ABSTRACT
In his study of the depictions of illicit royal carnality in the theater of the 1590s, Charles Forker has suggested that these many stagings destabilize a dogmatic understanding of Thomas Nashe’s famous dictum from Pierce Penniless that history plays served only to reanimate, celebrate, and edify:
Honor, resolution, and stateliness do indeed abound in the stage histories performed during the decade in which Nashe wrote, but a number of these plays also contain a greater element of lust, adultery, and nonconformist sexuality than Nashe suggests. Nor is it unremarkable that the royal figures who give their names to many of the plays’ titles are themselves profoundly implicated in attempted seductions, extramarital affairs, or other illicit expressions of sexual desire as well as sometimes being cuckolded. 1
