Tainted Proofs examines how drama presents stage properties, like letters, contracts, and wills, in the early modern theatre. I argue that the playwrights, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and John Webster, depict these written documents in their false, illegal or illicit state to monitor the status of their culture. Within this period, these legal instruments develop an evolving sense of the importance as evidence, particularly written, as a means to reveal injustice and critique individual rights. At this time, the law, through its jurists and its court, privileges the place of written documents as a credible and reliable instrument used in many legal causes. However, the theatre highlighted their fraudulent and manipulated state—hence, they become tainted proofs. This study of written evidence builds on the work of Subha Mukherji and Lorna Hutson as they consider the rhetorical nature of evidence. In my chapter discussions of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, and Richard III, along Ben Jonson’s Volpone, and John Webster’s The Devil’s Law Case, I demonstrate that no matter what facet of society these plays explore, every piece of written evidence emerges as susceptible to a potential illicit taint, which interferes with attempts by the citizenry to obtain justice and by the sovereigns to embody truth. The pieces of corrupted evidence on stage—tainted and untenable—do not conform to the classical ideals of evidence used to levy justice to protect society. Nevertheless, they demonstrate how the jurists as well as people in society have to struggle to obtain, define, and safeguard justice via the use of written evidence through case law, statutes, and treatises. In each chapter, I focus upon how the conflicted object, both material and legal, intervenes with justice, pinpoints the existing flaws in this burgeoning body of evidence, and demonstrates a system of deploying deficient written evidence. I argue that written evidence possesses several key moments in its material, legal life, like at the document’s negotiation, creation, delivery, and presentation. Much like the courts, the theatres become “pushers of paper,” including letters, legal briefs, bonds, wills, warrants, and indictments, which identify, define, and manipulate the relationships over which the documents reach. Ultimately, they serve as warnings, and remind their audiences of the need for further safeguards in the justice system.
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