9 April, 1594 - King Leir

Here's what the Earl of Sussex's Men and the the Queen's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: R at kinge leare the 8 of aprell 1594 ... xxvj^s 

In modern English: Received at King Lear, 9^th April, 1594 ... 26 shillings

King Leir, illustrated in Raphael
Holinshed's Chronicles (1577)

Today, Sussex's Men and the Queen's Men revived King Leir, the anonymous play that inspired Shakespeare's later tragedy on the same subject. You can read more about this play in the entry for 6th April.

This is a surprisingly swift revival of King Leir, which the company had last performed only 3 days ago. It follows on the heels of their quick revival of The Jew of Malta yesterday, and makes me wonder whether the Queen's Men preferred shorter periods between performances of a play than their predecessors at the Rose had done.

Unfortunately, we will never be able to test this hypothesis, because the Rose playhouse is about to close again, for reasons unknown. Tune in tomorrow to find out more!

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?

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