“Studious Retirement” 1632–1638William Prynne staked out the most extreme Puritan position in Histrio-Mastix: or,
The Players Scourge and Actors Tragedy (1633 [1632]),^16 a passionate tirade of over
1,000 pages against stage-plays, masques, masque dancing, maypoles and rural festi-
vals, country sports on the Sabbath, Laudian ritual, stained-glass windows, and much
more. This blanket denunciation of Caroline culture was probably a factor in Charles’s
decision to reissue the Book of Sports a few months later. Prynne strikes directly at
the king and queen with stories of kings and magistrates who met untimely ends
after encouraging or participating in theatrical productions. One reference to
“Women actors, notorious whores” and another to “scurrilous amorous pastorals”
were taken to refer to the queen, who was then rehearsing her ladies for a presen-
tation of Walter Montague’s Shepheard’s Paradise, in which the women took men’s
as well as women’s roles.^17 Both Charles and Henrietta Maria were implicated in
Prynne’s attacks on Christmastide masques as “amorous, mixt, voluptuous, un-
christian, that I say not, Pagan dancing, to Gods, to Christs dishonour, Religion’s
scandall, Chastities shipwracke, sinnes advantage, and the eternall ruine of many
pretious soules.”^18 In February, 1633, Prynne was imprisoned by the Star Chamber,
and a year later was stripped of his academic degrees, ejected from the legal profes-
sion, and pilloried at Westminster and Cheapside; he saw his books burned before
him, had his ears cropped, and was remanded to life imprisonment. The severity of
the sentence indicates the high stakes in these culture wars; according to one judge,
“This booke is to effect disobedyence to the state, and a generall dislyke unto all
governments.”^19
Milton’s “Entertainment”^20 for the Countess of Derby allowed him to place
himself in the long line of staunch Protestant writers she patronized, most notably
Spenser. The widow of Lord Strange, Earl of Derby, as well as of Lord Keeper
Egerton, she was the matriarch of a large family and her estate, Harefield in Middle-
sex, was only a few miles from Hammersmith. Milton probably obtained the invi-
tation through some musician friend – probably Henry Lawes, a member of the
royal music and also music master to the Countess’s Egerton grandchildren who
later performed in A Maske.^21 There is considerable dispute as to when these festivi-
ties took place and, as a related issue, when Milton began his Trinity manuscript, in
which Arcades (The Arcadians) is the first item.^22 As Cedric Brown argues, August–
October, 1632 seems most likely.^23 The manuscript text is not a first draft, but
Milton continued to work on it, entering several pre- and post-performance
changes.^24
In 1632 the dowager countess, then 73 years old, was supporting and educating
several grandchildren at Harefield: two daughters of her youngest daughter Eliza-
beth, Countess of Hastings, whose family was in dire financial straits; and three
children of her eldest daughter Anne, Countess of Castlehaven, from her first mar-
riage to Baron Chandos.^25 In a separate household she helped support Anne and
Anne’s eldest daughter Elizabeth after Anne’s second husband Castlehaven was
executed in May, 1631, for outrageous sexual abuse of them both. On numerous