possibilities as to authorship and provenance of the play. Various
critics, such as Fleay and Bullen, have tried to make sense of all of
them by postulating, largely without evidence, a variety of
permutations of collaboration and revision so as to give all of the
authorship candidates a role in the production of the text we now
have. The most persuasive contribution however, comes from Julia
Gasper who, building on work by R. Koeppel, convincingly identifies
the source of NSS as being Volume V of Jacques-Augueste de Thou's
Latin 'Historiarum Sui Temporis', published in 1620 <1>.

The de Thou volume tells of how Henri IV of France reneged on a
written promise of marriage to Hentiette d'Entragues, by marrying
Marie be Medicis in 1600; both women bore sons by the King, who is
later assassinated. This closely anticipates the marriage plot of NSS
but the critical detail which seals the identification of de Thou as
the source, is his reference to a soldier called Balthazare Sunica
who acted against the King and was clearly, the original of the
character Balthazar in NSS. This evidence demonstrates that the
earliest date for composition of NSS is 1620. Furthermore, due to the
likelihood that NSS predated 'The Welsh Embassador' of 1623/4, a last
possible date for the writing of NSS, can also be deduced and a
composition date of around 1622 can be established with some
certainty.

With respect to the relationship with other plays, any connection
with the 'The Spanish Fig' would seem to be ruled out on the grounds
that it pre-dates the publication of de Thou's Historiarum. In the
case of the later play 'The Spanish Contract', a connection is
possible although any theories that may be advanced little more than
conjecture. One such theory, put forward by Tirthanker Bose <2>, is