Note 511 — Chapter VII · FESTIVAL PLAY

Rossius, Hist. Regum Angliae (ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 ‘in cuius signum usque hodie illa die vulgariter dicta Hox Tuisday ludunt in villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis iocis.’ Rous, who died 1491, is speaking of the death of Hardicanute. On the event see Ramsay, i. 434. Possibly both events were celebrated in the sixteenth century at Coventry. Two of the three plays proposed for municipal performance in 1591 were the ‘Conquest of the Danes’ and the ‘History of Edward the Confessor.’ These were to be upon the ‘pagens,’ and probably they were more regular dramas than the performance witnessed by Elizabeth in 1575 (Representations, s. v. Coventry).