Parts II and III like Part I have seldom figured on the English stage. Down to 1642, no record of any performance under such titles survives. But if the First Part of the Contention (1594) and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke (1595) are, as is now believed, merely vamped versions of 2 and 3 Henry VI, it is clear that at the outset both Parts enjoyed a certain vogue. Both the 1595 and the 1600 texts of The True Tragedie describe it on the title page as ‘sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his seruants’, and by prefixing to the main title the words ‘with the whole contention betweene the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke’ imply that the First Part of the Contention had been similarly acted. After this, however, we hear nothing till the Restoration. A document in the Lord Chamberlain's records, dated 20 August 1668, includes Three parts of H: ye 6: in a list of ‘Plays allowed to be acted by his Royal Highnesse ye Duke of Yorke's Comoedians’; but there is no evidence that the Duke's Company used this permission and actually put the genuine Parts II and III on the stage.