Huff, Suff, and Ruff (1560, Wiggins no. 336). Performed at Whitehall during the Christmas revels 1560–1. Lost play, proposed here to be a play of Ireland based on items in the Revels Office accounts for this year.Google Scholar

The Pedlar’s Prophecy (1561, Wiggins no. 344). Extant play with clear resonances of John Heywood’s The Four PP in the collection of John Dudley. Final scene address to the Queen and to the performers’ ‘Lord and maister’ suggests court performance at this time, making Dudley’s Players the best candidate.Google Scholar

Romeus and Juliet (1561, Wiggins no. 343). The dramatic source for Arthur Brooke’s poem, Romeus and Juliet (1562). Lost play but well-known storyline based on ‘Giuletta et Romeo’ in the second volume of Matteo Bandello’s Novelle (1554). Attribution to Dudley’s Players based here on Brooke’s reference to the ‘noble crest’ of Robert Dudley in the address to the reader.Google Scholar

Gammer Gurton’s Needle (c. 1553, Wiggins no. 253). Extant play written earlier, believed to be the Diccon of Bedlam registered in 1562–3 to Thomas Colwell. Possibly acquired by Dudley’s Players during visits to Cambridge in the two years prior. Attribution is loosely based on thematic overlap with other titles in this list and the reference in the Prologue to ‘Tom our clarke’.Google Scholar

The Trial of Treasure (c. 1563, Wiggins no. 446). Extant play normally dated to 1567, but possibly much earlier. Attributed by some to William Wager. Strong connections to Enough is as Good as a Feast suggest the same playwright or high level of influence of one on the other. Suspected specialisation of John Perkin in the many Vice figures in Trial and the Wager plays.Google Scholar

The Cruel Debtor (before 1566, Wiggins no. 421). Interlude attributed to William Wager, of which four leaves survive. Attribution based here on assignment of Wager’s plays to Leicester’s Men by Paul Whitfield White.Google Scholar

The Story of Samson (1567, Wiggins no. 449). Identified in John Brayne’s complaint at the King’s Bench as the play due to be performed at the Red Lion upon construction by 8 July 1567. Lost play but biblical storyline is evident.Google Scholar

Enough is as Good as a Feast (1568, Wiggins no. 468). Extant proverbial play by William Wager with allegorical figures. Attribution based on assignment of Wager’s plays to Leicester’s Men.Google Scholar

The Longer Thou Livest, the More Fool Thou Art (1569, Wiggins no. 477). Extant proverbial play by William Wager with allegorical figures. Attribution based on assignment of Wager’s plays to Leicester’s Men.Google Scholar

’Tis Good Sleeping in a Whole Skin (c. 1570, Wiggins no. 485). Lost play attributed to Wager and assigned to the company here on this basis. Proverbial themes are apparent from the title alone, with likely requirement for swordplay. Possibly among the unnamed plays performed by Leicester’s Men at court after Christmas 1572.Google Scholar

The Cradle of Security (c. 1572, Wiggins no. 532). Lost play known from account by Richard Willis in Gloucestershire. Attribution based on Willis’s description suggesting overlap with apparel and properties prepared for unnamed Leicester’s Men play by the Revels Office at Christmas, 1572.Google Scholar

The Play of Fortune (1573, Wiggins no. 537). Known only from Revels Office accounts for 1572–3 and not linked to any other company so assigned to Leicester’s Men only by process of elimination. Could be the play for which ‘a wilderness’ and a vizard for ‘an apes face’ were prepared, suggesting a play requiring a performer skilled in mime or mimicry.Google Scholar

New Custom (c. 1573, Wiggins no. 544). Extant play with obvious links to the lost play Old Custom (Wiggins no. 155), in the John Dudley collection, based on the older play’s surviving list of characters. Cast size based on doubling chart matches the company personnel following departure of Thomas Clarke.Google Scholar

Predor and Lucia (1573, Wiggins no. 547). Performed at court on 26 December 1573. Lost play, with the name and items in the Revels Office accounts suggesting a story based on The Golden Ass (1566), William Adlington’s translation of Metamorphoses by Lucius Apuleius.Google Scholar

Mamillia (1573, Wiggins no. 550). Performed at court on 28 December 1573. Lost play but the name and stage properties prepared by the Revels Office indicate storyline linked to one of the founding families of Tusculum, the Mamilia gens.Google Scholar

Philemon and Philecia (1574, Wiggins no. 558). Performed at court on 21 or 22 February 1574. Lost play associated here with the story of lovers Felis and Felismena from Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana (1559), which includes the sage Felicia whose potions are central to the plot.Google Scholar

Panecia (1574, Wiggins no. 567). Performed at court 26 December 1574. Lost play, but the elaborate ‘rock’ device prepared for the Revels Office suggests the story is based on Matteo Bandello’s ‘Timbreo and Finecia’, in which the Finecia character fakes her own death.Google Scholar

Plaudina (1575). Proposed as the unnamed play performed at court on 1 January 1575, based on properties indicating a story requiring a chimney, as can be found in ‘Cornelio and Plaudina’ from Geoffrey Fenton’s translation of selections from Bandello (1567).Google Scholar

Captain Mario (c. 1576, Wiggins no. 599). Lost play by Stephen Gosson, assigned here to Leicester’s Men, tentatively, on that basis alone, given the more confident claim for Catiline’s Conspiracies. Gosson’s brief description suggests Bandello’s comical story of Mario Organiero as a source.Google Scholar

The History of the Collier (1576, Wiggins no. 602). Performed at court on 30 December 1576. Possibly revived the original Collier character from Old Custom (not used in New Custom). Lost play but apparel and properties in the Revels Office accounts used here to propose a storyline based on ‘Alerane and Adelasia’ from William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566).Google Scholar

Myngs (1577, Wiggins no. 611 as Mingo). Performed by Leicester’s Men in the Guildhall in Bristol between 20 and 26 October 1577. The title ‘Myngs’ is more accurate but most follow John Latimer’s transcription based on E. K. Chambers preferring this term as a potential reference to song about a French drunkard. Here the term ‘myngs’ is taken to refer to the verb ‘to ming’, for a warning, making this yet another proverbial play in the company’s repertory.Google Scholar

Praise at Parting (c. 1577, Wiggins no. 612). Lost play by Stephen Gosson, the proverbial story and assignment of the following title to Leicester’s Men suggesting this was in their repertory as well.Google Scholar

Catiline’s Conspiracies (c. 1578, Wiggins no. 632). Lost play by Stephen Gosson, assigned to Leicester’s Men on the basis that Gosson links the play to the Theatre before 1579. The story is of the Catiline conspiracy to overthrow the Roman consulate in 63 BC and likely includes Cicero’s exposure of the conspiracy and lobbying for Catiline’s execution without trial.Google Scholar

The Blacksmith’s Daughter (c. 1578, Wiggins no. 647). Lost play assigned to Leicester’s Men with Gosson linking it to the Theatre alongside the previous title. May be the first play to negatively stereotype Turkish people on the English Tudor stage.Google Scholar

A Greek Maid (1578, Wiggins no. 655). Performed at court on 4 January 1579, and before in London. Lost play but identified as a pastoral in Revels Office accounts, making prior assumptions that the play involves Hiren the Greek or Timoclea of Thebes unlikely. A fisherman’s coat means the story is more likely based on a Greek pastoral featuring a fisherman and a siren or a fisher-maid who loses her life at the sea’s edge. Might have recycled the ‘rock’ stage device as a result.Google Scholar

Short and Sweet (c. 1579). Mentioned by Thomas Lodge as ‘a peece surely worthy prayse, the practise of a good scholler’ compared to Gosson’s Catiline’s Conspiracies (q.v.), suggesting Catiline content. Linked to Leicester’s Men on the basis of the attribution to Wilson. See also the Roman court play, 1580.Google Scholar

An unnamed Roman play (1580). Revels accounts omit the title of the play Leicester’s Men performed at court on 6 January 1580, but comparison of apparel and properties lists for other titles this season indicate a play with both a provincial and a city setting in Italy. John Bentley’s potential membership at this time adds scope for this to have been a story featuring a tragic hero. Could this have been Robert Wilson’s Short and Sweet, supposed by some to be a second play on the Catiline conspiracy?Google Scholar

Delight (1580, Wiggins no. 691). Comedy performed at court on 26 December 1580. Lost play but the ‘one cittie, one battlement’ listed in the Revels Office accounts taken to suggest George Whetstone’s ‘Castle of Delight’ from The Rock of Regard (1576). Might also have recycled the old ‘rock’ device as a result.Google Scholar

Another unnamed Roman play (1581). Revels accounts omit the title of the play Leicester’s Men performed at court on 7 February 1581, but use of the same city staging suggests another play based on Roman material.Google Scholar

The Three Ladies of London (1581, Wiggins no. 700). Play by Robert Wilson while still a member of Leicester’s Men, possibly lampoons the departed James Burbage in the Christian-turned-Turk scene, and records two apprentices as potential future sharers in the Wily Will (William Knell) and Tom the Beggar (Thomas Pope) scene.Google Scholar

Telomo (1583, Wiggins no. 736). Performed at court on 10 February 1583. Lost play, but I adopt here the explanation by Domenico Lovascio that the most likely source would be the tale of Telamon and Castibula in Brian Melbancke’s Philotimus (1583). Both this play and Delight would therefore also structure preliminary action around the plot device of the ‘complaint’.Google Scholar

The Forces of Hercules (1586). A performance was recorded during Leicester’s European campaign on 23 April 1586, associated with ‘dauncing, vaulting, and tumbling’, but was most likely not a play, as such.Google Scholar

Rowland (c. 1586–7; Wiggins no. 837). Stage jig written by William Kempe, proposed here as Kempe’s solution to the need for plays with a heavily diminished company as the bulk of the company were stationed in Denmark and Saxony, 1586–7. There being a German version of Rowland, it is proposed here that Kempe probably wrote this jig while stationed in Denmark in 1586, and then his colleagues took a copy with them to Saxony.Google Scholar