Why precisely the number of history plays declines in the Stuart era is difficult to explain in historical terms, not least because even the most carefully construed exposé of historical conditions may fail to account for an individual author's choices or subtle changes in audience taste. Nonetheless, critics like Felix E. Schelling, William D. Briggs, Irving Ribner, Anne Barton, Leonard Tennenhouse, and others, have offered substantive reasons why the historical drama ceased to flourish just when it did. They have pointed to a loss of “national spirit” (occasioned by the accession of a foreign monarch and Spanish peace), the rise of foreign and satiric drama, “a general satiety with the [history play] type,” Puritan attacks on history plays, censorship of historical subjects, and to changes in the way state authority presented and idealized itself. My response to what many have called the genre's “decline” has of course been to shift the discussion away from questions of aesthetics and to questions of historiographical theory and practice. Although our conclusions differ significantly, I am, on this score, indebted to the work of Irving Ribner, who also took seriously the import of historiography on the drama. The genre's “decline,” Ribner maintains, results from too great an emphasis on romance elements, whereas I have come to the conclusion that it is a matter of too much historiography.

Ribner argues that the success of the history play genre depended on striking a careful balance between the authentic purposes of history and the dramatic need for romance themes.