Of plays first acted in the seventeenth century which have woodcuts, the earliest is probably, 'If you know not me, you know nobodie: Or the troubles of Queene Elizabeth. Printed for Nathaniel Butter, 1606.' To render the 'me' emphatic there is a portrait of Queen Bess seated in a chair of state, crowned, and with ball and sceptre in her hands. It is carefully drawn and cut, and no doubt represents the 'make up' which the actors followed. Seven years later the same publisher similarly embellished another chronicle play, 'When you see me you know me, or the famous Chronicle Historie of King Henrie the Eight, with the birth and vertuous life of Edward Prince of Wales. As it was played by the high and mightie Prince of Wales his servants. By Samuel Rowly, servant to the Prince. (At London, Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules churchyard near S. Austines Gate. 1613.)' In the cut Henry VIII., in his familiar attitude, is standing enveloped in curtains, rather like a stage manager who has come to the 'front' to address the audience.
But for our purpose kings and queens copied from familiar portraits are less important than persons of a much humbler rank, and more interesting than either of the two illustrations just described is that of the heroine from 'The Roaring Girls or Moll Cut-Purse. As it hath lately beene acted on the Fortune Stage by the Prince his Players. Written by G. Middleton and P. Dekkar. (Printed at London for Thomas Archer. 1611.)' Moll Cut-Purse was a real person, of whom, as Mary Frith, a judicial account from the pen of Mr. A. H. Bullen will be found in the 'Dictionary of National Biography.' In the play she frightens a father into allowing his son to marry another Mary by persuading him that it is she herself of whom the young man is enamoured. She is credited with 'the spirit of foure great parishes and a voyce that will drown all the citty,' but the cowardly Laxton, whom she fights, mistakes her in her male attire for a young barrister, and perhaps the Temple produced many rufflers not unlike the figure here shown. Mary Frith herself seems to have had few good qualities, but Moll in the play is an amiable giant, and her promise to her servant of the reversion of her man's clothes 'next week' was probably made in order to persuade the spectators that this masquerading was only an isolated freak.