Albere Galles

Heywood, Thomas, Smith, Wentworth (1602),Property "Paratext" (as page type) with input value "{{{paratexts}}}" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.Property "Contributor" (as page type) with input value "{{{contributors}}}" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.Property "Partnering Institution" (as page type) with input value "{{{partneringInstitutions}}}" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.

Historical Records

Payments

For playbooks in Philip Henslowe's diary

F. 115 (Greg I.179)

pd at the a poyntment the company	}
the 4 of septembʒ 1602 vnto Thomas hewod	}	vjll
& mr smyth in fulle payment for a	}
Boocke called        albe[t]re galles     some of	}

Theatrical Provenance

"Albere Galles" was written for Worcester's players while they were at the Rose, 1602-3.

Probable Genre(s)

Unknown (Harbage), Foreign History (Greg, Wiggins, Steggle)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Wiggins (#1342) proposes a pamphlet entitled "A True Relation of [the] Taking of Alba Regalis" a source for the play; the pamphlet was published in 1601.

Critical Commentary

Malone offers no comment on this play (p. 316), nor does Collier(p. 316).

Fleay, BCED #, silently correcting the title to "Albert[e] Galles," discusses the play in the context of Heywood's works, subordinating Smith's role with a q. v. (II, Smith #8, p. 249). In the Heywood entry (I, Heywood, #18), Fleay notes cryptically, "Query Archigallus," with a referral to Nobody and Somebody. He then explains (in an entry for Nobody and Somebody) that alterations of the designation "Britain" to "England" may conceal the already lost "Albere Galles": "the "England" version [of Nobody and Somebody] may have been the 1602 play of Albert Galles, by Heywood and Smith.... Henslow might easily mistake some such name as Archigall's three sons for Albert Galles (I, Heywood, #31, p. 294).

Greg II understands that Fleay has subsumed "Albere Galles" into Nobody and Somebody, explaining (as Fleay implies) that "Henslowe's title [becomes] a corruption of Archigallo, the King of Britain in the chronicle part of the play" (p.230, #264). Greg finds Fleay's guesswork that the lost play's title is a corruption of King Archigallo's name "reasonable," though he rejects Fleay's link of other characters from Nobody and Somebody with Archigallo's sons because Archigallo "had three brothers [but] no sons at all."

Wiggins, #1342 also considers Henslowe's rendering of the playtitle a corruption, calling it "Alba Regalis."

Works Cited

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson; Last updated by Rlknutson on 16 February 2024 18:28:30