Shakespeare of Stratford
51
| The Players | 1604 | The poets which made the plays
|
| By his Majesty’s Players | On St. Stephen’s Night [Dec. 26] in the Hall a play called Measure for Measure. | Shaxberd |
| ....... | ||
| By his Majesty’s Players | On Innocents’ Night [Dec. 28] the Play of Errors. | Shaxberd |
| ....... | ||
| By his Majesty’s Players | Between New Years Day and Twelfth Day [Jan. 6] a play of Love’s Labour’s Lost. | |
| ....... | ||
| By his Majesty’s Players | On the 7 of January was played the play of Henry the Fift[h]. | |
| ....... | ||
| By his Majesty’s Players | On Shrove Sunday a play of the Merchant of Venice. | Shaxberd |
| ....... | ||
| By his Majesty’s Players | On Shrove Tuesday a play called the Merchant of Venice, again commanded by the King’s Majesty. | Shaxberd |
Note. These notices, discovered by Peter Cunningham in 1842, were branded as ‘unquestionably a modern forgery’ by Halliwell-Phillipps, who however admits that the facts they record are otherwise confirmed and probably true. There is a strong probability at present in favor of the genuineness of the document. The strange spelling (e.g. in Shaxberd) is doubtless owing to the fact that the paper was written by a newly arrived Scot.
