A Game at Chess

A Game at Chess
Title page of the first printed edition. It depicts the Fat Bishop saying "Keep your distance", and the Black Knight tempting him with "A letter from his holiness". The characters' faces are caricatures of de Dominis and Gondomar.
Written by	Thomas Middleton
Date premiered	August 1624
Place premiered	Globe Theatre, London
Original language	English
Subject	Anglo-Spanish relations, Protestantism and Catholicism
Genre	Satire, allegory
Setting	A chessboard

A Game at Chess is a comic satirical play by Thomas Middleton, first staged in August 1624 by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre, notable for its political content.

The drama seems to be about a chess match, and even contains a genuine chess opening: the Queen's Gambit Declined. Instead of personal names, the characters are known as the White Knight, the Black King, etc. However, audiences immediately recognized the play as an allegory for the stormy relationship between Spain (the black pieces) and Great Britain (the white pieces). King James I of England is the White King; King Philip IV of Spain is the Black King. In particular, the play dramatizes the struggle of negotiations over the proposed marriage of the then Prince Charles with the Spanish princess, the Infanta Maria. It focuses on the journey by Prince Charles (the "White Knight") and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (the "White Duke", or rook) to Madrid in 1623.

Among the secondary targets of the satire was the former Archbishop of Split, Marco Antonio de Dominis, who was caricatured as the Fat Bishop (played by William Rowley). De Dominis was a famous turncoat of his day: he had left the Roman Catholic Church to join the Anglican Church—and then returned to Rome again. The traitorous White King's Pawn is a composite of several figures, including Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, a former Lord Treasurer who was impeached before the House of Lords in April 1624.

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