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The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington

by Anthony Munday (first published 1601)

With his brother Richard the Lionheart away on crusade, Prince John and his mother Eleanor make a plan to usurp the throne and win the love of, respectively, Matilda and Robert, Earl of Huntington – a young nobleman known as Robin Hood.

The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington

In Munday’s sequel to the Robin Hood story, the former outlaw earl faces dangers from new enemies. As the crown passes from Richard to his brother John, civil war erupts under his corrupt and tyrannical rule.

This summer, Read Not Dead celebrates the greatest outlaw hero in English history.

Robin Hood appears in six plays in the early modern period: Edward Iby George Peele, two plays by Anthony Munday which include Maid Marian and a lecherous King John, Robert Greene’s George A Greene, first performed at the Rose Playhouse in 1593 and Look About You, in which Henry II appears. Ben Jonson’s unfinished, experimental and last play, The Sad Shepherd, or, A Tale of Robin Hood, set in Sherwood Forest, features Maid Marian, Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet.

Instinctive, adrenalin-filled and inventive, the Read Not Dead ground rules are simple. Actors rehearse the play on a Sunday morning and present it, script-in-hand, to an audience later that afternoon. The Read Not Dead series is dedicated to reviving plays from the early modern period.

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