[247] [Forget. A very rare word.]
[248] [This reference to Watling Street as an early emporium for cloth is interesting, and does not seem to have been noticed.]
[249] [Here Preston makes Ambidexter refer to Bonner as dead, an event which happened in 1569, and as this play was licenced in 1569-70, it must have been written immediately prior to its entry at Stationers’ Hall.]
THE MISFORTUNES OF ARTHUR.
EDITION.
Certaine Devises and shewes presented to her Majestie by the Gentlemen of Grayes-Inne, at her Highnesse Court in Greenewich, the twenty eighth day of Februarie in the thirtieth yeare of her Majesties most happy Raigne. At London. Printed by Robert Robinson. 1587. 8o. Black-letter.
MR COLLIER’S PREFACE.
It appears that eight persons, members of the Society of Gray’s Inn, were engaged in the production of “The Misfortunes of Arthur,” for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, at Greenwich, on the 8th February 1587-8, viz., Thomas Hughes, the author of the whole body of the tragedy; William Fulbecke, who wrote two speeches substituted on the representation and appended to the old printed copy; Nicholas Trotte, who furnished the introduction; Francis Flower, who penned choruses for the first and second acts; Christopher Yelverton, Francis Bacon, and John Lancaster, who devised the dumb-shows, then usually accompanying such performances; and a person of the name of Penruddock, who, assisted by Flower and Lancaster, “directed the proceedings at court.”
Regarding Hughes and Trotte no information has survived. Fulbecke was born in 1566; became, as we are told, an eminent writer on the law, and in the year when this tragedy was brought out, published a work called “Christian Ethics.” The “Maister Francis Bacon,” spoken of at the conclusion of the piece, was,