Cobbler of Queenheath, The

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Historical Records

Payments

To playwrights in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 37 (Greg, I, 69)

Lent vnto Robarte shawe the 23 of octobʒ 1597	}
to by a boocke for the company of my lorde admirals	} xxxxs
men & my lord penbrockes the some of . . . . . . . . . . . .	}
called the cobler. . . . . . . . . . wittnes	}

E Alleyn

Fol. 43^v (Greg, I, 82)

layd owt vnto Robarte shawe to by a boocke for the	}
companey the 21 of octobʒ 1597 the some of . . . . . . . .	} xxxxs
called the cobler . . . . wittnes . . . . E Alleyn	}

Inventories

Philip Henslowe's papers in the Dulwich College Library

List of playbooks

Greg, Papers (APX I, art. 1, p. 121, col. 1, l. 191)

A Note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3^d of March 1598

Cobler quen hive.

Theatrical Provenance

"The Cobbler" was purchased for the Admiral's players on 21 October 1597, not quite two weeks after Henslowe made a marginal note by his list of performances that the Admiral's and Pembroke's players were playing at the Rose: "the xj of octobe be gane my lord admerals & my lord of penbrockes men to playe at my howsse 1597" (Greg I, 54). One of those Pembroke's men was Robert Shaw (Shaa). The timing of his joining the Admiral's men, which coincides with the departure of some Pembroke's players from Francis Langley's Swan in the wake of the debacle of playing "The Isle of Dogs" at the end of July 1597, suggests that Shaw was one of those departing Pembroke's players (a loan to Shaa and three other players on 4 October 1598 to buy a pawn ticket from Francis Langley to redeem a "Riche clocke" (Greg I, 63) locates him in the company of other Pembroke's players. That he had a playbook to sell ("Lent vnto Robarte shawe … to by a boocke") implies that the book, i.e., "The Cobbler" had recently been in the repertory of Pembroke's men.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

None known.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Greg II adds the nearly duplicate entries in the diary (F. 37, F. 43^v) to the entry in Henslowe's inventory to get the title, "The Cobbler of Queenhithe" (p. 188, #116); he considers it "[p]robably an old play." He takes the spelling, "Queenhithe" from George Peele's Edward I. Wiggins, Catalogue also chooses "Queenhithe" (#1085). Harbage spells the word "Queenheath."

Knutson, following Chambers, ES (2.168), classifies "The Cobbler" as a secondhand play (pp. 119, 160).

Gurr notes that "The Cobbler" was probably "from Pembroke's" (p. 230, n.71).

For What It's Worth

The company "The Cobbler" keeps among the playbooks in stock at the Rose in March 1598 provides another clue that its recent owners had been Pembroke's men. It is preceded in the list by "Hardicanewtes," "Borbonne," "Sturgflaterey," and "Branhowlle" and followed by "Frier Pendelton" and "Alls Perce" (Greg, Papers, 121). Three of these plays—"Hardicanewtes," "Frier Pendelton," and "Borbonne"—turn up in Henslowe's list of performances at the Rose beside the marginal notation that the Admiral's and Pembroke's players are playing together (Greg I, 54). Greg, observing this coincidence, labels all these plays along with "Black Joan" as former property of Pembroke's men (Greg II, 186-7).

Works Cited

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Knutson, Roslyn L., "The Commercial Significance of the Payments for Playtexts in Henslowe's Diary, 1597-1603," Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 5 (1991): 117-63.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 9 October 2012; updated 18 June 2019.