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Mistress Nell Quickly is a fictional character who appears in several plays by
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. She is an
inn-keeper A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
, who runs the Boar's Head Tavern, at which
Sir John Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', wh ...
and his disreputable cronies congregate. The character appears in four plays: ''
Henry IV, Part 1 ''Henry IV, Part 1'' (often written as ''1 Henry IV'') is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at ...
'', '' Henry IV, Part 2'', ''
Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...
'' and ''
The Merry Wives of Windsor ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' or ''Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a ref ...
''.


Character and role

In all the plays Quickly is characterised as a woman with strong links to the criminal underworld, but who is nevertheless preoccupied with her own respectable reputation. Her speech is filled with
malapropism A malapropism (also called a malaprop, acyrologia, or Dogberryism) is the mistaken use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, sometimes humorous utterance. An example is the statement attributed to ...
s,
double entendres A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially a ...
and "bawdy innuendo". Her name may be a pun on "quick lay", though "quick" also had the meaning of "alive", so it may imply "lively", which also commonly had a sexual connotation.J. Madison Davis, ''The Shakespeare Name and Place Dictionary'', Routledge, 2012, p.406. Quickly's character is most fully developed in ''Henry IV, Part 2'' in which her contradictory aspirations to gentility and barely concealed vulgarity are brought out in her language. According to James C. Bulman, she "unwittingly reveals her sexual history" by her blithe malapropisms and "her character is both defined and undone by her absurdly original speech". Though her age is not specified, the comment that she is "pistol proof" has been interpreted to mean that she is past childbearing age, and she says she has known Falstaff for 29 years.


Role in the plays

In ''Henry IV, Part 1'', Mistress Quickly is described as the proprietor of the Boar's Head Tavern in the London neighbourhood of
Eastcheap Eastcheap is a street in central London that is a western continuation of Great Tower Street towards Monument junction. Its name derives from ''cheap'', the Old English word for market, with the prefix 'East' distinguishing it from Westcheap, an ...
. She is married, as Prince Hal asks after her husband, referring to him as "an honest man"; he does not appear in the play. She participates in the mock-court scene in which Falstaff pretends to be the king. In ''Henry IV, Part 2'', she asks the authorities to arrest
Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', w ...
, accusing him of running up excessive debts and making a fraudulent proposal of marriage to her (implying that she is now a widow). Mistress Quickly has a friendship of long standing with
Doll Tearsheet Dorothy "Doll" Tearsheet is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare's play '' Henry IV, Part 2''. She is a prostitute who frequents the Boar's Head Inn in Eastcheap. Doll is close friends with Mistress Quickly, the proprietress of the t ...
, a prostitute who frequents the tavern, and protects her against aggressive men she calls "swaggerers". At the end of that play, Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet are arrested in connection with the beating to death of a man by
Ancient Pistol Ancient Pistol is a swaggering soldier who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Though full of grandiose boasts about his prowess, he is essentially a coward. The character is introduced in '' Henry IV, Part 2'' and reappears in ''The ...
. In ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' she works as nurse to Caius, a French physician, but primarily acts as a messenger between other characters, communicating love notes in a plot largely concerned with misdirected letters. At the end she takes the role of the queen of the fairies in the practical joke played on Falstaff. In ''Henry V'', she is referred to as Nell Quickly. She is with Falstaff at his deathbed, and describes his death to his friends. She marries Falstaff's ensign, Ancient Pistol, despite having previously been engaged to
Corporal Nym Corporal Nym is a fictional character who appears in two Shakespeare plays, ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' and ''Henry V''. He later appears in spin-off works by other writers. Nym is a soldier and criminal follower of Sir John Falstaff and a fr ...
. While Pistol is away in France, he receives a letter from which he learns that "my Doll is dead", having succumbed to the "malady of France" (
syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
). Many editors take the name Doll to be a misprint for "Nell", but it has also been interpreted as a reference to Doll Tearsheet rather than Quickly.


Continuity issues

Quickly's role in ''The Merry Wives'' is sufficiently different from her role in the other plays that some critics have suggested that she cannot be the same character. Nothing suggests that she already knows Falstaff (or Bardolph and Pistol), and there is no explanation of how she comes to working for Dr. Caius. However, there are also many other continuity problems with other characters in the play. For example, the play is set at an unspecified period in the reign of Henry IV, but Shallow is feuding with Falstaff from the beginning, even though in the Henriad plays he only realises his mistake in trusting him after Henry V is crowned. These oddities may have arisen because the play was written rapidly for a specific occasion. There are some signs of attempts to make the events fit the action of the
Henriad In Shakespearean scholarship, Henriad refers to a group of William Shakespeare's history plays. It is sometimes used to refer to a group of four plays (a tetralogy), but some sources and scholars use the term to refer to eight plays. In the 1 ...
plays, for example the brief scene in which Pistol expresses his attraction to her and says "she is my prize". This fits with his marriage to her in ''Henry V''. There is no further reference to his pursuit of her in the play, but he plays the part of her consort in the fairy masque at the end. There are similar, less glaring problems with the Henriad plays. In ''Henry IV, Part 1'' she is evidently a married innkeeper. No reference is made to the death of her husband in Part 2, just that Falstaff promises to marry her. Likewise, the tavern seems to evolve into a reputed brothel by the beginning of ''Henry V''.


In other literature

Mistress Quickly appears along with Falstaff's other cronies in the play ''
Falstaff's Wedding ''Falstaff's Wedding'' (1760 and 1766) is a play by William Kenrick (writer), William Kenrick. It is a sequel to Shakespeare's plays ''Henry IV, Part 2'' and ''The Merry Wives of Windsor''. Most of the characters are carried over from the two Shak ...
'' (1766), a comedy by
William Kenrick William Kenrick may refer to: *William Kenrick (Member of Barebone's Parliament), MP for Kent (UK Parliament constituency) *William Kenrick (writer) (1725–1779), English novelist, playwright and satirist *William Kenrick (nurseryman) (1795&nda ...
, which is set in the period between the end of ''Henry IV, Part 2'' and the beginning of ''Henry V''. Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, having bribed their way out of prison, appear in the first act explaining to Falstaff how they were arrested. They later plot to disguise themselves as gentlewomen to find rich husbands, targeting
Robert Shallow Robert Shallow is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare's plays '' Henry IV, Part 2'' and ''The Merry Wives of Windsor''. He is a wealthy landowner and Justice of the Peace in Gloucestershire, who at the time of ''The Merry Wives of W ...
and his young cousin Abraham Slender. Quickly intends to marry Shallow, and Doll to marry Slender. The plan appears to succeed, but Shallow and Slender find out their true identities and switch places at the weddings with Ancient Pistol and Corporal Nym, so she ends up married to Pistol, as in ''Henry V''. James White's book ''Falstaff's Letters'' (1796) purports to be a collection of letters written by Falstaff and his associates, provided by a descendant of Mistress Quickly's sister. She had inherited them from Mistress Quickly herself, who kept them in drawer in the Boar's Head Tavern until her death in "August 1419". The collection includes letters written by Mistress Quickly to Falstaff complaining of his behaviour.White, James, ''Falsteff's Letters'', London, Robson, 1877. Alan Skinner's novel ''Master Quickly'' (2013) attempts to fill in the gaps in Shakespeare by revealing the truth about her neglected husband. "Dame Quickly" is also referenced in Chapter 1, Section 3 of the English edition of Karl Marx's
Capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
.


References

{{Henriad
Quickly Quickly () is a tapioca milk tea franchise, with over 2000 locations in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Quickly is the brand name of Kuai Ke Li Enterprise Co. Ltd., which was founded by Nancy Yang in Taiwan and started franchising. Qu ...
Fictional hoteliers Characters in The Merry Wives of Windsor