The Queen (play)
play
The Queen, or The Excellency of Her Sex is a Caroline-era tragicomedy. Though published anonymously in 1653, The play is now generally attributed to John Ford – making it a significant addition to the very limited canon of Ford's works.
The date and circumstances of the play's authorship and performance are unknown, though scholars can draw some inferences from the little factual information available. The first quarto edition of 1653 was published by the actor-turned-bookseller Alexander Gough. Gough had earlier been a member of the King's Men, and had been part of the cast of that company's production of Ford's The Lover's Melancholy in late 1628 or 1629. This suggests that The Queen may also have been acted by the King's Men. Since Ford is thought to have written for the King's Men only early in his career – just two of his earlier plays were acted by the company – The Queen may be another early work.
The play's internal evidence of style and textual preferences points to Ford; it shows, among other particulars, the pattern of unusual contractions (t'ee for "to ye," d'ee for "do ye," y'are for "you are") that typifies Ford's work. Furthermore, "the work's incidence of rhymes and double and triple endings relative to that of Ford's other plays" also favours an early date in Ford's career, which makes sense in terms of the King's Men connection. The assignment of the play to Ford, first made by the German scholar Willy Bang in 1906, is widely accepted.
“The Queen (play)” enters the record as play. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Queen and play can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“The Queen (play)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Queen and play provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7758990. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1653, 1628, 1629 and 1906.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Queen (play)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.