The Play of the Weather

The Play of the Weather is an English interlude or morality play from the early Tudor period. The play was written by John Heywood, a courtier, musician and playwright during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I and published by his brother-in-law, William Rastell, in 1533 as The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers. It represents the Roman deity Jupiter on earth asking mortals to make cases for their preferred weather following heavenly dissension among the gods. It is the first published play to nominate "The Vice" on its title page.

There has been much critical debate concerning the dating of the play since David Bevington’s assertion in 1968 that it was written in the 1520s. Greg Walker suggested that it was written and performed between 1529-30 but later modified this to 1533 on the basis of the argument made by Axton and Happe in the introduction to their edition of Heywood’s plays. The play is often dated on internal evidence, particularly the so-called ‘new moon’ speech which seems to allude to the changing of King Henry VIII’s consort from Catherine of Aragon to Anne Boleyn and his quest for a male heir.

More recent research into the play conducted as part of the Oxford Brookes University/Historic Royal Palaces project, "Staging the Henrician Court", has suggested a date of Christmas 1532/3. As there were no Christmas revels in 1531 because of Catherine’s absence from court, and the coronation of Anne Boleyn took place in June 1533, a court performance can be speculatively dated to Christmas 1532, prior to the secret marriage of Henry and Anne.

Having resolved the warring factions of Aeolus, Phoebus, Saturn and Phoebe in his heavenly parliament, Jupiter descends to earth to solicit the views of Englishmen and women as to the ideal state of the weather and so create harmony between earth and heaven. To aid him in his task he appoints Merry Report, who publishes the purpose of Jupiter’s descent across the country, and mediates who does and who does not gain direct access to Jupiter to make their case. The play then depicts a series of English citizens petitioning for their preferred weather.

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