SOURCE: “Reconstructing the Garter Entertainment at Westminster on St. George's Day 23 April 1597,” in Shakespeare's Garter Plays: Edward III to Merry Wives of Windsor, University of Delaware Press, 1994, pp. 92-112.

In the following essay, Melchiori examines the textual and historical clues in and surrounding The Merry Wives of Windsor in his attempt to discover the exact date, location, and occasion on which the play was first performed.

Most recent editions of The Merry Wives of Windsor (with the notable exception of George Hibbard's New Penguin of 1973) accept the date of 23 April 1597 for the first performance of the play, as part of the Garter feast celebrated at Westminster, when George Carey, second Baron Hunsdon, the patron of the company of which Shakespeare was a sharer, was one of the five newly elected knights solemnly invested by Queen Elizabeth with the Order of the Garter. This view was first put forward...