3 March, 1595 - The Siege of London

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 3 of marche 1594 ... R at the sege of london ... xxvj^s 

In modern English: 3^rd March, 1595 ... Received at The Siege of London ... 26 shillings

Thomas Neville's siege of London, from a
1391 French manuscript

Today is Shrove Monday, a day when it was traditional to eat eggs and bacon in advance of the fasting period of Lent. Their fatty meals consumed, the Admiral's Men staged The Siege of London, an enigmatic lost play that might have portrayed the attacks on London by Canute in 1016 or by Thomas Neville in 1471. You can read more about this play in the entry for 27 December, 1594.

The players have waited three weeks before performing The Siege of London after having previously been performing it weekly. The box office continues to decline, but slowly.

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)

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