26 May, 1595 - The Wise Man of West Chester

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 26 of maye 1595 ... R at weschester ... xxxj^s 

In modern English: 26^th May, 1595 ... Received at West Chester ... 31 shillings

A man, who might possibly be
wise, carved on the choir
stalls of Chester Cathedral

Today, the Admiral's Men returned to The Wise Man of West Chester, a lost play that appears to have been about a wizard in the English city of Chester; you can read more about it in the entry for 3 December, 1594.

The Wise Man of West Chester has, for several months, been the most popular play recorded in Henslowe's Diary so far. Today, however, we see its box office shrunken to the level of the merely average. It has been a long time coming, but perhaps the audience is finally beginning to weary of the Chester wizard.

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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