are missing. The handwriting is of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.
Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1870) and W. Keller (1899, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 3.—Dissertations: F. I. Carpenter, Notes on the Anonymous Richard II (1899, Journ. Germ. Phil. iii. 138); F. S. Boas, A Seventeenth Century Theatrical Repertoire (Library for July 1917). The play deals with an earlier part of the reign than that of Shakespeare's Richard II. Keller concludes from a study of parallel passages that it was known to Shakespeare, and that the author knew Marlowe's Edward II and 2 Henry VI. This gives a date of about 1592-5. Fleay, ii. 320, dates the play about 1591 and assigns it, for no apparent reason, to the Queen's men. Boas accepts the date 1590-5 on internal evidence, but finds the names 'George' and 'Toby' in the stage-directions as players of servants' parts, and supposes the MS. to belong to a seventeenth-century revival and to have been collected with others in Egerton MS. 1994 by the younger William Cartwright, who was one of a late King's Revels company traceable during 1629-37 (Murray, i. 279). He identifies 'George', rather hazardously, with George Stutfield, who belonged to this company, and 'Toby' with an Edward Tobye, who is not known to have belonged to it, but is found in 1623 among the Children of the Revels to the late Queen Anne (Murray, i. 361; ii. 273). My difficulty about this is that the relation of 1 Rich. II to Shakespeare's play is so close as to make it natural to regard it as having become a Chamberlain's play, and therefore unlikely to get into the hands of either of these Revels companies. Any company might have a George. George Bryan, for example, is a possibility. Toby, no doubt, is a rarer name. Toby Mills died in 1585, but might have left a son or godson of his name. The True Tragedy of Richard the Third > 1594
S. R. 1594, June 19. 'An enterlude entituled, The Tragedie of Richard the Third wherein is showen the Death of Edward the FFourthe with the smotheringe of the twoo princes in the Tower, with a lamentable end of Shores wife, and the Coniunction of the twoo houses of Lancaster and Yorke.' Thomas Creede (Arber, ii. 654).
1594. The True Tragedie of Richard the Third: Wherein is showne the death of Edward the fourth, with the smothering of the two yoong Princes in the Tower: With a lamentable ende of Shore's wife, an example for all wicked women. And lastly the conjunction and ioyning of the two noble Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. As it was playd by the Queenes Maiesties Players. Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley. [Induction; Epilogue.]
Editions in Variorum (1821), xix. 251, and by B. Field (1844, Sh. Soc.) and W. C. Hazlitt (1875, Sh. Libr.).—Dissertation: G. B. Churchill, Richard the Third up to Shakespeare (1900, Palaestra, x).
Collier, Shakespeare, v. 342, put the play earlier than 1588 on the ground that the epilogue in praise of Elizabeth makes no mention of the Armada. But 'She hath put proud Antichrist to flight' may
