THE date of Macbeth has not been fixed with great precision. In 1951 Kenneth Muir prudently opted for a three-year range of 1603–6, and allowed within that for the possibility of ‘cuts and topical additions’.1 Echoes of the poetry of Macbeth in Thomas Heywood's 2 If You Know Not Me (1606) may however serve to narrow that range by suggesting a terminus ad quem earlier than 14 September 1605, when 2 If You Know Not Me was entered in the Stationers’ register. 2 If You Know Not Me ends in the rousing key of national military triumph with the defeat of the Armada. The defeat of the Armada was a section of the play which Heywood re-wrote and expanded for later performance, and it was this expanded version which was printed in the fourth edition (the quarto of 1633). This later version amplified the original ending by including a lengthy passage (reminiscent of Act III, Scene vii of Henry V) in which the Spanish brag of the ease of their imminent conquest of England. But that sharpened national resentment is accompanied by a pronounced weakening of religious antagonism. In the later version Heywood has Elizabeth make a point of noting the loyalty of her Catholic subjects: … Sir Anthony Browne,Though your Religion and recusancyMight in these dangerous and suspicious times,Haue drawne your loyalty into suspence,Yet haue you heere in amply clear’d your selfe,By bringing vs 500 men well arm’d, and your own selfe in person.2 The discontend desire to be alone, My wishes are made vp, for they are gone. Here are no blabs but this, and this one clocke Ile keepe from going with a double locke: Yet it will strike, this day it must be done. What must be done? what must this engine doe? A deed of treason hath prepar’d mee too. These too, these too, why they had life by her, And shall these two kill their deliuerer? The life that makes me rise? these once my sinne Had forfeited, her mercie pardon’d me: I had beene eaten vp with wormes ere this, Had not her mercie giuen a life to this: And yet these hands if I performe my oth, Must kill that life, that gaue a life to both. I have tane the Sacrament to doo't, confe’rd VVith Cardinal Cemo about it, and receiu’d Full absolution from his Holynes, Beene satisfied by many holy fathers, During my trauels both in France and Italie, The deed is iust and meritorious, And yet I am troubled when I doe remember The excellencie of her Maiestie, And I would faine desist, but that I know How many vowes of mine are gone to heauen, My letters and my promises on earth, To holy fathers and graue Catholikes: That I would doo't for good of Catholicks. Then in the Garden where this day shee walkes, Her graces I will cast behind mine eyes, And by a subiects hand, a Soueraigne dyes.3 Queene. Englands God be prais’d But prethe Drake, for well I knowe thy name, And ile not be vnmindfull of thy worth: Breefly rehearse the danger of the battle, Till Furbisher was rescued wee haue heard. Drake. The danger after that was worse than then: Valour a both sides stroue to rise with honour, As is a paire of Ballance once made euen, So stood the day, inclin’d to neither side: Sometimes we yeelded, but like a Ramme That makes returnement to redouble strength, Then forc't them yeeld … 6