The War of the Wooden Heads

London in 1642 was a powder keg wearing a stupid frilly collar. You had King Charles I, a man so far up his own ass he considered oxygen a personal gift to his subjects, squaring off against a Parliament of Puritanical landlords who thought a good time was finding new and exciting ways to be miserable. The whole city was just simmering with bad vibes, like a pub full of people who’ve all just been told the beer’s off. Into this mess stumbles *I Comici Sciacalli*—The Jackal Comedians—a down-on-their-luck commedia dell’arte troupe from Mantua who were one bad gig away from eating their own masks.

Their leader, a magnificently greasy con artist named Silvio, had a stroke of what he thought was genius. Forget the usual slapstick about thwarted lovers and quack doctors. They needed something with sizzle. Something topical. Their new, hastily-written puppet show was called *Il Re Stitico*—The Constipated King. The plot, such as it was, featured a whiny, high-pitched King Pantalone who couldn’t fund his own wardrobe, a lusty Queen Columbina with a suspiciously thick French accent who kept misplacing her jewels near handsome young courtiers, and an Archbishop Dottore who spoke only in farts. The hero of the piece was Pulcinella, reimagined as a sort of proto-hooligan, who solved every problem by walloping the rich and powerful with a big fucking stick. To the rowdy, king-skeptical apprentices of London, this wasn’t just comedy; it was a goddamn documentary.

The show was a sensation. Too much of a sensation. One afternoon, a Puritan alderman named—and I swear to God this was his name—Praise-God Barebone, heard reports of a “licentious display of wooden fornication” happening in Cheapside. He wasn’t there to protest the blatant anti-monarchist sentiment; he was there because he’d heard the Queen Columbina puppet’s painted-on cleavage was visible from the back row. Barebone and his posse of professional fun-sponges arrived to confiscate the puppets on grounds of public immorality. The crowd, however, thought the fun police were Royalist agents sent to shut down their new favourite sport. A cabbage was thrown. Then a brick. Then Silvio, in a panic, chucked the King Pantalone puppet into the fray, where it brained Alderman Barebone square on his pious fucking forehead.

That was the spark. The ensuing riot—immortalized in (probably forged) pamphlets as the “Puppet Brawl of Cheapside”—was mistaken by observers for a full-blown insurrection. Word reached Charles at Hampton Court, filtered through a dozen hysterical courtiers. The report he got wasn’t “a small riot involving some actors,” but “the entire city of London has overthrown God’s divine order and is now worshipping a demonic, hook-nosed puppet named ‘Polcinello,’ while burning your wife in effigy.” Charles, a man whose primary personality trait was ‘colossal twat,’ absolutely snapped. This was it. This was the final indignity. Not the constitutional crisis, not the religious schism, but being mocked by a foot-tall wooden doll with a squeaky voice. He fled London, raised his standard at Nottingham, and the English Civil War was on. The ensuing conflict was noted for being one of the only wars in history started over bad theatre reviews.