The works of Thomas Middleton, Volume 1 (of 5)

In Short

This volume serves as the first entry in an exhaustive 1840 collection of a prolific English dramatist’s theatrical output. It features five distinct plays—The Old Law, The Mayor of Queenborough, Blurt, Master-Constable, The Phœnix, and Michaelmas Term—that balance biting satire, dark comedy, and complex moral inquiry. By chronicling the absurdities of the law, the pretenses of the aristocracy, and the frantic greed of the mercantile class, these works endure as a mirror to the anxieties of their time. They are essential reading for anyone interested in the raw, inventive energy of the Jacobean theater, where sharp-tongued wit often masks deep underlying corruption.

The Story

The narrative arc of these plays is defined by the relentless pursuit of self-interest, often masked by the veneer of legal or social propriety. In The Old Law, a prince enacts a decree that mandates the execution of anyone reaching a certain age—a policy designed to clear the stage for a younger, more fashionable generation. The drama follows the bizarre maneuvers of heirs desperate to hasten their fathers’ deaths, only to find that the elders are just as capable of deception as their children. The story exposes the grotesque transactional nature of filial duty when the law turns life into a race against the clock.

In The Mayor of Queenborough, the focus shifts to the intersection of political power and civic incompetence. A local official, obsessed with his own importance and the logistics of entertaining high-ranking guests, finds himself caught in a tide of historical and supernatural intrigue. The play moves from the petty, domestic bickering of town life to the larger, darker currents of kingship and betrayal, showing how easily the vanity of a small-minded man can be exploited by those with greater, more ruthless ambitions.

Blurt, Master-Constable and The Phœnix explore the darker alleys of the city, where justice is often a commodity to be bought and sold. In the former, a self-important constable attempts to police the vices of a city teeming with courtesans, informers, and disguised aristocrats, only to become a comedic failure in the face of genuine malice and desire. The Phœnix further probes this moral decay, following a high-born protagonist who assumes various guises to observe the corruption of the legal and social order firsthand. He moves through the shadows of the city to dismantle the schemes of hypocrites who use the law to disguise their greed.

Finally, Michaelmas Term turns a cynical lens toward the London business world. The plot centers on a predatory merchant, Quomodo, who systematically ruins a gullible young gentleman by entangling him in complex financial bonds. The story chronicles the merchant’s cold-blooded triumph as he strips his victim of land and status, only for the narrative to eventually collapse under the weight of its own deceit. Through these varied arcs, the plays present a world where the search for wealth, status, and physical pleasure consistently overrides honesty, leading characters through webs of their own making toward outcomes that are frequently as ironic as they are inevitable.

How It Unfolds

The legal trap is set The prince mandates that all men over a certain age must be executed, immediately inciting young heirs to monitor their fathers' physical decline with greedy impatience. This cruel decree forces a desperate re-evaluation of age and merit within the court.

The folly of local pride A pompous official, convinced of his own brilliance, prepares for a royal visit by focusing on trivialities like the roasting of pigs and the cleaning of cushions. His preoccupation with petty power serves as a backdrop to the more dangerous political machinations occurring around him.

The search for illicit desire Melancholy courtiers and their attendants roam the city in pursuit of forbidden flesh, treating the courtesans and citizens they encounter as pawns in their own games of seduction. Justice is sought through official channels, but the officers of the law are easily distracted or bribed.

The mask of the investigator A noble figure disguises himself to infiltrate the corrupt systems of his own land, witnessing the exploitation of the weak by the powerful. By peeling away the layers of hypocrisy, he prepares to confront those who have subverted the law for personal gain.

The destruction of the innocent A ruthless merchant orchestrates a financial web, ensnaring a young heir in bonds that inevitably lead to ruin. The scheme unfolds with mechanical precision, exposing the cold machinery of credit and debt that defines the life of the city.

The final reckoning The various plots reach their inevitable conclusions as the deceivers find their own traps turning inward. Whether through direct confrontation or ironic reversals, the characters are forced to face the consequences of their avarice and vanity.

The People

• The Prince (Evander): A ruler who believes in a "provident" law that discards the old to make room for the fresh. He views the court as a spring, yet his rigid, unsentimental approach to human life sets the stage for the moral decay of his subjects.
• The Heirs (Simonides and his peers): Driven by an instinctual, almost biological, desire for their fathers' wealth and status. They represent the new, hollow fashion of the court, obsessed with appearance and entirely devoid of the merit they claim to value.
• The Merchant (Quomodo): A man who measures his own honesty by the success of his schemes. He views society as a ledger of debts and bonds, and he is the primary architect of the misery visited upon those who are too naive to understand the market.
• The Constable (Blurt): A figure of bumbling authority. He attempts to maintain order in a chaotic city but is constantly undercut by his own ignorance and the shifting allegiances of the people he is meant to govern.
• The Investigator (The Phœnix): A man who rejects the comfortable distance of his rank to see the truth of his city. He is a catalyst for change, standing in stark contrast to the greed-driven figures who surround him.

In Its Own Voice

"I would I had known your mind nine years ago."

One of the courtiers expresses a chilling regret that he did not realize the prince’s law—which allows sons to kill their aging fathers—existed long enough to dispatch his own father sooner.

"The trout will be a little troublesome ere he be catched."

The merchant Quomodo remarks on the difficulty of snaring a young, gullible heir who is being lured into a web of predatory financial debt.

"I have a jaw stands ready for’t, I’ll gape half way, and meet it."

A young heir eagerly anticipates the arrival of a cruel joke at the expense of his own father, highlighting the depth of the generational malice within the story.

What It's Really About

These plays are fundamentally concerned with the erosion of human connection in the face of institutionalized greed and social climbing. The core argument is that when a society prioritizes the "gloss and good clothes" of status over the inherent value of human life, it inevitably becomes a place where the law is merely a weapon for the strong. The text interrogates the fragility of morality in an urban environment where everyone is a "suitor" for something—whether it be money, power, or desire. It asks uncomfortable questions about what happens to a community when the natural ties of family and loyalty are treated as obstacles to be removed rather than foundations to be protected.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate the biting, unsentimental tone of early modern drama will find these works rewarding, though they demand a certain level of patience. The prose is thick with period slang and references to 17th-century legal and social customs, which can make the initial reading feel dense. However, the themes remain strikingly relevant; the merchant’s cold, calculated destruction of an heir’s future, or the prince’s utilitarian view of human life, resonate with a sharpness that feels contemporary.

The language is not merely a barrier but a source of intense, rugged pleasure. There is a peculiar, dark humor in how these characters speak—they are often as eloquent as they are villainous. You should be prepared for the moral ambiguity of the period; these plays do not offer the tidy moral lessons of later literature. Instead, they provide a bracing, often cynical look at human behavior that refuses to shy away from the grotesque. If you are interested in how the theater of the past navigated the same anxieties about money, power, and the corrupting nature of city life that we face today, this collection offers a rare and candid perspective. It is a demanding, rewarding experience that strips away the romanticism of the past to reveal the messy, grasping humanity underneath.