1567. A Newe Enterlude of Vice Conteyninge, the Historye of Horestes, with the cruell reuengment of his Father’s death, vpon his one naturtll Mother. By John Pikeryng.... The names deuided for VI to playe.... William Griffith. [On the back of the t.p. is a coat of arms which appears to be a slight variant of that assigned by Papworth and Morant, Ordinary of British Armorials, 536, to the family of Marshall. Oddly enough, there was a family of this name settled at Pickering in Yorkshire, but they, according to G. W. Marshall, Miscellanea Marescalliana, i. 1; ii. 2, 139, had quite a different coat.]
Editions by J. P. Collier (1866, Illustrations of Old English Literature), A. Brandl (1898, Q. W. D.), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).—Dissertation: F. Brie, Horestes von J. P. (1912, E. S. xlvi. 66).
The play has a Vice, and ends with prayer for Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Mayor of ‘this noble Cytie’. Feuillerat, Eliz. 449, thinks it too crude to be the Court Orestes of 1567–8, but the coincidence of date strongly suggests that it was.
JOHN POOLE (?).
Possible author of Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany (cf. ch. xxiv).
HENRY PORTER (c. 1596–9).
Porter first appears in Henslowe’s diary as recipient of a payment of £5 on 16 Dec. 1596 and a loan of £4 on 7 March 1597, both on account of the Admiral’s. It may be assumed that he was already writing for the company, who purchased five plays, wholly or partly by him, between May 1598 and March 1599. Meres, in his Palladis Tamia of 1598, counts him as one of ‘the best for Comedy amongst vs’. He appears to have been in needy circumstances, and borrowed several small sums from the company or from Henslowe personally (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 304). On 28 Feb. 1599, when he obtained £2 on account of Two Merry Women of Abingdon, ‘he gaue me his faythfulle promysse that I shold haue alle the boockes wch he writte ether him sellfe or wth any other’. On 16 April 1599, in consideration of 1s. he bound himself in £10 to pay Henslowe a debt of 25s. on the following day, but could not meet his obligation. Porter is not traceable as a dramatist after 1599. His extant play, on the title-page of which he is described as ‘Gent.’, suggests a familiarity with the neighbourhood of Oxford, and I see no a priori reason why he should not be the Henry Porter, son of a London gentleman, who matriculated from Brasenose on 19 June 1589 (Boase and Clark, ii. 2, 170), or the Henricus Porter, apparently a musician, of John Weever’s Epigrammes (1599), v. 24, or the Henry Porter of Christ Church who became B.Mus. in July 1600 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. i. 284), or the Henry Porter who was a royal sackbut on 21 June 1603 (Nagel, 36), or the Henry Porter whose son Walter became Gentleman of the Chapel Royal on 5 Jan. 1616 and has left musical works (D. N. B.). Gayley’s argument to the contrary rests on the unfounded assumption that the musician could not have been writing Bankside plays during the progress of his studies for his musical degree.
The Two Angry Women of Abingdon > 1598
1599. The Pleasant Historie of the two angrie women of Abington. With the humorous mirthe of Dicke Coomes and Nicholas Prouerbes, two Seruingmen. As it was lately playde by the right Honorable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord High Admirall, his seruants. By Henry Porter Gent. For Joseph Hunt and William Ferbrand. [Prologue. Greg shows this to be Q1.]
1599. For William Ferbrand.