It is remarkable that all the members of this group
were related to, or associated with, the most illustrious
figure of the earlier days of the English Renaissance,
Sir Thomas More. He was himself, according to the
evidence of his contemporary, John Bale, a writer of
comedies in his youth, though we cannot with certainty
identify any of these. We are also told by his son-in-
law, William Roper, that when he was a page in the
household of Cardinal Morton he was an amateur
actor. He would 'sodenly sometymes slip in among the
players and make a parte of his owne there presently
among them'. In Morton's service he doubtless came
into touch with Henry Medwall, the Cardinal's chap-
lain, and author of our first known secular play, Fulgens
and Lucres. This play was printed by John Rastell,
himself a dramatist, who married More's sister, Eliza-
beth. Their daughter, Joan, married John Heywood,
the leading dramatist of the group. Thus Tudor drama
begins as almost a family affair, with the genial, finely-
tempered spirit of More presiding over it.

It is only by a happy accident that we are able to
realize the importance of Henry Medwall as the first
of our Tudor playwrights. Except for some details
about his clerical career between 1490 and 1501 we
know little about his life. It is from the title-pages of
his two plays that we learn that he was Morton's
chaplain. Of each of these only one copy (so far as is
known) has survived. The copy of Nature is in the British
Museum; that of Fulgens and Lucres, which came to light
in 1919, is now in the Huntington Library in California.
Nature, though it shows the influence of the new learn-
ing, and has episodes of realistic humour, belongs to
the Morality class. It is an allegorical play, in two

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