The Reign of King Edward the Third, commonly shortened to Edward III, is an Elizabethan play printed anonymously in 1596 attributed in part to William Shakespeare. It has frequently been claimed that it was at least partly written by William Shakespeare, a view that Shakespeare scholars have increasingly endorsed. The rest of the play was probably written by Thomas Kyd.
The play contains several gibes at Scotland and the Scottish people, which has led some critics to think that it is the work that incited George Nicolson, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Edinburgh, to protest against the portrayal of Scots on the London stage in a 1598 letter to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. This could explain why the play was not included in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603.
THE
RAIGNE OF
KING EDVVARD
the third:
As it hath bin sundrie times plaied about
the Citie of London.
LONDON,
Printed for Cuthbert Burby.
1596.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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