Cutting Dick

Historical Records

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)

pd vnto Thomas hewode the 20 of septmber }

for the new a dicyons of cuttyngdicke some of } xx^s

(Henslowe-Digitisation Project, MSS 7, 116^r)

Theatrical Provenance

Heywood was writing both for the Admiral's men and Worcester's men in the fall of 1602. The additions to "Cutting Dick" were done for Worcester's men, who were currently at the Rose. Herbert Berry located Worcester's men at the Boar's Head playhouse "late in the summer or early in the autumn of 1601" (51). He called the company "a strong one formed by the union of the earl of Worcester's and the ear of Oxford's men" and suggested that the repertory contained "among other things, the melodramatic work of Heywood" (51). If news of the capture and execution of Cutting Dick prompted a playwright to dramatize his criminal career (see Carleton's letter to Chamberlain, below, for news of the capture), the script was probably under construction by the spring of 1602, some months before Worcester's men leased the Rose.

Probable Genre(s)

Harbage labeled "Cutting Dick" a "Topical play" (71); obviously, it was also a crime drama. Just how topical Cutting Dick was in 1602 is evident in a letter from Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain dated 29 December 1601. In that letter (calendared in State Papers, Domestic, document reference SP 12/283 f.140), Carlton tells Chamberlain that "Evans, known as Cutting Dick, a notable robber in Wiltshire, is taken, and like to be hanged" (CCLXXXIII, 136).

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The story of "Cutting Dick" must have relied to a large extent on the career of the criminal who carried that nickname, but sources identified to date only hint at his escapades.

References to the Play

There are no known references to the play, but a number of references to the criminal, Cutting Dick. In addition to Carleton's report to Chamberlain (above), an item in the Acts of the Privy Council for 16 November 1601 addresses "A band of notorious thieves" in regard to numerous robberies reported by a Mr. Bridges in a letter to Sir John Poines and William Chester. The council authorizes the pursuit of these criminals, one of whom is listed as "Cutting Dicke alias Richard Cooke or Dicke Cooke" (Vol. XVII, [254]. Document Ref.: PC 2/26 f.463). The apparent alias here ("Cooke") instead of Carleton's "Evans," invites consideration of any sobriquet with "Cutting" or with "Dick."

Other references to Cutting Dick are literary. One cluster, roughly contemporary with the play, includes a couple of allusions in later plays by Heywood:

William Kempe, Kemps nine daies wonder, 1600 (Dyce, 14)

On the eighth day of Kempe's nine-day dance from London to Norwich, the entertainer arrives at Rockland (from Thetford) and rests at an inn. Greeted enthusiastically by the host, Kempe resumes his journey toward Hingham, accompanied by the host, who tires after dancing through a couple of fields; ever good-humored, Kempe then recites a poem to celebrate the host's positive attitude despite a litany of worldly troubles.
" ... And now a man is but a pricke;

A boy, arm'd with a poating stick,

Will dare to challenge Cutting Dicke.

O 'tis a world the world to see!

But twill not mend for thee nor mee."
(sig. C2^v)

Samuel Rowlands, Humors Antique Faces, 1605

In the poem, "Proteus," Rowlands mocks a Protean fellow who belongs to upper society but prefers "the rascal sorte" (l. 8); when slumming, he affects "a right grand Captaine of the damned crewes" whose manner is "Mad, melancholy, drunke and variable" (ll. 14, 16). Some of that manner invites the allusion to a real rogue, Cutting Dick:

Hat without band like cutting Dicke he go'es,

Renowned for his new iuuented oaths.
(ll. 17-18, sig. D3^v)

George Wither, Abuses, Stript and Whipt. Or Satirical Essayes, 1613.

In the second of two books in this collection, in the satire entitled "Of Inconstancy," Wither describes the humor of the inconstant man in recreations, religion, politics, defense of country, etc. As the poem continues, Wither focuses on the aspiring gallant's boorish public behavior, including the following:
Amongst the Vulgar let them seeke for gaine

With Ward the Pirat on the boisterous Maine,

Or else well mounted keep themselues on land,

And bid our wealthy trauellers to stand,

Emptying their full cram'd bags; for that's a tricke

Which sootiness wan renoune to cutting Dicke
(sig. P)

Thomas Freeman, Rubbe and a Great Cast. Epigrams, 1614 (sold at the Tigers Head)

in Epigram 24, In Swaggerum, Freeman recalls the familiar archetype of the miles glorious, or cowardly braggart. Echoing Prince Hal's mocking of Hotspur, Freeman scoffs that he could praise "good sir Swagger" by recounting "How many thou hast killed in thy days," but he suspects that those supposed dead "are living yet" (ll. 11-12). Freeman's allusion to Cutting Dick is in a Falstaffian context:

If I shall term thee the Innes onely huckster,

The Taverns tyrant, like some cutting Dicke,

To call the Oastler rogue, beknaue the Tapster, ...

Thou wouldst haue bin reuenged, but for feare. ...
Swagger thou maist, and swear as thou art wont,

Thou wilt not fight, I am assured on't.

Thomas Heywood

The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, c. 1605

In Act 2, scene 1, Luce (in disguise) begins to introduce herself to the Wise Woman when they are interrupted by Haringfield and Young Chartley, who drunkenly hurls insults at the Wise Woman. When the men exit, Luce tries to calm her down, and the wise woman resumes her questioning of Luce. In that context, the Wise Woman refers to Chartley as a "Cutting Dick."
Wise Woman: "Well, what's thy name, boy?"

Luce: "I am even little better than a turn broach, for my name is Jack."

Wise Woman: "Honest Jack, if thou couldst but devise how I might cry quittance with this cutting Dick I will go near to adopt thee my son and heir."

The Fair Maid of the West, >1610

In Act 3, scene 1, "Roughman attempts to describe to Fawcett a large and intimidating man he has just seen in a nearby field:
Roughman: Had you but stayed the crossing of one field,/ You had beheld a Hector, the boldest Trojan/ That ever Roughman met with."

Faucett: "Pray, what was he?"

Roughman: "You talk of Little Davy, Cutting Dick,/ And divers such; but tush! This hath no fellow ..."

Critical Commentary

Bates, in a note on the "Cutting Dick" allusion in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, credits John Payne Collier with having first annotated the reference in terms of "bravos and exploits," which Bates connects with Verity's "Contemporary bravos of note" (268). She elaborates on the cant term, "cutter," as indicating a "swaggerer, a bully, or sharper" and the epithet "Cutting" as associated with "swaggering blade" (268). To illustrate the ubiquity of such language, she cites Thomas Nashe's reference to "Cutting Ball" in Have with you to Saffron-Walden (268-9). She notices also Heywood's reference to Cutting Dick in Wise Woman of Hogsdon, and sShe includes Kempe's reference in Nine Days Wonder and Wither's (269). Further, she mentions Heywood's additions for the lost play (269).

Clark has a lengthy note in which he lists the allusions in Kempe, Wither, and the two Heywood plays (see References to the Play, above) (29). He also includes the phrases from The London Prodigal (see For what It's Worth, below). In addition, he mentions several ballads, which seem a bit far afield: Desperate Dycke, S. R. 1568-9; Cuttinge George, and his hosts being a Jigge,S, R, 17 February 1595; and Roaring Dick of Dover, S. R. 24 May 1632 (printed in Pepys's Ballads, i.434. Clark rejects F. G. Fleay's identification of "Cutting Dick"with The Trial of Chivalry (337).

For What It's Worth

Possibly relevant to the ubiquity of "Cutting" and/or "Dicke" are the following:

Roughly Contemporary with Heywood's additions:

Clark includes the London Prodigal (Q1605) among the references to Cutting Dick, but the line is not so specific. In 2.2, a couple of ...

London Prodigal, ii.2

Much later than Heywood's additions:

Richard Hannam, d. 1656; an anonymous tract entitled "The speech and confession of Mr. Richard Hannam on Tuesday last in the rounds of Smithfield, being the 17. of this instant June immediately before his great and fatal leap from off the ladder together with a true and perfect description of his life and death; ..." 1650

The author, to convey the importance of Hannam as a criminal, opens the news of the execution by comparing Hannam to other notorious villains: "In the days of William the Conquerour, we read of one Simin Lupus, a notable Carver, so called by the Saxons, who in one half year, had purchased above 3000 ;;l;;. as the Canters term it; but not long after, lost both that, and life and all; for being sentenced at Chester to be hanged, he vowed that no man should never do it; and accordingly being upon the Ladder, he desperately leaped off: In like manner, Mr. Hannam, [the subject of this Discourse] far exceeding cutting Dick, bold Peacock, valiant Cheyny, and famous Hind, hath desperately acted the like Theatre; ... " (sig. A2-4 [sic]).

Montelion, 1661. Or the Prophetical Almanack, 1661. In this satirical almanac, the author, who bills himself as "Montelion, Knight of the Oracle, a well-wisher to the Mathematicks", creates festival days for various real and fanciful characters. Ovid is an example of the former; "Country Tom" and "Cambury Bess" illustrate the latter. He assigns selected days to notable criminals: "Hanam" (presumable Richard Hannam") is given 19 January; "Hinde" is given 17 January, and Cutting Dick is given 11 January (B1^{v</sup)>. In the original Montelion in 1660, Cutting Dick is not mentioned, and he disappears from a subsequent edition in 1662. According to Frank Palmeri, the almanac used "a wide range of parodic store to express jubilantly its royalist sympathies" (382)".}

(Palmeri, "History, Nation, and the Satiric Almanac," p. 382, "parodic feast days" day set aside for Cutting Dick, B1^v, B3^v)

F. B. , Gent.Vercingetorixa, 1663:

"... when Friend saw Youth as fully bent/ As Cutting Dick when's money's spent/ That stands at corner of Hyde Park..."

Poor Robin. 1667. An Almanack after a New Fashion.", 1667:

Cutting Dick is listed as one of the sinners; ? feast day of October 8th (Sig. B6r)

Philalethes Pasiphilus. Confidence Corrected, error detected, and truth defended ...". 1692 :

" ... it greatly reflects upon the Wisdom of any that shall venture to use it. For tho Hind, Hannam, Cutting Dick, and the Golden Farmer were all Villains; yet who doubts but ...."

/

Works Cited

Acts of the Privy Council of England: 1601-1604. 32 vols. Edited by J. R. Dasent. London: HSMO, 1890-1907.

Bates, Katherine Lee, ed.A Woman Killed With Kindness and The Fair Maid of the West by Thomas Heywood. Boston, New York, Chicago: D. C Heath & Co, 1931.

Berry, Herbert. The Boar's Head Playhouse. Illustrations by C. Walter Hodges. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1986.

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1601-1603. Edited by Mary Anne Everett Green. Vol. 6. London: HMSO, 1870.

Clark, Arthur Melville. Thomas Heywood, Playwright and Miscellanist. 1931. rpt. New York, Russell and Russell, 1958, 1967.

Freeman, Thomas, Rubbe and a Great Cast. 1614.

Kempe, William. Kemps Nine Daies Wonder. 1600.

Rowlands, Samuel. Humors Antique Faces, 1605.

Wither, George. Abuses, Stript and Whipt. 1613.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 21 March 2015.

pd vnto Thomas hewode the 20 of septmber	}
for the new a dicyons of cuttyngdicke some of	} xx^s