Siege of London, The

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Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

F11 (Greg I.21):

ye 26 of desembʒ 1594		Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	iijli
ye 14 of Jenewary 1594		Res at the seage of london . . . . . . . . . . .	xxviijs
ye 22 of Jenewary 1594		Res at the seage of london . . . . . . . . . . .	xxxijs
ye 3 of febreary 1594	——	Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxxxvs
ye 13 of febreary 1594		Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxixs

F11^v (Greg I.22):

ye 3 of marche 1594	———	Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxvjs
ye 14 of marche 1594		Res at sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xiiijs

F12^v (Greg I.24):

ye 30 of aguste 1595	. . . . . . .	Res at the seage of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xviijs

F13 (Greg I.25):

ye 20 of septmbʒ 1595	. . . . . .	Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xvijs

F14 (Greg I.27):

ye 13 of Jenewary 1595	. . . . . .	Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xvs

F21^v (Greg I.42):

ye 14 of June 1596	. . . . . . . . .	Res at the sege of london . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxxs
ye 6 of aguste 1596		Res at seage of london . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xvs

Inventories

Philip Henslowe's papers in the Dulwich College Library

List of properties

Greg, Papers (APX. I, art. 1, p. 118, l. 86)

Under the heading “The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598”:

Item, j whell and frame in the Sege of London

Theatrical Provenance

The Admiral's men began a run of "The Siege of London" at the Rose on 26 December 1594 and gave the play another six performances through 14 March 1595. The company continuted the play in the fall season of 1595, giving it another five performances through 6 July 1596.

Probable Genre(s)

History

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The sources for "The Siege of London" would probably have been the standard English histories including Holinshed's Chronicles. See Critical Commentary below for various scholarly suggestions on which siege the play might have dramatized.

References to the Play

Information welcome.

Critical Commentary

Malone does not guess at the subject matter of the play, nor does Collier. Fleay, BCED is therefore the first to venture an identification; "Fleay-like" (as Wiggins scornfully notes [Catalogue, #862]), his solution is reflexively to link the play with 1 Edward IV by Thomas Heywood in that Heywood "founded" scenes 1-7, 9-10, and 15 on "the Admiral's play of The Siege of London, which was an old play of c. 1590, revived 1594, Dec. 26" (BCED 1.288 #13; 2.301 #140). As part of his constructed identification of "The Siege of London," Fleay also provides a birth narrative that implied a maiden run at the turn of the 1590s with the Admiral's men of 1586-91 .

Greg II thought Fleay's provenance for "The Siege of London" was "very likely" and thus concurred that the siege dramatized in the play was that of the Bastard Falconbridge (#65, P. 173). However, he resisted the implication that "The Siege of London" had simply been stitched into the Heywood play, which he considered "a well-constructed play showing no signs of botching"; he thus thought that any use of old "Siege" play "must have been practically re-written."

Gurr, without acknowledgment of Fleay's suggested provenance, thinks also that "The Siege of London" "may have come from the older Admiral's" (p. 213, #26, n.12).

Wiggins, Catalogue discards the link of "The Siege of London" with Heywood's Edward IV and does not mention an earlier life of the play with an earlier version of the Admiral's men. He thus frees himself from identifying the siege with Falconbridge in 1471. He prefers "one of the periodic sieges by the Danes in pre-Conquest history" (#862), offering a couple of choices, one of which would have linked the play to the roughly contemporary Edmund Ironside. He notes further that none of the sieges are associated with the wheel and frame specified for the play in Henslowe's inventory of theatrical property.

For What It's Worth

Information welcome.

Works Cited

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

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 21 October 2020.