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Bonduca
''Bonduca'' is a Jacobean tragi-comedy in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon, generally judged by scholars to be the work of John Fletcher alone. It was acted by the King's Men c. 1613, and published in 1647 in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio. The play is a dramatisation of the story of Boudica, the British Celtic queen who led a revolt against the Romans in 60–61 AD. Critics, however, have classified ''Bonduca'' as a "historical romance," rather than a history play comparable to those written by Shakespeare; historical accuracy was not Fletcher's primary concern. The play constantly shifts between comedy and tragedy. The principal hero is not Bonduca herself, but rather Caratach (Caratacus), who is anachronistically depicted as her general, despite having been exiled from Britain almost a decade prior. Nennius, the legendary British opponent of Julius Caesar, is also included. However, most of the action takes place from the Roman point of view, centring on the Rom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Knight (King's Men)
Edward Knight ( fl. 1613 – 1637) was the prompter (then called the "book-keeper" or "book-holder") of the King's Men, the acting company that performed the plays of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, and other playwrights of Jacobean and Caroline drama. In English Renaissance theatre, the prompter managed the company's performances, ensuring that they went according to plan; he also supervised and maintained the troupe's dramatic manuscripts, its "playbooks." It was in this sense that the prompter "held" and "kept" the "books" of the company. And when censorship problems arose, the prompter had to resolve them. Nothing is known of Knight's personal history; he is known only through his professional activities. Prior to his service with the King's Men, he functioned as prompter for a competing company, Prince Charles's Men; he witnessed a contract between Philip Henslowe and the actors in March 1616. After some years with the King's Men, he was apparently re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boudica
Boudica or Boudicca (, known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as ()), was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She is considered a British national heroine and a symbol of the struggle for justice and independence. Boudica's husband Prasutagus, with whom she had two daughters, ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome. He left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and to the Roman emperor in his will. When he died, his will was ignored, and the kingdom was annexed and his property taken. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped. The historian Cassius Dio wrote that previous imperial donations to influential Britons were confiscated and the Roman financier and philosopher Seneca called in the loans he had forced on the reluctant Britons. In 60/61, Boudica led the Iceni and other British tribes in revolt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Robinson (17th-century Actor)
Richard Robinson (died March 1648) was an actor in English Renaissance theatre and a member of Shakespeare's company the King's Men. Biography Robinson started out as a boy player with the company; in 1611 he played the Lady in their production of ''The Second Maiden's Tragedy.'' He was cast in their production of Ben Jonson's ''Catiline'' in the same year, and in their '' Bonduca,'' c. 1613. He became a sharer in the King's Men in 1619, perhaps succeeding Richard Cowley; and he was cast in their revival of Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'' c. 1621. Robinson reportedly played the part of Wittipol in Jonson's '' The Devil is an Ass'' in 1616. In the printed text of that play (1631), Jonson praises Robinson's acting of female roles and calls him an "ingenious youth." Robinson played the role of Aesopus in the company's 1626 production of Massinger's '' The Roman Actor,'' and Count Orsinio in Lodowick Carlell's '' The Deserving Favourite'' (1629). Robinson is included in the ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caratacus
Caratacus ( Brythonic ''*Caratācos'', Middle Welsh ''Caratawc''; Welsh ''Caradog''; Breton ''Karadeg''; Greek ''Καράτακος''; variants Latin ''Caractacus'', Greek ''Καρτάκης'') was a 1st-century AD British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe, who resisted the Roman conquest of Britain. Before the Roman invasion, Caratacus is associated with the expansion of his tribe's territory. His apparent success led to Roman invasion, nominally in support of his defeated enemies. He resisted the Romans for almost a decade, mixing guerrilla warfare with set-piece battles, but was unsuccessful in the latter. After his final defeat he fled to the territory of Queen Cartimandua, who captured him and handed him over to the Romans. He was sentenced to death as a military prisoner, but made a speech before his execution that persuaded the Emperor Claudius to spare him. The legendary Welsh character Caradog ap Bran and the legendary British king Arvirargus may be based upon Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lowin
John Lowin (baptized 9 December 1576 – buried – 24 August 1653) was an English actor. Early life Born in St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, Lowin was the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. While he is not recorded as a free citizen of this company, he did perform as a goldsmith, Leofstane, in a 1611 city pageant written by Anthony Munday. This pageant was commissioned by the Goldsmiths' Company in honor of the election of one of their company as mayor; in the document employing him, Lowin is described as a "brother" of the company, suggesting some form of ongoing relationship with that community. He lived in Southwark, where parish registers record two marriages involving a man of his name (in 1607 and 1620); the latter definitely involved the actor. Career Lowin was definitely associated with the theatrical world by 1602. His name frequently occurs in the account books of Philip Henslowe in 1602, when he was playing with Worces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Men (playing Company)
The King's Men is the acting company to which William Shakespeare (1564–1616) belonged for most of his career. Formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they became the King's Men in 1603 when King James I ascended the throne and became the company's patron. The royal patent of 19 May 1603 which authorised the King's Men company named the following players, in this order: Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowley, "and the rest of their associates...." The nine cited by name became Grooms of the Chamber. On 15 March 1604, each of the nine men named in the patent was supplied with four and a half yards of red cloth for the coronation procession. Chronologically typed To 1610 In their first winter season, between December 1603 and February 1604 the company performed eight times at Court and eleven times in their second, from N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaumont And Fletcher Folios
The Beaumont and Fletcher folios are two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama. The first folio, 1647 The 1647 folio was published by the booksellers Humphrey Moseley and Humphrey Robinson. It was modelled on the precedents of the first two folio collections of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1623 and 1632, and the first two folios of the works of Ben Jonson of 1616 and 1640–1. The title of the book was given as ''Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher Gentlemen,'' though the prefatory matter in the folio recognised that Philip Massinger, rather than Francis Beaumont, collaborated with Fletcher on some of the plays included in the volume. (In fact, the 1647 volume "contained almost nothing of Beaumont's" work.) Seventeen works in Fletcher's canon that had al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ostler
William Ostler (died 16 December 1614) was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a member of the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare. Ostler started out as a boy player in the Children of the Chapel troupe; he was cast in their 1601 production of Ben Jonson's ''The Poetaster'', with Nathan Field and John Underwood, two other future King's Men. Ostler, like Underwood, joined the King's Men most likely in 1608 or soon after. Ostler was cast in their 1610 production of Jonson's ''The Alchemist,'' as well as subsequent productions of '' Bonduca,'' '' The Captain,'' and '' Valentinian.'' He played Antonio in Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi''. He was praised for the quality of his acting, once being called "the Roscius of these times" ( John Davies, ''Scourge of Folly'', 1610). Ostler also became a shareholder, or "householder" (i.e. a part-owner) in both of the King's Men's theatres, the Blackfriars (20 May 1611) and the Globe (20 February 1612). In 1611 Ostler mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Underwood (actor)
John Underwood (died October 1624) was an early 17th-century actor, a member of the King's Men, the theatrics company of William Shakespeare. Career Underwood began as a boy player with the Children of the Chapel, and was cast in that company's productions of Ben Jonson's '' Cynthia's Revels'' (1600) and ''The Poetaster'' (1601). In 1608 or soon after, he joined the King's Men along with William Ostler, another former member of the Chapel Children troupe. Underwood was a member of the cast of the King's Men's production of Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' in 1610, and was in the casts of many productions that followed, including Jonson's ''Catiline'' (1611) and John Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'' (the revival of c. 1621). In the 25 cast lists added to plays in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679, Underwood is mentioned in the casts of 18 dramas: * '' Bonduca'' * ''The Custom of the Country'' * '' The Double Marriage'' * ''The False One'' * ''The Humorous Lieutena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Tooley
Nicholas Tooley (c. 1583 – June 1623) was a Renaissance actor in the King's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare. Recent research has shown that Tooley was born in late 1582 or early 1583; his birth name was not Tooley but Wilkinson. (In 1623 he signed a codicil to his last will and testament "Nicholas Wilkinson, ''alias'' Tooley.")Edwin Nunzeger, ''A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England Before 1642'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929; pp. 374–5. He has been associated with the "Nick" in the surviving "plot" of ''The Seven Deadly Sins'', dated c. 1591. The association, if accurate, indicates that he began as a boy player. He was apprenticed to Richard Burbage, and may have followed that actor to the Lord Chamberlain's Men when that company re-formed in 1594. Tooley is mentioned in a letter of Joan Alleyn, Edward Alleyn's wife, in 1603, and he received a 20-shilling bequest in Augustine Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nennius Of Britain
Nennius is a mythical prince of Britain at the time of Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain (55–54 BC). His story appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's ''History of the Kings of Britain'' (1136), a work whose contents are now considered largely fictional. In Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey's ''Historia'' he was called Nynniaw. In Geoffrey's story, Nennius is said to have fought Caesar in personal combat and taken his sword, which he used to kill many Romans. In the Tudor and Jacobean eras he became an emblem of British patriotism. Geoffrey's account The ''History'' gives the following account of Nennius's life: He was the third son of Heli and brother of Lud and Cassibelanus (and according to Welsh sources, of Llefelys). He fought alongside Cassibelanus when Caesar invaded. He and his nephew Androgeus led the troops of Trinovantum (London) and Canterbury, when they encountered Caesar's own troops and Nennius faced Caesar in single combat. Caesar struck Nennius a blow to the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Condell
Henry Condell ( bapt. 5 September 1576 – December 1627) was a British actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing and editing the First Folio, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623.Pogue, Kate. ''Shakespeare's Friends''. Greenwood Publishing Group (2006) pp. 129-136 Life and career Condell's early life is obscure. It appears that he may have been from East Anglia, as his will mentions 'my Cosen Gilder late of newe Buckenham’. According to Edmond: The only Henry Condell so far discovered at a suitable date in that part of England was the son of a Robert Condell of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, a fishmonger, and his wife, Joan, née Yeomans, of New Buckenham, a market town not far from Norwich. Henry Condell, presumably their son, was baptized at St Peter on 5 September 1576. Traditionally, he is associated with the "Harry" who appears in the cast list for Richard Tarl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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