The "Puritan" Preacher and The Puritan Widow

Abstract:In a controversial attempt to impose order after the Gunpowder Plot, James I sought to require the entire nation to take an Oath of Allegiance confirming his political and religious authority. This essay traces two popular attacks on London's immorality and disunity performed in St. Paul's Cathedral churchyard that respond to the Oath during this period (1606–1609): Thomas Middleton's "city comedy" The Puritan Widow, performed by the choirboy-actors of St. Paul's, and William Crashawe's Paul's Cross sermon Against the Papists and Brownists. Despite Crashawe's famous denunciation of Middleton from the pulpit, I argue that Middleton's iconoclastic play carefully reforms its own satire and concludes with a proposal for a united front between the Puritans and their less zealous coreligionists against Catholics and foreigners that would have been acceptable to a preacher like Crashawe in matter if not in medium.