Bellendon

Anon. (1594)

Historical Records

Henslowe's Diary

F.9 (Greg I.17)	y^e8 of June 1594	ne	R[d] at bellendon …	xvij^s
	y^e 15 of June 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	iij^li iiij^s
	y^e 20 of June 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxx^s

F.9^v (Greg I.18)	y^e 2 of Julye 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxxxij^s vj^d
	y^e 6 of Julye 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxxiiij^s
	y^e 11 of Julye 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxvij^s
	y^e 20 of Julye 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxvij^s
	y^e25 of Julye 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xlviij^s
	y^e31 of Julye 1594		R[d] at bellendon <the> …	xxvij^s
	y^e10 of aguste 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxxiij^s
	y^e 19 of aguste 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxj^s

F. 10 (Greg I.19)	y^e29 of aguste 1594		R[d] at belendon …	xx^s vj^d
	y^e 11 of septmb[er] 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxiiij^svj^d
	y^e 23 of septmb[er] 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xvj^s vj^d
	y^e 13 of octob[er] 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xxij^s

F. 10^v(Greg I.20)	y^e 2 of novemb[er] 1594		R[d] at bellendon [t] …	vij^s
	y^e 15 of novmb[er] 1594		R[d] at bellendon …	xij^s

F. 21^v(Greg I.42)	y^e 11 of July 1596		R[d] at bellendon …	xxxv^s

F. 26 (Greg I.51)	31 [March 1597]		tt at belendon	01 — 15 — 00-04-00

F. 26^v (Greg I.52)	11 [11] [April 1597]		tt at belendon	01 — 00 — 00-14-00
	19 [April]		tt at belendon	00 — 09 — 02-00-00
	28 [April] m^r pd		tt at bellendon	0[o]1 — 00 — 00-13-00
	20 [May]		tt at bellendon	00 — 10 — 00-00-00

F. 27 (Greg I.53)	15 [June 1597]		tt at bellendon	00 — 13 — 00-00-00
	25		tt at bellendon	00 — 07 — 00-00-00

Henslowe Papers, under the heading “The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598” (Greg, Papers 117 [Apx. I.1]):

Item, ... Belendon stable ...

Theatrical Provenance

Bellendon appears in Henslowe's diary first on 8 June 1594 in the list of plays offered by the Admiral's Men and Chamberlain's Men playing at the playhouse in Newington. It next appears as the initial offering in the playlists beginning 15 June 1594, a date that marks the return of the Admiral's Men to the Rose playhouse (according to W. W. Greg and accepted universally by subsequent scholars). It receives 16 performances in that run. In 1596 it appears for a solo showing on 11 July. Beginning in March 1596/7 it appears into June for a run of 7 performances. There is a note in the margin at the initial March performance of the play, as follows: "begynyng in leant marche 1597." Marginal notes also mark the appropriate change of months in 1597 to April, May, and June. One of the properties for Bellendon, "Belendon stable," is listed in the 1598 inventory transcribed by Edmond Malone. These papers were loaned to Malone by the librarians at Dulwich College, and the originals were subsequently lost.

Probable Genre(s)

History (Harbage, using the title "Rufus I with the Life & Death of Belyn Dun")

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The Stationers' Register contains three entries relevant to the play, Bellendon. Insofar as is known, all texts associated with these entries are lost. The first entry is dated 17 May 1594 and reads as follows:

Tho. Gosson/ Entred for his copie vnder thand of m^r warden Cawood, a booke intituled The famous Cronicle of Henrye the first, with the life and death of Bellin Dun the firste thief that ever was hanged in England." (Greg, BEPD, !.11)

The second is dated 2 August 1594:

John Danter./ Entred alsoe for his Copie vnder th[e h]ands of bothe the wardens an other ballad entituled BELLIN DUNS Confession & / Ballet/ (Arber II.656 [not in Greg, BEPD])

The third is dated 24 November 1595:

Will[ia]m Blackwell Entred for his Copie vnder the wardens hand[es] a booke intituled. The true tragicall historie of kinge Rufus the first with the life and deathe of Belyn Dun the first thief that ever was hanged in England (Greg, BEPD, I.12)

References to the Play

Rollins traces the ballad entered by Danter on 2 August 1594 to a quatrain quoted in John Taylor's Works, sig. L 1 4 and connects it with the two S.R. entries of 17 May 1594 and 24 November 1595 (Item #180, pp. 23-4). The quatrain from Taylor's "An Arrant Thief" is as follows:

And England still hath bin a fruitful Land

Of valiant Thieues, that durst thre men stand.

One Bellin Dun, a famous thiefe suruiu'd,

From whom the c[r]owne of Dunstable's deriu'd.

(Outlawsandhighwaymen.com)

Critical Commentary

Greg identifies F. G. Fleay as having made the connection between the Admiral's Men's play and the entry in the Stationers' Register on 24 November 1595. Greg refers to the S.R. entry on 17 May 1594 as "probably … a chap-book" and notes the name change of the king from Henry I to Rufus (II.164. Item #42). In the "Lost Plays" section of BEPD Greg, repeating these observations on the stationers' entries, points out that the two plays with Henry I in the title in the diary are "too late for identification" with Bellendon (i.e., "The Life and Death of Henry the First" [q.v.] and "The Famous Wars of Henry the First and the Prince of Wales" [q.v.]); he also points out that the "Henry I" ascribed to Shakespeare and Davenport in 1653 is later still (I, Item #14, pp. 966-7).

Gurr identifies the play with the Gosson entry of 17 May 1594 (Apx I.203) and the Blackwell entry of 24 November 1595 (Apx I.204n). Discussing the Admiral's Men's plays generally, he makes two points about Bellendon: (1) he calls the play-character "the clown Belin Dun" (p. 50), and (2) he claims that the play was "never revived" after its disappearance in 1597 from the lists in the diary (p. 36).

For What It's Worth

In Henslowe's Diary for 30 October 1594, there is an entry for "bullen" and receipts of xv^s (F 10^v, Greg I.20). There is no repeat of the entry, and it is possibly yet another performance of Bellendon.

Holinshed, in the 1587 edition, gives Simon Dunelmensis as the authority on the introduction of hanging in the reign of Henry I (RLK: I have not been able to trace this source).

The ballad quoted by John Taylor raises a question about the entry in Henslowe's inventory. Is it "Belendon stable, as Malone transcribed it (a phrasing that suggests horse thieving), or could the original have been "Belendons table," which is more evocative of the name of the town, Dunstable?

Keywords

Holinshed, Henry I, King Rufus, thieves, hanging, Dunstable

Works Cited

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

Rollins, Hyder R. An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557-1709). Hotboro, PA: Tradition Press, 1967, Item #180, pp. 23-4.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little RockUniversity of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 26 October 2009.