Catiline's Conspiracy (Catiline)

Robert Wilson and Henry Chettle (1598)

Historical Records

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)

F. 49^v (Greg I.94)

Lent mr willsone the 21 of aguste 1598 in <e>	}
earnest of a Boocke called cattelyne some of	}	xs

Lent vnto harey cheattell the 26 of aguste	}
1598 in earneste of a Boocke called	}	vs
cattelanes consperesey the some of	}

Lent vnto mr willsone the 29 of aguste	}
1598 at the Request of hary cheattell in	}	xs
earneste of cattelyne the some of	}

Theatrical Provenance

There is no evidence of performance (as is the case with "Hannibal and Hermes" and "Conan, Prince of Cornwall"), but "it remains overwhemingly likely" that the play was staged by the Lord Admiral's Men at the Rose in 1598 (Wiggins, 1137). However, Wiggins also adds that "we cannot rule out the possibility that, in a year of heavy surplus in his play purchasing, Henslowe might have had some other purpose in mind for the plays" (ibid.).

Probable Genre(s)

Classical history (Harbage), tragedy (Wiggins).

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The main sources are likely to have been Sallust's De coniuratione Catilinae and Cicero's In Catilinam. However, Sallust's text had not been translated into English yet in 1598 (the first English translation by Thomas Heywood was only published in 1608). The only English version available to Wilson and Chettle would have been The Conspiracie of Lucius Catiline, translated into Englishe by Thomas Paynell; worthy, profitable, and pleasaunt to be red (London, in officina T. Bertheleti, 1541), a translation of Costanzo Felici's Historia Coniurations Catilinariae, published in Latin in 1518. Felici's account was reprinted in The conspiracie of Catiline, written by Constancius Felicius Durantinus, translated by T. Paynell, with the historye of Jugurth, writen by the famous Romaine Salust, and translated into Englyshe by A Barcklaye (London, John Waley, 1557), thereby essentially replacing Sallust's account of the conspiracy. We know that Ben Jonson drew heavily on (the Latin original of) Felici's work for his 1611 Catiline His Conspiracy (see Duffy; Bolton, Gardner; Lovascio); consequently, it is legitimate to conceive that Wilson and Chettle may have resorted to Felici's Historia too. Interestingly, as Wiggins (1145) notes, the Admiral's Men also produced "Jugurtha, King of Numidia" only two years later. If Wilson and Chettle did indeed draw on Felici, one may even wonder whether Jonson was following their example in his Catiline, especially because Jonson and Chettle were collaborating on "Hot Anger Soon Cold" in that very same period (August 1598).

References to the Play

None known; information welcome.

Critical Commentary

Collier suggested the play may have been a rewrite of an older play on Catiline (ca. 1579) by Wilson, defined as "Short and sweet" by Thomas Lodge (1:42-43) in his reply to Stephen Gosson’s School of Abuse (1579):

it has been stated that Robert Wilson, as early as 1580, was author of a dramatic performance on the subject of the life of Catiline. A history, named by Henslowe Catalin's Conspiracie, is entered by him with the date of August, 1598, and it is there attributed to Wilson and Chettle. The probability is, that at this time, Wilson (who must have been senior to his coadjutor) and Chettle had employed themselves in reviving a play, then nearly twenty years old. (Collier, HEDP 3.93)

Rutter (148) maintains that the piece "was evidently abandoned" and never completed, but there is no conclusive evidence about it.

Feldmann and Tetzeli von Rosador (329) point out that this play, together with "Caesar and Pompey, Part 1", "Caesar and Pompey, Part 2" and "Caesar’s Fall", would have made up "a Caesarean project of some magnitude, showing Caesar in the round" (see also "Caesar's Fall").

For What It's Worth

The conjecture that this plays is a reworking of Wilson's "Short and Sweet" is consistent with the relatively low sum paid by Henslowe to Wilson and Chettle (25s), suggesting additions/revisions rather than a completely new play.

Works Cited

Bolton, Whitney French, and Jane Fisher Gardner. "Jonson’s Classical Sources." Catiline by Ben Jonson. London: Arnold, 1972. 176-193.

Collier, J. Payne. The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare: and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration. London: John Murray, 1831. Internet Archive

Duffy, Ellen M.T. "Ben Jonson’s Debt to Renaissance Scholarship." Modern Language Review 42 (1947): 24-30.

Feldmann, Doris, and Kurt Tetzeli von Rosador. "Lost Plays: A Brief Account." Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works. Ed. Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. 328-333.

Lodge, Thomas. The Complete Works. Ed. Edmund William Gosse. 4 vols. Glasgow: Hunterian Club, 1883.

Lovascio, Domenico. "Jonson’s Catiline: A Few Unrecorded Borrowings from Felici’s Historia Coniurationis Catilinariae." Notes and Queries 58 (2011): 278-282.

Rutter, Carol Chillington. Documents of the Rose Playhouse. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999

Site created and maintained by Domenico Lovascio, University of Genoa; updated 04 March 2015.