The Third Citizen: Shakespeare's Theater and the Early Modern House of Commons

Introduction

1 Le peuple anglais pense être libre, il se trompe fort: il ne l’est que durant l’élection des membres du parlement; sitôt qu’ils sont élus, il est esclave, il n’est rien. Dans les courts moments de sa liberté, l’usage qu’il en fait mérite bien qu’il la perde. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. The effect of the first difference is . . . to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country. . . . it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves. Publius (James Madison), New York Packet, November 23, 1787 In his speech to Queen Elizabeth at the closing of Parliament in 1598, Christopher Yelverton, the speaker of the House of Commons, celebrated the English subject’s unique freedoms: If that comon wealth (most sacred and most renowned Quene) was reputed in the world to be the best-framed, and the most likely to flourishe in feIntroduction 2 licitie, where the subjects had there freedom of discourse, and there libertie of likeing, in establishing the lawes that should governe them; then must your Majestie’s mighty and most famous realme of England . . . acknowledge it self the most happie of all the nations under heaven, that possesseth this favour in more frank and flowing manner than any kingdome doth besides. Singuler was the commendation of Solon that set lawes among the Athenians; passing was the praise of Licurgus that planted lawes among the Lacedemonians; and highly was Plato extolled that devised lawes for the Magnesians: but neither yet could the inconveniences of the state be so providently forseene, nor the reason of the lawes be so deeply searched into, were they never so wise, nor the course of them be so indifferent, or so plausible; nor the people be so willing to put themselves under the dutie of them, as when the people themselves be agents in the frameing of them. (PPE 3:197) Yelverton’s “most sacred” queen would seem an unlikely audience for an encomium to legal codes established by popular consent: before he began his oration , after all, the speaker had “made . . . 3 reverences” to his sovereign, who claimed to rule by divine right (PPE 3:241); he ended it by begging Elizabeth “to geve full life and essence” to the bills that had passed both the House of Lords and the Commons but remained “emptie and sencelesse shaddowes” (198). In his youth, Yelverton had tried his hand at poetry and playwriting, and he dusted off his old skills for a final flourish that must have pleased the queen: when Elizabeth’s royal assent transformed dead parchment into living statutes, she would be like “Jupiter” when he “inspired breath” into “the picture of Pigmalion” (198–99).1 The mystical trappings, symbolic displays, and lush rhetoric of sacred monarchy have long captivated the new historicist imagination. The scene of legislation Yelverton conjures up so poetically, however, defined Englishness for many Elizabethans, not because a queen was enthroned at its center, but because she was only one person in a sovereign trinity, a “mixed estate” composed of a divinely anointed monarch, a hereditary House of Lords, and a popularly elected House of Commons. England was a monarchy, to be sure, but English subjects were not like other subjects, because “[t]he English monarch,” as James Morice reminded his fellow members of Parliament in 1593, was not like other monarchs: No Spartane kinge, or Venetian duke, but free from accompt and cohercion of anye . . . requiringe taxe and tribute of the people, yet not causeless, nor without comon assent. The Third Citizen 3 Wee agayne the subjects of this kingdome are borne and brought upp in due obedience, butt farre from servitude and bondage, subject to lawfull aucthoritye and commaundment, but freed from licentious will and tyrannie; enjoyinge by lymitts of lawe and justice oure liefs, lands, goods and liberties in...