John Ford's
Perkin Warbeck
, first published in 1634, opens with a threatened kingship, then presents the rising and falling arc of the major threat to that kingship, and finally depicts the kingship as firmly established and looking forward, thanks to a wise and skillful king. But is the play of Jacobean or Caroline provenance? By focusing on its historical horizons of meaning, this book argues that the play was written during the reign of King James VI (1603-25).