play it—where this examinate and his fellows were determined to have played some other play, holding that play of King Richard to be so old and so long out of use as that they should have small or no company at it. But at their request this examinate and his fellows were content to play it the Saturday, and had their forty shillings more than their ordinary for it, and so played it accordingly.
(C) Conversation between Queen Elizabeth and William Lambard, the antiquary, at Greenwich Palace, August 4, 1601, as reported by Lambard.
Queen. . . . I am Richard II. Know ye not that?
W. L. Such a wicked imagination was determined and attempted by a most unkind Gent. [Essex], the most adorned creature that ever your Majesty made.
Her Majesty. He that will forget God will also forget his benefactors. This tragedy was played forty times in open streets and houses.
Note. Though doubt has often been expressed, it is morally certain that it was Shakespeare’s Richard II which was acted by way of preparing people’s minds for the Essex insurrection.
VII. Richard III, 1602.
Scene from second part of The Return from Parnassus, produced at Cambridge, ca. Christmas, 1602. Burbage the actor is examining the qualifications of the student Philomusus, who wishes to go on the stage.
Burbage. I like your face and the proportion of your body for Richard the Third. I pray, Mrn Philomusus, let me see you act a little of it.
