In her Arden 3 edition of the play (2006), Juliet Dusinberre drew attention to a record of a payment to Shakespeare's company for what may well have been a significant performance of As You Like It (although not necessarily its first), before the Queen and the court at Richmond on Shrove Tuesday, 20 February 1599. Elizabeth herself liked to play a role in the deer-hunting – one of the play's prominent themes – which had taken place in Sheen Chase, the former name of Richmond Park, since medieval times. In addition, Dusinberre associated the poem's mention of a dial with the great dial in the outer court at Richmond and also noted the mention of a dial in the text (2.7.20). (Although the palace dial had been repainted and repaired in 1599, it was not a new construction.) The payment is contained within a warrant of 2 October 1599 for three performances on the feasts of St Stephen (26 December [1598]), New Year's Day [1599], and Shrove Tuesday [1599]. It was augmented because the Queen had offered the traditional extra remuneration for a performance at which she was present:

To Iohn Heminges and Thomas Pope servant[es] vnto the Lorde Chamberleyne vppon the Councells warraunt dated at the Courte at Nonesuche s[ecun]do die Octobris 1599 for three Enterludes or playes played before her Matie vppon St Stephens daye at nighte Newyeares daye at nighte and shrove-tuesdaye at nighte laste paste xxli [£20] and to them more by waye of her Mats rewarde xli In all amounting to xxxli

Dusinberre selects the last of these, Shrove Tuesday, because of Touchstone's pancake joke – pancakes filled with minced meat were, she claims, eaten on that day: ‘a certain knight … swore, by his honour, they were good pancakes, and swore, by his honour, the mustard was naught’ (1.2.50–1). However, although Shrove Tuesday was indeed ‘Pancake Day’, pancakes were eaten throughout the year, and there is no known reference in the period to this sort of savoury fritter.