ABSTRACT
Christmas 1553 and August 1554 saw the productions of two highly topical political plays in England and in Scotland. Respublica, attributed to Nicholas Udall, was written for performance at the court of Mary Tudor in London; David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis was played publicly on the playfield in Edinburgh before an audience which included the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise. But poverty and social welfare are pointedly dramatised as an index of the state of the commonweal: the hardship suffered by the common people is vividly presented in both plays, through the tragicomic figures and complaints of People and Pauper. The mixed audience of the Thrie Estaitis is drawn into humorous but spirited comradeship with John the Commonweal, and broadly respectful but critical evaluation of King Humanitie and his parliament’s proposed solutions.
