We learn from the title-page that this comedy was acted in 1616 by the King’s Majesty’s Servants. This is further confirmed by a passage in 1. 1. 80-81:
Now? As Vice stands this present yeere? Remember, What number it is. Six hundred and sixteene.
Another passage (1. 6. 31) tells us that the performance took place in the Blackfriars Theatre:
Today, I goe to the Black-fryers Play-house.
That Fitzdottrel is to see The Devil is an Ass we learn later (3. 5. 38). The performance was to take place after dinner (3. 5. 34).
At this time the King’s Men were in possession of two theatres, the Globe and the Blackfriars. The former was used in the summer, so that The Devil is an Ass was evidently not performed during that season.[9] These are all the facts that we can determine with certainty.
Jonson’s masque, The Golden Age Restored, was presented, according to Fleay, on January 1 and 6. His next masque was Christmas, his Masque, December 25, 1616. Between these dates he must have been busy on The Devil is an Ass. Fleay, who identifies Fitzdottrel with Coke, conjectures that the date of the play is probably late in 1616, after Coke’s discharge in November. If Coke is satirized either in the person of Fitzdottrel or in that of Justice Eitherside (see Introduction, pp. lxx, lxxii), the conjecture may be allowed to have some weight.
In 1. 2. 1 Fitzdottrel speaks of Bretnor as occupying the position once held by the conspirators in the Overbury case. Franklin, who is mentioned, was not brought to trial until November 18, 1615. Jonson does not speak of the trial as of a contemporary or nearly contemporary event.
Act 4 is largely devoted to a satire of Spanish fashions. In 4. 2. 71 there is a possible allusion to the Infanta Maria, for whose marriage with Prince Charles secret negotiations were being carried on at this time. We learn that Commissioners were sent to Spain on November 9 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser.), and from a letter of January 1, 1617, that ‘the Spanish tongue, dress, etc. are all in fashion’ (ibid.).
These indications are all of slight importance, but from their united evidence we may feel reasonably secure in assigning the date of presentation to late November or early December, 1616.