Editing George Buck (section)

==Master of the Revels==
In 1597, the queen seems to have promised Buck the reversion (the right to succeed to an office when it next fell vacant) of the office of [[Master of the Revels]].<ref name=ODNB/><ref>Letter from Charles Howard of Effingham, ''quoted'' in Eccles, p. 426</ref> The office was held at the time by Buck's relation by marriage, [[Edmund Tylney|Edmund Tilney]].<ref>Tilney's cousin was the husband of Buck’s aunt. See Eccles, p. 416</ref> The playwright [[John Lyly]], however, believed that since about 1585 Queen Elizabeth had led him to expect appointment to the post. He was vocal in his distress, writing letters of protest and supplication.<ref>Letters from Lyly to [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury|Robert Cecil]], 22 December 1597 and 27 February 1601, and a letter to the queen, probably in 1598, among other letters and petitions, ''quoted'' in Chambers (1923), pp. 96–98 and Chambers (1906), [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924026121495#page/n63/mode/2up pp. 57–58]</ref> The reversion was formally conferred on Buck in 1603, on the accession to the throne of [[James VI and I|King James I]].<ref>Dutton, pp. 146–151, argues that, contrary to the belief of earlier scholars, there is no evidence that Buck acted as Tilney's assistant prior to Tilney's death in 1610.</ref> Also upon the accession of James I, Buck was made a Gentleman of the [[Privy Chamber]] and knighted. At the same time, he inherited his aunt's lands in Lincolnshire.<ref>Eccles, pp. 440–45</ref> In 1606, he began to license plays for publication.<ref>Buck was granted "a portion of the powers previously vested" in the [[Court of High Commission|church's Court of High Commission]], to license plays for publication. Dutton, p. 149. "The inference must be that [Buck] became impatient to profit from the reversion he held, and hit on this scheme, which a superior was able to get permission for." Dutton, p. 149. See also Eccles, p. 459.</ref>

The function of the Master of the Revels was to supervise the arrangements for entertainments presented [[Court (royal)|at court]], at the various royal residences or wherever the monarch was in attendance, and to censor plays before they were performed in public theatres.<ref name=ODNB/> Buck was thus responsible for censoring, among other works, [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s later plays, and for supervising performances of them and of any earlier Shakespeare plays revived for court performance, which he had to re-censor, due to the regulations added against blasphemy in 1606. Buck noted on the title page of the play ''George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield'' that he had discussed its authorship with Shakespeare.<ref>Shakespeare remembered only that the play was written by "a minister". See, Nelson, Alan H. "George Buc, William Shakespeare, and the Folger ''George a Green''", ''[[Shakespeare Quarterly]]'', vol. 49, 1998, pp. 74–78</ref> Censorship was exercised in matters of profanity and in sensitive issues of religion and politics, particularly the portrayal of royalty. Judging from his notes in the two manuscript play scripts that show his hand, ''[[The Second Maiden's Tragedy]]'' (1611) and ''[[John van Olden Barnavelt]]'' (1619), Buck was conscientious and learned, but gentle in his censorship.<ref name=ODNB/>

Buck also attended the tournaments of [[running at the ring]] at the Jacobean court. This was a semi-theatrical equestrian exercise, where riders competed in teams, winning prizes by lifting a ring with their lances.<ref>Peter Cunningham, [https://archive.org/details/extractsfromacco13greauoft/page/214/mode/2up ''Extracts from the accounts of the Revels at court'' (London, 1842), p. 215]</ref>

Buck wrote a treatise on the "Art of Revels", but the work is lost. He refers to it in another treatise, praising the state of drama in London and writing: "the Art of ''Reuels'' ... requireth knowledge in Grammar, Rhetorike, Logicke, Philosophie, Historie, Musick, Mathematikes, & in other Arts ... & hath a setled place within this Cittie. ... I haue discribed it, and discoursed thereof at large in a particular commentarie".<ref>Kincaid, Introduction, p. xxi, in Buck, ''History'' (1979), ''quoting'' Buck, George. "The Third Vniversite of England", sig. Oooo 3v</ref>