Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/145



The drama now known as 1 Henry VI is first heard of as 'Harry the Sixth' on March 3, 1592. Upon that afternoon it was acted at the Rose Theatre by Lord Strange's Men (Shakespeare's company), who had begun their temporary occupancy of the Rose about a fortnight before (February 19). Philip Henslowe's diary notes that the play was new on March 3, and that the first performance brought the manager the unusually large sum of £3 16s. 8d. It was then repeated with gradually diminishing frequency and returns: the diary records fourteen (possibly fifteen) productions up to June 19, 1592. Harry the Sixth appears to have been, as Fleay calls it, the most popular play of its season. Clear evidence of its effect upon the audiences at this time is given in Thomas Nashe's Pierce Penniless, written in the summer of 1592 and licensed for the press on August 8. Nashe uses the play to illustrate his argument that the drama may exert a valuable moral influence. 'How would it haue ioyed braue Talbot (the terror of the French),' he writes, 'to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, he should triumphe againe on the Stage, and haue his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at seuerall times), who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding.' (McKerrow's ed. I. 212.)

There is no reason for doubting that the play referred to in both the documents of 1592 just cited is 1 Henry VI. There seems nothing, however, to