SOURCE: "'We Will Do No Harm with Our Sword': Royal Representation, Civic Pageantry, and the Displacement of Popular Protest in Thomas Deloney's Jacke of Newberie," in Place and Displacement in the Renaissance, edited by Alvin Vos, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995, pp. 147–57.

In this essay, Tribble discusses Jack of Newbury's encounter with Henry VIII in terms of Elizabethan civic pageantry. She suggests that through the ant-king episode and the presentation of the golden beehive, Jack implicitly raises the threat of social disorder if the monarch fails to support the clothing industry.

In 1596 The lord mayor of London wrote to William Cecil about a seditious ballad written by Thomas Deloney. The ballad, now lost, complained of the scarcity of grain, and was held responsible for causing "some Discontentment" in the realm.¹ Part of the offense lay in the way the ballad represented Elizabeth; the queen was said to speak "with...