Devil of Dowgate, or Usury Put to Use

John Fletcher (1623).

Historical Records

The Office-Book of Sir Henry Herbert

New play, The Deuill of Dowgate, or Usury putt to use, by Fletcher, King’s Company, 17 Oct. 1623. 1 li.

(Bawcutt, Control and Censorship, 146)

Theatrical Provenance

For the King's Men

Probable Genres

City comedy; usurer comedy

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

See Critical Commentary.

Critical commentary

F. G. Fleay wrote:

The Devil of Dowgate, or Usury put to use, C, was licensed 1623, Oct. 17 (in place of an old play by Middleton), for the King's men. As Massinger was away, we must look for a play by Fletcher, Middleton, or Rowley. Such a play is Wit at several Weapons. Fletcher only writ in an "act or two" (see the Epilogue at a revival, when the name of the play, no doubt, was altered). The old title is alluded to i. 2, 'Father, you shall know that I put my portion to use." The scene, is in London, and the subject is of such a father and son as the old ballad title. The Devil of Dowgate and his Son, would lead us to expect. Fletcher's part is i. I ; ii. I ; iii. i ; iv. i, 2, 3 ; but it has been altered at the revival, of course after Fletcher's death... I find no notice of a Court performance under either of the above names, but as it is not likely that any play of Fletcher's should at this late date have been omitted from the Court list, I would suggest that The Buck is a Thief presented 1623, Dec. 28, was this play. Sir Ruinous Gentry, of course, would be the Buck. (218)

Almost none of this is tenable, but it introduces the major themes of speculation and scholarship around the play.

Firstly, the confusion with a Middleton play: Chalmers's printed extracts from Herbert simply concatenated the entry for The Devil of Dowgate with the end of the preceding entry for More Dissemblers Besides Women. This gave the impression that the latter was somehow a substitute for the former. More recent sources, including Bawcutt, observe that this is an error, and that they are two separate entries.

Secondly, authorship: Herbert’s record in fact assigns it firmly to Fletcher.

Thirdly, Fleay’s argument that the play survives as a palimpsest in Wit at Several Weapons has met with no favour, and is indeed rendered impossible by the modern consensus that that play is earlier than 1623. Elsewhere it has been suggested that the play survives in Fletcher and Shirley's The Night Walker, which is equally wishful thinking, and impossible to reconcile with that play's separate licensing record. Nor is there anything to substantiate Fleay’s claim that The Devil of Dowgate might also be the lost Buck is a Thief. (On all these claims, see Bentley, 3.328-9).

Dowgate is a ward of the city of London, on the north bank of the Thames, running downhill to the river. John Stow’s extensive description of the ward gives no clue to the “devil”. For a map see here; for Stow’s description, see here. Existing known references to the phrase "Devil of Dowgate" - including the lost 1596 ballad alluded to by Fleay - are collected by Cyrus Hoy in his commentary on Dekker's Satiromastix.

For What It's Worth

We can say something about the genre of this lost play. Insofar as it names a central London location in its title – Dowgate - it identifies itself as a city play, probably a city comedy. “Usury put to use” suggests a plot in which a usurer is himself exploited, and this seems in line with the usual fate of usurers in city comedies. (Presumably the usurer is metaphorically the eponymous "devil", but this is only a presumption).

Secondly, an EEBO-TCP search turns up a surprising new reference to the tradition of the Devil of Dowgate. It is from 1573, twenty years earlier than the earliest yet known. The controversialist John Bridges - now chiefly remembered as the victim of Martin Marprelate - is attacking Catholics:

howe spitefully they handle all Protestantes, that they maye once sette their spitefull spirituall fingers vppon, all the worlde doeth sée. And yet the silie Protestantes muste beare all the blame, it is not ynoughe for them to beare the iniuryes. This lesson ye learned of the Diuell of Dowgate, to bite and whine also, or rather ye doe as Esops Woolfe did, chalenge the poore Lambe for troubling his water, and to misuse him spitefully, but thys mercifull Woolfe, deuoured this spitefull Lambe.
(Bridges, The supremacie of Christian Princes, 87.)

Even with this extra example, the original story of the Devil of Dowgate still awaits elucidation. But the phrase is fifty years old by the time it comes to be used by Fletcher.

Works Cited

To be completed

Bowers, Fredson (ed.). Dekker, Thomas. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970. Print.

Bridges, John. The supremacie of Christian princes ouer all persons. London, 1573.

Fleay, F. G. A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642. London: Reeves and Turner, 1891. Print. Internet Archive

Hoy, Cyrus. Introductions, Notes, and commentaries to Texts in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Edited by Fredson Bowers. 4 vols. New York: Cambridge UP. 1980.

Page created and maintained by Matthew Steggle: last revised 20 January 2011.