Queen Dido

'''The histories of Chester report that in 1563 a "Triumph" of "Aenas and Dido" was presented on the Roodee. Even a little digging into the times, the people involved and the nature of the associated myth reveals what might be an intersting story of catholic recusancy.'''

Chester in 1563
The best known 16th Century dramatic performances in Chester are the Chester Mystery Plays. However, the performance of other works has been noted. Few of these seem to have involved visiting companies of players, and it has been speculated that this was because of a relative geographical isolation, it has also been suggested that Chester was satisfied with the Mystery Plays and had no need for "outsiders" to come and act. However, there is also evidence that the church actively opposed performances by travelling players in Chester, even paying off troupes not to perform in Chester.

Christopher Goodman (1520–1603) was not, as Wikipedia says, born in Chester, but he was educated at the Chester School before going off to Brasenose College, Oxford, as many from Chester did, graduating as B.A. 4 Feb. 1541, and M.A. 13 June 1544. In 1547 he became a senior student at Christ Church, Oxford (where his name appears as "Gudman" in the Buttery (Canteen) book), and was proctor in 1549. He proceeded B.D. in 1551, and is said to have become Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity about 1548. The last part of Goodman's long life was spent in retirement at Chester, where he was rector of the parish of St Bridget. Goodman was closely aquainted with John Knox (c. 1513 – 24 November 1572). They were both members of the radical party within the Church of England. On 10 May 1572, the outspoken Christopher Goodman (who hated both Mary Tudor and Mary Queen of Scots) wrote a letter to the Earl of Huntingdon (Mary QoS's jailor) urging that he, as president of the Council of the North, suppress Chester’s annual mystery plays, and presumably other "religious" drama.

One of these "other works" may have been a "Triumph" of Aenas and Dido of Carthage. This 1563 performance is interesting because of the tension over the Chester Mystery Plays at that time (they were eventually to be banned after 1575). The performance schedule of the Chester Cycle in the 1560s and 1570s was erratic - plays were performed only in 1561, 1567, 1568, 1572, and 1575 - and Henry Hardware, for example, did not allow a performance of the plays in his first mayoral term in 1559-60. The reason for not performing the plays may have also been influenced by the fact that the mayors in some of the years when the plays were not performed were members of the gentry rather than members of the guilds (who actually performed the plays), and in 1574 and possibly other years, by the plague. In 1563 London experienced its worst episode of plague during the 16th Century. At least 20,136 people in London and surrounding parishes are recorded to have died of plague during this outbreak: thus around 24% of London's population ultimately perished, but no plague was recorded in Chester. So why the "gap" in the performance of the Mystery Plays from 1561 to 1567?

Hemingway informs us of the performance of works other than the Mystery Plays at the time:


 * "There were besides these scripture dramas, others of a profane character which were acted occasionally on special occasions. The Shepherd's Play was acted in St John's church yard in 1515; in 1529 the play of Robert Cicell was performed at the High Cross; on the Sunday after Midsummer day 1563, the "History of Eneas and queen Dido" was played on the Rood eye, set out by one William Crofton, gentleman, and one Mr Mann, Master of Arts. In l577, the "Shepherd's Play" was performed before the Earl of Derby at the High cross, and other triumphs on the Rood eye. And in 1589, a play was performed at the High cross, called the story of "Kinge Ebranke with all his sonnes."

Ormerod contains essentially the same information, which he lifts directly from Magna Brittanica by Daniel Lysons.

"Triumphs", such as the "History of Eneas and queen Dido" were large, spectacular events in which the visual impact was more important than the text. Triumphs on the Roodee were among the entertainments seen by Henry Stanley, earl of Derby, in 1577. We have little information on the 1563 Triumph, but it appears to have been as spectacular as would be expected.

Dido in Rome: Vergil's plot
Dido (/ˈdaɪdoʊ/ DY-doh; Ancient Greek: Δῑδώ, Latin pronunciation: [ˈdiːdoː]) was, according to ancient Greek and Roman sources, the founder and first queen of Carthage. She is primarily known from the account given by the Roman poet Virgil in his epic Aeneid. In some sources she is also known as Elissa (/iːˈlɪsə/ ee-LISS-ə, Ἔλισσα).

In Virgil's poetic version a fleet, led by the Trojan Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. The Gods intervene and, "tossed over so many seas by the wrath of Juno", Aeneas finds himself in Carthage where he seeks and gains the favor of Dido, queen of the city. The city has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre ("the double-tongued Phoenicians") and will later become a great imperial rival and enemy to Rome. Aeneas recounts to Dido the events that occasioned the Trojans' arrival, including the fall of Troy, and his subsequent wandering. Dido realises that she has fallen in love with Aeneas and he returns the feeling ("Juno’s storm-cloud wraps the day in darkness; they are united in a cave"). He then prepares to leave Carthage. Dido discovers his impending flight, ("she laments, she begs, she rants, she rages") unmoved, he sets sail anyway. Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas's sword. After many adventures, including trips to the underworld Aeneas arrives near where Rome would later exist, kills an enemy and the play comes to an abrupt end. Scholars have speculated that Virgil died before he could finish the poem.

The Aeneid is a cornerstone of the Western canon, and early (at least by the 2nd century AD) became one of the essential elements of a Latin education, often required to be memorised. It was widely held to be the pinnacle of Latin literature, much in the same way that the Iliad was seen to be supreme in Greek literature. In England the myth developed a perculiar local aspect. Brutus of Troy, a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, was known in medieval British history as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend is best known from the account given by the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae.

Marlowe's Play
It is sometimes said that the oldest English play written on the subject of Dido is Christopher Marlowe's "Dido Queen of Carthage" (with possible contributions by Thomas Nashe). As is discussed in detail below this is strictly true, but a little deceptive. The Marlowe play was probably written between 1587 and 1593, and was first published in 1594, a year after Marlowe's untimely death in Deptford. However, there had been relatively recent plays on the same subject in Latin.

William Gager's latin tragedy "Dido Tragoedia" dates from 1583. The site of the original performance was by Oxford students in the dining hall at Christ Church college: all of his works were produced at the University of Oxford, from 1582 to 1592. He was considered one of the major dramatists of the late sixteenth century. Apart from one comedy, Rivales (1582), which has not survived, his works were all Latin tragedies. They include Oedipus (1582), Meleager (1582), Dido (1583) and Ulysses Redux (1592). Dido, 1583, is adapted from Virgil and has suggestive hints of analogies to Elizabeth as a chaste queen who is piously fit to govern (though Dido dies as a chaste widow, not a virgin). Gager is a complex figure with "something approaching an obsessive interest in the theme of chastity".

Dido in Chester
Many records in Chester refer to the staging, in 1563, of the "History of Aeneas and Dido". As Marlowe was born 1563/4 he could have had nothing to do with the Chester performance. The mayor's list of expenses (BL: Harley MS2125) refers to it as:


 * "this year the sunday next after midsomer there was a triumph deuysed by willian Crofton gentleman & mr mane master of Art of the history of Aeneas & dido of carthage which was played on the Rode eye & 2 forts Raysed & a ship on the water with sundrey horsmen well apoynted"

From the mayor's book (BL: Addit MS 29777) we also learn that "man" was "a schoolmaster of the ffree Schole"

We have some information on William Crofton. Harley MS 2133, f 42v and also CL/107/90 records a:


 * "Bill of Complaint exhibited in the Court, as to Robert Earle of Leycester Chamberleyne of the Com. Palentyne of Chester; by William Crofton Gent. one of the Quenes Serjants & Officer within the said Countie, and Anne his Wiffe, late the Wiffe of Alderman Raffe Aldersey decessed: against certain Persons Tenants of one Mesuage, diverse Shoppes, and other Tenements in Chester, which accrued to the said Anne from the Possessions of the said Raffe Aldersey: because of their denial to pay some Rents due, upon the Instigation of William Aldersey, Son & Heire of the said Raffe; to whome the Premysses were to discend, in Reversion after the Deathe of the said Anne."

We have some further information from the funeral certificate of Mary Aldersey, who died in 1615:


 * "Mrs MARY ALDERSLEY, late wife of Mr William Aldersey of the Citty of Chester, Alderman, and was twise Maior therof, first 1595 and in 1614. Shee dyed on the Viijth day of January 1615, and lyeth interred in Christes Church in the said Citty. Shee was daughter to John Brerton of Wettnall, in the Country of Chester, Esq, and had yssue by her husband Raffe Aldersey (Jane Aldersey, Marie, Randall and Robert Aldersey all wch dyed young. Hugh Aldersey dyed sans yssue. Richard Aldersey maryed Elizabeth, daughtr of Thomas Barnardston of Churton, in the County of Chester, gent., they haue yssue Mary Aldersey. Robt. 4th dyed young. Jane Aldersey, daughtr of Willm and Mary, dyed young, ....(document damaged).....Ales maryed to John Leech of Carden, in the County of Chester, gent., the haue yssue John Leech."

What is at once apparent is that William Crofton is very well connected in Chester, being married into the Aldersey's. William Aldersey of Aldersey, a wealthy Chester merchant, was the grandson and nephew of the Mayors of Chester in, respectively, 1560 and 1594, and he was himself to be Mayor of Chester in 1613. He died in 1625, leaving among other issue a daughter, Alice, who married John Leche of Carden, Serjeant-at-law for the County Palatine of Chester, and associated with Leche House. Over the years Leche House attracted several associations with odd religious symbolism, priest holes and spy-holes. Matters are not made easier by the property having been for many years the home of an antiques business which might just have seeded a few myths of it's own to entertain prospective customers.

Why Dido?
Chester is a walled city, as was Troy. Troy fell when Odysseus (Ulysses) carried off the Palladium of Athena by means of the city’s underground sewers, thus sealing the fate of the city. The Trojan Palladium was said to be a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy. Chester had a statue of Minerva (as well as legend of Werburgh and her protective shrine) - and legends about underground sewers. This might have contained allusions which would have been familiar to the audience: as Augustine wrote in the "City of God":


 * "Did not Diomed and Ulysses having slain the keepers of the citadel seize the sacred statue and with blood stained hands dare to touch the fillets of the virgin goddess"

Sources and Links

 * Dido, Queen of Carthage: by William Gager (trans. Elizabeth Sandis);
 * Cheshire and Lancashire Funeral Certificates: By John Paul Rylands;
 * CHESTER CUSTOMS ACCOUNTS 1301-1566;
 * The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555-1575: Religion, Drama, and the Impact of Change;
 * Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire, Volume 3; Volume 19