It has been amply demonstrated by students of Sir David Lindsay's Satire of the Three Estates that there were performances of the play in 1540, 1552, and 1554, and that the Three Estates as now extant in the quarto of 1602 and George Bannatyne's manuscript of 1568 represents a revision made subsequently to the year 1550. The normal view would be that Bannatyne's version derives from the manuscript later used for the edition of 1602; but Mr. Douglas Hamer, Lindsay's most recent editor, argues that the Bannatyne copy was made from a version of the Three Estates earlier than that used for the quarto of 1602.