The Parliament of Love
Encyclopedia
The Parliament of Love is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy
written by Philip Massinger
. The play was never printed in the seventeenth century, and survived only in a defective manuscript — making it arguably the most problematical work in the Massinger canon.
The Parliament of Love was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels
, on November 3, 1624
. Herbert's entry indicates that the play was to be performed at the Cockpit Theatre
. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register
on June 29, 1660
, but no publication ensued.
that was destroyed by Warburton's cook; that manuscript reportedly attributed the play to William Rowley
. Scholars who have studied the authorship question have generally dismissed the Rowley attribution; the play as it exists is widely assigned to Massinger alone. (It is possible, though perhaps unlikely, that there were two plays of the same name by the two different writers.)
The manuscript that did survive, written double-sided on nineteen folio leaves, eventually came into the possession of Edmund Malone, the prominent Shakespeare scholar of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Malone made the manuscript available to William Gifford
, who transcribed the text and included it in his collected edition of Massinger's works (1805–13).
The Dutch Courtesan
, the Beaumont and Fletcher
play The Scornful Lady
, and the Webster
/Rowley
collaboration A Cure for a Cuckold
. Each of these plays exploits the idea of a woman who wants her suitor to kill his best friend in a duel.
; Massinger exploits Charles's actual reputation as a pleasure-loving and sybaritic monarch to create the mood for his romantic comedy. In the opening scene, the aristocratic heroine Bellisant is being reproved by her former guardian, a nobleman name Chamont. Since coming into her majority, Bellisant has been living a life devoted to pleasure — "Continual feasting, princely entertainments" — and Chamont fears that Bellisant's conduct will destroy her good name. Bellisant, however, refuses to change her ways; she argues that no virtue is sound if untested, and that she will live freely yet still retain her chastity.
Bellisant is at the center of a circle of high-living noblemen and ladies at the royal court; King Charles, witnessing their disputes and discontented relations, decrees that a Parliament of Love will be held, at which the unhappy lovers will be able to plead their cases. Prior to the parliament's occurrence, the play shows the bad conduct of this aristocratic set. The egotistical Clarindore, who has put aside his wife to pursue the courtier's life of indulgence, is determined to have Bellisant's virginity, even placing bets with his cronies on his success. He approaches her boldly, only to be soundly rejected and thrown out of her house — at which he tries again. (Bellisant, for her part, prefers the better-behaved Montrose.) Among Clarindore's friends, Perigot plans the seduction of Lamira, wife to Chamont, while Novall sets his sights on Clarinda, the wife of the court physician Dinant.
Another couple, Leonora and Cleremond, have the most tempestuous relationship in the play; after one of their stormy encounters, Leonora assures Cleremond that she will accept him only after he kills his best and worthiest friend. Soon after, Cleremond meets Montrose in the street; Montrose is on his way to answer a summons from Bellisant, but when he hears that Cleremond must fight a duel he puts all thoughts of love aside to serve as Cleremond's second — proving himself to be that worthiest friend that Cleremond must kill to win Leonora.
Chamont and Dinant become aware of the adulterous machinations of Perigot and Novall; they lure the two courtiers to Dinant's house, where the intended seducers are subjected to a variety of ill-treatments and humiliations. Cleremond and Montrose arrive on the "field of honor," and Cleremond reveals that the two of them will fight each other; in the ensuing combat Cleremond is defeated and wounded. Clarindore, meanwhile, finally attains an assignation with Bellisant (or so he believes); he triumphs over the humiliated Novall and Perigot as the presumed winner of their bet.
All of these matters come to a head at the King's Parliament of Love. Leonora and Cleremond confront each other, and the apparent corpse of Montrose is produced, to the shock of the assembled parties. The King decreees that the two will be married, and then Cleremond executed — forcing Leonora to repent her harshness and plead for his life. The embarrassment of the bungling seducers Perigot and Novall is exposed; and it is revealed that Clarindore has actually made love not with Bellisant but with his abandoned wife Beaupre, who has been masquerading as Bellisant's Moorish slave Calista — an instance of the bed trick
employed by Shakespeare
and other dramatists of the era. And Montrose is revealed to be alive and merely counterfeiting death. The play ends with a repentant Cleremond and Leonora, and with the chastened egotists Bellisant and Clarindore re-united with their respective loves, Montrose and Beaupre. King Charles pardons Perigot and Novall...but only after they are paraded through Paris dressed as satyr
s, to discourage other would-be adulterers.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
written by Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
. The play was never printed in the seventeenth century, and survived only in a defective manuscript — making it arguably the most problematical work in the Massinger canon.
The Parliament of Love was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels
Master of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was a position within the English, and later the British, royal household heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for stage censorship,...
, on November 3, 1624
1624 in literature
The year 1624 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*The King's Men perform The Winter's Tale at Whitehall Palace on January 18...
. Herbert's entry indicates that the play was to be performed at the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....
. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on June 29, 1660
1660 in literature
The year 1660 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* January 1 - Samuel Pepys starts his diary.* February - John Rhodes reopens the old Cockpit Theatre in London, forms a company of young actors and begins to stage plays...
, but no publication ensued.
The manuscript
A manuscript of the play was in the collection belonging to John WarburtonJohn Warburton (officer of arms)
John Warburton was Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary at the College of Arms in the early 18th century. Warburton was a collector of old drama manuscripts, who is perhaps most notable because of his carelessness. On one occasion, he left a pile of manuscripts in the kitchen. When he came looking...
that was destroyed by Warburton's cook; that manuscript reportedly attributed the play to William Rowley
William Rowley
William Rowley was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626...
. Scholars who have studied the authorship question have generally dismissed the Rowley attribution; the play as it exists is widely assigned to Massinger alone. (It is possible, though perhaps unlikely, that there were two plays of the same name by the two different writers.)
The manuscript that did survive, written double-sided on nineteen folio leaves, eventually came into the possession of Edmund Malone, the prominent Shakespeare scholar of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Malone made the manuscript available to William Gifford
William Gifford
William Gifford was an English critic, editor and poet, famous as a satirist and controversialist.-Life:Gifford was born in Ashburton, Devonshire to Edward Gifford and Elizabeth Cain. His father, a glazier and house painter, had run away as a youth with vagabond Bampfylde Moore Carew, and he...
, who transcribed the text and included it in his collected edition of Massinger's works (1805–13).
Dramatic relations
Critics have noted relationships between The Parliament of Love and other English Renaissance plays, including Marston'sJohn Marston
John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...
The Dutch Courtesan
The Dutch Courtesan
The Dutch Courtesan is an early Jacobean stage play written by the dramatist and satirist John Marston circa 1604. It was performed by the Children of the Queen's Revels, one of the troupes of boy actors active at the time, in the Blackfriars Theatre in London.The play was entered into the...
, the Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I ....
play The Scornful Lady
The Scornful Lady
The Scornful Lady is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, and first published in 1616, the year of Beaumont's death...
, and the Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
/Rowley
William Rowley
William Rowley was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626...
collaboration A Cure for a Cuckold
A Cure for a Cuckold
A Cure for a Cuckold is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Webster and William Rowley. The play was first published in 1661, though composed some four decades earlier.-Date and performance:...
. Each of these plays exploits the idea of a woman who wants her suitor to kill his best friend in a duel.
Synopsis
The play is set in France during the reign of Charles VIIICharles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...
; Massinger exploits Charles's actual reputation as a pleasure-loving and sybaritic monarch to create the mood for his romantic comedy. In the opening scene, the aristocratic heroine Bellisant is being reproved by her former guardian, a nobleman name Chamont. Since coming into her majority, Bellisant has been living a life devoted to pleasure — "Continual feasting, princely entertainments" — and Chamont fears that Bellisant's conduct will destroy her good name. Bellisant, however, refuses to change her ways; she argues that no virtue is sound if untested, and that she will live freely yet still retain her chastity.
Bellisant is at the center of a circle of high-living noblemen and ladies at the royal court; King Charles, witnessing their disputes and discontented relations, decrees that a Parliament of Love will be held, at which the unhappy lovers will be able to plead their cases. Prior to the parliament's occurrence, the play shows the bad conduct of this aristocratic set. The egotistical Clarindore, who has put aside his wife to pursue the courtier's life of indulgence, is determined to have Bellisant's virginity, even placing bets with his cronies on his success. He approaches her boldly, only to be soundly rejected and thrown out of her house — at which he tries again. (Bellisant, for her part, prefers the better-behaved Montrose.) Among Clarindore's friends, Perigot plans the seduction of Lamira, wife to Chamont, while Novall sets his sights on Clarinda, the wife of the court physician Dinant.
Another couple, Leonora and Cleremond, have the most tempestuous relationship in the play; after one of their stormy encounters, Leonora assures Cleremond that she will accept him only after he kills his best and worthiest friend. Soon after, Cleremond meets Montrose in the street; Montrose is on his way to answer a summons from Bellisant, but when he hears that Cleremond must fight a duel he puts all thoughts of love aside to serve as Cleremond's second — proving himself to be that worthiest friend that Cleremond must kill to win Leonora.
Chamont and Dinant become aware of the adulterous machinations of Perigot and Novall; they lure the two courtiers to Dinant's house, where the intended seducers are subjected to a variety of ill-treatments and humiliations. Cleremond and Montrose arrive on the "field of honor," and Cleremond reveals that the two of them will fight each other; in the ensuing combat Cleremond is defeated and wounded. Clarindore, meanwhile, finally attains an assignation with Bellisant (or so he believes); he triumphs over the humiliated Novall and Perigot as the presumed winner of their bet.
All of these matters come to a head at the King's Parliament of Love. Leonora and Cleremond confront each other, and the apparent corpse of Montrose is produced, to the shock of the assembled parties. The King decreees that the two will be married, and then Cleremond executed — forcing Leonora to repent her harshness and plead for his life. The embarrassment of the bungling seducers Perigot and Novall is exposed; and it is revealed that Clarindore has actually made love not with Bellisant but with his abandoned wife Beaupre, who has been masquerading as Bellisant's Moorish slave Calista — an instance of the bed trick
Bed trick
The bed trick is a plot device in traditional literature and folklore; it involves a substitution of one partner in the sex act with a third person...
employed by Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and other dramatists of the era. And Montrose is revealed to be alive and merely counterfeiting death. The play ends with a repentant Cleremond and Leonora, and with the chastened egotists Bellisant and Clarindore re-united with their respective loves, Montrose and Beaupre. King Charles pardons Perigot and Novall...but only after they are paraded through Paris dressed as satyr
Satyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
s, to discourage other would-be adulterers.