23 March 1592 - Harry of Cornwall

Here's what Lord Strange's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: R at harey of cornwell the 23 of marche 1591 ... xiij^s vj^d
  

In modern English: Received at Harry of Cornwall, 23^rd March, 1592 ... 13 shillings and sixpence

Gustav Doré's 1875 illustration
of the murder of Henry

Today, Lord Strange's Men returned to a play that they had not performed for nearly a month, Harry of Cornwall. This lost play was about the revenge of the De Montfort brothers upon the eponymous Henry; you can read more about it in the entry for 25th February.

The performance was not impressive at the box office, receiving less than half what it did on its previous outing. This was only the latest of several disappointing returns in the past couple of weeks from plays that might have seemed reliable stalwarts of the repertory. I wonder if Henslowe was getting nervous? And I wonder what caused this slump in audiences? Was the fact that this was Holy Week causing a decline in audiences? Were audiences growing bored with the plays on offer? Or was a period of bad weather making the open-air Rose unappealing?

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because Henslowe records no performance on the 24th March, which was Good Friday. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on 25th March with a performance of an old favourite!

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

Did I make a mistake? Do you have a question? Have you anything to add? Please post a comment below!