The Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England

The Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England. By Peter Lake with Michael Questier. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2002. Pp. xxxiv, 731. $45.00.)

In his vivid title, Peter Lake refers to the denunciation of fashionable attire by the Dutch Puritan Ananias in Jonson's satiric comedy, The Alchemist (ct 4.7.55). Lake's extensive survey of religious attitudes in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature is virtually two books in one. Lake scrutinizes sixty murder-pamphlets in Chapters 1-5. With Michael Questier, he examines Catholic martyrologies in Chapters 6-8. These chapters are flanked by two excellent historiographical essays: the Introduction, and Conclusions to sections I and II. Lake peruses a total of twenty plays: less well-known domestic tragedies in section I, and dramas by Shakespeare and Jonson in the last half of the book. Lake includes twenty-two woodcuts or engravings to illustrate murderers (sixteen in section I), Catholic martyrs (four in section II), and preachers (two in section III).