At a precise moment in time, regular news-sheets dealing with foreign affairs erupted into the world of early modern English printing, publishing, and reading.1 The year was 1621. That Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, written about fifteen years before, should have anything to do with the phenomenon of the news-sheet might seem absurd were it not that, as Gary Taylor and I have previously argued, Measure was subject to theatrical adaptation in 1621 by Thomas Middleton.2 The present discussion is based entirely on this premise, and a summary is presented as an appendix below.3 I propose to consolidate the play’s situation in the unfamiliar setting of 1621 by establishing the play’s part in the representation of international news on stage. The 1621 revival will be seen to take part in a wider opening-up of diplomacy and foreign affairs to public debate.

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