A Puritan writer Pyrnne wrote a book that included a
condemnation of masks and plays, and all who took part, and all
who looked on as sinful, pernicious, and unlawful. It opined that
Nero had attended plays and deserved to be murdered. Since Charles
had attended plays and the Queen had taken part in a mask, it was
inferred that Pyrnne meant them harm. His indictment alleged that
"he hath presumed to cast aspersions upon the King, the Queen, and
the Commonwealth, and endeavored to infuse an opinion onto the
people that it is lawful to lay violent hands upon Princes that
are either actors, favorers, or spectators of stage plays". The
justices saw in the book an attempt to undermine authority. The
Chief Justice called the book a most wicked, infamous, scandalous,
and seditious libel. Pyrnne was sentenced to be degraded by Oxford
and disbarred by Lincoln's Inn, to be fined 5,000 pounds, to be
pilloried and to have his ears cut off, and then to be imprisoned
for life. Three men who wrote attacks on the bishops and
ecclesiastical courts, such as alleging that the bishops
suppression of fasts and preaching had brought the pestilence upon
the people and that the bishops had dishonored God and exercised
papal jurisdiction in their own names, were each sentenced to
5,000 fine, the pillory, where their ears were cut off, and to
life imprisonment. One, who had been convicted for libel before,
was branded on both cheeks: "S.
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