The Isle of Dogs, play
The Isle of Dogs is play by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson which was performed in 1597. It was immediately supressed and no known copy of it exists.
A satrirical comedy it was reported to the authorities for being a "lewd plaie" full of seditious and sclanderous matter". Nashe was later to call it "an imperfit Embrion of my idle houres" and admitted only to writing the introduction and first act with Jonson finishing it.
It was performed in July probably by the Pembroke's Men at the Swan Theatre in Paris Gardens. When Richard Topcliffe, head of Queen Elizabeth's secret police, he quickly had writs for arrest issued by the Privy Council. Three of the principal players Gabriel Spenser, Robert SHaa and Ben Jonson were arrested and sent to Marshalsea Prison. Nashe's home was raided and his papers seized but he himself escaped. He later wrote that he had given birth to a monster - "it was no sooner borne but I was glad to runne from it."
There was ageneral repression of the theatre with the closure of all play houses on 28 July andTopcliffe interrogated the prisoners personally. Jonson recalled that he said nothing by "I and No", and they tried to place informers two informers Robert Poley and Parrot with him, whom are refrred to in his Epigram 59 Of Spies.
The Isle of Dogs is a location in London on the opposite bank of the Thames to Greenwich home of a royal palace Placentia, where indeed the Privy Council met. However it also had a reputation as being an unhealthy swamp where river sewage woudl accumulate. It is also mentioned in another play part written by Jonson Eastward Hoe, 1605. Jonson was also arrested in connection with this play. Nashe also referred to the location in Summers Last Will:
"Here's a coyle about dogges without wit. If I had thought the ship of fooles would have stayed to take in fresh water at the Ile of dogges I would have furnished it with a whole kennel of collections to the purpose."
The image of the Isle of Dogs conjured up a society ruined by envy, and Nashe also refers to Sirius the dogstar in Summers Last Will in relation to the dog days of July. Richard Lichfield was to taunt Nashe with this in his The Trimming of Thomas Nash gentleman.
The play is also referred to in the Anonymous play, The Returne from Parnassus (II), which suggests that the Queen herself was satirised. Other evidence also suggests that Henry Brooke, 8th Lord Cobham may have been the butt of the satire. In 1596 his father William Brooke attained the position of Lord Chamberlain, which immediately affected the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a play company who then had to style themselves the Lord of Hunsdon and his servants. In his role as Lord Chamberlain, Cobham exercised control over the revels and the play companies. Cobham was satirised by Shakespeare in 1596 with the character of Falstaff who appeared in Henry IV. Originally the character was called Oldcastle, an ancestor of Cobham, and after his intercession, the Queen Elizabeth asked Shakespeare to change the name to Falstaff.