ABSTRACT
There are three stories in The Gentle Craft: the story of Richard Casteler; the story of Master Peachey and his household; the story of the Green King. Thomas Deloney could read of Richard Casteler in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. The 1587 version of this text was that used by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He had also read Long Meg of Westminster, a popular jest-book of 1582, but Mann warns that 'Deloney's use of printed sources must not be over-emphasized. Richard Casteler was probably well known to London tradition as a recent benefactor. Long Meg is a byword in contemporary literature' although she is a far more sympathetic figure in The Gentle Craft than in the sources. Gillian of the George seems to have been a product purely of Deloney's imagination. The story of Peachey was traditional but Deloney seems to have peopled it with figures whose names are derived from Holinshed and Stowe.
