For King Henry had prepared for his young wife a
peculiar and altogether novel surprise. He had caused to be erected
in the palace of Whitehall a stage, whereon was represented, by the
nobles of the court, a comedy from Plautus. Heretofore there had
been no other theatrical exhibitions than those which the people
performed on the high festivals of the church, the morality and the
mystery plays. King Henry the Eighth was the first who had a stage
erected for worldly amusement likewise, and caused to be represented
on it subjects other than mere dramatized church history. As he
freed the church from its spiritual head, the pope, so he wished to
free the stage from the church, and to behold upon it other more
lively spectacles than the roasting of saints and the massacre of
inspired nuns.
And why, too, represent such mock tragedies on the stage, when the
king was daily performing them in reality? The burning of Christian
martyrs and inspired virgins was, under the reign of the Christian
king Henry, such a usual and every-day occurrence, that it could
afford a piquant entertainment neither to the court nor to himself.
But the representation of a Roman comedy, that, however, was a new
and piquant pleasure, a surprise for the young queen. He had the
"Curculio" played before his wife, and if Catharine indeed could
listen to the licentious and shameless jests of the popular Roman
poet only with bashful blushes, Henry was so much the more delighted
by it, and accompanied the obscenest allusions and the most indecent
jests with his uproarious laughter and loud shouts of applause.
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