A King and No King
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A King and No King is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and first published in 1619. It has traditionally been among the most highly praised and popular works in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators.
The play's title became almost proverbial by the middle of the 17th century, and was used repeatedly in the polemical literature of the mid-century political crisis to refer to the problem and predicament of King Charles I.
Unlike some of the problematic Beaumont and Fletcher works (see, for example, Love's Cure, or Thierry and Theodoret), there is little doubt about the date and authorship of A King and No King. The records of Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels during much of the 17th century, assert that the play was licensed in 1611 by Herbert's predecessor Sir George Buck. The drama was acted at Court by the King's Men on 26 December 1611, again in the following Christmas season, and again on 10 January 1637.
Publication
The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 7 August 1618.[1] The first edition was the 1619 quarto issued by the bookseller Thomas Walkley, who would publish Philaster a year later.[2] A second quarto appeared in 1625, also from Walkley; subsequent quarto editions followed in 1631 (from Richard Hawkins), 1639, 1655, 1661, and 1676 (all from William Leake), and 1693.[3] Like other previously printed Beaumont and Fletcher plays, A King and No King was omitted from the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, but was included in the second of 1679.
Authorship
The authorship of the play is not disputed. Cyrus Hoy, in his survey of authorship problems in the Fletcher canon, provided this breakdown of the two dramatists' respective shares:[4]
- Beaumont — Acts I, II, and III; Act IV, scene 4; Act V, 2 and 4;
- Fletcher — Act IV, scenes 1-3; Act V, 1 and 3
— a division that agrees with the conclusions of earlier researchers and commentators.[5]
After 1642
A staging of the popular drama was attempted during the closure of the theatres in the period of the English Civil War and the Interregnum (1642–1660); a production was mounted at the Salisbury Court Theatre on 6 October 1647, only to be broken up by the authorities. As the play's publication history shows, it was popular after the Restoration. Samuel Pepys saw the play repeatedly in the early Restoration period. Charles Hart was well known for his portrayal of the protagonist, Arbaces; the 1676 quarto included a cast list that mentions Hart and other prominent actors of the era, including Edward Kynaston and Michael Mohun. The play remained in the active repertory well into the 18th century.[6]
John Dryden was an admirer of A King and No King; his own play Love Triumphant (1694) bears a strong resemblance to the Beaumont/Fletcher work. Also influenced by the play was Mary Pix, when she wrote her The Double Distress (1701).[7]
