About: Blurt, Master Constable

Blurt, Master Constable, or the Spaniards' Night Walk is a late Elizabethan comedy, printed anonymously in 1602 and usually attributed to either Thomas Middleton or Thomas Dekker. The subtitle of the play, "The Spaniards' Night Walk," together with an allusion to the Spanish in Ireland in its final scene, helps to fix the date of composition to late 1601 or early 1602, following the Spanish landing in Ireland in September 1601 and their role in the battle of Kinsale. It was entered into the Stationers' Register on 7 June 1602, and published later in that year in quarto, printed by Edward Allde for the bookseller Henry Rocket. The title page of the quarto states that the play was acted by the Children of Paul's, one of the troupes of boy actors performing at the time.