Of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay there are three quartos, dated 1594, 1630 and 1655. The first quarto was published by Edward White, and 14th May 1594, the play is entered by the publisher on the Stationery Registers. The two exemplars of this quarto are in the British Museum and in Bridgewater House. In Henslowe's Diary, Friar Bacon heads the list of plays by my Lord Strange's men in an entry for 19th February 1592. At this time it was not a new play. Between this date and 6th May it was performed by Strange's men once every three weeks, and once a week between the following 10th January and 30th January. 1st April 1594, it was taken over by the original owners, the Queen's players, who were then acting with Sussex' players, and was performed 1st and 5th April at the Rose Theatre. Presumably it was sent to press by the Queen's men. At Christmas 1602 Middleton wrote a Prologue and Epilogue for a performance of the play by the Admiral's men at Court, for which he received five shillings. After this the play was probably kept in the possession of the Admiral's players, for the 1630 title-page indicates its performance by the Palsgrave's men. In no sense a plagiarism, the play is strictly a rival of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, and it must have been performed within a year after Marlowe's play appeared in 1587. With James IV. it represents Greene's dramatic workmanship at its best. A few months after the appearance of the play it was parodied in Fair Em, The Miller's Daughter of Manchester. Greene's play is based on a romance written at the end of the sixteenth century, and probably accessible to both Greene and Marlowe. The "wall of brass" is common to both plays, and comes in each case directly from the source-book, the Famous History of Friar Bacon. This popular old story, of which the earliest extant edition is dated 1630, is now accessible in Thoms' Early English Prose Romances, Vol. I. To his source-material Greene added, probably out of his own head, the character of Margaret and her touching love-story. For the historical portions of the play there is no warrant in actual events.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
King Henry the Third.
Edward, Prince of Wales, his son.
Emperor of Germany.
King of Castile.
Duke of Saxony.
Lacy, Earl of Lincoln.