PRINTED FOR THE MALONE SOCIETY BY
FREDERICK HALL AT THE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY
PRESS
THE SCOTTISH HISTORY
OF JAMES THE FOURTH
1598
THE MALONE SOCIETY
REPRINTS
1921
This reprint of _James IV_ has been prepared by A. E. H. Swaen with the
assistance of the General Editor.
_Nov. 1921._
W. W. Greg.
The following entries are found in the Register of the Stationers’
Company for 1594:
xiiij^o maij /
[Sidenote: Thomas
Creede./.]
Entred for his copie vnder thand of master Cawood warden / a booke
intituled /. The famous victories of henrye the ffyft / conteyninge
the honorable battell of Agincourt / vj^d C
[Sidenote: Thomas
Creede/]
Entred vnto him by the like warrant a booke intituled the Scottishe
story of Iames the ffourthe slayne at Fflodden intermixed with a
plesant Comedie presented by Oboron kinge of ffayres vj^d C /
[Arber’s Transcript, II. 648.]
No edition, however, is known before 1598, and it would be natural
to suspect that the original impression had perished were it not for
the fact that 1598 is also the date of the earliest known edition
of the _Famous Victories_. In the circumstances we may suppose that
publication was for some reason delayed. The impression of 1598 is
a quarto printed by Creede in roman type of a size approximating
to modern pica (20 ll. = 84 mm.). Of this four copies are known to
survive. That in the British Museum wants the leaf A 4, which has been
supplied in very inaccurate modern reprint. Fortunately the leaf is
present in the Dyce copy at South Kensington, though in this H 1 is
defective (a corner being supplied in not quite accurate facsimile) and
sheet K is wrongly perfected. Another copy, formerly at Bridgewater
House, is now in the possession of Mr. Henry E. Huntington; while a
fourth is in a collected volume once in the possession of Charles
II, which formed lot 8258 in the Huth Sale (25 June 1920). All four
want the first leaf, which was presumably blank, except perhaps for
a signature. It has not been possible to use more than the first two
copies mentioned in preparing the present reprint.
The title-page bears the name of Robert Greene as author, together with
a motto used by him in other works, which suggests that the manuscript
may have been in some manner prepared for press before his death in
1592. Three passages from the play are quoted, rather inaccurately,
in _England’s Parnassus_, 1600, above Greene’s name. The title-page
also states that the play had been ‘sundrie times publikely plaide’,
without, however, mentioning any company.
The plot is entirely unhistorical, and P. A. Daniel and W. Creizenach
independently traced its source to the first novel of the third day
of the _Ecatommiti_ of Giraldi Cintio, a story in which, however, the
identity of the characters is quite different. Whether Greene was also
acquainted with Cintio’s play _Arrenopia_, based on the same story, is
not known.