The Queen’s Men Editions: Robert Wilson (d. 1600)

Robert Wilson (d. 1600)

Joined the new Queen’s Men in 1583, earlier serving in Leicester’s company, as early as 1572.

A rhetorical gesture in Gabriel Harvey’s Letter-Book (c.1579) refers to Wilson’s tendency to improvise: how peremptorily ye have preiudiced my good name for ever in thrustinge me thus on the stage to make a tryall of my extemporall faculty, and to play Wylsons or Tarletons parte (qtd. in Nungezar 394).

Stow & Howes’s Annales characterises Wilson as a quicke delicate refined extemporall wit (Stow and Howes 697).

Francis Meres’ Palladis tamia (1598) refers to him in familiar terms: And so is now our wittie Wilson, who for learning and extemporall witte in this facultie is without compare or compeer, as to his great and eternal commendations he manifested in his chalenge at the Swanne on the Bancke side (qtd. in Nungezar 395).

In addition to performing, Wilson was a playwright, and evidently a well-educated one. His lost play Shorte and Sweete (1570s) was praised as a peece surely worthy prayse, the practice of a good scholler by Thomas Lodge in his Defence of Poetry, Musick and Stage Plays (1580). He is generally the accepted author of The Three Ladies of London (1584), The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (1590), The Cobler’s Prophecy (1594) and many lost collaborative works (Nungezar 395–396).

Prosopography

Andrew Griffin

Andrew Griffin is an associate professor in the department of English and an affiliate professor in the department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is general editor (text) of Queen’s Men Editions. He studies early modern drama and early modern historiography while serving as the lead editor at the EMC Imprint. He has co-edited with Helen Ostovich and Holger Schott Syme Locating the Queen’s Men (2009) and has co-edited The Making of a Broadside Ballad (2016) with Patricia Fumerton and Carl Stahmer. His monograph, Untimely Deaths in Renaissance Drama: Biography, History, Catastrophe, was published with the University of Toronto Press in 2019. He is editor of the anonymous The Chronicle History of King Leir (Queen’s Men Editions, 2011). He can be contacted at griffin@english.ucsb.edu.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Peter Cockett

Peter Cockett is an associate professor in the iArts (Integrated Arts) program at McMaster University. He is the co-editor, with Melinda Gough, of Engendering the Stage in the Age of Shakespeare and Beyond (University of Toronto Press, 2025) which publishes the findings of their 2018 Performance as Research (PaR) workshop at the Stratford Festival Lab. He is the general editor (performance), and technical co-ordinating editor of Queen’s Men Editions. His PaR directing credits include King Leir, The Famous Victories of Henry V, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (2006), Clyomon and Clamydes (2010), and Three Ladies of London (2015) for the Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men project (SQM). The process behind the 2006 productions is documented in depth on the project website Performing the Queen’s Men. For the PLS, the University of Toronto’s Medieval and Renaissance Players, he has directed the Digby Mary Magdalene (2003) and the double bill of George Peele’s The Old Wives Tale and the Chester Antichrist (2004). He also directed An Experiment in Elizabethan Comedy (2005) for the SQM project and Inside Out: The Persistence of Allegory (2008) in collaboration with Alan Dessen. Peter is a professional actor and director with numerous stage and screen credits. He can be contacted at cockett@mcmaster.ca.

Bibliography

Harvey, Gabriel. Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey, A.D. 1573–1580. Ed. Edward John Long Scott. Westminster: The Camden Society, 1884.

Lodge, Thomas. A Defence of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays . London: H. Singleton , 1579. STC 16663. ESTC S105765.

Meres, Francis. Palladis tamia. London: Cuthbert Burby, 1598. STC 17834. ESTC S110013.

Nungezar, Edwin. A Dictionary of Actors. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929.

Stow, John, and Edmund Howes. Annales, or, A Generall Chronicle of England … unto the End of this Present Yeere, 1631. London: 1631.

Wilson, Robert. A right excellent and famous comoedy called the three ladies of London. London: Roger Ward, 1584. STC 25784. ESTC S111805. DEEP 119.

Wilson, Robert. The Coblers Prophesie. London: Cuthbert Burby, 1594. STC 25781. DEEP 191. ESTC S111809.

Wilson, Robert. The pleasant and Stately Morall, of the three Lordes and three Ladies of London. With the great loy and Pompe, Solempnized at their Mariages: Commically interlaced with much honest Mirth, for pleasure and recreation, among many Morall obseruations and other important matters of due Regard. London. 1590. STC 25783. DEEP 128. ESTC S111813.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Metadata

Authority title	Robert Wilson (d. 1600)
Type of text	About
Publisher	University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series	Queen’s Men Editions
Source	Content written by Andrew Griffin for Performing the Queen’s Men. Encoded by the LEMDO Team for publication in the QME 2.0 anthology on the LEMDO platform.
Editorial declaration	This document follows Canadian spelling conventions.
Edition	Released with Queen’s Men Editions 2.0
Sponsor(s)	Queen’s Men Editions The Queen’s Men Editions anthology is led by Helen Ostovich, General Editor; Peter Cockett, General Editor (Performance); Andrew Griffin, General Editor (Text; until 2026); and Janelle Jenstad, General Editor (Text; 2026–)
Encoding description	Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status	published
Funder(s)	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada McMaster University Poculi Ludique Societas University of Waterloo University of Toronto Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies University of Victoria Friends of the ISE
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