ABSTRACT
Pervasive is the popular culture theme of the world turned upsidedown to right injustices and resolve social conflict. Throughout the Foxeian plays (as indeed in the Book of Martyrs itself) the stage emphasis falls on the Protestant Reformation as a popular rather than an aristocratic movement. The world upside-down satisfies in imagination the wrongs and fears of the deprived and powerless, appealing to those for whom the fall into poverty means truly ‘a hell in this life’. What have sometimes been called the ‘Elect Nation plays’ – dramatizing the Tudor and Reformation history which had been impossible to stage freely while Princess Elizabeth lived, and based largely on John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs – provided one of the most successful kinds of tragicomic theatre in the popular playhouses. In the popular tradition to which King Lear’s fool is related, Will stands up for the poor, and denounces the greed of Wolsey and the expense and luxury of the Papal Church.
