Event Comment: The
United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but it followed
The Gordian Knot Unty'd, which is mentioned in the Prologue.
Edward III was advertised in the
London Gazette, No. 2629, 19-22 Jan. 1690@1, and entered in the
Term Catalogues, February 1690@1. The authorship is uncertain. The title page bears no author's name, but the Dedication is signed by
Will. Mountfort. In addition, on 10 Oct. 1691 Mountfort received a grant of #10 when
Edward III was played before the Queen (L. C. 5@150, p. 306, in
Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 357). On tne other hand, the
Gentleman's Journal, October 1692, stated that it was written by the author of
Henry the Second, which has been attributed to
John Bancroft. See Nicoll,
Restoration Drama, pp. 388-89, for a summation of the evidence on this problem.
Alfred Harbage,
Elizabethan-Restoration Palimpsest,
Modern Language Review, XXXV (1940), 319, thinks that this is a revision of
Robert Davenport's
The Politic Queen