12 November, 1595 - Tamburlaine

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 12 of novmbȝ 1595 ... R at j pte of tamberlen ... xviij^s 

In modern English: 12^th November, 1595 ... Received at First Part of Tamburlaine ... 18 shillings

Illustration of the historical Tamburlaine
from Richard Knolles' General History
of the Turks (1603).

Today, for the last time, the players performed the first part of Tamburlaine, Christopher Marlowe's spectacular epic about the bloodthirsty conqueror of Asia. You can read more about this play in the entry for 30th August.

The players have been staging Marlowe's classic only once every few months. This is a puzzling tactic for such a huge and complex play. And the rewards have been minimal for a long time; today's box office is deeply unimpressive. It may be no surprise, then, that this is the last recorded performance of Tamburlaine at the Rose; presumably the players decided that they no longer saw a purpose in remounting it.

There are records of Tamburlaine being performed later, in the seventeenth century, so this is not the end of the road for Marlowe's epic. And its influence will continue to be felt on English drama for a long time. But for the Admiral's Men at least, this is the day they big farewell to an old legend.

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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