8 November, 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: m^r p^d ... R at weschester ... xx^s 

In modern English: Master paid ... Received at West Chester ... 20 shillings

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

Today, the Admiral's Men staged 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.

Today's entry lacks a date. It is also the first of several entries to include an abbreviation of "Master paid". As Laurie Johnson explains in his book Shakespeare's Lost Playhouse, this probably refers to a license for operating the Rose that Henslowe had to pay every so often to a court official, the Master of the Revels.

Despite the missing date, it is clear that 9th November was the day on which the company decided to revive The Wise Man of West Chester after three weeks. It has returned slightly better box office than it did last time.

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 9 November was a Sunday in 1595 and the players did not perform. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on the 11th for a week in which we will meet a new play and say goodbye to two old ones. See you then!

Further reading on "m^r p^d"

• Laurie Johnson, Shakespeare's Lost Playhouse: Eleven Days at Newington Butts (Routledge, 2017), 179.

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!