Lovers of Ludgate, The: Difference between revisions

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City play; love play.  Prison play?
City play; love play.  Prison play?


==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==


None known
None known (but see "For What It's Worth")





Revision as of 04:23, 30 January 2011

Anon. (Unknown)


Historical Records

Mentioned on John Warburton's List (c.1682-1759) of play-manuscripts allegedly destroyed when his cook used them as paper linings for pies. A section of that list reads:

The forc’d Lady A T. Phill. Massinger
The Governer T. Sr. Corñ. Fermido
The Lovers of Loodgate
The Flying Voice by Ra. Wood
The Mayden Holaday by Chris. Marlowe

Many of the plays on Warburton's list are mentioned in other sources, but this is not the case with The Lovers of Ludgate.


Theatrical Provenance

Unknown, but presumably pre-1642, like the rest of the datable plays on Warburton's list.


Probable Genre(s)

City play; love play. Prison play?


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

None known (but see "For What It's Worth")


References to the Play

None known


Critical Commentary

None hitherto. Undatable and untraceable, this play has remained (I believe) entirely undiscussed beyond a bare listing. Bentley, 5.1366 catalogues it, and puts it in the context of Warburton's list as a whole.

For transcription and discussion of the status of the document in which it is found, see this page: Warburton's List.

Ludgate is an area of the City of London, best known for its eponymous gate, controlling the Western entrance to the city. In Elizabethan times, the gatehouse also served as a prison. It is not clear whether it is the region, or the prison, that featured in this play. Walter Thornbury gives a short history of the area, conveniently available online.

For What It's Worth

Thornbury records one and only one love story associated with Ludgate. This is that of Stephen Forster, fishmonger and fifteenth-century Lord Mayor of London, and Dame Agnes. Early in his career, the story goes, Forster was imprisoned for debt in Ludgate, and, while at the begging grate, one day met a rich widow. Taken with him, she paid for his release; he worked hard and came good; married her; and ended up as Lord Mayor of London. On his death, Dame Agnes became a major benefactor to Ludgate, commemorated in a tablet in the chapel:

Devout souls that pass this way,
For Stephen Forster, late Lord Mayor, heartily pray,
And Dame Agnes, his spouse, to God consecrate,
That of pity this house made for Londoners in Lud Gate;
So that for lodging and water prisoners here nought pay,
As their keepers shall all answer at dreadful doomsday.

As Thornbury also notes, there was at least one dramatization of this story in the early modern period. William Rowley’s A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vexed (printed 1631) dramatizes it at length, including scenes set in the Ludgate prison itself. This story might be worth consideration as a candidate to have provided the plot of The Lovers of Ludgate.

Works Cited

Thornbury, Walter. 'Ludgate Hill', Old and New London: Volume 1 (1878), pp. 220-233. URL: [[1]] Date accessed: 30 January 2011.


Page created by Matthew Steggle, Sheffield Hallam University, 26 January 2011.