To avoid military service, and to remain near Rose, Lacy draws on his Wittenberg experience and disguises himself as a Dutch shoemaker named Hans. He joins the London shoemaking workshop of Master Simon Eyre, an exuberant, good-natured madcap. Eyre is married to the equally eccentric Margery, a dedicated follower of fashion; Eyre’s fellow shoemakers include his foreman, Hodge, and two journeymen, Firk and Ralph. Ralph, however, is conscripted to serve in France. His parting gift to his wife Jane is a fine pair of shoes, stitched collectively by all the shoemakers.

Lacy introduces Eyre to a Dutch skipper who seeks to sell a shipload of exotic commodities. By dressing up as a rich lord, and with the help of a loan from Lacy, Eyre convinces the skipper he has the necessary credit to purchase the ship’s cargo. He proceeds to sell the cargo for a huge profit, and is suddenly enormously wealthy. Eyre’s new status sees him elected Master Sheriff of London and Margery transformed into a lavishly dressed gentlewoman.

The lecherous city gentleman Hammon unsuccessfully woos Rose, who – ably assisted by her sharp-tongued maidservant Sybil – spurns him. Hammon turns his attentions to Ralph’s wife Jane, now a poor shopkeeper. She too rejects Hammon. But in the face of his persistent advances, and fearing that Ralph has died in the French wars, Jane tells him that if she marries again she will wed him. Ralph, made lame in combat, returns to the shoemakers. After Hammon’s servant appears at Eyre’s workshop to request duplicates of Jane’s custom-made shoes, Ralph fears that she now loves another man. Meanwhile, Lacy elopes with Rose, and the Earl of Lincoln and Oatley pressure Firk to reveal their whereabouts. Firk tells the men of a marriage scheduled to take place in a London church. The Earl and Oatley, believing the wedding to be that of Rose and Lacy, try to put a stop to it; but it turns out to be the wedding of Hammon and Jane. Ralph and his fellow workers interrupt the ceremony, challenging Hammon at the altar. Jane chooses Ralph over Hammon, and Hammon graciously apologizes to Ralph.

At play’s end, the ever-cheerful Simon Eyre is now Lord Mayor. He declares a banqueting holiday in honour of the shoemakers. The King, returning from the wars in France, meets Eyre; their meeting is interrupted by the Earl of Lincoln and Oatley, who request that the King annul the marriage between Lacy and Rose. He appears to do so, only then to intercede on the lovers’ behalf. And delighted by Eyre’s cheerful madcap disposition, the King grants him and the shoemakers the right to use Leadenhall two days a week to buy and sell leather.

The Author

Thomas Dekker was born in or around 1572 and probably lived in London all his life. His last name, however, suggests Dutch ancestry; and The Shoemaker’s Holiday displays a more than passing acquaintance with the Dutch language. We know nothing about Dekker’s childhood or education, but he was familiar with Latin as well as Dutch, and his multilingualism was accompanied – as we have noted – by a keen ear for lower-class vernacular. This is of a piece with his sustained interest in, and compassionate treatment of, socially marginal or unconventional characters. Dekker was by no means universally inclusive, however; his writing sometimes displays a penchant for jingoist Papist-bashing, as exemplified by his prose pamphlet The Double PP and his play The Whore of Babylon, both of which warn against threats posed to England by malevolent Catholic foreigners.