Longshanks

Anon. (1595)

Historical Records

Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)

F. 12^v (Greg, I. 24)

ye 29 of aguste 1595	ne ……….	Res at longe shanke	……….	xxxxs
ye 10 of september 1595		Res at longshancke	……….	iijll

F. 13 (Greg, I. 25)

ye 30 of september 1595	……….	Res at longe shancke	……….	xxxijs
ye 21 of october 1595	……….	Res at long shancke	……….	xxxs

F. 14 (Greg, I. 27)

ye 9 of november 1595	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	xxxiijs
ye 26 of november 1595	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	xviijs
ye 10 of desember 1595	……….	Res at prynce longshanke	……….	xxxs
ye 29 of desember 1595	……….	Res at longshanckes	……….	xxxijs

F. 14^v (Greg, I. 28)

ye 5 of febreary 1595	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	xiiijs
ye 27 of febreary 1595	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	xxxs

F. 15^v (Greg, I. 30)

ye 21 of aprell 1596	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	xiiijs
ye 28 of aprell 1596	……….	Res at longschancke	……….	xxs

F. 21^v (Greg, I. 42)

ye 2 of June 1596	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	iijll
ye 9 of July 1596	……….	Res at longshancke	……….	xvs

F. 107 (Greg, I. 169)

pd vnto my sone EA for ij bocke called

phillipe of spayne & Longshanckes the 8

of agust 1602 the some of ……………… iiij^ll

Henslowe's Inventory

The booke of the Inventary of the goods of my Lord Admeralles men, taken the 10 of Marche in the yeare 1598. (Greg, Papers, 113)

Gone and loste.

Item, j longe-shanckes sewte.

The Enventorey of all the aparell of the Lord Admeralles men, taken the 13th of Marche 1598, as followeth: (Greg, Papers, 121)

Item, j Longeshankes seute.

Theatrical Provenance

The Admiral's players introduced "Longshanks" in the opening week of their fall season at the Rose playhouse, August 1595. It was the first play of the season to be marked by Henslowe's enigmatic "ne." It received fourteen performances through 9 July 1596, and it returned an average of 31s. per performance to Henslowe.

On 8 August 1602 the company purchased the playbook of "Longshanks" from Edward Alleyn, along with another lost play, "Philip of Spain". These purchases belong to a set of transactions in which Alleyn sold plays to Henslowe (and thus to the Admiral's men) in 1601-2. Henslowe recorded nine of these purchases, beginning with "Mahomet" (entered on 22 August 1601) and ending with "Tamar Cham" (entered on 2 October 1602). Some of these plays were revived in conjunction with their purchase from Alleyn, as evidenced by payments for apparel. These include ('Mahomet", Massacre at Paris, and "Crack Me This Nut") but not "Longshanks".

Probable Genre(s)

History (Harbage).

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Holinshed

Critical Commentary

Malone, who first published a transcript of Henslowe's diary from the Dulwich Library archives, jumped to the conclusion that the "Longshanks" introduced on 26 August 1595 was George Peele's play, Edward I, entered in the Stationers' Register on 8 October 1593 by Abel Jeffes and published in 1593 with an advertisement of Jeffes as printer and William Barley as bookseller (297, n1).

Collier, next to edit the diary (1845), disagreed with the identification of "Longshanks" with Edward I, excusing Malone for not knowing that Henslowe's 'ne' marked new plays. Collier assigned to the play to 'some other dramatist upon the same portion of English history' (55). He implies that the printing of Peele's play disqualified it as the play Henslowe called "Longshanks" and (once) "Prince Longshanks".

Fleay in 1891 reverted to Malone's choice, tagging "Longshanks" as "a 'mended' version of Peele's "Edward I, surnamed Longshanks" (BCED, II, 304).

Greg, whose 1904 edition of the diary and 1908 commentary was the benchmark until 1961 and the edition of R. A. Foakes and R. T. Rickert, accepted the identification of "Longshanks" with Peele's Edward I. Like Fleay, Greg found it plausible that the play in Henslowe's listings was marked "ne" because it was revised. He did point out that no revisions occur in the 1599 reprint of Peele's play, which had initially been published in 1593. Because Alleyn owned the play in 1602, Greg thought it likely that he had owned it when he was a member of Strange's men (II, 176, Item #75).

Chambers reverted to Collier's position that "Longshanks" was an independent play "unless there had been substantial revision" to Peele's Edward I (Elizabethan Stage, III.460-1, esp. 461)

Hook, discussing "Longshanks" in his introduction to Edward I in the Yale edition of Peele's work, considers the lost play "almost certainly" Peele's play (7). His reasoning is that "Longshanks is a name used for no one but Edward I, and no other play is known to have been written about that monarch" (7). He considers the item of apparel listed as both "Gone and loste" and found in Henslowe's inventory ("long-shanckes sewte", "Longeshankes seute") as additional proof, conjecturing that the suit is no ordinary "royal robe" but the "special garment" specified in the opening stage direction for scene 3 in Edward I: Enter … king Edward in his sute of Glasse (7, 93). In a note, Hook cites Collier, Fleay, Greg, and Chambers as the line of authority that the identification of "Longshanks" as Edward I (with or without revisions) "is widely accepted" (7).

Braunmuller repeats the received wisdom on the identification of "Longshanks" as Peele's Edward I, considering the 1595-6 run as proof of Peele's "play's popularity" (87). In a note, Braunmuller raises but does not engage the issue of Henslowe's designation of "Longshanks" as "ne" (146).

Knutson returns to the Collier-Chambers position of "Longhanks" as independent from Edward I, making the case in addition for "Longshanks" as a commercially desirable repertory offering both in 1595 and 1602.

Gurr follows the tradition of Malone, Fleay, Greg, and Hook by identifying "Longshanks" as Peele's Edward I. One facet of Gurr's characterization of the repertory of the Admiral's men after its reconfiguration in 1594 is that the company relied on Peele's plays from Edward Alleyn's personal collection; Gurr claims that Alleyn had bought "Longshanks" (i.e., Edward I) from Peele in 1590 (39).

Wiggins-- Wiggins serial number 882 ("The Welshman") and 1007 ("Longshanks").

For What It's Worth

On 29 November 1595, Henslowe entered a performance of "the welche man," for which show he received 7s. Greg rejects Fleay's suggestion that this is an early appearance of Robert Armin's Valiant Welshman (1615); he also rejects its identification with a 1598 play in the Admiral's inventory, "Henry I and the Prince of Wales." He thinks it "just possible" this entry belongs with the performances of "Longshanks" (II, 178, item #83)

Works Cited

Braunmuller, A. R. George Peele. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1983.

Collier, John Payne, ed. The Diary of Philip Henslowe, from 1591 to 1609. London: Shakespeare Society, 1845.

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

Hook, Frank S., ed. The Dramatic Works of George Peele. Vol. 2. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

Knutson, Roslyn L. "Play Identifications: The Wise Man of West Chester and John a Kent and John a Cumber; Longshanks and Edward I." Huntington Library Quarterly 47.1 (1984): 1-11. (HLQ)

Malone, Edmond, An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Stage". Vol. 1, Part 2. London: J. Rivington and Sons, 1790.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; created in 2012; last updated 13 March 2018.