Friar Francis

Anon. (1593/4)

Historical Records

Henslowe’s Diary:

Under the heading, “Jn the name of god Amen begninge the 27 of desemb[er] 1593 the earle of susex his men”.

F.8v (Greg I.16):		R[d] at frier frances the 7 of Jenewary 1593 . . . . . . . .		iijll js
		R[d] at frier frances the 14 of Jenewary 1593 . . . . . . . .		xxs
		R[e] at ffrier ffrances the 20 of Jenewarye 1593 . . . . . . . .		xxxs

Theatrical Provenance

3 known performances by Sussex’s men as an old play (probably at the Rose), as part of the company’s six week run in London (26 December to 6 February). According to Chambers (II.95) the average takings in this period was £1 13s, which makes the average receipts of £1 17s for King Lud only slightly higher than usual (the first entry’s £3 1s, however, is markedly higher). An inhibition of plays by the Privy Council, most probably fuelled by fears of plague, was issued on 3 Feb and ended the season shortly thereafter.

According to Heywood (see ‘References to the Play’ below), it was also acted at King’s Lynn in Norfolk as an old play sometime “within these few yeares” before 1612. The date of this performance is uncertain. However, the event was also recounted in the anonymous A Warning for Fair Women (1599), which suggests a sixteenth-century date, around the time of the London performances:

. . . Ile tell you (sir) one more to quite your tale,

A woman that had made away her husband,

And sitting to behold a tragedy,

At Linne a towne in Norffolke,

Acted by Players trauelling that way,

Wherein a woman that had murtherd hers

Was euer haunted with her husbands ghost:

The passion written by a feeling pen,

And acted by a good Tragedian,

She was so mooued with the sight thereof,

As she cryed out, the Play was made by her,

And openly confesst her husbands murder. (H2)

Probable Genre(s)

Realistic Tragedy (?) (Harbage), domestic tragedy

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

From Heywood’s anecdote (see ‘References to the Play’ below), the play seems to be a domestic tragedy about a woman who murders her husband in order to pursue the affections of a young gentleman she doted on. The husband’s ghost subsequently haunts the woman.

References to the Play

In his Apology for Actors (1612), Thomas Heywood refers to a performance of the play at King’s Lynn in Norfolk, in the context of the discovery of concealed murders (cf. Hamlet’s ‘Mousetrap’ play, designed to solicit expressions of guilt). Described in the margin of Heywood’s text as “A strange accident happening at a play,” the incident referred to was apparently “a domestike, and home-borne truth, which within these few yeares happened”:

At Lin in Norfolke, the then Earle of Sussex players acting the old History of Fryer Francis, & presenting a woman, who insatiately doting on a yong gentleman, had (the more securely to enioy his affection) mischieuously and seceretly murdered her husband, whose ghost haunted her, and at diuers times in her most solitary and priuate contemplations, in most horrid and fearefull shapes, appeared, and stood before her. As this was acted, a townes-woman (till then of good estimation and report) finding her conscience (at this presenment) extremely troubled, suddenly skritched and cryd out Oh my husband, my husband! I see the ghost of my husband fiercely threatning and menacing me. At which shrill and vexpected out-cry, the people about her, moou'd to a strange amazement, inquired the reason of her clamour, when presently vn-urged, she told them, that seuen yeares ago, she, to be possest of such a Gentleman (meaning him) had poysoned her husband, whose fearefull image personated it selfe in the shape of that ghost: whereupon the murdresse was apprehended, before the Iustices further examined, & by her voluntary confession after condemned. That this is true, as well by the report of the Actors as the records of the Towne, there are many eye-witnesses of this accident yet liuing, vocally to confirme it. (G^v-G2; EEBO document image 30)

Critical Commentary

Greg II.159 and Chambers II.95 have nothing further to add.

It is not clear what role the eponymous friar character played: murdered husband, lover, or another role altogether. Knutson tentatively links the play to other ‘friar’ plays of the period including Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Munday’s John a Kent and John a Cumber, the anonymous John of Bordeaux, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and later plays like Friar Spendleton (1597) and Friar Fox and Gillian of Brentford (1599) (Knutson 36).

For What It's Worth

(information needed)

Keywords

Domestic Tragedy, murder, ghost, Norfolk, Heywood, Apology for Actors, Henslowe's records.

Works Cited

Anon. A Warning for Fair Women. London, 1599. Print. EEBO.</div.

Heywood, Thomas. An Apology for Actors. London, 1612. Print. EEBO.

Knutson, Roslyn L. “Marlowe Reruns: Repertorial Commerce and Marlowe’s Plays in Revival.” Marlowe’s Empery: Expanding His Critical Contexts. Ed. Sarah Munson Deats and Robert A. Logan. London: Associated University Presses, 2002. 25-42. Print.

Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated, 07 November 2009.