When Knights Were Bold (play)
1906 play by Harriett Jay
When Knights Were Bold is a comedy play by the British writer Harriett Jay writing under the pseudonym of Charles Marlowe which was first performed in 1906. A British officer Guy De Vere returns home from service in India after inheriting an estate and a baronetcy in the village of Little Twittering where he encounters a number of eccentrics. His cousin Rowena, meanwhile, falls madly in love with him. It should not be confused with the 1898 novel When Knighthood Was in Flower by Charles Major which is sometimes known by this title.
Film adaptations
The play has been adapted into films on four occasions. The first was a 1908 Biograph short with D. W. Griffith appearing in an acting role. In 1916 a silent British film When Knights Were Bold was made by Maurice Elvey. The same year an Italian adaptation When Knights Were Bold was released by the Turin-based Aquila Films. In 1929 a third silent film When Knights Were Bold was made by Tim Whelan. In 1936 a sound version When Knights Were Bold was made by Jack Raymond and starred Jack Buchanan.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “When Knights Were Bold (play)” is 1906 play by Harriett Jay. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through When, Knights and Bold, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3720437. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1898, 1908 and 1916.
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This entry incorporates text from “When Knights Were Bold (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.