A Game at Chess

A Game at Chess is a comic satirical play by Thomas Middleton, first staged in August 1624 by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre. The play is notable for its political content, dramatizing a conflict between Spain and England.

The plot takes the form of a chess match, and the play includes some genuine chess moves. Instead of personal names, the characters are known as the White Knight, the Black King, and so forth. Yet the play unmistakably alludes to Anglo-Spanish diplomacy under King James I of England, especially the failed marriage negotiation between Prince Charles and the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna of Spain. The play is satirical of King James, and it was shut down after only nine days.

Historical context

thumb|[[James I of England, model for the White King|alt=|left]]A Game at Chess satirises historical events and figures of the early seventeenth century. Those depicted include members of the English court, the Spanish court, and prominent religious figures. James I, who reigned as King of England and Ireland from 1603 until his death in 1625, is depicted as the White King by Middleton. His son and successor, Prince Charles or Charles I, reigned after the play was written and is depicted as the White Knight. Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador who was deeply unpopular in England, is depicted as the Black Knight. Religious figures depicted include Archbishop of Split, Marco Antonio de Dominis, or the Fat Bishop, who left the Roman Catholic Church to join the Anglican Church, later returning to Rome. The royal families hoped that the Spanish match would at the very least resolve some of the conflicts between England and Spain that still lingered after the Thirty Years' War. Additionally, James I hoped that a marriage alliance would restore his daughter Elizabeth to the Bohemian throne. The Privy Council opened a prosecution against the actors and the author of the play on 18 August, on the grounds that it was then illegal to portray any modern Christian king onstage. The Globe Theatre was shut down by the prosecution, though Middleton was able to acquit himself by showing that the play had been approved by the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert. After James I's death, the play was printed in multiple editions, but Middleton never wrote another full play. The play is unique in that it exists in more 17th-century manuscripts than it does printed editions (six extant manuscripts compared to three printed editions). Of the manuscripts, one is an authorial holograph, and three are the work of Ralph Crane, a professional scribe who worked for the King's Men in this era and who is thought to have prepared some of the play texts for the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays.

The manuscript and printed forms of the text present significant orthographical differences as well as some differences in the plot and characters' names. For example, early manuscript forms of the play lack the Prologue and use ambiguous speech prefixes, referring to characters by the initials of their chess pieces rather than by name.

There are two major studies of the relationship between the texts: that of T. H. Howard Hill (1995), and Gary Taylor (2007); the studies give different names to the texts.

{| class="wikitable"

! Name (Howard-Hill)

! Name (Taylor)

! Current location

! Provenance

! Created by

! Notes

| Archdall (Ar.) || Crane1||Folger Shakespeare Library|| Once owned by Irish antiquary Mervyn Archdall||Ralph Crane (scribe) || Believed to be the earliest form of the play

| Bridgewater-Huntington (B-H) || Bridgewater ||Huntington Library|| Bought from the Earl of Ellesmere's collection at Bridgewater House|| Unidentified scribe ||

| Lansdowne (Ln.) || Crane2||British Library||Lansdowne Collection||Ralph Crane (scribe) ||

| Malone (Ma.) || Crane3||Bodleian Library|| Formerly owned by William Hammond (d.1635) and John Pepys (d.1652) ||Ralph Crane (scribe) ||

| First Quarto (Q1) || Okes || n/a || n/a ||Nicholas Okes (printer) ||

| Second Quarto (Q2) || Okes2|| n/a || n/a ||Nicholas Okes (printer) || A reprint of Q1

| Third Quarto (Q3) || Mathews/Allde || n/a || n/a ||Augustine Mathews and Edward Allde (printers) ||

| Rosenbach (Rs.) || Rosenbach ||Folger Shakespeare Library|| Once owned by A.S.W. Rosenbach|| Two unidentified scribes ||

| Trinity (Tr.) || MiddletonT||Trinity College, Cambridge|| Perh. Patrick Young, librarian to King James I ||Thomas Middleton (author) ||

Criticism and interpretation

thumb|right|[[Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, model for the Black Duke, as portrayed by Velasquez in 1624]]

Politics and religion

Much of the criticism and interpretation of A Game at Chess has focused on its political, religious and allegorical content. Scholars agree that Middleton antagonizes Spanish Catholics and the Jesuit order by portraying them as schemers intent on the domination of the world. The Black Queen's Pawn serves as an example, representing a domestic threat to English women, especially virgins. Overall, Middleton uses black and white imagery to portray Spanish Catholics as evil ("black") in their ambitions to convert the pure English nation ("white") to Catholicism.

Thomas Cogswell has argued that the play enjoyed success not only because of its humorous and critical portrayal of Spain, but also because it celebrates the Duke of Buckingham and Prince Charles as heroes. Cogswell argues that Middleton does not advance the agenda of his patron, the Earl of Pembroke, by criticizing Buckingham. Instead, the play was an attempt to reinforce public support for Charles and Buckingham.

Influence on the public

Musa Gurnis has observed that scholars have neglected to observe the impact of the play's dramaturgy upon audiences.

References

Bibliography

Aaron, Melissa. (2003). Global Economics: A History of the Theatre Business, the Chamberlain's/King's Men, and Their Plays, 1599–1642. University of Delaware Press.
Beneš, Jakub S. (8 December 2016), "Narrating Socialism in Habsburg Austria", Workers and Nationalism, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 26 April 2019.
Bicks, Caroline (2009). "Staging the Jesuitess in 'A Game at Chess'". Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900. 49 (2)
Cogswell, Thomas (1984). Thomas Middleton and the Court, 1624: "A Game at Chess in Context". Huntington Library Quarterly. 47 (4).
Dutton, Richard (2004). Milling, Jane; Thomson, Peter (eds.). "Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess : a case study". The Cambridge History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Gurnis, Musa (2018). Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling: Theater in Post-Reformation London. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. . .
Heinemann, Margot (March 1975)."Middleton's A Game at Chess: Parliamentary-Puritans and Opposition Drama". English Literary Renaissance. 5 (2). . .
Howard-Hill, T. H. (1991). "Political Interpretations of Middleton's 'A Game at Chess' (1624)". The Yearbook of English Studies. 21. . .

Keenan, Siobhan (2014). "Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare's London". London: Arden.
Middleton, Thomas (1966). Harper, J.W. (ed.). A Game at Chess. London: Ernest Behn Ltd.
Middleton, Thomas (2007). Taylor, Gary; Lavagnino, John (eds.). Thomas Middleton : the collected works. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . .
"Middleton, Thomas (1570?–1627)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
Redworth, Glyn. (2003). The Prince and the Infanta: The Cultural Politics of the Spanish Match. New Haven: Yale University Press. . .
Sargent, Roussel (1971). "Theme and Structure in Middleton's 'A Game At Chess'". The Modern Language Review. 66 (4). Retrieved 22 April 2019
Taylor, Gary (Spring 1994). "Forms of Opposition: Shakespeare and Middleton". English Literary Renaissance. 24.
Taylor, Gary; Lavagnino, John, eds. (2007). Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture: A Companion to the Collected Works. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . .
Wilson, Edward; Turner, Olga (1949). "The Spanish Protest Against "A Game at Chesse"". The Modern Language Review. 44
Wittek, Stephen (2015). "Middleton's A Game at Chess and the making of a theatrical public". Studies in English Literature. 55(2).