Pierce of Exton

Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Henry Chettle and Robert Wilson (1598)

Historical Records

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)

F.45 (Greg I.85)

Lent vnto the company to geue mr willsone dickers	}
drayton & cheatell in pte of payment of a boocke	}	xxxxs
called perce of extone the some of . . . . . . . .	}

Theatrical Provenance

If it were performed, it would have been by the Admiral's at the Rose in the Spring of 1598. The partial payment of 2 pounds, and the absence of this title in the inventory list of playbooks subsequently drafted by Henslowe, casts some doubt over whether "Pierce of Exton" was completed. It may well have been, and the playwrights may have been paid the balance owed to them by the company rather than by Henslowe.

Probable Genre(s)

History (Harbage).

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

As Wiggins notes, the central protagonist's identity is relatively clear, but what aspect of his life the dramatists chose to depict is ambiguous:

The central incident was presumably the one for which the title character was known: his murder of King Richard II, seemingly at the instigation of King Henry IV. But this alone would not provide enough incident to be the basis of a play. The key, unknowable issue is whether the murder was the plot's climax, fulcrum, or initiating event: the play might have presented his crime as the eventual outcome of a scapegrace's life; it might have taken a cue from the Tudor chroniclers' emphasis on his remorse after the event, and presented his tormented wanderings abroad after his rejection and banishment by Henry IV, the beneficiary of the murder; or it might have done both. (1118)

References to the Play

Information welcome.

Critical Commentary

McInnis, following Wiggins' caution over whether the play would have dramatised events leading up to or following the murder of Richard II, notes that, if that latter, there may be an intra-repertorial connection to the "Earl Godwin" plays:

Exton’s banishment at the hands of Henry IV may have some analogy with Godwin’s various exiles, and indeed the dramatization of Exton’s political assassination may also have attracted playgoers who had witnessed Godwin’s brutal attack on the young prince Alfred. The Exton play may have been an attempt to revive interest in the Wars of the Roses material that had been so popular for the Admiral’s competition throughout the 1590s.

For What It's Worth

Information welcome.

Works Cited

McInnis, David. "Robert Wilson and Lost Plays". Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context. http://threeladiesoflondon.mcmaster.ca/contexts/DavidMcInnis.htm

Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 03 June 2015.