Capture of Stuhlweissenburg, The

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Probable Genre(s)

Foreign History

References to the Play

In 1602 Duke Philip Julius of Stettin-Pomerania visited England, and while in London, the nobleman attended plays. The duke's diary records that "on the 13th a play was acted showing how Stuhl-Weissenberg was gained by the Turks, and then won again by the Christians" (quoted from Steggle, p. 112).

For What It's Worth

Wiggins, #1342 labels Henslowe's rendering of the title a corruption on evidence that the play was a dramatization of the siege of the Hungarian city, "Alba Regalis," which was held by the Turks for many years. In addition to connecting Heywood's and Smith's play with an historical moment (and thus untangling Henslowe's mangled "Albere Galles"), Wiggins gathers payments for various properties (including costumes) which might have been acquired for this play; in that discussion he considers whether the Turk's head ("tvrckes head") purchased on 24 August 1602 might have been used in "Albere Galles/Alba Regalis," and if so whether it was "an elaborate costume headdress" more like "an enormous turban" or a "severed head," thus marking the Turkish warlord-prince's roles from ruler to one of the vanquished.

Steggle, reinforcing Wiggins' identification with results from a search of EEBO-TCP using the initial "alb" letters of Henslowe's entry, turns up "Alberegalis," which has 30 hits that collectively deliver "a version of the whole solution" (p. 104). A common variant of Alba Regalis, "Alberegalis" is Latin for the city known by the Hungarian name, Székesfehérvár, as well as the German name, Stuhlweissenberg; and the identification of the city persuades Steggle (as it had Wiggins) that the play dramatized the successful assault on the Turkish occupiers in 1601 by an army of Christians. Turning to narrative events in the lost play, Steggle describes details of two sieges, one in 1543 when the Turks captured the city and the other in 1601 when the Christians regained it. Using also closely-dated entries in the diary of properties purchased, Steggle finds evidence for Collier's assignment of the lances and silk flag to this play; he also assigns the Turk's head that Wiggins discusses at some length (#1342). He adds a payment to Richard Perkins, noting the player's career in 1602 as "one of the rising stars of London theatre" (p. 111). In addition, Steggle contextualizes "Albere Galles" among a contemporaneous cluster of siege plays including the lost "Siege of London" and "Siege of Dunkirk" as well as the extant A Larum for London, which was played by a competitor-company, the Chamberlain's men, and printed in 1602. He points out that it was also a "Turk" play, as were the Tamburlaine plays, Othello, and the lost "Scanderbeg" (pp. 113-4). Further considering repertorial significances, Steggle observes that Albere Galles was "intensely topical" (p. 116) in its offering of a "a pan-European cultural context" (p. 115).

Works Cited

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