Lady Jane Grey | |
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Written by | Nicholas Rowe |
Date premiered | 20 April 1715 [1] |
Place premiered | Drury Lane Theatre |
Original language | English |
Genre | Tragedy |
The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey, often shortened to Lady Jane Grey, is a 1715 tragedy by the British writer Nicholas Rowe. It portrays the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey, a pretender to the English throne following the death of Edward VI and her defeat and execution by Mary I in 1554. The title role was played by the prominent actress Anne Oldfield. [2] The cast also included John Mills as the Duke of Northumberland, Barton Booth as Lord Guilford Dudley and Lacy Ryan as the Earl of Sussex, Colley Cibber as Bishop Gardiner, James Quin as the Lieutenant of the Tower and Mary Porter as the Duchess of Suffolk.
Rowe was a staunch Whig and wrote the play in the wake of the Hanoverian Succession where George I had taken the throne ahead of his Catholic Jacobite rival James Stuart, who launched an unsuccessful rebellion later in 1715. Rowe dedicated the work to Caroline, Princess of Wales drawing comparisons between her and Lady Jane Grey as a rightful Protestant heir. [3] Shortly afterwards he was appointed Poet Laureate.
It was the final play written by Rowe. Although not his most successful play, it was revived on a number of occasions during the following century. The 1836 opera Giovanna Gray , with a libretto by Carlo Pepoli, was based on the play.
Elizabeth "Jane" Shore was one of the many mistresses of King Edward IV of England. She became the best known to history through being later accused of conspiracy by the future King Richard III, and compelled to do public penance. She was also a sometime mistress of other noblemen, including Edward's stepson, Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, and William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings but ended her life in bourgeois respectability.
Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford was a younger sister of Lady Jane Grey.
Lord Guildford Dudley was an English nobleman who was married to Lady Jane Grey. She occupied the English throne from 10 July until 19 July 1553, having been declared the heir of King Edward VI. Guildford Dudley had a humanist education and married Jane in a magnificent celebration about six weeks before the King's death. After Guildford's father, the Duke of Northumberland, had engineered Jane's accession, Jane and Guildford spent her brief rule residing in the Tower of London. They were still in the Tower when their regime collapsed and remained there in different quarters as prisoners. They were condemned to death for high treason in November 1553. Queen Mary I was inclined to spare their lives, but Thomas Wyatt's rebellion against Mary's plans to marry Philip of Spain led to the young couple's execution, a measure that was widely seen as unduly harsh.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1715.
Nicholas Rowe was an English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715. His plays and poems were well-received during his lifetime, with one of his translations described as one of the greatest productions in English poetry. He was also considered the first editor of the works of William Shakespeare.
Barton Booth was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.
Lady Mary Keyes was the youngest daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Frances Brandon, and through her mother had a claim on the crown of England.
The term she-tragedy, also known as pathetic tragedy refers to a vogue in the late 17th and early 18th centuries for tragic plays focused on the sufferings of a woman, sometimes innocent and virtuous but often a woman who had committed some sort of sexual sin. Prominent she-tragedies include Thomas Otway's The Orphan (1680), John Banks' Virtue Betrayed, or, Anna Bullen (1682), Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage (1694), Mary Pix's Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks and Nicholas Rowe's The Fair Penitent (1703) and Lady Jane Grey (1715). Rowe was the first to use the term "she-tragedy," in 1714.
Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, was an English noblewoman. She was the second child and eldest daughter of King Henry VIII's younger sister, Princess Mary, and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. She was the mother of Lady Jane Grey, de facto Queen of England and Ireland for nine days, as well as Lady Katherine Grey and Lady Mary Grey.
Lady Jane Grey, also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage and as the "Nine Days' Queen", was an English noblewoman who claimed the throne of England and Ireland from 10 to 19 July 1553.
Events from the 1550s in England. This decade marks the beginning of the Elizabethan era.
Lady Jane Grey, 16th-century claimant to the English throne, has left an abiding impression in English literature and romance. The limited amount of material from which to construct a source-based biography of her has not stopped authors of all ages filling the gaps with the fruits of their imagination.
Elizabeth Hartley (1750?–1824) was one of the most celebrated actors on the London stage in the 1700s. She was also notorious for the role she played in society scandals including "The Vauxhall Affray".
Giovanna Gray is a tragic opera in three acts composed by Nicola Vaccai. The libretto by Carlo Pepoli is based on the last days of the English noblewoman Lady Jane Grey who was executed for treason in 1554. The opera premiered on 23 February 1836 at La Scala, Milan, with Maria Malibran in the title role. It was a failure at its premiere, and the work never entered the repertoire. Malibran's performances in Giovanna Gray were the last time she appeared on the stage of La Scala.
The wedding of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha took place on 10 February 1840 at Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, in London.
Richmond Lodge was a historic property located near the River Thames in Richmond, London, in what is now known as Old Deer Park, lands belonging to the historic Richmond Palace. It was located close to the King's Observatory. It should not be confused with Pembroke Lodge or the White Lodge, both in Richmond Park, or a variety of other similarly named properties.
The Generous Conqueror is a 1701 tragedy by the English writer Bevil Higgons. It was published in January the following year, and is sometimes dated 1702 by this. Higgons was a well-known Jacobite who had been implicated in the 1696 Jacobite assassination plot against William III. In this play he effectively called for the peaceful succession of the pretender to the throne as James III.
George Pack was a British stage actor, singer and theatre manager of the eighteenth century. His first known performance on the London stage was as Westmoreland in Shakespeare's Henry IV at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and he remained with the company until it transferred to the Queens's Theatre in the Haymarket in 1705. He played in a mixture of comedies and tragedies, originating roles in plays by many of the leading dramatists of the era including Nicholas Rowe, Mary Pix, John Vanbrugh and Susanna Centlivre.
Tamerlane is a 1701 history play by the English writer Nicholas Rowe. A tragedy, it portrays the life of the Timur, the fourteenth century conqueror and founder of the Timurid Empire. Rowe, a staunch Whig, used the historical story as an allegory for the life of William III who resembles his portrayal of Tamerlane while his opponent the Ottoman leader Bayezid I was equivalent to William's longstanding opponent Louis XIV of France. An earlier version of the story Tamburlaine was written by Christopher Marlowe during the Elizabethan era with a very different focus in the context of the English Renaissance.
The Tragedy of Jane Shore is a 1714 historical tragedy by the British writer Nicholas Rowe. It was his penultimate play, and was inspired by the life of Jane Shore the mistress of Edward IV.