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 IS THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES A REVISION?
An article by ProfessorC. E. Andrews in Modern Language
NotesofJune,1913,1bringsup forrenewedconsiderationthe question
ofthe authorship,and incidentallythe date, ofHeywoodand Brome's
play, The Late Lancashire Witches. In A Historyof Witchcraft in
England from1558 to 17182 ProfessorWallace Notesteinhas taken
issue with historiansof the drama as to the historyof this play.
It is wellknownthat it was put upon the stage in 1634 to take advan-
tage of the excitementcaused in London by the bringingto the city
of certain women fromLancashire who had been tried for witch-
craftin 1633,and thata considerableportionoftheplay is based upon
the depositionsof witnessesand defendantsin the case. In chapter
vii of his scholarlyand extremelyinterestingbook Notesteingives
the historyof the affair. He had, in the precedingchapter,givenan
account of another Lancashire witchcraftdelusion taking place in
1612, as a result of which eleven persons had been condemnedto
death. Ofthistrialwe possessa contemporary account,The Wonder-
fullDiscoverieofWitchesin theCountieofLancaster,by Thomas Potts.3
The later disturbancewas directlyconnectedwith the earlier,both
occurringin the Forest of Pendle. Early in 1633 chargesof witch-
craftwere broughtagainst a group of womenwho weretriedat the
Lancasterassizes,the principalwitnessagainstthembeingan eleven-
year-old boy, Edmund Robinson. Of the accused a large number
were found guilty. The judges apparentlysuspecteda miscarriage
of justice, for they reportedthe case to the Privy Council. Dr.
Bridgman,Bishop ofChester,was deputedto investigatethe case, and
as a resultof his workfourof the womenwere,in June,1634, sent
up to London for examinationby the king's surgeonsand a com-
mittee of midwives. The boy Edmund Robinson and his father
were likewisesummonedto London, and presentlyconfessedthat
1 Reprinted in Andrews, "Richard Brome: A Study of His Life and
Works," Yale
Studies in English, XLVI (1913), 48-53.
2Prize Essay of the American Historical Association, 1909. Published
by the
Association, Washington, 1911.
3 Ed. by James Crossley in ChethamSoc. Publ., VI
(1845).
77] 253 [MODERN PHILOLOGY, September,
1915
78 ROBERT GRANT MARTIN

the witchcraftchargewas an imposturepure and simple. Notestein

goes on to say:
Beforefinaljudgmenthad beengivenon theLancashire womenThomas
Heywoodand RichardBrome,well-known dramatists,had writtena play
on thesubjectwhichwas at oncepublished and "acted at theGlobeon the
BanksidebyHis Majesty'sActors." By someithasbeensupposedthatthis
playwas an olderplayfounded ontheLancashire of1612andwarmed
affair
overin 1634; but themainincidents and thecharacters oftheplayare so
fullycopiedfrom the of
depositions theyoung Robinson and fromthecharges
preferredagainstMarySpencer,FrancesDickonson, and MargaretJohnson
thata laymanwouldat oncepronounce it a play written to order
entirely
fromthe affairof 1634.1
For the theorythat the presentplay is a reworkingby Brome,
or by Heywood and Brome, of an earlierplay by Heywood, Fleay
is responsible. His opinion may be summarizedas follows. The
storyofMrs. Generous,I, i; II, ii, v; III, ii; IV, ii, iv, v; V, ii, iii,iv,
v (part), is Heywood's, "considerably accommodatedby Brome,"
and "is founded on The Witchesof Lancasterby T. Potts, 1613."
Brome contributesthe Seely story,I, ii; III, i, iii; IV, iii; V, i, v
(part). The witchscenes,II, i, iiia, iv; IV, i, are Heywood's,with
alterationsby Brome. In brief,then, this is an old play of Hey-
wood's, fromwhich a very considerableportion was excised and
replaced by Brome's storyof the troublesof the Seely family,while
the restwas subjectedto revisionby Brome.
This opinionis echoed by Ward in his English DramaticLitera-
ture2and in his chapter on Heywood in the CambridgeHistoryof
EnglishLiterature, wherehe says:
The Late LancashireWitches was printedin 1634as the jointworkof
ThomasHeywoodandRichardBrome. Butthestoryoftheplaywasbased,
in part,uponan account,publishedin 1613,of the doingsof certainLan-
cashirewomen, ofwhomtwelvehadsuffered deathas witches intheprevious
year; and it is possiblethatHeywoodwastheauthorofa playmuchearlier
thanthatput uponthestagein 1634.3

Schellingdoes not mentionthe theoryof an older play, findsthe

sourcein "the notorioustrialsforwitchcraft of 1633," adds that "the
composition of the play must have so
followed close on the eventsthat
its influencein forestallingthe judgmentof the courtswhich tried
1Pp. 158-59. 2 Ed. of 1899, II, 575. SVI, 118.
254
 Is "THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES " A REVISION? 79

theseunfortunate creaturescan scarcelybe consideredas negligible,"'

and thenmisdatesthe play 1633. Andrewsbringsforwardadditional
evidencefortherevisiontheory,but takes fromBromea largeportion
of the play whichhas heretofore been creditedto him. That Note-
stein is right in his assumptionthat The Late Lancashire Witches
was an entirelynew play, the product of the joint authorship,of
Heywood and Brome,writtenin 1634,it is the purposeof this paper
to show.
Deferringfor the presentany discussion of authorship,let us
considerthe question of source. Is thereany use of materialolder
than 1633 whichwouldgive groundforassumingthat we have a 1634
revision of an older play? The account of the play in the Bio-
graphical Chronicleof the English Drama2 presents some sound
reasoningby Fleay, but is marredby an unusualnumberof Fleavian
errors, inconsistencies,and contradictions. Fleay, followed by
Ward, asserts that the story of Mrs. Generous is founded upon
Potts's account of the 1612 affair. So farfrombeingaccurateis this
statementthat there can be foundbut two points of similaritybe-
tweenthe play and Potts's narrative. (a) In each case a woman of
good birthand social standingis foundguiltyof witchcraft;other-
wise Mrs. Generous has no points of resemblanceto unfortunate
Alice Nutter. (b) In IV, ii, afterMrs. Generoushas confessedthat
she has made a contractwiththe devil,occurtheselines:
Gen. Resolveme,howfarredoththatcontract ?
stretch
Mrs. Whatinterest in thisSoule,myselfecoo'dclaime
I freelygavehim,buthispartthatmadeit
notbeingmineto give.
I stillreserve,
Gen. O cunning Divell,foolishwomanknow
Wherehe can claymebuttheleastlittlepart,
He willusurpethewhole;th'arta lostwoman.3
In the examinationof JamesDevice, one of the accused in the trial
of 1612, he deposed that thereappeared to him
a thinglike a browneDogge,who asked thisExaminateto giue himhis
Soule,and he shouldbe reuenged ofanywhomhee would: whereunto this
Examinateanswered, thathisSoulewas nothisto giue,butwashisSauiour
IesusChrist's, butas muchas wasinhimthisExaminateto giue,hewascon-
tentedhe shouldhaueit.4
I Elizabethan Drama, I, 363. 3 L. L. W., p. 227.
2 I, 301-3. SCrossley, op. cit., sig. H3 verso.
255
80 ROBERT GRANT MARTIN

Again in his confession:

thatthesaidSpiritdidappearevntohimaftersundrietimes,in thelikenesse
ofa Dogge,and at euerytimemostearnestly perswadedhimto giuehimhis
Souleabsolutely:whoanswered as before,
thathe wouldgiuehimhisowne
partand no further.And hee saith,thatat the last timethat the said
Spiritwas withhim,whichwas theTuesdaynextbeforehis apprehension;
whenas heecouldnotpreuailewithhimto hauehisSouleabsolutely granted
vntohim,as aforesaid;the said Spiritdepartedfromhim,thengiuinga
mostfeareful crieandyell,etc.'
The verbal likenessis not so close as to be striking,and the parallel
loses most of its forcewhen we rememberthat the beliefvoiced by
JamesDevice was commonat the time,and may be foundin various
contemporarytreatiseson witchcraft.2For the delusion that the
play is "founded on" Potts, Crossley,the editorof Potts's narrative,
may be inadvertentlyresponsible. In his notes he says: "Alice
Nutter was doubtless the originalof the story of which Heywood
availed himself. . . . which is frequentlynoticed by the writers
of the 17th century-that the wifeof a Lancashire gentlemanhad
been detected in practisingwitchcraftand unlawfulacts, and con-
demned and executed."3 Now note that Crossley does not state
that Heywood used Potts, but only a storyfrequentlyreferredto,
one version of which may be found in Potts's account. The plain
fact is, of course,that so much of the play as can be traced to any
recognizablesourceis notbased uponPotts's narrativeat all, but upon
the depositions,etc., quoted by Crossleyin his introduction. The
charactersof the play who were taken fromreal lifeare the witches
Moll Spencer,Mawd (Hargrave),Meg or Peg (Johnson),Gill (Dicki-
son), and the boy, evidentlythe young rascal Edmund Robinson,
who caused all the trouble. The incidentsborrowedare those ofthe
boyand the greyhounds(II, iii,iv), theboy's ridethroughtheair with
Goody Dickison (II, iv), the milkpail whichobeys Moll's summons4
1 Crossley, op. cit., sig. K.
2 E.g., Reginald Scot, Discovery of Witchcraft,
Book III, chap. x.
S Op. cit., pp. 35-36.
4 This incident does not appear in the depositions quoted by Crossley. Its origin
may be found in the report of the examination of Mary Spencer by Dr. Bridgman, as
given in the Calendar of State Papers (Dom. Ser., 1634-35, June 15, 1634): "Cunliffe
accused her [Mary Spencer] to call a collock, or peal [pail], which came running to her of
its own accord. . . . . When she was a young girl and went to the well for water, she
used to tumble or trundle the collock, or peal, down the hill, and she would run along
afterit to overtake it, and did overhye it sometimes, and then might call it to come to her,
but utterly denies that she could ever make it come to her by any witchcraft."
256
 Is "THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES " A REVISION? 81

(II, vi), the witches'feast (IV, i), the boy's story of his fightwith
a devil (V, i), Peg's confession(V, v). In these incidents the
authors,as has been noted by all critics,kept very close to the
termsof the depositions.
Thereis, then,nothingin thesourcematerialwhichwouldsuggest
a date earlierthan 1633. FleayI broughtforwardas a bitofexternal
evidence confirming the existenceof an early play a referencein
Field's A WomanIs a Weathercock, 1612,to Lawrenceof Lancashire.2
Now Lawrence,accordingto Fleay's own theory,is one of Brome's
characters,appears onlyin thosescenesoftheplay ascribedto Brome,
and must thereforebelongto the 1634revision;how,then,can Field
have been referring to a characterwho made his firstentranceupon
the stage twenty-twoyears afterField's play was written? As a
matterof fact,the name seemsto have been proverbiallyapplied to
a man of vigorousphysique,"Lusty Lawrence" beingthe morecom-
mon variant.' It may be found in Beaumont and Fletcher's The
Captain (IV, iii):
LustyLawrence,
See whata gentlewoman youhavesaluted;
and its originis thus explained by Dyce: "This expressionoccurs
again in Woman'sPrize, I, iii, and is found in otherearly dramas.
It is explained by the followingpassage of a rare tract: 'This late
LustyLawrence,that Lancashire Lad, who had 17 bastards in one
year, if we believe his Ballad, &c.' A BrownDozen of Drunkards,
&c, 1648, sig. C."4 Thus the use of the name by Field in 1612,
insteadofglancingat an old play ofHeywood's,looks the otherway:
to the probabilitythat Brome chosethe name ofa ratherwell-known
local heroin orderto give morepointto the vulgarsituationofwhich
Parnell complainsso bitterly.
The play was entered in the Stationer's Register October 28,
1634, and was broughtto its presentformin the summerof that
I Biog. Chron., I, 185. I
Hazlitt, Dodsley, XI, 85.
O L.L. W., p. 231, and Hazlitt, English Proverbs.
Cf.
4 Dyce's Beaumont and Fletcher, III, 295. Besides being used in the fourplays men-
tioned-L. L. W., A Woman Is a Weathercock,The Captain, Woman's Prize-the expression
occurs in the fifthsatire of Marston's Pygmalion and Satires (Bullen's ed., III, 289), and
Bullen in a footnote refers to a ballad on the subject; this ballad, according to Hazlitt
(op. cit.), was licensed in 1594. I have run across the phrase in Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy, but am unable to supply the exact reference.
257
82 ROBERT GRANT MARTIN

year. In the prologuethereis a reference

to the arrivalforexamina-
tion in London of the womenchargedwith witchcraft:
The Projectuntomanyherewellknowne;
ThoseWitchesthefatlaylorbrought to Towne.
From the Calendarof StatePapers' we learn that theywere brought
to townsome timebetweenJune15, whenthe Bishop of Chestersent
on theresultsofhis examinationofMargaretJohnson,Mary Spencer,
and Frances Dickonson,and June29, whenthe PrivyCouncilpassed
an order for midwivesto "inspect and search the bodies of those
women lately broughtup by the Sheriffof Co. Lancaster" (the fat
jailer); fromthe same orderwe learnthat the womenwerelodgedat
the Ship Tavern in Greenwich. There are two or threepieces of
corroborative internalevidence. Fleay notedtheallusionto Prynne's
punishment. Whetstonesays to Bantam, "if thou, Bantam, dost
not heare of this with both thine eares, if thou hast themstill,and
not lost them by scribbling. ."2 Prynne was sentenced on
.... and be pilloried,and the sentence
February 17, 1634,to lose his ears
was carriedinto effecton May 7 and 10.
There are two references to a recentissue of farthingcoins,which
apparently was making some stirin London: "no longeragoe than
last holiday eveninghe gam'd away eight double ring'd tokens on
a rubbersat bowles .... " (I, ii);3 "from the last Farthingswith
the double rings,to the late Coy'ned peeces which they say are all
counterfeit"(II, iv).' Legal farthingsof copper werefirstcoinedin
1613,and thelead farthingtokensup to thattimeissuedby merchants
and tradesmenwere declared illegal. The authorities had great
difficultyin gettingthenewcoinsintocirculationand protectingthem
fromcounterfeiting.We findfrequentreferencesto the matterin
the state papers duringthe remainderof the reignof Jamesand that
of Charles I.5 Finally to defeat the counterfeiters a new coinage
was issued.
In 1634,at a timewhenLordMaltravers had a sharein thepatent,the
patenteeswereallowedto decryall theold farthings, and a newfarthingof
1 Dom. Ser., 1634-3 5. 3 Ibid., p. 182.
2 L.L.W., p. 198. 4 Ibid., p. 197.
5 Cf. Thomas Snelling, A View of the Copper Coin and Coinage of England, 1766;
R. Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain, 3d ed., 1840; H. Montagu, The Copper
Tin and Bronze Coinage of England from Elizabeth to Victoria, 2d ed., 1893.
258
 Is " THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES " A REVISION? 83

bettermakewas introduced, distinguishableby an innerbeadedcircle,the

so-calleddouble-rings.'
So serioushad thecounterfeiting
ofthefarthing tokensbecome,thatthe
patenteeswereallowedto introducea tokenslightlydifferent in design.
The generaldesigncontinued in accordancewiththe termsof the original
patent,butall thedetailswerealtered,andas a markto distinguish
thenew
issue,a secondbeadedcirclewas placedon theobverseand reverse,whence
thefarthings wereknownas "doublerings."2
There is, finally,one otherpassage which seems to carryon its
face evidence of having been writtenin the summerof 1634. This
is in the speech of Generousin IV, ii, a scene surelyfromthe hand
ofHeywood. Generousis speakingof his wife,whomhe is beginning
to suspect of some criminalpractice,though the idea of witchcraft
has not yet occurredto him.
The Gentilefashionsometimes
we observe
To sunderbeds; butmostin thesehotmonthes
Iune,Iuly,August.....
The specificmentionof presenttime seems to me to possess some
corroborativevalue; at any rate, I set it down for what it may
be worth. To sum up, common-sensewould point to a date of
compositionin July or August, while the excitementover the
near presence of the supposed witcheswould be at its height,and
all the time indications that we have are in agreementwith that
inference.
In proofof the revisiontheoryAndrewsin his article presents
threepieces of internalevidence: "the obvious interpolationof an
episode, and an omissionof one or two incidentsthat we are led to
expect,and a mentionin two places of names of witchesor spirits
inconsistentwiththe namesin the restofthe play."
The episode whichAndrewsconsidersto be interpolatedis that
of the boy and the greyhoundson pp. 196-97, 199-201. The boy
comes upon a brace of greyhounds,which he takes to have strayed
fromtheir owner,to whom he decides to restorethem in hope of
reward. On the way the dogs start a hare,but refuseto give chase.
I British Numismatic Journal, 1906, First ser., III, 190.
2 Ibid., 200. Illustrations of the "double
p. rings" are given in Plate I, Nos. 29, 30,
31, opp. p. 191. The royal proclamation, authorizing the new issue, was dated February
23, 1634 (Patent Rolls, 11 Chas. I, Part V, No. 30).
259
84 ROBERT GRANT MARTIN

The boy, angeredby theirapparent laziness,beats them,whereupon

one of the dogs turns into Goody Dickison and the other into a
boy. Mrs. Dickison changes the second boy into a horse, catches
the firstboy up in herarms,and theyride offon the horse. Andrews
asserts that this episode has no connectionwith any of the threads
of interest. On the contrary,ample preparationhas been made for
it. In the firstscene ofAct II (pp. 187-89) the witchesare gathered
to discuss what new deviltrythey will play in orderto throwtheir
neighborsinto confusion. They referto the huntingparty that is
in progress,and Meg proposesto change herselfinto a hare to lead
the dogs astray,while Gill says:
I andmypuckling willa brace
OfGreyhounds be, fitfortherace;
Andlingerwherewe maybe tane
Up forthecoursein theby-lane.
The boy's experienceis the obvious sequel of these plans; the dogs
are Gill and her Puckling, and the hare is Meg. The boy next
appears at the witches'feast,IV, i (pp. 220-21), whitherhe has been
carriedby Gill, and whencehe escapes, to appear again in the final
scene to give his evidence against the witches. The episode then,
farfrombeinginterpolated,has a verydefiniteconnectionwithwhat
precedes and what follows,and its dramatic purpose is plain-to
show the witchesin action. The part played by the boy Edmund
Robinsonin theactual Lancashiredelusionwas wellknownin London,
he had been broughtup to London forexamination,and to omithim
fromthe play would have been well-nighimpossible.
Andrews'secondpoint,the omissionofone or two incidentswhich
we mightexpect,has some basis. It is true that the connectionbe-
tweenthemortgagetransaction(p. 178) and theincidentofthereceipt
(p. 210) is not clear, and the business of the mortgageis dropped
ratherunceremoniously afterthe last referenceto it (p. 182). It is
to be noted,however,that the mortgageaffairhas servedits dramatic
purposeof bringingGenerousand Arthurtogether,and thus furnish-
ing a bond of connectionbetweenthe plots. The reasonforArthur's
appeal to Generousis the refusalof Arthur'suncle Seely to assist
him with a loan, and the refusal,in turn,is occasioned by the con-
fusion wroughtby the witches in the Seely household. Such a
260
 Is " THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES " A REVISION ? 85

knitting-together of plots is considerablycloser than is the case in

several others of Heywood's plays, e.g., Woman Killed withKind-
ness and English Traveller. Moreover,the grantingof the loan has
characterized Generous, and Robin's presentationof the receipt
proves to Generousthat Robin has actually been in London, as he
alleges. The failureto connectthe two incidentsmore clearlyand
to referagain to the mortgagedoes not necessarilypointto revision.
It should be rememberedthat the play was composed,probablyin
some haste,to take advantage of a passingexcitement,and any fail-
ure on the part of the authorsto bringto a logical conclusionall the
minorinterestsof the play may be laid morereadilyto haste of com-
positionthan to a supposedrevision. This is particularlytruesince
we have to deal withThomas Heywood and RichardBrome,both of
whom were somewhatrough-and-ready workmen,not distinguished
forthe carefulfinishof theirplays.'
For the other so-called revisionAndrewspoints to the abrupt
endingof II, iv (p. 199), wherea bettingscene terminates"without
the interference of witchcraftwhich we are led to expect." The
scene ends with a referenceto a hare which has just been started.
At the openingof the nextscene the boy enterswiththe greyhounds,
crying,"A Hare, a Hare, halloe, halloe!" and beats the dogs fornot
giving chase, whereuponthe dogs are transformedinto Gill and a
boy. This, surely,is a display of the expectedwitchcraft, although
the huntersare not present to witness the transformation.The
bettingscene, however,like the mortgageepisode, has served its
dramatic purpose. The main interestof the scene is not in the
betting,but in the foolishbehaviorofWhetstone,and whenhe makes
his exit we are interestedmore in his threatenedrevenge for the
baitingto whichhe has been subjectedthan in the comparativespeed
of the browndog and the pied. The failureto providea logical ter-
minationforthe bettingepisode may again, I think,be laid to hasty
composition,especiallysince the followingscene does providea dis-
play of witchcraftwhichaccountsforthe hare mentionedat the end
of scene iv.
1 Ward holds haste of composition responsible to some degree for the bad structure of
the play: "The process of composition was evidently too hurried to allow of more being
attempted than a succession of scenes hallfrealistic, half grotesque, etc." (Engl. Dram.
Lit., II, 578).
261
86 ROBERT GRANT MARTIN

Andrews'thirdevidenceofrevisionis the one suggestedby Fleay,

that in two instancesthere seems to be a confusionin the naming
of the witches. Thus, at the end of Act IV, Mrs. Generous,calling
a convocationof witchesat the mill, says:
Call Meg,and Doll, Tib,Nab,and Jug,
Let noneappearewithout herPug,
whileMoll, Nab, Jug,and Peg are named in V, ii (p. 244). There is
a tendencytoward looseness in the names of the witches,anyway;
thus Mrs. Johnsonis called Meg or Peg indiscriminately (cf. p. 189,
and V, v, whereshe is called Peg throughout). In IV, v, Mrs. Gener-
ous says: "Summon the Sisterhoodtogether"; that is, she is giving
directionsfora generalconvocation. May not the sisterhoodhave
comprisedmorethan the fourwho are broughtupon the stage, as it
did in real life? Fleay thinksthat beforealterationV, ii, musthave
been Doll, Nab, Jug,and Tib. Why mustwe discardMoll and Peg,
whom we know, because we have Nab and Jug whom we do not
know? Fleay and Andrewswant the names to be perfectlyconsist.
ent; I thinkthat they are looselyand carelesslyused, and that the
inconsistencyis evidenceonly of haste of composition.
Having thus accounted for the evidence presentedin behalf of
the revisiontheory,let us considerthe respectiveshares of Heywood
and Brome. Andrewsargues against collaborationin revision(and
hence,inferentially, in actual composition)because "Heywood was
writing for the Queen's Companyin 1633 and theLancashireWitches
was broughtout by the King's Men, the companyforwhichBrome
was writingin 1633and 1634." Supposingforthemomentthat Hey-
wood was writingfor the Queen's Men at the time The Late Lan-
cashireWitcheswas produced-has it been provedthat a playwright
in the employof one companyneverdid any workforanothercom-
pany? In fact, Andrewsrefuteshis own argumentwhen he states
that Bromewas connectedin 1634 withboth the King's Men and the
Red Bull Company,and thatwhilehe was undercontractto theKing's
Revels Companyat SalisburyCourt he had writtena play or two for
the Cockpit.' Such generalargument,however,is in this case not
necessaryto meet Andrews'objection. The Late LancashireWitches
was writtenin 1634,not in 1633,and Fleay on the basis of our play
' Richard Brome, p. 14.
262
 Is " THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES" A REVISION ? 87

infersthat at some time betweenthe date of Love's Mistress,pro-

duced at courtby the Queen's Men in 1633 and The Late Lancashire
Witches Heywood transferredhis services to the King's Men.
Andrewscites the 1634 title-pageof Maidenhead Well Lost, date of
compositionbeingprobably1633,but what would he say of the 1636
title-pageof Challengefor Beauty,a play performedin 1635 by the
King's Men, which,therefore,supportsFleay's theory?
AndrewsacceptsFleay's assignmentof the mainplot-the Gener-
ous story-to Heywood. The firstof his reasons,that the storyis
based upon the 1612trial,is untenable. The second,thatthe general
handlingof the story,particularlyin the treatmentof the erringwife
by herhusband,is in Heywood's manner,is sufficient.The hunting
scenes,also, may be comparedwiththe firstscene of WomanKilled
withKindness.
The attributionto Brome of the Seely story Andrewsrejects
because he can findno good reasonfortheassignment. Yet Andrews,
when he accepts the Generous story as Heywood's because of its
likeness to the Frankfordstory of Woman Killed withKindness,
has used preciselythe kind of reasoningthat Fleay did whenhe gave
the Seely storyto Brome because of its generalresemblanceto the
invertedsituation in Antipodes. Why the distinction ?
That part of the story of the Seely household which concerns
the servantsLawrenceand Parnell is givenby Andrewsto Heywood
because, as he says, "it is so involvedwithall the different
interests
that I have mentionedthat I cannotsee any possibilityof a separate
authorshipforit." Truly,thebestreasonforassigningthe Lawrence-
Parnellstoryto the same hand that wrotethe Seely storyis that the
formeris an integraland essentialpart of the latter. But the hand
is Brome's, not Heywood's. The mere fact that certaincharacters
of the main plot, Heywood's, e.g., Bantam, Shakstone,Whetstone,
are presentat the Parnell-Lawrenceweddingis veryslenderevidence
upon whichto assign the weddingscenes to Heywood. The union
of the two plots throughMoll Spencer,who gives Lawrence a be-
witched cod-piece point while she is carryingon an intriguewith
Robin, is not so ingeniouslyclose that it must point to a single
authorshipfor both plots; it is just the sort of connectionthat
might readily be arranged by two collaborators. The argument
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88 ROBERT GRANT MARTIN

that Lawrencebelongsto Heywood because of an allusion in Field's

play of 1612 has already been disposed of. Finally Andrewsrefuses
to accept Fleay's attributionof the Lawrence-Parnellscenes to
Brome on the basis of the dialect, whichFleay comparedwith that
in Brome's NorthernLass. Andrewsassertsthat the dialect of The
Late LancashireWitchesdiffers fromthat ofNorthern Lass, and points
out that Heywood also used a northerndialect in Edward IV, with-
out, however,clinchinghis pointby provingthat the dialectusages of
The Late LancashireWitchesand Edward IV are identical. To base
any argumenton dialectformsand spellingsthat have beensubjected
to the tendermerciesof printersof playbook quartos seems a rather
riskybusiness. But since Andrewshas introducedargumentof this
sort I have acted upon the suggestionmade by him in a note, and
have made comparisonof the words listed by Eckhardt in his Die
Dialekt-und Ausldndertypen des dlterenEnglischenDramas1withthe
following results:
Forms'foundin all threeplays-E.IV, L.L.W.,N.L.............. 4
C" " " E.IV and L.L.W.,notin N.L ................. 6
" " " E.IV and N.L., notin L.L.W................... 6
(" " " L.L.W. and N.L., notin E.IV 18
................
Now such a table provesnothing,beyondthefactthat bothHeywood
and Brome were acquainted with north countrydialects and used
themfreelyon occasion,but if any inferencewereto be drawnas to
authorshipit looks as thoughAndrews'remarkthat "Fleay's argu-
mentis useless" weresomethingof a boomerang.3 As positiveevi-
dence of Brome's authorshipof the Lawrence-Parnellscenes it may
be noted that Parnell's "Whaw, whaw, whaw, whaw!" (p. 186) is
also used by Randal in A JovialCrew,4and that the inelegantexpres-
sion "piss and paddle in't" (p. 185) is foundin the same play.5
Andrewswould restrictBrome's part in the play to those scenes
which are based directlyon the depositionsin the 1633 trial,some
I Bang, Materialien, XXVII, 81-83, 86-91.
2 I have confined this list to words actually used in more than one of the three plays,
including variant spellings such as deaft,deft=pretty, sic, sick, sike =such.
* Cf. also Andrews' comment on Brome's use of dialect in N. L. and elsewhere: "'The
Lancashire Witches[contains] considerable fairly accurate Lancashire" (Richard Brome,
p. 66, note). This certainly seems to imply that Brome wrote the scenes in which the
Lancashire dialect is employed.
4 Brome, Works,III, 439. I Ibid., III, 374.
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 Is "THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES" A REVISION ? 89

"nine pages in all, out of a play of eighty-nine."' Most of this

material Fleay assigns to Heywood. It seems to me impossible
to ascribethe witchscenesto eitherauthorwithany degreeof confi-
dence. But for the broad general division of the play into main
plot and subplot,the firstto Heywood,the secondto Brome,I should
agree withFleay, dissentingfromFleay's opinionthat the main plot
shows "accommodation" by Brome. In short,I regardthe play as
a straightpiece of collaborationby the two men,done in the summer
of 1634.2
ROBERT GRANT MARTIN
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

I From this list are omitted two episodes that should be in it: Moll's calling of the

pail (p. 202), and Peg's confession (pp. 258-59).

2 As an example of Fleay's curious processes of reasoning it may be worth while to
place side by side three of his statements regarding date and authorship. (1) "Hey-
wood's part is founded on The Witches of Lancashire by T. Potts, 1613." (2) "The
story of Mrs. Generous . ... is Heywood's, but considerably accommodated by
Brome." I.e., the story of Mrs. Generous is the part founded on Potts. If so, it must
have been written early and formed part of the early play. (3) "The turning Rob in into
a horse (and thereforethe Mrs. Generous story) dates 1634." The parenthesis is Fleay's.
How may this be reconciled with the previous statements ? According to Fleay, more-
over, Brome's part, consisting of the Seely story, must have been writtento take the place
of some other scenes in Heywood's early play, and dates, of course, 1634. This leaves
only the witch scenes for the early play. But the witches are all 1633 people, and their
deeds are based on the 1633 depositions. By the application of Fleay's own reasoning
all of the early play disappears, and we have an altogether new one.
Since completing this article I have discovered that the views expressed in it are in
agreement with those of Professor Ph. Aronstein of Berlin, in his article entitled "Thomas
Heywood," in Anglia, June, 1913.

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