Merrie England is an English comic opera in two acts by Edward German to a libretto by Basil Hood. The patriotic story concerns love and rivalries at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, when a love letter sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, Bessie Throckmorton, ends up in the hands of the Queen. Well-known songs from the opera include "O Peaceful England", "The Yeomen of England" and "Dan Cupid hath a Garden". The piece played at the Savoy Theatre in London in 1902–1903. It has been revived many times, both professionally and by amateur operatic groups. There have been complete recordings of the score and several issues of recorded excerpts. Background and original production Basil Hood's libretto makes heavy use of wordplay for comic (and dramatic) effect. For example, the homophones 'fore' and 'four' are used in a scene in the second act where it is explained that a dragon has "four legs, two of which are hind legs and two of which are fore legs" (compare this with the famous 'orphan'/'often' exchange in Act one of The Pirates of Penzance, by Gilbert and Sullivan). The poem in Act One giving the A to Z of Romeo and Juliet is an example of Hood's writing, summarising the plot of Romeo and Juliet through use of the alphabet. The plot, a rustic, romanticised Tudor story, has been criticised for containing too many unimportant characters and for historical inaccuracy. It concerns love and rivalries at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, who is portrayed as jealous of Sir Walter Raleigh's affection for her lady-in-waiting, Bessie Throckmorton. This relationship is revealed to the Queen by the Earl of Essex, who transmits a love letter written by Raleigh to Bessie, which the Queen initially assumes was meant for herself. Ultimately, however, the Queen chooses Essex as her lover and forgives Bessie. The music is an example of the style of English light opera made famous in the 1870s and 1880s by Gilbert and Sullivan. It features a prominent chorus and a range of principal numbers including ballads, patter songs, duets and quintets. German had gained a lot of practical knowledge about style and orchestration from completing Arthur Sullivan's score for The Emerald Isle, and he put this into practice in Merrie England, which was his own first large-scale work for the stage. German's score, evoking the colourful Tudor period,