There is an element in the play of _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ which, viewed in the light of the dramatic influences of the times, reveals again Greene's quickness of apprehension of a significant new strain in the drama. It is the introduction of Prince Edward, the King of England, and the Emperor of Germany, into the fabric of his plot. This play must precede Marlowe's _Edward II._ by several months, and at this point we are able finally to dissociate Greene's genius from the direct influence of his great contemporary. In order to develop this point it may be well to glance hastily at the history of the chronicle type of play in England to the time of Greene's _James IV._ Plays on subjects drawn from English history had been more or less common since the production of _Gorboduc_ in 1562. Three Latin plays, _Byrsa Basilica_ and the two college plays by Thomas Legge, _Richardus Tertius_, had come somewhat near to the true chronicle type. But it was not until the latter years of the ninth decade of the century that dramatists began on any large scale to utilise the history and mythology of England's kings and wars for the celebrating of her contemporary glories. Even before the Spanish Armada England had become conscious of her own power and eager for the display of her prowess. It was under the stimulus of this growing consciousness of might that the first true chronicle play, _The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth_, was written. In this play a dramatist for the first time displays an adequate sense of the objective value of the materials derived from history, combined with that insight into human nature and largeness of imaginative power that are necessary to make of the dry records of Holinshed and Stow a moving dramatic story. _The Life and Death of Jack Straw_, which also probably preceded the Armada in its first production, is, while not so good as _The Famous Victories_, a play of vigorous characterisation and native English colouring of historical events. But we are probably not far from the truth in supposing that it was the year 1588 that brought the complete development of the chronicle type. From this year dates the production of the two parts of _The Troublesome Reign of King John of England_, the date being indicated by the allusion to _Tamburlaine_ in the prologue. _The First Part of the Contention betwixt two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster_, etc., and _The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York_, etc., upon which are based the second and third parts of Shakespeare's _Henry VI._ trilogy, must be dated little, if any, later. _The Troublesome Reign_ is known to have been performed by the Queen's men after the other university men had left Greene alone as representative of this company. The theory that connects Greene's name with the composition is, however, so much a matter of conjecture that nothing can be gained from its consideration. Following these two works, almost certainly not preceding them, as some have thought, comes Marlowe's _Edward II._, the faultless masterpiece of his dramatic composition, produced probably in 1590. And within a few years, in quick succession, there came _Edward III., Richard II._, and _Richard III._, the _Henry VI._ trilogy, and the culminating trilogy of the two parts of _Henry IV._ and _Henry V._