the spirit of the piece, which he seeks to bring into line with the anti-papal feeling of the closing years of Charles II by representing his odious Cardinal as an example of the vices of the Roman clergy.[1]
A sequel[2] to the foregoing play was written by Crowne under the title of The Miseries of Civil-War. This is in the main an alteration of 3 Henry VI, but the first act, as well as the opening pages of the second, deal with matter included in the Second Part, i.e. the progress and final suppression of Jack Cade's rebellion and the first battle of St. Albans.
On February 15, 1723, was acted at Drury Lane Ambrose Philips' play: Humfrey Duke of Gloucester (printed the same year). This is a tragedy in the French style, consisting of many brief conversational scenes, which change whenever a character enters or leaves the stage. Only nine dramatis personæ appear, besides an Officer of Justice and two Ruffians. The whole action 'passes within the King's Palace in Westminster,' and within twenty-four hours. Humphrey, York, Salisbury, and Warwick are represented as high minded gentlemen without much discrimination of character, and the Duchess Eleanor is absurdly idealized, while Beaufort is made a conventional villain. The indebtedness to Shakespeare is much smaller than
- ↑ Langbaine, a contemporary, writing in 1691, says: 'This Play was oppos'd by the Popish Faction, who by their Power at Court got it supprest; however it was well receiv'd by the Rest of the Audience.'
- ↑ This, however, was printed in 1680, a year before the earliest edition of The Murder of the Duke of Glocester, and it may have been composed earlier.
in the Prologue Shakespeare's Play, though he has no Title to the 40th part of it. The Text I took out of his Second Part of Henry the Sixth, but as most Texts are serv'd, I left it as soon as I could.' A recent investigator (Gustav Krecke, Die englischen Bühnenbearbeitungen von Shakespeare's 'King Henry the Sixth,' Rostock, 1911) estimates that of 2864 lines in Crowne's play 215 are taken direct from Shakespeare.
