Manuscript of an untitled Jacobean tragi-comedy

Item date: 1610-1620
(this is an approximate date)
Grant Value: 500
Item cost: Not recorded
Item date acquired: 1980
Item institution: British Library
Town/City: London

Play is based loosely on the first part of Richard Johnsons short Arthurian novel Tom a Lincoln (1599) but with an added clown figure Rusticano. Ascribed by Sothebys to Thomas Heywood, the prolific dramatist, it may perhaps have been by a member of the Inns of Court, possibly one Morgan Evans, whose name appears in the colophon

Item Provenance
Discovered among the papers of Charles Is Secretary of State, Sir John Coke at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire; sold at Sothebys 1973 its export licence was denied. Bought by BL by private treaty from the Marquess of Lothian