Robert Dudley, Gorboduc, and 'The masque of Beauty and Desire': A Reconsideration of the Evidence for Political Intervention

A manuscript has recently been discovered in the British Library containing an eyewitness report of the first performance of Gorboduc at the Inner Temple in 1561/2. This manuscript claims that the play made allusions to royal marriage which could be interpreted to favour Lord Robert Dudley's suit to Elizabeth. This seems to confirm Marie Axton's long-established thesis that the tragedy's concerns with the succession supported Dudley's aspirations as expressed in a masque played at the Inner Temple and taken with Gorboduc to court on 18 January 1562. However, closer examination of the documentary evidence would suggest that the masque described by Axton never existed, and that the reporter's words need not indicate that any more than quite slight, though not trivial, changes were made to the original script of Gorboduc to further Dudley's ambitions. Dudley was only partially successful in persuading the Inner Temple to support his suit by producing propaganda on his behalf, and the new manuscript may be better interpreted as evidence of the resistance of the play's authors or sponsors wholly to endorse Dudley's purposes.