Henry I

Davenport, Robert and Shakespeare, William (attrib.) (1624)

Historical Records

Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert

1624, April 10. "For the king's company. The Historye of Henry the First, written by Damport [Davenport]; this 10 April, 1624,---1l. 0. 0."

(Adams 27-28)

Stationers' Register

09 September 1653 (S.R.II, 1.429 CLIO)

Master Mosely Entred also . . . the severall playes following . . xx^s vj^d

...

Henry the first, & Hen: the 2^d, by Shakespeare & Davenport.

Warburton's list

"Henry I" appears as the 2nd play noted by John Warburton (1682-1759) in his list of the unprinted MS plays allegedly in his collection until destroyed by Warburton’s cook (Greg, "The Bakings of Betsy" 231):

The Honr. Loves by Will. Rowley

Henry ye 1st. by Will. Shakespeare & Rob. Davenport

The fair favourit

Minervas Sacrifise Phill. Masenger

Duke Humphery Will. Shakespear

See the full list from British Library Lansdowne MS. 807 here.

Theatrical Provenance

King's?

Probable Genre(s)

History

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

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References to the Play

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Critical Commentary

Malone thought this might simply be a remodelling of Chettle, Dekker and Drayton's "Famous Wars of Henry I and the Prince of Wales" (1598). He mistakenly recorded its entry in the Stationers' Register "by some knavish bookseller" as taking place in 1660 (the date that "King Stephen", "Duke Humphrey", and "Iphis and Ianthe, or Marriage without a Man" were entered) (Malone 319).

Fleay (BCED 1.104) arrived at the same conclusion as Malone vis-a-vis the older "Famous Wars" play, in what Bentley describes as one of Fleay's "cherished associations of titles" (3.231).

Bentley was sceptical about the reliability of Warburton's list as evidence, but confident that Moseley "certainly had a manuscript, and he must have had some reason for assigning it as he did." He casts doubts over the attribution however, noting that "[t]here is no evidence that Davenport began to write early enough to have collaborated with Shakespeare, and if he had, it is difficult to imagine a reason why the company should have waited eight years after Shakespeare's death to get a licence" (3.230). Nor, he adds, is it likely that the play was originally by Shakespeare and later revised by Davenport --- Herbert's licensing fee is on par with his usual fee for an entirely new play (3.231).

In the context of Moseley's entries, Gary Taylor refers to "Henry I" and "Henry II" as if a single play: "The 1653 entry also attributes to Shakespeare The Merry Devil of Edmonton (as did Charles I), and to Shakespeare and Davenport the lost Henry the First and Henry the Second, which Davenport wrote or adapted in the 1620s..." (20, n43).

For What It's Worth

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Works Cited

Malone, Edmond. “Additions: Historical Account of the English Stage”. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators: Comprehending A Life of the Poet, and An Enlarged History of the Stage, by the Late Edmond Malone. With a new Glossarial Index. Vol.3: Prolegomena. London, 1821. 295-359. GoogleBooks

Taylor, Gary. "A History of The History of Cardenio". The Quest for Cardenio: Shakespeare, Fletcher, Cervantes, & the Lost Play. ed. David Carnegie and Gary Taylor. Oxford: OUP, 2012. 11-61.

Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 30 January 2015.