Editing Spanish match (section)

==Opposition literature, censorship and imprisonment==
[[File:Diego Velázquez - Maria Anna of Spain - Prado.jpg|thumb|Infanta [[Maria Anna of Spain|Maria Anna]], portrait [[Diego Velázquez]], 1630]]
Outside the political process, feelings that were both anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic ran high. Pamphleteering attacks aimed at the Spanish match through the court, deploying "defamation, forgery and partisan distortion". Smears in the form of fabricated personal details about figures associated with the Spanish Party were published, especially by the [[Puritan]] faction.<ref name="Post1998">{{cite book|author=Robert Post|title=Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kcz1yp0w1qYC&pg=PA94|year=1998|publisher=Getty Publications|isbn=978-0-89236-484-8|page=94}}</ref> [[Thomas Scott (preacher)|Thomas Scott]] is particularly noted for his part in this campaign, from 1619.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=24916|title=Scott, Thomas|first=Sean|last=Kelsey}}</ref>

In 1620, and again in 1621, James issued decrees against writing or speaking on state affairs.<ref>{{cite book |author1=A. A. Bromham |author2=Zara Bruzzi |title=The Changeling and the Years of Crisis, 1619–1624: A Hieroglyph of Britain|year=1990 |publisher=Pinter Publishers |isbn=1-85567-163-8|page=38}}</ref> [[John Everard (preacher)|John Everard]] preached against the match in February 1621, at [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]], and spent about half a year in the [[Gatehouse Prison]].<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=8998|title=Allen, Elizabeth|first= Elizabeth|last=Allen}}</ref> When [[Robert Mason (Master of Requests)|Robert Mason]] wrote in 1622 to his friend [[Thomas Hobbes]] about public opinion on the match, criticising James's policy and noting Gondomar's skill in gaining support for it by holding out the prospect of the Palatinate being returned to Frederick V, he hedged his comments with pleas for secrecy.<ref>{{cite book |author=Noel Malcolm |author-link=Noel Malcolm |title=Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years's War|year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-957571-8|pages=84–6}}</ref>

[[Thomas Middleton]]'s 1624 play ''[[A Game at Chess]]'' allegorized the events surrounding the Spanish match. It was particularly harsh on Gondomar, represented by the Black Knight. Plays were in any case censored, and [[Henry Herbert (Master of the Revels)|Henry Herbert]] as [[Master of the Revels]] passed it for performance; it was a short-lived ''[[succès de scandale]]'' in August 1624. It has been suggested that Herbert connived at the unheard-of dramatic liberties taken in portraying members of the royal family, in a court now dominated by the anti-Spanish party.<ref>{{cite book|author=Dorothy Auchter|title=Dictionary of Literary and Dramatic Censorship in Tudor and Stuart England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=93OxYSzOFCsC&pg=PA129|year=2001|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-31114-7|page=129}}</ref> Plays of the previous two years that had Spanish settings, [[Thomas Middleton]] and [[William Rowley]]'s ''[[The Changeling (play)|The Changeling]]'' and [[Thomas Dekker (writer)|Thomas Dekker]]'s ''[[Match Me in London]]'', have been given readings that set them against the match, necessarily more covertly.<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Middleton|title=Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P-rZIXKHkSsC&pg=PA1726|date=25 March 2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-958053-8|page=1726}}</ref>