6 July, 1596 - 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 6 of July 1596 ... R at sege of london ... xv^s 

In modern English: 6^th July, 1596 ... Received at Siege of London ... 15 shillings

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

Today, for the last time, 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.

This is the last recorded performance of The Siege of London in Henslowe's Diary. The play has been treated very strangely by the company. They premiered it a year and a half ago, and it initially received good box office and was performed weekly for a while. But, as its box office began to decline, the company began staging it at very long intervals, sometimes with many months between performances. It's a strange thing to do, because the actors would need some effort to refresh their memories of the play each time one of these rare performances came along. Sometimes it's hard to understand their logic. 

Farewell, Siege of London! But there will be more sieges; the Rose audience really likes siege plays. 

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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