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Life
fl.1641; Anglo-Norman family, estate in Leinster, m. Frances, dg. of James Dillon, Earl of Roscommon; his play Landgartha performed St. Patrick’s Day (17 March) 1639 [i.e., mod. 1640] - and the last to be staged before the ensuing political troubles; the prologue is ‘delivered by an Amazon with an Battle-Axe in her hand’ who also gives the epilogue where she is named as Scania [K]; Burnell retired, with others to form the Confederate Assembly of Old English in Kilkenny, 1642-49. ODNB PI OCIL
[Note: The final page records that the play was ‘;first acted on. S. Patrick’s Day, 1639 [sic], with the allowance of the Master of Revels’.
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Works| Original edn. |
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| Note: copies of the 1641 edition in Oxford UL and British Library only. |
| Reprint edn. |
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Criticism
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Commentary
Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (Tralee: The Kerryman 1946), Chap. V: Burnell’s Landgartha, Danish-Norwegian plot, moralising about the female virtues of Landgartha. Reyner, King of Denmark, invades Norway, and allies with Landgartha against Trolla, the King of Swedland, who dies in single combat with Landgartha; seeing her fight, Reyner falls in love with her; she has ‘vow’d Chastity/Unto the Gods’; Reyner marries her, but once married deserts her and returns to Denmark, where he has a mistress, Vraca; his throne in Denmark is threatened by a competitor; Landgartha arrives to save him, and Reyner repents; Vraca too eventually comes round to the way of virtue and promises to by ‘future good’ to ‘expiate offence’. The Preface enjoins ‘Chastity and other vertues joyn’d to beauty, vertue single and manly fortitude’ and is addressed to ‘all faire, indifferent faire, vertuous, that are not faire and magnanimous Ladies.’
William Smith Clark, Early Irish Stage (Oxford 1955): Landgartha, a tragi-comedy, performed St. Patrick’s Day (17 March) 1639, ‘with the allowance of the master of the Revels’, set in Sweden, prologue and epilogue delivered by an Amazon dressed in Irish clothing including broagues; accompanied by prologue and epilogue by his cousin John Bermingham; thought to be ‘the first play written by an Irishman with Irish local colour’; the prologue refers to a previous play spitefully received; further prefatory material, incl. Latin dedicatory verses by Io. [John] Bermingham, describes the central character of the play as a model of female virtue and fortitude and an example to ladies of how to protect their ‘fortress’.
William Bergquist, Checklist of English and American Plays (1963) cites Henry Burnell, World’s Idol, &c. (1659)and notes that Burnell’s cousin Bermingham urges a resemblance of the present play to those of Ben Jonson, though Burnell was 'never yet in London'; further asserts that the play is a tragi-comedy, properly ending neither in tragedy or comedy but a mixture of both [also cited in ODNB]. Bergquist quotes the dedication ‘[t]o all faire, indifferent faire, vertuous, that are not faire and magnanimous Ladies’, and remarks that ‘this effeminate tone of the play is often ludicrously in contrast with the chronicle material on which it is based.’ Further reports that Langbaine suggests the plot comes from Krantzius, Saxo Grammaticus or Josephus Magnus, while Chetwood (General History of the Stage [1749]) connects it with Saxo only
Christopher Morash, A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 (Cambridge UP 2002), on Landgartha: ‘[...] If Marfisa (and thus Landgartha) is Old English and Hubba (and therefore Reyner) is New English, the play begins to take an allegorical shape. Landgartha’s betrayal by Reyner corresponds to the Old English sense of betrayal by the New English, after which cohabitation might be possible, but full consummation was out of the question. For Burnell, a prominent Catholic royalist, Landgartha was a last-ditch attempt to define a possible relationship between two cultures that were spiralling towards war.’ (p.9.)
London Stage, II, 96, cites Henry Burnell fl. 1641; quotes J. T. Gilbert’s Dictionary of National Biography article; mentions that Harbage lists The Toy and The Irish Gentleman as ‘possibly [by] H. Burnell’. Further, for these plays, now lost, Shirley wrote prologues but there is no indication that Burnell was author of either.
| Review notices posted at Four Court Press |
‘Landgartha is the story of an Amazonian warrior and her merry band of all-female fighters, who, due to their infamous martial prowess, are constantly called on to help the King of Denmark … Rankin’;s introduction does give the reader the historical context, and successfully establishes Landgartha as a play which challenges the accepted canon of Renaissance drama', Anna-Maria Ssemuyaba.’ (TLS, May 2014.) |
‘Rankin’s edition [of Landgartha] retains most of the original spelling, punctuation and lineation from the Bodleian copy of the 1641 edition of the play, which she has collated with six additional extant copies in the United States and United Kingdom … Rankin’s introduction to the text is both detailed and wide-ranging, beginning with an account of Landgartha’s critical history … On the whole, the edition contributes ably to the extension of the canon of early modern drama with a text and introductory material that offer a fascinating glimpse into the complex intersections of performance, print and politics. It will no doubt encourage multiple generations of students and scholars to learn more about Burnell, the venues for dramatic performance that existed outside of the commercial playhouses of England, and the manifold, shifting worlds they staged.n’ (Vimala C. Pasupathi, Review of English Studies, April 2015.) |
| Available online; accessed 21.12.2025) |
Charlie Bryne (Bookseller): ‘First performed in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day 1640, Henry Burnell’s Landgartha was the last play produced before political unrest forced the closure of Dublin’s only theatre. Staged the night before the Irish Parliament debated the introduction of laws against bigamy, the play weaves a complex tale of love and marriage. Norwegian Amazon Landgartha persuades the Swedish King to help overturn the Danish occupation of her homeland. As peace ensues, Landgartha reluctantly agrees to break the Amazon code and marry him, but Sweden proves unfaithful. The allegory is compelling: the strife between Norway, Sweden, and Denmark represents the brewing between Ireland, England, and Scotland. A robust Old English response to dominant colonial representations of Ireland, Burnell’s Landgartha is a compelling fusion of English tragicomedy with Irish storytelling. (Series: Literature of Early Modern Ireland)’ [Charlie Byrne, notice for Rankin Edition; n.d.; h.b. £10 - online.]
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Quotations
‘Dedicatorie’ to Landgartha (Kilkenny 1641): ‘I have here placed a pattern, yea, more than one (Ladies) for you to imitate. Chastity and other vertues are joined to beauty, vertue single and manly fortitude in the female Sexe do here present themselves ... the faculties of the mind excelle in worth those of the body yet both joined in as in Landgartha is of all most excellent, in regard that the external beauty allures (nay commands) the minde of man (that affects visible objects) to the love of vertue ... combats in the resisting of vice ...’. Further, stage directions read: ‘ ... a humorous gentlewoman dressed in an Irish gown tucked-up to the mid-leg, with a broad basket-hilt sword on, hanging on a great belt, brogues on her feet, her hair dishevelled, and a pair of long neck’d big rowll’d spurs on her heels’. (Quoted in Mícheál Ó hAodha, Theatre in Ireland, Oxford: Blackwell 1974.)
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References
British Library (General Catalogue) ascribes lists The World’s Idol, or Plutus the God of Wealth (1659), a trans. from Aristophanes published as by H.H.B and ascribes it to Burnell [contrary to D. J. O’Donoghue (Poets of Ireland, 1912; infra), who ascribes it to Burdy.
| Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900)- “Henry Burnell” by John Thomas Gilbert |
BURNELL, HENRY (fl. 1641), dramatist, belongs to the Anglo-Irish family of Burnell, which acquired considerable estates in Leinster; members of it held offices at Dublin as judges and legal officials in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Henry Burnell appears to have been the son and heir of Christopher Burnell of Castleknock, near Dublin, and to have married Frances, daughter of Sir James Dillon, earl of Roscommon. The only known production of Burnell is that printed at Dublin in 1641 under the following title: ‘Landgartha, a tragi-comedy, as it was presented in the new theater in Dublin, with good applause, being an ancient story. Written by H.B.’ ‘Landgartha’ is stated to have been first acted, ‘with the allowance of the master of the Revels,’ on St. Patrick's day, 1639, at the theatre then recently established at Dublin by John Ogilby, and with which James Shirley, the dramatist, had been for a time connected. Among ‘the persons of the play’ were ‘Frollo king of Sweland and conqueror of Norway; Landgartha, a Norwegian lady; Scania, sister to Landgartha; Fatyma, cousin to Landgartha and Scania; Marfisa, a humorous gentlewoman, cousin to Fatyma; Reyner, of Denmarke; and Hubba, an humorous mery Danish captaine.’ The prologue to ‘Landgartha’ was ‘delivered by an Amazon, with a battle-axe in her hand.’ The epilogue to ‘Landgartha’ was also spoken by the Amazon ‘with her sword and belt in her hand.’ From the prologue it seems that Burnell had previously produced a play which was unfavourably received, but the name of it is not mentioned. The epilogue contains a statement that the tragi-comedy of ‘Landgartha’ was composed by Burnell ‘with the expense of less than two months’ time,’ with the commendatory verses in Latin prefixed to ‘Landgartha’ some were by Burnell’s son. Lines were also addressed in English by an anonymous author, in which the writer mentions that although Burnell had never been in England, he was ‘far more like’ to Ben Jonson than they ‘that laid claim as heirs’ to that author. In reply to critics of ‘Landgartha,’ Burnell wrote that ‘a tragi-comedy should neither end comically or tragically, but betwixt both.’ ‘To the rest of babblers,’ he added, ‘I despise any answer.' Burnell was a member of the Irish confederation established in 1642, but the dates of his birth and death do not appear to have been recorded. |
| —Available at Wikisource - online. |
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912), lists Landgartha, a tragi-comedy in verse, Dublin 1641; prob. related to H. H. Burdy [but see British Library Cat., supra] who translated Plutus, comedy by Aristophanes, 1659; Irishman and Recorder for Dublin; represented Dublin in court of Elizabeth II in 1576 and imprisoned in the Fleet; MP for Dublin 1585; his will is dated 1614, requesting burial at Castleknock. [These biog. dates seem very odd. The Elizabethan biog. is more appropriate to the elder author, Burdy or Burnell. Note Sir John Gilbert’s unconnected findings that other Burnells were to be found in the St. Werburgh parish of Dublin.
See Catalogue of Early English Books (Michigan Univ.) listing: The worlds idol, Plutus a comedy / written in Greek by Aristophanes; translated by H.H.B. [H. H. Burnell, fl.1659]; together with his notes, and a short discourse upon it. (London: Printed by W.G. and are to be sold by Richard Skelton ... Isaac Pridmore ... and H. Marsh ..., 1659). (Available online; accessed 11.10.2023.
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Notes
Kith & Kin?: Patrick Burnell, a proctor of St. Werburgh’s Church in 1476 is cited in Sir John Gilbert, History of the City of Dublin, 3 vols. [1854-59], intro. by F. E. Dixon (Shannon IUP 1972), I, p.28.
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