Peele's David and Bethsabe: Reconsidering Biblical Drama of the Long 1590s

Annaliese Connolly
Sheffield Hallam University
A.F. Connolly@shu.ac.uk

Annaliese Connolly . "Peele's David and Bethsabe: Reconsidering Biblical Drama of the Long 1590s". Early Modern Literary Studies Special Issue 16 (October, 2007) 9.1-20<URL: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/si-16/connpeel.htm>.

1. Marlowe's influence upon the dramatic work of George Peele has frequently been noted in relation to Peele's The Battle of Alcazar.[1]  The play is often grouped with those plays designated "The Sons of Tamburlaine", which were written in imitation of Marlowe's first theatrical smash hit.[2]  In this paper I want to discuss in greater detail the specific nature of the relationship between Marlowe's Tamburlaine and those plays which sought to imitate it, beginning with David and Bethsabe, another of Peele's plays which also bears traces of Marlovian influence. Whilst critics such as G.K. Hunter and David Bevington have noted this connection, Peele's biblical play continues to be overlooked in this context, as criticism to date has tended to focus upon the play's anomalous position within Peele's body of dramatic works and amongst the work of his contemporaries.[3]  My approach to David and Bethsabe and the biblical drama from the period c.1590 to c.1602 is influenced by recent work in repertory studies by Scott McMillin and Sally Beth MacLean in their seminal study The Queen's Men and their plays in which they advocate a fresh approach to Elizabethan drama by shifting the focus away from the dramatist and onto the theatre companies and their repertories.[4]  I therefore devote some discussion to the place of biblical drama in the repertories of the theatre companies which performed at the Rose and Fortune theatres, so that they are considered in terms of their place within a commercial enterprise and not simply as an isolated, disparate group. Recently Roslyn Knutson, Susan Cerasano and John H. Astington have suggested that later Elizabethan biblical plays formed part of a wider repertorial policy, whereby companies such as the Admiral's Men, for example, could build on the success of existing plays in their repertory such as Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus, since many of these plays, including David and Bethsabe, recycle Marlovian themes and motifs such as exotic locations, charismatic protagonists and stage spectacle. They also provide comparable roles for their leading actor Edward Alleyn, whose celebrity status had been confirmed by his performances in the roles of Tamburlaine, Barabas and Faustus.  My argument will, therefore, build on the work of Knutson and Cerasano, who have both argued that Elizabethan theatre companies used their repertories to market their most successful plays by staging revivals of their older plays, such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus, and by commissioning new plays which would replicate their most popular features.  Peele's David and Bethsabe is one example of this latter strategy and a survey of other biblical plays, including the now lost Nebuchadnezzar (1596), Judas (1601) and Joshua (1601) which were commissioned for the new Fortune Theatre between 1600 and 1602 and coincided with Alleyn's return to the stage, suggests that this continued to be a popular policy.  The potential subject matter of these plays indicates that biblical kings and warriors were utilised with the primary function of appealing to Alleyn's paying public.
   
   
2. During the period between c.1590 and c.1602 contemporary records such as Philip Henslowe's Diary and the Stationers' register indicate that at least thirteen biblical plays were commissioned, written or performed for the Elizabethan theatre audience.  Of these thirteen plays only two remain extant: A Looking Glass for London and England by Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge and George Peele's David and Bethsabe.  Critics have certainly been puzzled by the sudden glut of biblical plays which appear between c.1590 and c.1602, particularly since medieval religious drama had been gradually phased out through the legislation of the Protestant Tudors.[5] The critical responses to Peele's David and Bethsabe summarise some of the difficulties critics have had in explaining why a series of plays which focus upon Old Testament patriarchs and warriors should have been written during the 1590s. Peele's biblical drama appears to sit awkwardly amongst his other extant works for the stage which include The Arraignment of Paris, a courtly entertainment, the two histories The Battle of Alcazar and Edward I and the pastoral comedy The Old Wives Tale.  The play itself points up its resistance to generic classification in its title, The Love of David and Fair Bethsabe with the Tragedy of Absalon, since the emphasis upon the king and his lover has tended to wrong-foot critics who expect that the play will focus primarily upon David's relationship with Bethsabe, when in fact it is the king's relationship with his sons, particularly Absalon, with which the play is most concerned. A.H. Bullen describes it as "a mess of cloying sugar plums" (Bullen 1888, xli) while Murray Roston summarises the confused nature of the critical response when he notes that "What is really a fine biblical tragedy has thus often been judged as a drama of Renaissance love and been found wanting"(Roston 1968, 103).
   
   
3. Elmer Blistein in his edition of David and Bethsabe concludes his discussion of the figure of King David in English plays with the remark:

   David, then, plays a small part in the English drama before 1600.  We should not be surprised, for biblical drama as a whole seemed to interest neither the Elizabethan dramatist nor his audience (Blistein 1970, 174).

   Blistein supports his assertion by considering a small number of plays which were based either wholly or partially on the Bible and were either printed or entered in the Stationers' Register during Elizabeth's reign. There are five plays including Jacob and Esau which was entered in 1557/8, but not printed until 1568.  The second is Goodly Queen Hester which was entered in the Stationers' register in 1560/1 and printed in 1561 and the third is Thomas Garter's Susanna which was entered in 1568/9 and printed in 1578.  William Golding's translation of Theodore Beza's Abraham Sacrifant is also considered, together with A Looking Glass for London and England by Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge which was entered in 1593/4 and printed in 1594 (Blistein 1970, 174-175).  Peele's David and Bethsabe also fits this pattern here since it was entered in the Stationers' register in May 1594, with the first quarto printed in 1599.  Blistein acknowledges that his criterion for identifying biblical plays of the period is potentially a restrictive one: Perhaps other plays on biblical subjects were written during the reign of Elizabeth, but they were neither entered in the Stationers' register nor, so far as we are able to discover, printed (Blistein 1970, 175).
   
   
4. A much clearer sense of the number of biblical plays written or performed during the later part of Elizabeth's reign is provided by the account book of the owner of the Rose Theatre, Philip Henslowe, a source which is not consulted by Blistein. The Diary is an invaluable resource since it provides details of plays commissioned and performed which perhaps were not printed and are now lost and had not been entered in the Stationers' register.  Louis B. Wright in his early study of Elizabethan biblical drama compiles a survey of biblical plays using a range of source material, including Henslowe's Diary, and remarks: "That the Bible was a storehouse of material which dramatists at times used effectively on the full-grown Elizabethan stage is largely overlooked"(Wright 1928, 47). Wright stops short of suggesting a detailed response to the question of why these plays flourished, arguing simply that "the Bible was more useful in the theatres than we have been accustomed to believe"(Wright 1928, 47). Ruth H. Blackburn also notes the prevalence of these plays and identifies a pattern relating to the popularity of biblical plays, noting that from 1568/9 after the registration of Garter's Susanna until the early 1590s there are no records of "any native Biblical plays" and yet between c.1590 and c.1602 there were at least thirteen biblical plays written for the English stage (Blackburn 1971, 155-160).  The significance of these statistics is revealed if we consider their place within the repertory of the Rose playhouse. 
   
   
5. The thirteen biblical plays compiled in Table 1 of the appendix give an overview of the plays and provide a date for when they are first recorded either in Henslowe's Diary or in the Stationers' Register and the company with which they are associated. The information in the second table comes from the playlists provided in the Diary with information relating to the performances of biblical plays between March 1592 and March 1597.  The table outlines the other plays performed in that particular weekly run, as well as the receipts received for individual plays, including the highest grossing play. The aim of using the information from the playlists demonstrates the way in which a fuller sense of the company's repertory facilitates the reassessment of these particular plays and indicates factors which contributed to their genesis. The earliest performance of a biblical play recorded by Henslowe was A Looking Glass for London and England which was performed twice at the Rose in March 1591, again in April that year and later in June 1592 by Lord Strange's Men (Henslowe, Diary, 16-17, 19). The play proved popular in print as it was published first in 1594 and again in 1598, 1602 and 1617, with five passages from the play appearing in England's Parnassus in 1600.  Greene's other play on a biblical subject was The History or Tragedy of Job which was entered in the Stationers' register in 1594, although it was never printed and has not survived (Wright 1928, 53).
   
   
6. Henslowe's Diary refers to three lost biblical plays which were also performed at the Rose between 1591-1597, with the entries detailing the receipts for each performance.  The first of these is Abraham and Lot which was performed three times at The Rose in January 1593 by Sussex's Men (Henslowe, Diary, 20-21). The second biblical play, Esther and Ahasuerus,  was performed twice in June 1594 at Newington Butts by the Admiral's and Chamberlain's Men, (Henslowe, Diary, 21) while Nebuchadnezzer was performed eight times at The Rose between December 1596 and March 1597 by the Lord Admiral's Men (Henslowe, Diary, 55-57). The play appears to have been successful as the second and third performances brought in the highest returns of all the plays performed in those particular weeks.
   
   
7. Later payments made by Henslowe for biblical plays which have not survived include a payment in May 1600 to William Haughton for a play called Judas (Henslowe, Diary, 135) and in the December of the following year the accounts indicate money was given to Samuel Rowley for the completion of what appears to be Haughton's play (Henslowe, Diary, 185-186). In January 1601 there was a payment to Thomas Dekker for writing the prologue and epilogue to Pontius Pilate (Henslowe, Diary, 187). In addition to the completed Judas, 1602 saw at least six more plays written based on figures from the Old Testament.  In May, June and July a series of payments were made for a play involving Antony Munday and Thomas Dekker called Jephthah (Henslowe, Diary, 200-203). In May 1602 Henry Chettle received the first of four payments for his play Tobias (Henslowe, Diary, 200, 202-203, 296), while in June Samuel Rowley and Edward Jewby were paid for their play Samson (Henslowe, Diary, 204). In September 1602 Rowley was also paid by Henslowe for his play entitled Joshua (Henslowe, Diary, 205).
   
   
8. Table 1 indicates that of those biblical plays listed the records point to their inclusion, firstly, in the repertories of those companies at the Rose such as the Lord Strange's Men, the Queen's Men and the combined companies of the Admiral's Men and the Chamberlain's Men.  After 1594 when the Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men emerged as the two dominant companies, biblical plays become associated almost exclusively with the repertory of the Admiral's Men.  Together with the lost play Job, Peele's David and Bethsabe is the only biblical play not assigned to a specific company. The title page of the first quarto, published in 1599, indicates only its popularity: "As it hath been diuers times plaied on the stage".[6]  There is a tantalising entry for stage properties by Henslowe in October 1602 for Worcester's Men in which fourteen pence was paid to workmen for "poleyes & worckmanshipp for to hang absolome" (Henslowe, Diary, 217), which has led to speculation that it relates to a performance of Peele's David and Bethsabe, but unfortunately there is no further evidence which indicates that the entry refers specifically to Peele's play or to a performance of that play.[7]  The play was entered in the Stationers' register in May 1594 and apart from the suggestive reference to the stage properties in Henslowe's Diary and the appearance of three passages from the play in the anthology England's Parnassus in 1600 there are no further contemporary references to David and Bethsabe.  Despite this apparent absence of material relating to the play in contemporary records, I will argue that there is evidence available which makes it possible to suggest that David and Bethsabe was written for the Admiral's Men, and that like the biblical plays of his contemporaries, Peele's play was destined for performance at the Rose, with Alleyn in the title role.   
   
   
9. Peele already had strong connections with the Rose and the companies which performed there, as both his histories, The Battle of Alcazar and Edward I, belonged to the repertory of plays staged between 1592 and 1596.  The title page of the first quarto of The Battle of Alcazar, which was published in 1594, indicates that the play was performed by the Admiral's Men: "As it was sundrie times plaied by the Lord high Admirall his seruants".[8]  Henslowe's Diary details entries for fourteen performances of a play called Muly Mollocco by Lord Strange's Men between February 1592 and January 1593.  There has been some debate, however, as to whether Muly Mollocco is in fact Peele's play, referred to by Henslowe using the name of its villainous character, or whether it refers to a separate play, now lost.[9]  If we keep an open mind as to the identity of Muly Mullocco and resist identifying it with Peele's play, it is still possible to make a number of useful points about the play's role in the repertory.  Firstly, the play appears to have popular as on three occasions it was the highest grossing play during the weekly run of plays performed. Secondly, Roslyn L. Knutson has argued that one of the strategies employed by the companies which owned Marlowe's plays was to build "a complementary repertory that duplicated, exploited, or exaggerated certain of their features"(Knutson 2002, 25). One example of this strategy at work can be seen in relation to performances of Muly Mullocco and The Jew of Malta by Lord Strange's Men at the Rose between 1592 and 1593, when the company sought to capitalise on the success of Marlowe's play by pairing it with other plays in the repertory that would complement it.  One such play is Muly Mullocco with its Mediterranean locale and a Machiavellian protagonist. Table three indicates that The Jew of Malta and Muly Mullocco were frequently performed during the same weekly run during this period, and Knutson notes that the scheduling of these plays indicates a deliberate strategy at work since on at least four occasions The Jew of Malta and Muly Mullocco are performed on consecutive days, thereby reinforcing the connections between the plays (Knutson 2002, 28-29).
   
   
10. Although Henslowe's play lists cannot furnish us with details of the performance history of David and Bethsabe, it is still possible to argue that the play is the product of the reportorial strategy suggested by Knutson. Peele deliberately replicates aspects of stage spectacle from Marlowe's Tamburlaine, including scenes of siege warfare with vaunting between characters upon city walls, together with the hanging of characters either from walls or, in the case of Absalon, from a tree.  Peele's king shares a surprising number of qualities with Marlowe's Scythian and David's status as God's anointed warrior allows the play to recall Tamburlaine's epithet as "The Scourge of God" with its Old Testament origins whilst pointing up his ambiguous relationship with the Christian, Muslim and classical gods of the play.  Such a strategy of alluding to Marlowe's Tamburlaine has been more readily identified in The Battle of Alcazar whilst the influence of Marlowe's first theatrical smash hit on David and Bethsabe has been comparatively overlooked. If we begin by briefly examining some of the strategies employed by Peele in The Battle of Alcazar to allude to Tamburlaine it allows us to recognise that this same strategy is also at work in David and Bethsabe.  When Muly Mahamet [sic] first appears on stage in Act 1, scene 2, he enters the stage in his chariot.  This stage spectacle echoes those famous scenes from Tamburlaine Part Two when Tamburlaine appears on stage in his chariot drawn by the kings of Trebizon and Soria and then by Orcanes, King of Natolia and the King of Jerusalem.  The fame of this scene is attested to by the fact that it is parodied by Shakespeare in Henry IV part 2 when Pistol demands

    Shall pack-horses
    And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
    Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,
    Compare with Caesars and with Cannibals?[10]

    Here Peele begins by making a visual homage to Tamburlaine, employing the iconic image of Tamburlaine in his chariot.  To reinforce this visual connection with Marlowe's play Muly Mahamet's speech echoes Tamburlaine's dying words when he dismisses the power of the Turkish king to challenge his right to the throne:

    Convey Tamburlaine into our Afric here
    To chastise and to menace lawful kings.
    Tamburlaine triumph not, for thou must die.
    As Philip did, Caesar, and Caesar's peers.[11]

11. In David and Bethsabe Peele once again alludes to Marlowe's play with a visual homage in a scene which recalls several iconic moments from Tamburlaine Part Two.  After the play's opening exchanges between David and Bethsabe the scene shifts to preparations for war against the Ammonites, as David's army, led by his captain Joab, lays siege to the city of Rabbah.  As in The Battle of Alcazar, the parallel is made in the stage direction as the inhabitants appear on the city walls: "Hanon with King Machaas, and others, upon the wals".[12] The scene in which the leader of an attacking army addresses a besieged city is reminiscent firstly of Tamburlaine Part Two in Act 3, scene 3, when Theridamas and Techelles arrive at the walls of Balsera and speak to the Captain and his wife Olympia, and the stage directions note "Summon the battle. [Enter above] Captain with his wife [OLYMPIA] and son".[13]  They refuse to surrender and the town is taken.  The second and perhaps most famous example of this scenario is in Act 5, scene 1: "Enter the GOVERNOR OF BABYLON upon the walls with [MAXIMUS and] others".  The governor refuses to agree to a truce and the town is taken; Tamburlaine then orders "Hang him in chains upon the city walls / And let my soldiers shoot the slave to death" (V.1.108-109).  The scene's dramatic impact is recorded in a letter from Philip Gaudy, a law student, to his father concerning a performance of a play in November 1587:

    My L. Admyrall his men and players having a devyse in ther playe to tye one of their fellows to a poste and so to shoote him to deathe, having borrowed their callyvers one of the players handes swerved his peece being charged with bullet missed the fellowe he aymed at and killed a child, and a woman great with child forthwith, and hurt an other man in the head very soore.[14]

12. It is not clear from the records which play was being performed, but the company was the Lord Admiral's Men and it is generally accepted that the play was Tamburlaine Part Two.[15]  The violent fate of the Babylonian governor is recalled in Peele's play by the staging of the death of Absalon.  During Absalon's rebellion against his father he becomes caught by the hair in a tree and is an easy target for David's soldiers.  The stage directions indicate his predicament: "The battell, and Absalon hangs by the haire". Joab, David's captain, discovers the prince and stabs him for his treachery:

    But preach I to thee, while I should revenge
    Thy cursed sinne that staineth Israel,
    And makes her fields blush with her childrens bloud?
    Take that as part of thy deserved plague,
    Which worthily, no torment can inflict (ll.1524-1528).

    Absalon continues to hang in the tree and lament, he is then stabbed again, this time by more of Joab's men, who finally kill him:

    Our captaine Joab hath begun to us,
     And heres an end to thee, and all thy sinnes.
     Come let us take the beauteous rebel downe,
     And in some ditch amids this darksome wood,
     Burie his bulke beneath a heape of stones (ll.1556-1560).

    The parallels between David and Tamburlaine are developed further in Peele's play when David visits the city of Rabbah in person. Hanon once again appears on the city walls, as indicated by Joab's line "see where Hannon showes him on the wals" (l.777), thus recalling their encounter earlier in the play. The vaunting between David and Hanon underlines the parallels between David and Tamburlaine as Peele's king is described as the scourge of God by Joab, indicating that it is his destiny is to defeat the Gentiles in God's name: "Israel may, as it is promised, / Subdue the daughters of the Gentils Tribes" (ll. 779-780).  Joab warns Hanon that

    the God of Israel hath said,
    David the King shall weare that crowne of thine,
    That weighs a Talent of the finest gold,
    And triumph in the spoile of Hannon's towne (ll.802-805).

    The stage direction then notes "Alarum, excursions, assault. Exeunt omnes.  Then the trumpets, and David with Hannon's crowne"(l.14 sd). This scene which stages the transference of the crown from the king of the Ammonites to David is suggestive of the physical tussle between Tamburlaine and Mycetes in Part One for the crown of Persia.  Mycetes begins by attempting to bury his crown in a hole in the ground, but then he is forced to engage in a tug-of-war with the Scythian for his crown.  Although there are no stage directions given here it is clear that Tamburlaine has snatched the crown from Mycetes:

    MYCETES:                 Come, give it me.
    TAMBURLAINE:        No, I took it prisoner.
    MYCETES:                 You lie, I gave it you.
    TAMBURLAINE:        Then 'tis mine. 
    MYCETES:                 No, I mean, I let you keep it.
    TAMBURLAINE:       Well, I mean you shall have it again.
                                        Here, take it for a while, I lend it thee,
                                        Till I may see thee hemmed with armèd men.
                                        Then thou shalt see me pull it from thy head:
                                        Thou art no match for mighty Tamburlaine (I.II.iv.31-41).

13. The parallels, however, between David and Bethsabe and Tamburlaine extend beyond just the use of stage spectacle.  On closer inspection there are a number of startling similarities between King David and Tamburlaine, including their humble origins as shepherds and their reputations as formidable soldiers and politicians. This unlikely alliance between them not only reflects the importance of the Old Testament as a source of inspiration for Elizabethan dramatists keen to cash in on the popularity of Tamburlaine, but also highlights the cultural currency of both David and Tamburlaine during the late 1580s and 1590s as both are used to renegotiate English national identity in the wake of a series of Armadas sent by the Spanish.
    
    
14. The defeat of the first Armada in the summer of 1588 by apparently providential winds was celebrated in a number of publications such as Edmund Bunny's The Coronation of David and John Prime's sermon "The Consolation of David, briefly applied to Queen Elizabeth". Each of these texts drew an analogy between the trials faced by England at the hands of the Spanish and their allies with the persecution of David and the Israelites at the hands of the Philistines.  In Bunny's tract England is presented as the defender of the Protestant faith and like the young David before Goliath triumphs over a more powerful adversary:

    But now we also (God be praysed) haue our Dauid in the power of the Gospell, that Jesus Christ (the sonne of Dauid) hath now in these days sent unto us.  When our brethren disdained to heare us talke of any such matter; when the wiser sort thought it impossible; without Sauls armour without any earthly helpe whatsoeuer: upon assurance of such like matters before achieved with a sling and a stone is Goliath with great courage incountered, and with as good success, in a manner cleane overthrowne (Bunny 1588, 12).

    Prime's sermon makes explicit the parallels between the queen and King David when he describes Elizabeth as "a daughter of David [who] had as great deliuerances as ever Dauid had"(B2r).  England's position as a nation favoured by God is emphasised by the defeat of the mighty Spanish fleet:

    not an angel but God himself had a favourable eye toward us, an holy hand ouer us and that he was as much with us as euer any nation, when not withstanding all their crakes and famous Dons and duotie aduentures and painted hauntes, we lost by them who are now sent home a wrong way, neither man, nor ship nor boat, nor mast of ship (B7v).

    Peele's play also taps into the political significance of the equivalence between David and Elizabeth as God's anointed servants to underline England's position as a providential nation and to celebrate their role as the underdogs in the war with Spain.  In David and Bethsabe David's enemies insult the Israelites by referring to the humble origins of their leader.  Hanon, the King of Ammon, sneers,

    What would the shepherds dogs of Israel
    Snatch from the mighty issue of King Ammon,
    The valiant Ammonites, and haughty Syrians? (ll.187-189)

    King Machaas also insults Joab and David in this vein, emphasising David's role as a shepherd:

    Hence thou that bearst poor Israels shepherds hook,
    The prowd lieutenant of that base born King,
    And kep within the compasse of his fold,
    For if ye seeke to feed on Ammons fruits,
    And stray into the Syrian's fruitfull Medes,
    The mastives of our land shall werry ye,
    And pull the weesels from your greedy throtes (ll. 202-208).

    In the opening scenes of the play it is clear that David has God's authorisation to pursue the war against the Ammonites and Joab's speech describes His involvement:

    He casts his sacred eyesight from on high,
    And sees your foes run seeking for their deaths,
    Laughing their labours and their hopes to scorn (II.12-14).

    Divine sanction for this war indicates the ways in Peele's play appears to rehearse the Christian argument for a just war, which was based on the teachings of Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas which proposed that war could be sanctioned if it had the authority of the sovereign, if the cause was just and if it was carried out with aim of securing peace.[16]  David's defeat of the Ammonites provides another example of the ways in which such biblical precedents could be utilised to chime with those feelings of English nationalism which intensified during the 1590s.
    
    
15. Like King David, Tamburlaine was celebrated as a great warrior in contemporary translated accounts of his career. In several of the sources available to Marlowe, including Sir Thomas Fortescue's The Forest or Collection of Histories (1571) and George Whetstone's The English Mirror (1586), Tamburlaine's military achievements are applauded. Fortescue, for example, offers a favourable comparison with Alexander the Great, an accolade all the more impressive since Tamburlaine began as "a poor labourer or husbandman":

    In the end he became lord of such great kingdoms and seigniories, that he was in no point inferior to that prince of the world Alexander; or if he were, he yet came next him of any other that ever lived (Thomas & Tydeman 1994, 83).

    Whetstone continues in a similar vein:

    Among the illustrious captains Romans and Grecians none of all their martial arts deserve to be proclaimed with more renown than the conquest and military disciplines of Tamburlaine (Thomas & Tydeman 1994, 93).

16. Tamburlaine, like David, begins his career as a shepherd yet he goes on to establish a reputation as a successful military leader. In the opening scenes of Part One of Marlowe's play Tamburlaine appears in shepherd's clothing and his transformation from shepherd to warrior is enacted on stage as he removes his shepherd's garb and replaces it with armour: "Lie here, ye weeds that I disdain to wear! / This complete armour and this curtle-axe / Are adjuncts more beseeming Tamburlaine" (I.I.2.41-43).  Tamburlaine's enemies also use his lowly origins to insult him. The kings and rulers whom Tamburlaine challenges curse him as "A Scythian shepherd"(I.I.2.154), a "devilish shepherd" (I.II.6.1) and a shepherd turned fox - "a fox in midst of harvest-time / Doth prey upon my flocks of passengers" (I.I.1.31-32) - and "shepherd's issue, base-born Tamburlaine" (2.III.5.77).  Despite his humble origins it is Tamburlaine's skill on the battlefield and his political cunning which confirm his reputation and contemporary reactions to Marlowe's protagonist emphasise his power and success.  Richard Levin argues that the play's handling of Tamburlaine's career was intended to prompt admiration in the audience rather than put forward a moral judgement and this is reflected in the ways in which many of the contemporary allusions to Tamburlaine make use of the epithet "mighty".[17]  The address to the reader by the printer Richard Jones is a case in point:

    Gentlemen and courteous readers whosoever: I have here published in print for your sakes the two tragical discourses of the Scythian shepherd Tamburlaine, that became so great a conqueror and so mighty a monarch.

    The figure of Tamburlaine, therefore, had a particular resonance during the years of the Armada threat. James Shapiro has noted that despite being written a year before the first attempted invasion the play's "exploration of conquest, honour, social mobility and the representation of power made it in retrospect a paradigmatic Armada play" (Shapiro 1989, 352). The suggestion that Elizabethans regarded Tamburlaine as a figure to be admired and even emulated is further evidenced in Peele's poem "A Farewell to Norris and Drake" which was written on the occasion of England's counter-Armada to Portugal under Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris in 1589. Peele suggests that while the men may bid goodbye to life at home they should remember to emulate those figures who have graced the stage in their endeavours against the Spanish:

    Bid Theaters and proude Tragedians,
    Bid Mahomets Poo, and mightie Tamburlaine,
    King Charlemaine, Tom Stukeley and the rest
    Adiewe (A3v).

    The play itself invites its audience into a relationship of identification with Tamburlaine when it challenges them to "View but his picture in this tragic glass / And then applaud his fortunes as you please".  The motif of reflection which begins in this first prologue suggests that in fact what we see is a mirror image of ourselves.  This process of identification with Marlowe's protagonist, however, problematises the very issue of English national identity, since Tamburlaine is not simply an ambitious shepherd but a Scythian, and this had a specific set of negative associations for the Elizabethans since the Scythians were regarded as a barbarous nation and the antithesis of civilised society.  The Irish were frequently described as being descended from the Scythians in order to justify the brutal programme of repression against the Irish during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tamburlaine's acts of conquest have also been identified with Spanish colonialism and it is possible that Marlowe may have been alluding to the career of the conquistador Lope de Aguirre when he depicts events from Tamburlaine's career (Cartelli 1996, 110-118).  Like Tamburlaine, the Spanish conquistadors were used as models for English adventurers such as Sir Walter Ralegh in their undertakings in Ireland and the New World.  In this way the desire for success aligns the English coloniser with the practices of the very enemy they have previously condemned.  Marlowe, like Peele, also examines the competing theories of war by juxtaposing the Christian theory of a just war with the secular theory propounded by political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli.  Machiavelli discounted the theory that war was a consequence of sin resulting in divine punishment and argued that war was a political instrument of will used directly by men and not God. Tamburlaine himself calls up the argument for war as the divine scourge of sin by the use of his epithet as the "Scourge of God", whilst his career makes the case for war as the political instrument of individual ambition (De Somogyi 1998, 21-22). Both plays therefore scrutinise the political expediency of using biblical precedents to legitimate war and whilst the power of divine sanction is acknowledged, ultimately it is the human qualities of the military leader which appeared to be prized above all in the case of both David and Tamburlaine.  David, like Tamburlaine, is a charismatic leader; both exemplify military valour and both are prepared to perform acts of extreme violence to secure their aims.  With this in mind it is possible to look at the relationship between David and Tamburlaine in the context of other subsequent biblical plays and to conjecture that it was these requirements which partly motivated the dramatists responsible for these plays. 
    
    
17. The lost play Nebuchadnezzar is a case in point. Table 2 indicates that Nebuchadnezzar appears to have been a successful play for the Admiral's Men, with entries for a series of eight performances between December 1597 and March 1598, with several performances bringing in the highest receipts for that week. The play poses a number of difficulties however, as there are no existing documents which record either the date when it was composed or first performed. Despite the absence of an extant playtext or dates relating to its composition or first performance it is still possible to suggest reasons why the figure of Nebuchadnezzar may have been the subject of an Elizabethan play. The king appears in the Old Testament books of Daniel, Jeremiah and Judith in the Apocrypha. In the Book of Daniel Nebuchadnezzar is depicted as a proud king who is punished by God for bragging of his own power and capability.  In Daniel 4:30 the king is cast out to live as a beast for seven years:

    And he was driuen from men, and did eat grasse as the oxen, and his bodie was wet with dewe of heauen, til his heeres were growen as egles (feathers) and his nailes like birds (clawes) (Geneva Bible 1561, 325).

    Nebuchadnezzar is frequently used in homiletic literature as an exemplar of pride, but it seems that the aspects of Nebuchadnezzar's story which would have had greater appeal for an Elizabethan dramatist are that like King David, Nebuchadnezzar was also famous as a warrior king and is remembered for his military campaigns against Egypt and the kingdom of Judah.  Historical accounts of the king also record his siege and capture of the city of Jerusalem in 597 BC.[18]  In the Book of Jeremiah he is described as God's instrument that will be used to punish the sinful city of Jerusalem.  The prophet describes the coming of the Babylonian king in ways that would no doubt have appealed to a dramatist aiming to write a play which would recall Tamburlaine:

    Beholde, he shal come vp as the cloudes, and his charets (shalbe) as a tempest: his horses are higher [than] eagles (Geneva Bible 1561, 291).

    From the biblical sources it seems that the play about Nebuchadnezzar could easily reproduce those popular motifs of war, particularly siege warfare, as well as instances of physical violence.  Jeremiah chapter 39 verses 5-5 provides one such example when he describes Nebuchadnezzar's treatment of Zedekiah, the king of Jerusalem, who is captured and tortured by his enemy:

    They broght hym to Nebuchad-nezzar kyng of Babel vnto Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gaue judgement vpon him. Then the king of Babel slew the sonnes of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the kyng of Bable slewe all the nobles of Iudah.  Moreover he put out Zedekiahs eyes, and bounde hym in chaynes, to carry him to Babel.  Abnd the Chaldeans burnt the Kyngs house, and the houses of the people with fyre, and brake down the walles of Jerusalem (Geneva Bible 1561, 291).

    Although discussion of the content of the play can only ever be based on speculation, if we look at the plays performed during the weeks that Nebuchadnezzar featured in the Admiral's repertory, we can see that it appears on four occasions with the play called Stukeley, an abbreviation for the play The Famous History of the Death and Life of Captain Thomas Stukeley. Stukeley had itself been written partly in response to Peele's Alcazar and is also concerned with war and battles of conquest in North Africa and the Mediterranean and would no doubt have served as a useful pairing with Nebuchadnezzar.
    
    
18. The repertory of the Admiral's Men was shaped not only by the popularity of Marlowe's plays, but also by the acting of Edward Alleyn, the company's leading man during the 1590s, who played the roles of Tamburlaine, Barabas and Doctor Faustus and had contributed to their success.  Alleyn's physical presence and his acting style suggest that he was striking in these large central roles. Susan Cerasano has argued that based on the sizing of Alleyn's signet ring the actor was likely to be an imposing figure, probably above average Elizabethan height (Cerasano 1994, 171-179). The part of Tamburlaine would require that the actor was both physically impressive with vocal talents to match. Alleyn's depiction of Tamburlaine and the other Marlovian protagonists he played clearly made an impression upon his audience. In an important essay on the influence of Alleyn's celebrity status upon the repertory of the Admiral's men, Susan Cerasano has argued that based upon the roles Alleyn is known to have performed with the company, it is possible to conjecture that he may well have performed the central role in other plays in the repertory.  Cerasano identifies the two biblical plays Greene's The Tragedy of Job and Peele's David and Bethsabe which she argues would have provided "iconic Alleyn-style roles" (Cerasano 2005, 49).  Cerasano goes on to note that

    The biblical history, while not prominent in the company's repertory in 1587, soon became so, and it remained popular with the company's audience well into the early seventeenth century (Cerasano 2005, 49).

    Further evidence that biblical plays like Peele's David and Bethsabe were written with Alleyn in mind can be traced if we return to the list of biblical plays listed in Table 1. Although it is difficult to date individual plays precisely it is possible to see from the table that they can be divided into two groups.  The first contains those biblical plays written or performed between c. 1590 and 1597: A Looking Glass for London and England, Abraham and Lot, Esther and Ahasuerus, The History or Tragedy of Job, David and Bethsabe and Nebuchadnezzer. The second group belong to the period c. 1600-1602 including Judas (1600/1601), Pontius Pilate, Jephthah, Tobias, Samson and Joshua. In the autumn of 1597 Alleyn stepped down temporarily from his position as the leading actor for the Admiral's Men and "retired" from the stage.  Henslowe alludes to his son-in-law's departure in an entry in his diary when summarising the expenditure for costumes which he records as a "not of all suche goods as I haue Bowght for playnge sence my sonne Edward allen leafte lange [sic]" (Henslowe Diary, 83-84). Alleyn's retirement from the stage in 1597 is now thought to have been a calculated decision by Alleyn and his father-in-law Philip Henslowe as both were involved in a number of business ventures.  Alleyn in particular was involved in attempts to secure the Mastership of the Bears and in negotiations for securing the lease for the site on which the new Fortune theatre would be constructed (Cerasano 1998, 98-112).  In 1600 the Admiral's Men relocated from the Rose on the South Bank to the Fortune theatre in the parish of Cripplegate, which stood outside the jurisdiction of the City authorities with the older theatres such as the Theatre and the Curtain. When the new theatre opened Alleyn returned to the stage, no doubt to help draw the crowds away from the Chamberlain's Men at the Globe.  The payments for the second group of biblical plays beginning in 1600 coincide with the opening of the Fortune and the need for new plays to satisfy audience demand. The Old Testament figures around whom the plays were organised indicate that dramatists were writing plays which would offer a platform for Alleyn's talents and his association with those earlier Marlovian roles he had made his own.  Again, a brief examination of the figures selected indicate that this was the most likely strategy at work. It has been suggested by Michael O'Connell that the play called Judas which is begun by Haughton in 1600 and is completed in 1601 by Rowley is more likely to be concerned with the figure of Judas Maccabeus from the Apocrypha, rather than that of Judas Iscariot, since the latter's story would require the representation of Christ on stage, something which had been prohibited (O'Connell 2000, 111).  Judas Maccabeus is a more likely choice since his story is one which would be more in keeping with the kinds of plays the Admiral's men favoured as he is a great warrior who is chosen by the Israelites to rise up against King Antiochus:

    So he gate his people great honour: he put on a brestplate as a gyant, and armed him self, and set the battel in array, and defended the campe with the sworde.  In his actes he was like a lyon, and as a lyons whelpe roaring after the pray (Geneva Bible 1561, 411).

19. John H. Astington in his discussion of Alleyn's final season at the Fortune theatre also notes that new biblical plays such as Samson, Joshua and Jephthah were written for Alleyn with an eye to reprising earlier roles:

    There seems to be little doubt that Alleyn would have played the title role in all these, and they may have been written with him in mind, in that Samson is a kind of Hercules, and Joshua a kind of Tamburlaine (Astington 2006, 133).

    Joshua, as Moses' captain who leads the Israelites across the Jordan to establish by conquest the Promised Land, is another appropriate choice, as Astington points out, since the Book of Joshua provides the story of the siege and destruction of the city of Jericho, together with an alarming succession of wars and battles - indeed chapter 12 consists simply of a list of the thirty one kings defeated by Joshua.  Both Judas and Joshua may have been suggested to Haughton and Rowley as potentially suitable figures from the Old Testament to dramatise from scrutinising the plays which existed in the repertory of the Admiral's Men. Judas and Joshua, like King David, belonged to the group known as the Nine Worthies, a list of men who exemplified martial valour and were drawn from Pagan, Old Testament and Christian sources.[19] The classical examples included Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar and the Christian examples were King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon. Henslowe's Diary indicates that the Admiral's Men had performed the no longer extant play Godfrey of Boulogne between July 1594 and September 1595, which seems to have been a play in two parts as the entries refer to receipts for "2pte of godfrey of bullen" (Henslowe Diary, 22-25, 28, 31). Godfrey was the Duke of Lorraine and descendant of Charlemagne, who was famous for leading the first crusade in 1095 and ruled Jerusalem after the defeat of the Muslim forces.[20] There is some indication from the performance lists that Godfrey of Boulogne, like Muly Mullocco and Nebuchadnezzar, had been deliberately paired with the lost play Mahomet, so that they might complement one another. There were three occasions during August and September 1594 when a performance of Godfrey was followed by a performance of Mohamet, suggesting that the plays were grouped thematically to capitalise on their shared subject matter of foreign conquest and battles against the Turks.
    
    
20. Biblical drama performed on the public stage in the final decade of Elizabeth's reign, then, was written as part of a commercial strategy to complement and prolong the stage life of existing plays in the repertory.  The biblical plays staged by the Admiral's Men at the Rose and Fortune theatres replicated the themes and motifs of older plays in their collection, particularly the most popular of Marlowe's plays such as Tamburlaine and The Jew of Malta.  The eponymously titled plays are therefore characterised by accounts of soldier kings or conquering prophets whose campaigns are set against an ancient and exotic backdrop.  Peele's David and Bethsabe can clearly be located in the context of these reportorial strategies, while King David's identification both with Marlowe's Tamburlaine and with a besieged Protestant England also suggest some of the conflicting ways in which English national identity underwent a process of reconfiguration during the Long 1590s.  
    
    
    Appendix

Table 2: Playlists for Biblical plays taken from Henslowe’s Diary

Extant plays are in bold type face