Speaking of kings and popes under the shadow of Henry VIII’s Treason Act: Bale’s King Johan

The years following Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon saw many changes in legislation that affected his subjects’ positions in the realm, as well as their relationship with the divine. As Supreme Head of the Church of England, Henry had taken the ultimate authority over matters spiritual, and the 1534 Treason Act secured his subjects’ compliance to the new policies by turning acting or speaking against the king, his queen, or heirs, into a capital offence. During these years, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer were given the task to further the reformist cause, and for this they employed, among others, the polemical dramatist John Bale. However, when Bale and his ‘ffelowes’ performed a play called King Johan at Cranmer’s house in 1538, King Henry was already returning to a more religiously conservative position. Furthermore, the 1538 arrests and executions of both traditionalists and evangelicals, and the publication of the king’s excommunication which brought a putative threat of invasion, contributed to an atmosphere of paranoia. Yet King Johan is outspoken about matters of reform, and, even more dangerously, presumes to advise the king on how a monarch should rule. This paper examines the ways in which Bale refused to compromise the strength of his political argument, whilst at the same time carefully avoided crossing the boundary to treason.