The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington

The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington are two closely related Elizabethan-era stage plays on the Robin Hood legend, that were written by Anthony Munday (possibly with help from Henry Chettle) in 1598 and published in 1601. They are among the relatively few surviving examples of the popular drama acted by the Admiral's Men during the Shakespearean era.

Scholars and critics have studied the plays for their place in the evolution of the Robin Hood legend. Munday has been credited as the first person to identify Robin Hood with the Earl of Huntingdon.

Both plays were entered into the Stationers' Register on 1 December 1600, and were printed in separate quartos in the next year by stationer William Leake. The 1601 quartos were the only editions in the era of English Renaissance theatre; the plays would not be reprinted until the nineteenth century.

Leake's 1601 quartos employ a blackletter or Gothic typeface for the speeches in the plays, with a Roman font used for stage directions and speech prefixes.

The plays were originally published anonymously; the 1601 quartos lack any attribution of authorship on their title pages. The account book of theatrical manager Philip Henslowe (known as Henslowe's Diary) records a payment, dated 15 February 1598, to "Antony Monday" for "a playe booke called the firste parte of Robyne Hoode." The Diary records subsequent payments to Munday on 20 and 28 February the same year for "the second pte of Roben Hoode." Given the plays' general resemblances with Munday's earlier drama John a Kent and John a Cumber (c. 1594), scholars have had no problem in accepting Munday's authorship.

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