SOURCE: Gair, W. R. “The Politics of Scholarship: A Dramatic Comment on the Autocracy of Charles I.” In The Elizabethan Theatre III, edited by David Galloway, pp. 100-18. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1973.

In the following essay, Gair claims that the incident involving the threatened seizure of Veterano's books in The Antiquary had a powerful effect on Marmion's audience, and he maintains that this can best be understood in terms of the history of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries.

The central incident in the main plot of Shackerly Marmion's The Antiquary occurs when Veterano, the antiquarian of the title, is told that

the duke has been inform'd of your rarieties; and holding them an unfit treasure for a private man to possess, he hath sent his mandamus to take them from you.¹

This news has a traumatic effect upon Veterano:

I am struck with a sudden sickness: some good...