Dyce assigns to him "The History of the two valiant [Knights], Syr Clyomon, Knight of the Golden Shield, sonne of the King of Denmark, and Syr Clamides the White Knight," printed without the author's name in 1584.
The subject, a chivalrous romance, with dragons and sorcerers and lost princesses, is more a narrative in dialogue than a drama. It is full of long speeches without any real action. It resembles the "Moralities": the clown is called "Subtle Shift," sometimes "Vice." "Rumour" and "Providence" appear, the one to tell Clyomon what has happened during his absence, the other to prevent Clyomon's mistress "from committing rash and unnecessary suicide." The clown calls the piece a "pageant"; it cannot be called "a chronicle history."
Peele's "Arraignment of Paris, a Pastorall" is a court drama in the style of Lilly, intended to flatter the Queen, "poor in action but all the richer in gallant phrases, provided with songs, one in Italian, and with all kinds of love scenes between shepherds and shepherdesses, nymphs and terrestrial gods"; the diction is interesting, because it shows revolt from the prevailing "euphuism," and therefore Peele must be given the praise of first opposing Lilly's affected style.
The subject and action are as far removed from history as earth from heaven; Paris is accused by Juno and Pallas before the assembled gods, for having pronounced an unjust sentence; he is released without punishment, but as the fair plaintiffs persist in their appeal, the decision is left to Diana, who then awards the fatal apple, not to any of the three goddesses, but to the wise nymph Eliza, who is as chaste as she is beautiful and powerful. Juno, Pallas, and Venus of course agree to this decision and lay all their gifts at the feet of the Queen. At the end, even the three Fates appear, in order, in a Latin chant, to deliver up the emblems of their power, and therewith the power itself, to the exalted nymph.
"The Old Wife's Tale, a pleasant conceited Comedie," published in 1595, is a dramatized old wife's story told to three erring fancies, Frolic, Antic and Fantastic, quite in the style of a fairy tale, "always wavering in the peculiar twilight, between profound sense and nonsense, between childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a double-edged sword and attended by an enamored fool, and finally a knight-errant devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sexton for the burial of a victim of poverty; they are now hunting for the princess, the sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free them from the sorcerer; none of them succeed in the effort, except the knight, "and he only by the help of the ghost of the poor Jack whose body he buried."
"The Battel of Alcazar fought in Barbarie" is attributed to Peele and was published in 1586, soon after Marlowe's "Tamburlaine," after which it is modelled and to which it expressly refers. The commentator says: "It is a mere battle piece, full of perpetual fighting and noise, of which the action almost exclusively consists." There is nothing to show that it had any connection with history or chronicle, or was anything better than a hurriedly written, spectacular drama.
The "Edward I." of Peele bears this title: "The famous Chronicle of King Edward the First, surnamed Edward Longshanks, with his Return from the Holy Land. Also the life of Llewellen Rebell in Wales. Lastly, the sinking of Queene Elinor, who sunk at Charing-crosse, and rose again at Pottershith, now named Queenshith."
The title itself proves that it is not a "chronicle" but an unhistorical fiction. The events pass by in one straight, continuous line, the dramatic personages are characterized almost solely by their actions, the language is a mere sketch. The Queen murders the Lady Mayoress, and on her death-bed confesses a double adultery; she commits perjury by denying the murder and calls upon Heaven to sink her into the depths of the earth if she had spoken falsely. "That she 'sunk at Charing-crosse' before it was erected to her memory, is a sufficiently remarkable circumstance in Peele's play, but it is more remarkable that, assuming to be a 'famous Chronicle,' and in one or two of the events following the Chronicle, he has represented the Queen altogether to be a fiend in female shape,—proud, adulterous, cruel, treacherous and bloody." The play contradicts the Chronicle, and therefore cannot be called a chronicle history. Hollinshed, the source of all Shakspere's histories, says of Queen Eleanor: "She was a godly and modest princess, full of pity, and one that showed much favor to the English nation, ready to relieve every man's grief that sustained wrong, and to make those friends that were at discord, so far as in her lay."
Mr. Hallam has characterized this violation of historical truth as a "hideous misrepresentation of the virtuous Eleanor of Castile.... The 'Edward I.' of Peele is a gross tissue of absurdity with some facility of language, but nothing truly good." Nobody but Professor Wendell has ever even intimated that Shakspere imitated it.
It is hardly necessary to consider "The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe," published in 1599, because, in the deliberate opinion of those who have studied the subject most deeply, it was not written till "Romeo and Juliet" was upon the stage in 1592. In it there are distinct traces of Shakspere's influence. "The love scenes, and the images and similes describing the charms of the beauty of nature, remind one of those incomparable pictures in 'Romeo and Juliet.'" In Peele's other plays he has made but feeble attempts to depict love, beauty, or grace; in "King David" he has "depicted them with a remarkably high degree of success."