ABSTRACT
Sir Henry Herbert was Master of the Revels and censor of plays for the last two years of the reign of James I and throughout that of Charles I. 1 What survives of his office-book is the most revealing document left by any censor in pre-Civil War England. 2 One of the most intriguing passages in it relates to the examination of the players, the King’s Men, over their performance of Ben Jonson’s late play, The Magnetic Lady:
Upon a second petition of the players to the High Commission court, wherein they did mee right in my care to purge their plays of all offense, my lords Grace of Canterbury bestowed many words upon mee, and discharged mee of any blame, and layd the whole fault of their play called The Magnetick Lady, upon the players. This happened the 24 of Octob. 1633, at Lambeth. In their first petition they would have excused themselves upon me and the poet.
(Bawcutt 1996, 184)