The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington
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''The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon'' and ''The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon'' are two closely related
Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...
-era stage plays on the
Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depic ...
legend, that were written by
Anthony Munday Anthony Munday (or Monday) (1560?10 August 1633) was an English playwright and miscellaneous writer. He was baptized on 13 October 1560 in St Gregory by St Paul's, London, and was the son of Christopher Munday, a stationer, and Jane Munday. He ...
(possibly with help from
Henry Chettle Henry Chettle (c. 1564 – c. 1606) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era, best known for his pamphleteering. Early life The son of Robert Chettle, a London dyer, he was apprenticed in 1577 and became a me ...
) in 1598 and published in
1601 This Epoch (reference date)#Computing, epoch is the beginning of the 400-year Gregorian leap-year cycle within which digital files first existed; the last year of any such cycle is the only leap year whose year number is divisible by 100. Jan ...
. They are among the relatively few surviving examples of the popular drama acted by the
Admiral's Men The Admiral's Men (also called the Admiral's company, more strictly, the Earl of Nottingham's Men; after 1603, Prince Henry's Men; after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a playing company or troupe of actors in the El ...
during the Shakespearean era. Scholars and critics have studied the plays for their place in the evolution of the Robin Hood legend. Munday has been credited as the first person to identify Robin Hood with the
Earl of Huntingdon Earl of Huntingdon is a title which has been created several times in the Peerage of England. The medieval title (1065 creation) was associated with the ruling house of Scotland (David I of Scotland, David of Scotland). The seventh and most rec ...
.


Publication

Both plays were entered into the
Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...
on 1 December 1600, and were printed in separate quartos in the next year by
stationer Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) ...
William Leake William Leake, father (died 1633) and son (died 1681), were London publishers and booksellers of the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. They were responsible for a range of texts in English Renaissance drama and poetry, including work ...
. The 1601 quartos were the only editions in the era of
English Renaissance theatre English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642. This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson ...
; the plays would not be reprinted until the nineteenth century. Leake's 1601 quartos employ a
blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
or Gothic
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...
for the speeches in the plays, with a Roman font used for stage directions and speech prefixes.


Authorship

The plays were originally published anonymously; the 1601 quartos lack any attribution of authorship on their title pages. The account book of theatrical manager
Philip Henslowe Philip Henslowe (c. 1550 – 6 January 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance ...
(known as Henslowe's Diary) records a payment, dated 15 February 1598, to "Antony Monday" for "a playe booke called the firste parte of Robyne Hoode." The Diary records subsequent payments to Munday on 20 and 28 February the same year for "the second pte of Roben Hoode." Given the plays' general resemblances with Munday's earlier drama ''John a Kent and John a Cumber'' (c. 1594), scholars have had no problem in accepting Munday's authorship. Henslowe's Diary also records a payment, dated 25 February 1598, to Henry Chettle for "the second pte of Robart hoode." Chettle was later (25 November 1598) paid for "mending" a Robin Hood play for a Court performance. Based on these facts, many scholars have assigned ''The Death'' to Munday and Chettle as collaborators. Comparing ''The Death'' to Munday's ''John a Kent'' on one hand and to Chettle's ''Hoffman'' on the other, some critics have considered Munday the likely author of the Robin Hood material in ''The Death'', and Chettle the probable author of the story of King John's pursuit of Matilda Fitzwater. Yet John C. Meagher, editor of the
Malone Society The Malone Society is a British-based text publication and general scholarly society devoted to the study of 16th- and early 17th-century drama. It publishes editions of plays from manuscript, facsimile editions of printed and manuscript plays of ...
reprints of the plays, argues that the case for Chettle's participation in the play's authorship is weak. In his judgement, ''The Downfall'' is the work of Munday alone, and ''The Death'' is also "either primarily or exclusively the work of Munday."


"Foul papers"

For both of the 1601 quartos, the texts were set into type from the author's working drafts or "foul papers" rather than from "fair copies" of the finished texts or from theatrical promptbooks. Both plays contain major discontinuities that would have been corrected in their final versions. * The most serious problem in ''The Downfall'' is the most obvious. The heroine is called
Maid Marian Maid Marian is the heroine of the Robin Hood legend in English folklore, often taken to be his lover. She is not mentioned in the early, medieval versions of the legend, but was the subject of at least two plays by 1600. Her history and circums ...
for the first 781 lines of the play; then, suddenly and without explanation, she becomes Matilda. She should have been called Matilda from the start, since later in the play she deliberately changes her name to Marian, as a sign of the new identity she has adopted when joining Robin and his Merry Men. * ''The Death'' shows the same type of problems. Characters' names change for no reason. Lord Salisbury becomes Aubery de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and switches back and forth between the two identities. Similarly, Hugh becomes Mowbray. * In ''The Death'', the character Bonville speaks two speeches before his entrance, and then disappears. All of these difficulties would have to have been resolved in the plays' finished texts.


Genre

This view of ''The Downfall'' and ''The Death'' as, to some significant degree, unfinished works in their existing texts, has a bearing on perceptions of the plays' artistic quality and their deficiencies. In Munday's Robin Hood plays, "Motivation is scanty, inner conflict is barely hinted at, and qualities are painted in with primary colors...not much attention is paid to cause and effect. Intrigues are begun and quickly forgotten, important episodes seem to be omitted completely, and diversions frequently have precedence over any logical sequence of events." Some of these problems could have been remedied or at least palliated in the final versions. Yet some of these traits are inherent in the dramatic form and genre in which Munday worked. The plays "have been strongly criticized as unsatisfactory mixtures of folk tale, melodrama, and farce," when they should be considered as "primarily romances" – "not chronicle plays nor pastoral comedy mixed with tragedy of blood...." As romances, comparable to the romances of Robert Greene and to Shakespeare's late plays, the Munday works show more sense and coherence. To a substantial degree, the two works form a single whole, a "two-part play." Like other works of this type, Munday's double play employs a dichotomy of dramatic forms: the first part moves "in a comic direction," or "at least toward reconciliation," while the second bends "in a tragic direction."


Other plays

The story of Robin Hood was integral to English folklore, and Munday was far from the first or only dramatist of his time to exploit it. The most prominent Robin Hood play of Munday's era was ''George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield'', registered in
1595 Events January–June * January – Mehmed III succeeds Murad III, as sultan of the Ottoman Empire. * January 17 – During the French Wars of Religion, Henry IV of France declares war on Spain. * April 8 (March 29 O.S.) & ...
and printed in 1599. This anonymous work has often been attributed to Robert Greene. The anonymous ''Look About You'' (1599?; printed 1600) also features Robin Hood; one researcher has ascribed it to Munday, or Chettle, or both. An early Robin Hood play, author unknown, was printed in 1560. An anonymous ''Robin Hood and Little John'' (1594) has not survived. William Haughton worked on a ''Robin Hood's Pennyworths'' around 1600, but apparently left it unfinished. In turn, Robert Davenport based his later play ''
King John and Matilda ''King John and Matilda'' is a Caroline era stage play, a historical tragedy written by Robert Davenport. It was initially published in 1655; the cast list included in the first edition provides valuable information on some of the actors of En ...
'' (published
1655 Events January–March * January 5 – Emperor Go-Sai ascends to the throne of Japan. * January 7 – Pope Innocent X, leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papal States, dies after more than 10 years of rule. * Febr ...
) securely on ''The Death.'' Some critics have called Davenport's play a mere rewriting of Munday's. During the
Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...
, a drama titled ''Robin Hood and His Crew of Soldiers'' was acted at
Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
on the day of King Charles II's coronation.


Admiral's drama

In Shakespeare's generation, the Admiral's Men were the primary competitors with Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's/ King's Men. In the years from 1594 to 1602, the two companies were the only ones allowed permanent residence in London. The Admiral's Men performed two early works by
George Chapman George Chapman (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, – London, 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Shak ...
, and
Thomas Middleton Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jac ...
's ''
The Roaring Girl ''The Roaring Girl'' is a Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker 1607–1610. The play was first published in quarto in 1611, printed by Nicholas Okes for the bookseller Thomas Archer. The title page of t ...
''; most of their plays, though, were written by a coterie of house playwrights, regularly employed by manager Henslowe. These writers sometimes collaborated in teams of three, four, or even five per play. Henslowe's Diary preserves the titles of dozens of plays written by Chettle, Haughton, Thomas Dekker, John Day,
Michael Drayton Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. He died on 23 December 1631 in London. Early life Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothin ...
,
Richard Hathwaye Richard Hathwaye ( fl. 1597–1603), was an English dramatist. Life Little is known about Hathwaye's life. There is no evidence that he was related to his namesake Richard Hathaway, the father of Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, though Ri ...
, and others. A huge body of this work has disappeared, lost to history;Chambers, Vol. 3, pp. 288–9, 300–4, 307–8, 333–6, 493–4, 516–17. out of the thirty plays Henslowe ordered from his house dramatists in 1598, only Munday's Huntington plays survive. Along with a few other survivors, like ''
Sir John Oldcastle ''Sir John Oldcastle'' is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle, a controversial 14th-/15th-century rebel and Lollard who was seen by some of Shakespeare's contemporaries as a proto-Protestant martyr. Publication The play was originally p ...
'' or Haughton's '' Englishmen for My Money'', they illustrate what a whole style of drama was like.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington, The English Renaissance plays Plays by Anthony Munday 1598 plays