Shakespeare's Welsh cave ... and more ...: Whitney-on-Wye

Whitney-on-Wye

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Attribution: Philip Halling

This image is from the Geograph project collection.

Woodland near the Birches

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Attribution: Sheila Russell

This image is from the Geograph project collection.

Unknown play found at Powis Castle, Wales (home of the Herbert family)

The manuscript is said to be from the 17th Century

A rare Jacobean manuscript of a play about women's liberation was found in a trunk at a castle.

The unknown play by Lord Edward Herbert was found at Powis Castle in Welshpool, Powys.

It is believed the play was to have been performed before James I and his court in 1618, but it was cancelled.

...it was found in a folder marked Old Poems and buried in a trunk, along with other documents, that had been stored in an attic at the castle.

Powis Castle was built by Welsh princes and is now home to the Earl of Powis.

read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8325759.stm

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Lord Herbert was the elder brother of the celebrated metaphysical poet George Herbert and a close friend of the playwright Ben Jonson.

In the end the thread of the story disappears into myriad sub-plots and intrigues taking in pirates and the kidnapping of the king’s sons.

But it concludes in a song in praise of love sung by two young men.

Mr Pryor said he expected the play would keep academics enthralled for years to come.

He added: “All this seemed to place it not so much in the world of the court masque as in that of Shakespeare’s late romances with their missing children and miraculous reconciliations.”

read more at

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/10/27/could-jacobean-play-found-in-welsh-castle-be-first-about-women-s-lib-91466-25020358/

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