Boxing the bard: Shakespeare and television

Abstract

Elizabeth by the grace of God Queen of England, etc., to all Justices, Mayors, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, Head Constables, Under Constable, and all other our officers and minister, greeting. Know ye that we of our especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion have licensed and authorised, and by these presents do licence and authorise, or loving subjects, James Burbage, John Perkin, John Lanham, William Johnson, and Robert Wilson, servants to our trusty and well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor the Earl of Leicester, to use, exercise and occupy the art and faculty of play Comedies, Tragedies, interludes, stage plays… Elizabeth by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of great Britain and Northern Ireland and of our other Realms and territories Queen, head of the Commonwealth Defender of the Faith: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING!...NOW KNOW YE that We, by our Prerogative Royal and of Our especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion do by this our Charter for Us, Our Heirs and Successors will, ordain and declare as follows… The second quotation, as the Miltonic powers and titles invoked indicate, is not an address from the first Elizabeth to her loving subjects, or (as the first quotation is) a licence granting liberty to a sixteenth-century acting company. It is a proclamation dated 1981, of Elizabeth, the second of that name, formally granting a Royal Charter to the British Broadcasting Corporation