A Game at Chess is a 1624 comedy by English playwright Thomas Middleton. The play takes the form of a chess match, with characters lacking personal names and instead using chess titles, such as the White Knight and the Black King. Despite its popularity during its initial performances by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre, the play was shut down after only nine days. This was likely due to the play's thinly-veiled portrayal of the real-life conflict between England and Spain.
The play presents a satirical look at King James I and the failed marriage negotiations between Charles I (James's son, who would eventually become king) and the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna. Despite the play's structure following that of a chess match rather than a discernible plot, audiences and critics alike were quick to recognize that the play dramatized the failures of James's court to secure peace between the two warring countries. The king's Privy Council prosecuted those involved in the play's production, but Middleton was eventually acquitted after proving that the script had been approved by the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert.
Thomas Middleton is known as one of the most prolific playwrights of the seventeenth century, although his plays are not among the most studied today. Middleton was a master collaborator, working with a number of other talented playwrights to produce some of the most popular Jacobean performances of the era. A Game at Chess was widely celebrated despite its short run time, and Middleton's other solo endeavors, such as The Changeling and Women Beware Women, were similarly successful. Middleton was born in 1580 and died in 1627.
