Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from When You See Me, You Know Me
Historical truth in Rowley's chronicle-history is partly strikingly neglected and partly as studiously observed; in both respects it stands side by side with Shakespeare's K. Henry VIII. Shakespeare makes Queen Katherine die three years earlier than she really did and the trial of Cranmer with him takes place a dozen of years before its time, while Rowley gives an additional length of about fourteen or fifteen years to Car dinal Wolsey's life. On the other hand Rowley has drawn even the subordinate characters of Doctor Tye and Will Sum mers, the king's fool, with an accuracy and truth, which a superficial reader would scarcely dream of. Will Summers character corresponds throughout with the description given of him by Robert Armin in his 'nest of Ninnies' on the testimony, as he says, of several old inhabitants of Greenwich who had personally known this favourite fool of K. Henry VIII.1 As Armin published his 'nest of Ninnies' three years after Rowley's 'when you see me, you know me', it may indeed be doubted if the latter has not been amongst his sources for the fools portrait, although the following lines show him to have been in possession of a store of other materials.
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