, but this seems highly unlikely in the circumstances. The point is rather that Constance 'the northern lass' is always associated with her provincial, northern origins and with a 'place elsewhere' distinct from the London town society and setting of the play. [go to text]

gg1621   starting getting away from, moving from [go to text]

n4317   Cornets flourish. Positioned in right margin in Q. [go to text]

gg215   fit (n) mood, capricious humour; outburst [go to text]

n605   to present a masque Household masques and entertainments had a long tradition from the Tudor period (see Westfall), but were in the late 1620s and early 1630s becoming an increasingly common part of the cultural productions of the aristocrats living in and around the Strand. Some of these masques even moved between different properties on a single street, see Knowles (2000), pp. 79-135. On the importance of household entertainments to the role of women in performance in this period, see Findlay, 2007 and Chalmers, Sanders, and Tomlinson, Three seventeenth-century plays on women and performance. [go to text]

n601   Shall I not be master of my own house? Fitchow deliberately employs the masculine term of 'master' to make her point to Luckless that she intends to be dominant in the household despite her marriage to him. [go to text]

n602   But what I purpose, Fate shall not prevent The rhyming couplet indicates that Fitchow has reverted to the more formal verse register we last saw her use with Triedwell. Here Brome appears to use it to alert the audience to the fact that she does not mean what she says on the surface which is all about obedience and contrition. [go to text]

gg222   humours mood, temper, attitude, frame of mind [go to text]

n4345   The masquers enter. According to the 'Persons of the Play' there are additional masquers to the named characters who take part in the masquing. [go to text]

n685   [masks, and bearing] Although the original SD in the quarto edition of the play does not make this clear, the masquers must be masked, and their identities concealed, since Squelch can only recognise Constance by the sound of her singing voice and Wigeon subsequently refers in this scene to falling in love with her ‘visor’ rather than her face. [go to text]

n603   willow garlands Willow garlands were emblematic of grief or unrequited love. See comparable uses of this stage property in John Fletcher, The Wild-Goose Chase (1621), 4.1.0SD, and by the masquers in James Shirley's Hyde Park, 5.2. The most famous example on the modern stage of the willow's emblematic status comes in Desdemona's 'Willow Song' in Othello. For a discussion of this song and its significations on the stage, see Lindley (2006) pp. 149-50. [go to text]

n604   four men, four women The deployment of gender symmetry in early Stuart court masques was a common device, which this household version clearly seeks to emulate. [go to text]

n4367   Nor love nor fate dare I accuse, This song has been identified in New York Public Library MS Drexel 4041, n. 12 and New York Public Library MS Drexel 4257, n. 99. The Drexel MS attributes it to John Wilson (1595-1674) who was the main songwriter for the King's Men in this period, also contributing songs to plays by John Fletcher and John Ford. Duckles (1968) notes that there is also a late seventeenth century extant setting. [go to text]

gg539   mickle great or large in size, bulk etc. (OED notes that this is chiefly regional, used in Scottish dialect and in Northern English) [go to text]

gg537   wishly steadfastly, fixedly [go to text]

n689   Of foot, of hand, of lip, or eye, Constance is invoking the traditional poetic form of the blazon here, which catalogues the individual parts of the lover's face and/or body, but it is intriguing that what we witness through the performance of this song is a female protagonist emblazoning a male lover or object of desire. This is a conscious reversal of the norm and confirms the widespread critical sense that female agency operates in a distinct and knowing way in much Caroline commercial drama (see, for example, Sanders, 1999; Howard, 2002; Tomlinson, 2005). Compare also Carol's subversion of the blazon in James Shirley's Hyde Park, 3.2: 'Your nose is Roman, which your next debauchment / At tavern, with the help of pot or candlestick, / May turn to Indian, flat; your lip is Austrian, / And you do well to bite it;'. [go to text]

n675   [The masquers dance.] There is no clear indication of the kind of dance performed by the masquers in this household entertainment, but the symmetry of the couples would suggest something formal and contained rather than the more energised and subversive dancing that occasionally featured as part of the antimasque sections in court masques. On the different types of dance deployed in early Stuart masque and their semiotics of performance, see Skiles Howard (1998) and Ravelhofer (2006). [go to text]

n684   The woman’s voice had much in’t like my niece. Squelch can only begin to identify Constance by the sound of her singing voice (noted throughout the play as one of distinction) because the masquers were literally masked, their identities concealed, for the performance. [go to text]

n678   ’od’s A euphemistic substitute for 'God's'. There were complicated restrictions on the swearing of oaths on the early modern stage, which phrases and constructions such as this sought to circumvent. [go to text]

gg302   conceit notion [go to text]

n603   willow Willow garlands were emblematic of grief or unrequited love. See comparable uses of this stage property in John Fletcher, The Wild-Goose Chase (1621), 4.1.0SD, and by the masquers in James Shirley's Hyde Park, 5.2. The most famous example on the modern stage of the willow's emblematic status comes in Desdemona's 'Willow Song' in Othello. For a discussion of this song and its significations on the stage, see Lindley (2006) pp. 149-50. [go to text]

n679   to her more despite to her greater scorn [go to text]

gg543   despite scorn, contempt [go to text]

n1841   Hell itself could not have vapoured such an error forth Hell could not have created such a delusion (with 'vapoured' meaning 'formed a delusion' in this precise context). [go to text]

gg544   vapoured formed of vapour (OED 2) [go to text]

gg302   conceit notion [go to text]

n680   They took their coaches instantly and dispersed themselves by several ways Brome makes witty play here with the idea of the ephemerality of masque performances. The magical disappearance of Prospero's masquers in The Tempest ('Our revels now are ended. These our actors, / As I foretold you. were all spirits, and / Are melted into air', 4.1.148-50), is reduced here to the very material 'dispersal' of these performers in their respective coaches to their residences around London. [go to text]

gg545   commission the magistracy, Justices of the Peace; Commission of the Peace: the authority given under the Great Seal empowering certain persons to act as Justices of the Peace in a specified district; hence on the commission: having the office of Justice of the Peace (OED 2c) [go to text]

n681   Are you so sensible of her loss? 'Do you feel the loss of her so acutely?. Fitchow's aside appears to refer to Luckless who is presumably showing some physical signs of distress that he has both had Constance in such close proximity and yet failed to recognise her and that his rushed marriage to Fitchow will now prevent any chance of a future union between them. [go to text]

n4346   [FLAPS and HOWDEE] her servants (Q) [go to text]

gg429   earnest seriousness (OED n. 1 and 2) [go to text]

gg546   slack lacking in energy, lax in one's duties (a. and adv.) [go to text]

gg547   occasions opportunities [go to text]

n682   occasions Used here with a sexual meaning. [go to text]

gg548   pillar vertical structure as in a building; a column [go to text]

gg549   visor a mask to conceal the face (OED n. 2) [go to text]

n683   visor It is this reference by Wigeon to the mask that Constance wore in the masque performance that indicates that the earlier stage direction should instruct that as well as carrying their willow garlands the masquers are all masked, their identities concealed in some way. This is also why Squelch only suspects the lead female performer was his niece from the sound of her singing voice. [go to text]

n686   dive into business of this depth. It is nestling time Squelch continues here a series of puns on Walter Wigeon's forename (a homonym of 'Water') and surname (a wild duck). [go to text]

gg550   nestling nesting (as in the behaviour of birds) [go to text]

n687   what your sister hath promised you let her perform if she can Squelch refers to the promise Fitchow has made Wigeon that he will be matched with Constance, an arrangement she appears not to have secured Squelch's advance permission for. [go to text]

n688   We’ll see you to the gate, by your leave. A very handy device for getting all the characters off the stage at the end of the act. In the indoor theatres there were no curtains that could be dropped to enable any characters still onstage to exit unseen and the use of candlelight would have made any rapid dimming of light impossible so dramatists frequently created careful schema by which to enable characters to exit the stage. [go to text]

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