The Discovery of a ‘Popish Plot’? The Chamberlain’s Men and the 1601 Essex Rising

Abstract

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was not only a leading patron of the arts, he was the man who received more works dedicated to him than any other leading figure of the 1590s, including the Queen herself.3 By the turn of the next century, however, the nobleman who had managed to stir so much enthusiasm and gather around him so many followers — soldiers, writers or aristocrats — had lost the Queen’s favour and was no longer in odour of sanctity with the prominent members of Elizabeth’s Privy Council. This, however, had seemingly not tarnished the earl’s popularity — he had in fact become something of a ‘dangerous image’. Early in 1600, Rowland Whyte reports indeed that an engraving was creating a sensation both at court and in the city, as ‘some foolish idle ballad maker of late cawsed many of his [Essex’s] pictures to be printed on horsback, with all his titles of honor, all his services, and two verses underneath that gave hym exceeding praise for wisdom, honor, worth; that heaven and earth approve yt, Gods elected’.4 God’s elected — or ‘God’s anointed’ as Shakespeare’s Richard II would have it — was a title usually applied to lawful sovereigns. On 30 August of that same year the Privy Council reacted and put a stop to expressions of this cult of honourable personages. The Archbishop of Canterbury received the following instructions from the Privy Council: There is of late a use brought up to engrave in brasse the pictures of noblemenn and other persons and then to sell them printed in paper sett forth oftentimes with verses and other circumstances not fytte to be used.