THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1.1 The Jacobean Context: An Overview

Elizabeth I died in 1603 and James VI of Scotland became James I of England. The play was written in 1605, so falls into the Jacobean period (after Jacobus, Latin for James). In the wider European literary and political contexts, the period is the waning of the High Renaissance. Historians today call it Early Modern because many features of it are recognizably modern while being early in the evolutions that shaped our world.

The new king, ruling until 1625, was of the Scottish family the Stuarts. They were a dynastic disaster. None was an effective king. James I, a learned man but a flawed ruler, shirked the routines of work government involved; disliked contact with his people; was extravagant, constantly in debt and in perpetual conflict with Parliament; was a hard-line right-winger in religion who backed the repression of Catholics and Puritans; drank heavily and was impulsive and tactless. Sir Anthony Weldon, courtier and politician, banished from court for a book criticizing the Scots, dubbed him 'the wisest fool in Christendom'. The epithet captures something of the discrepancy between his writings on political theory and his practice as a lazy man only intermittently engaged with his role. London celebrated with bonfires when he succeeded peacefully. His apparent engagement with his regal duties generated hope, reflected in the mass of appalling, sycophantic eulogistic verse published. During the 15 March 1603 royal procession through the City two St Paul's choristers sang of London as Troynovant (New Troy), no longer a city but a bridal chamber, suggesting a mystical union and new hope. This sense of promise soon evaporated when his failings and inconsistencies quickly emerged. Volpone is underpinned by concerns about rule (or misrule) of self and others. The central character is a magnifico from the governing ranks of Venice, thus his misrule of self, his failure to live up to the expectations of his degree, is a significant theme running throughout the play. The moral failings of the other characters too relate to their social positions and become a part of the general criticism.

The previous monarch, Elizabeth, a Tudor, much loved and respected, had been a strong ruler, indeed strong enough to suppress the addressing of many problems which by James I's time had become irresolvable. The Tudors – Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth – ruled 1485–1603 and brought relative stability after the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses (though there were various short-lived rebellions against them). Questions of succession, the nature of rulers, the use and limits of monarchical power, the influence of court and the qualities of courtiers were matters that concerned people throughout the period and are part of the broader contexts of Volpone. Religion too was a major conflict area. Catholic opposition to the new Church of England and Puritan desires for freedom from tight central control created a constant battleground. The effects on society and individual morality of the wealth that the new capitalism and the expansion of trade were creating also worried Jacobean writers. The new individualism, another context, emerges in the self-centred ruthlessness of all five central characters. Each is driven by his own will to acquire wealth and power and seems to exist outside the ethical framework of the time. The increasing influence of such a disconnect between the old values of public duty and private morality was a source of much anxiety to moralists and writers. Deceit and selfishness seemed to be banishing openness and altruism.

Henry VIII's great achievement (and cause of trouble) was breaking with the Catholic Church of Rome and establishing an independent English Church. This inaugurated a period of seismic change called the English Reformation. In 1536 the first Act of Supremacy made Henry Supreme Head of the Church of England. Its rituals and doctrines remained essentially Catholic until the reforms of his son Edward aligned it with the Protestant movements on the Continent. There was some limited alliance with the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther, but in many ways the English went their own way. Monasteries and convents were dissolved, the infrastructural features of Catholicism banished, altars stripped of ornament (leaving only the cross and flanking candles), churches emptied of statues and relics and some murals whitewashed over or scratched out. New services and prayers were in English rather than Latin, new English translations of the Bible began to appear and there was a Book of Common Prayer to be used in all parish churches. Holy shrines, saints' statues and saints' days were done away with as idolatrous superstitions. The vicar was to be the only intermediary between a person and God. After a brief, fiery, bloody return to Catholicism under Mary I (1553–8), Elizabeth succeeded and bedding in the new church continued. The freedom of a reformed English religion, supposedly stripped back to its simple original faith, encouraged the rise of more extreme reforming Protestant sects (not always to the liking of the infant Established Church). These groups, called Non-Conformists, Independents or Dissenters, included Puritans, Calvinists and Presbyterians – all Protestant, but with doctrinal differences. Some eccentric sects emerged too – like the Anabaptists, the Brownists and the Family of Love. Religious differences, tensions between different faiths and disagreements within the same faith are persistently present at this time, but despite all the official changes to religion, the essential beliefs in sin, virtue, salvation, the centrality of Christ and the ubiquity of the Devil (the idea that he was everywhere, looking to tempt man) were the same as they always had been, as were the beliefs that sin was followed by punishment and possible damnation and that the world, in decline, would shortly come to an end.

Also persistent is the political discourse on kingship. Elizabeth (adoringly nicknamed 'Gloriana' after her identification with a character in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene) ruled 1558–1603, a time long enough to establish her as an icon, particularly as she headed up strong opposition (and victory) against the Spanish. External threats repulsed, the regime was consolidated (though relentlessly under covert attack by Catholicism), but the Elizabethan- Jacobean period was one of unstoppable internal changes, gradually altering the profile and mood of society. Religion,...