The Personation of John Suckling, 1635

The letters of Anthony Mingay indicate that in early 1635 Sir John Suckling was satirically personated in an unnamed play. This article considers Richard Brome’s The Sparagus Garden and James Shirley’s The Lady of Pleasure as possible candidates to be this play. It concludes, however, that the cowardly braggart soldier Sucket in Henry Glapthorne’s The Lady Mother is the most likely personation of Suckling, as the humiliating beating of that character most closely aligns with the attack on Suckling by Sir John Digby as described in Mingay’s letters.