The earlier
passage runs as follows:--'The Players heere', writes Locke in London on
August 14th, 1619, 'were bringing of Barnevelt vpon the stage, and had
bestowed a great deale of mony to prepare all things for the purpose,
but at th'instant were prohibited by my Lo: of London' (Domestic State
Papers, James I., vol. cx. No. 18). The play was thus ready on August
14th, 1619, and its performance was hindered by John King, Bishop of
London. The excitement that the Arminian controversy had excited in
England would sufficiently account for the prohibition. But the bishop
did not persist in his obstruction. On August 27th following Locke tells
a different story. His words are: 'Our players haue fownd the meanes to
goe through with the play of Barnevelt, and it hath had many spectators
and receaued applause: yet some say that (according to the proverbe) the
diuill is not so bad as he is painted, and that Barnavelt should
perswade Ledenberg to make away himself (when he came to see him after
he was prisoner) to prevent the discovrie of the plott, and to tell him
that when they were both dead (as though he meant to do the like) they
might sift it out of their ashes, was thought to be a point strayned.
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