Claimed by Two Religions: The Elegy on Thomas Washington, 1623, and Middleton's A Game at Chesse

During Prince Charles's 1623 visit to Spain to court the Infanta, the death of his page, Thomas Washington, caused a significant dispute between the English courtiers and the Roman Catholic priest who attempted to minister to him on his deathbed. The controversy reflects the high tensions surrounding would-be conversions of English Protestants during the visit. A widely circulated manuscript elegy on Washington ("Hast thou beene dead a Moneth") manifests English anxieties about the expedition and the intended match. The same politics of conversion is central to the plot of the White Queen's Pawn in Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chesse, and a reading of the play in this light offers new possibilities of specific allegorical representation. The attempts upon Washington and the White Queen's Pawn both ominously anticipate threats to the prince's own religious commitment.