Capture of Stuhlweissenburg, The
Heywood, Thomas, Smith, Wentworth (1602)
Historical Records
Theatrical Provenance
Probable Genre(s)
Foreign History
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
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).
Critical Commentary
Chambers, in a discussion of playhouses (ES II, p. 367), cites the diary of Duke Philip Julius of Stettin-Pomerania. He does himself not specify which theater was the location where the play described by the duke as "a comedy ... of the taking of Stuhl-Weissenberg, firstly by the Turks, and thereafter back again by the Christians" was performed, but in a note to his comment he cites Charles W. Wallace as having assumed "that the theatre visited on 13 Sept. was the Globe," to which Chambers then adds "but it might have been the Rose" (p. 367, n.1).
Knutson takes the implicit bias among theater historians about the most desirable playhouses in 1602 and assigns "Stuhlweissenburg" to the Chamberlain's men at the Globe: "The attribution is based on the conjecture that the foreign visitors, having been [to] the newest pubic playhouse in London in 1602 (the Fortune), would have attended performances at the second newest one, the Globe" (p. 204).
Wiggins does not have a separate entry for this play. He considers the title, "The Capture of Stuhlweissenburg," to be a formulation "later assigned" to Alba Regalis (#1342, q.v. LPD entry for "Albere Galles").
Steggle, using EEBO-TCP. also identifies the "Stuhlweissenberg" play as the "Albere Galles" performed by Worcester's men at the Rose (a.k.a. Alba Regalis; q.v. LPD entry for "Albere Galles"). He observes that Stuhlweissenberg is the German name for the city known in Hungarian as Székesfehérvár and in Latin as Alba Regalis.
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).