The Elizabethan Stage_ Vol. 2 E. K. Chambers 2426 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2

Author: E. K. Chambers

Release date: February 17, 2022 [eBook #67423]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: The Clarendon Press, 1923

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67423

Credits: Tim Lindell, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ELIZABETHAN STAGE, VOL. 2 ***

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE
VOL. II

Oxford University Press
London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen
New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town
Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the University

FROM THE ENGRAVING BY WENCESLAUS HOLLAR IN DUGDALE’S
St. Paul’s 1658

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE
BY E. K. CHAMBERS. VOL. II

OXFORD: AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M.CMXXIII

Printed in England

CONTENTS
VOLUME II

BOOK III. THE COMPANIES
PAGE
XII. Introduction. The Boy Companies 1
A. Introduction 3
B. The Boy Companies—
i. Children of Paul’s 8
ii. Children of the Chapel and Queen’s Revels 23
iii. Children of Windsor 61
iv. Children of the King’s Revels 64
v. Children of Bristol 68
vi. Westminster School 69
vii. Eton College 73
viii. Merchant Taylors School 75
ix. The Earl of Leicester’s Boys 76
x. The Earl of Oxford’s Boys 76
xi. Mr. Stanley’s Boys 76

XIII. The Adult Companies 77
i. The Court Interluders 77
ii. The Earl of Leicester’s Men 85
iii. Lord Rich’s Men 91
iv. Lord Abergavenny’s Men 92
v. The Earl of Sussex’s Men 92
vi. Sir Robert Lane’s Men 96
vii. The Earl of Lincoln’s (Lord Clinton’s) Men 96
viii. The Earl of Warwick’s Men 97
ix. The Earl of Oxford’s Men 99
x. The Earl of Essex’s Men 102
xi. Lord Vaux’s Men 103

xii. Lord Berkeley’s Men 103
xiii. Queen Elizabeth’s Men 104
xiv. The Earl of Arundel’s Men 116
xv. The Earl of Hertford’s Men 116
xvi. Mr. Evelyn’s Men 117
xvii. The Earl of Derby’s (Lord Strange’s) Men 118
xviii. The Earl of Pembroke’s Men 128
xix. The Lord Admiral’s (Lord Howard’s, Earl of Nottingham’s),
Prince Henry’s, and Elector Palatine’s Men 134
xx. The Lord Chamberlain’s (Lord Hunsdon’s) and King’s Men 192
xxi. The Earl of Worcester’s and Queen Anne’s Men 220
xxii. The Duke of Lennox’s Men 241
xxiii. The Duke of York’s (Prince Charles’s) Men 241
xxiv. The Lady Elizabeth’s Men 246

XIV. International Companies 261
i. Italian Players in England 261
ii. English Players in Scotland 265
iii. English Players on the Continent 270

XV. Actors 295

BOOK IV. THE PLAY-HOUSES
XVI. Introduction. The Public Theatres 353
A. Introduction 355
B. The Public Theatres—
i. The Red Lion Inn 379
ii. The Bull Inn 380
iii. The Bell Inn 381
iv. The Bel Savage Inn 382
v. The Cross Keys Inn 383
vi. The Theatre 383
vii. The Curtain 400
viii. Newington Butts 404
ix. The Rose 405
x. The Swan 411
xi. The Globe 414
xii. The Fortune 435
xiii. The Boar’s Head 443
xiv. The Red Bull 445
xv. The Hope 448

xvi. Porter’s Hall 472

XVII. The Private Theatres 475
i. The Blackfriars 475
ii. The Whitefriars 515

XVIII. The Structure and Conduct of Theatres 518

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Domus Capitularis Sti Pauli a Meridie Prospectus. By
Wenceslaus Hollar. From Sir William Dugdale, History of
St. Paul’s Cathedral (1658) Frontispiece
Diagrams of the Blackfriars Theatres p. 504
nterior of the Swan Theatre. From the drawing after Johannes
de Witt in Arend van Buchell’s commonplace book p. 521

NOTE ON SYMBOLS
I have found it convenient, especially in Appendix A, to use the symbol
< following a date, to indicate an uncertain date not earlier than that named,
and the symbol > followed by a date, to indicate an uncertain date not later
than that named. Thus 1903 < > 23 would indicate the composition date of
any part of this book. I have sometimes placed the date of a play in italics,
where it was desirable to indicate the date of production rather than
publication.

BOOK III
THE COMPANIES

‘Has led the drum before the English tragedians.’
All’s Well that Ends Well.

XII
INTRODUCTION. THE BOY COMPANIES

[Bibliographical Note.—The first systematic investigation into the history of the
companies was that of F. G. Fleay, which, after tentative sketches in his Shakespeare
Manual (1876) and Life and Work of Shakespeare (1886), took shape in his Chronicle
History of the Stage (1890). Little is added by the compilations of A. Albrecht, Das
Englische Kindertheater (1883), H. Maas, Die Kindertruppen (1901) and Äussere
Geschichte der Englischen Theatertruppen (1907), and J. A. Nairn, Boy-Actors under
the Tudors and Stewarts (Trans. of Royal Soc. of Lit. xxxii). W. W. Greg, Henslowe’s
Diary (1904–8), made a careful study of all the companies which had relations with
Philip Henslowe, and modified or corrected many of Fleay’s results. An account of
the chief London companies is in A. H. Thorndike, Shakespeare’s Theater (1916), and
utilizes some new material collected in recent years. W. Creizenach, Schauspiele der
Englischen Komödianten (1889), and E. Herz, Englische Schauspieler und Englisches
Schauspiel (1903), have summarized the records of the travels of English actors in
Germany. C. W. Wallace, besides his special work on the Chapel, has published the
records of several theatrical lawsuits in Advance Sheets from Shakespeare, the Globe,
and Blackfriars (1909), in Nebraska University Studies, ix (1909), 287; x (1910), 261;
xiii (1913), 1, and in The Swan Theatre and the Earl of Pembroke’s Servants (1911,
Englische Studien, xliii. 340); the present writer has completed the information drawn
from the Chamber Accounts in P. Cunningham’s Extracts from the Accounts of the
Revels at Court (1842) by articles in M. L. R. ii (1906), 1; iv (1909), 153 (cf. App. B);
and a number of documents, new and old, including the texts of all the patents issued
to companies, have been carefully edited in vol. i of the Collections of the Malone
Society (1907–11). Finally, J. T. Murray, English Dramatic Companies (1910), has
collected the published notices of performances in the provinces, added others from
the municipal archives of Barnstaple, Bristol, Coventry, Dover, Exeter, Gloucester,
Marlborough, Norwich, Plymouth, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Winchester, and York,
and on the basis of these constructed valuable accounts of all the London and
provincial companies between 1558 and 1642. Most of the present chapter was
written before Murray’s book appeared, but it has been carefully revised with the aid
of his new material. I have not thought it necessary to refer to my original provincial
sources, where they are included in his convenient Appendix G, but in using his book
it should be borne in mind that he has made a good many omissions in carrying data
from this Appendix to the tables of provincial visits, which he gives for each
company. For a few places I have had the advantage of sources not drawn upon by
Murray, and these should be treated as the references for any facts as regards such
places not discoverable in Murray’s Appendix. They are:—for Belvoir and other
houses of the Earls of Rutland, Rutland MSS. (Hist. MSS.), iv. 260; for the house of
Richard Bertie and his wife the Duchess of Suffolk at Grimsthorpe, Ancaster MSS.
(Hist. MSS.), 459; for Wollaton, the house of Francis Willoughby, Middleton MSS.
(Hist. MSS.), 446; for Maldon and Saffron Walden in Essex, A. Clark’s extracts in 10
Notes and Queries, vii. 181, 342, 422; viii. 43; xii. 41; for Newcastle-on-Tyne, G. B.
Richardson, Reprints of Rare Tracts, vol. iii, and 10 N. Q. xii. 222; for Reading, Hist.
MSS. xi. 177; for Oxford, F. S. Boas in Fortnightly Review (Aug. 1913; Aug. 1918;
May 1920); for Stratford, J. O. Halliwell, Stratford-upon-Avon in the Time of the
Shakespeares, illustrated by Extracts from the Council-Books (1864); for Weymouth,
H. J. Moule, Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Documents (1883), 136; for Dunwich,
Various Collections (Hist. MSS.), vii. 82; for Aldeburgh, Suffolk, C. C. Stopes,

William Hunnis, 314. References for a few other scattered items are in the foot-notes.
The warning should be given that the dates assigned to some of the provincial
performances are approximate, and may be in error within a year or so either way. For
this there are more reasons than one. The zealous antiquaries who have made extracts
from local records have not realized that precise dates might be of value, and have
often named a year without indicating whether it represents the calendar year
(Circumcision style) or the calendar year (Annunciation style) in which a performance
fell, or the calendar year in which a regnal, mayoral, or accounting year, in which the
performance fell, began or ended. When they are clearly dealing with accounting
years, they do not always indicate whether these ended at Michaelmas or at some
other date. They sometimes give only the year of a performance, when they might
have given, precisely or approximately, the month and day of the month as well. But it
is fair to add that the accounts of City Chamberlains and similar officers, from which
the notices of plays are generally derived, are not always so kept as to render precise
dating feasible. Some accountants specify the days, others the weeks to which their
entries relate; others put their entries in chronological order and date some of them, so
that it is possible to fix the dates of the rest within limits; others again render accounts
analysed under heads, grouping all payments to players perhaps under a head of ‘Gifts
and Rewards’, and in such cases you cannot be sure that the companies are even
entered in the order of their visits, and if months and days are not specified, cannot
learn more than the year to which a visit belongs. Where, for whatever reason, I can
only assign a performance to its accounting year, I generally give it under the calendar
year in which the account ends. This, in the case of a London company and of a
Michaelmas year (much the commonest year for municipal accounts), is pretty safe,
as the touring season was roughly July to September. Some accounting years
(Coventry, Marlborough, Stratford-on-Avon) end later still, but if, as at Bath, the year
ends about Midsummer, it is often quite a toss-up to which of two years an entry
belongs. In the case of Leicester performances before 1603, I have combined the
indications of Michaelmas years in M. Bateson, Leicester Records, vol. iii, with those
of calendar years in W. Kelly, Notices Illustrative of the Drama (1865), 185, and
distinguished between performances before and after Michaelmas. I hope Kelly has
not misled me, and that he found evidence in the entries for his dating. After 1603 he
is the only source. I do not think that the amount of error which has crept into the
following chapter from the various causes described is likely to be at all considerable.
I have been as careful as possible and most of Murray’s own extracting is excellently
done. I should, however, add that the Ipswich dates, as given both here and by
Murray, ii. 287. from Hist. MSS. ix. i, 248, are unreliable, because some of the rolls
from which they are taken contain membranes properly belonging to those for other
years; cf. my notes on Leicester’s (pp. 89, 91), Queen’s (p. 106), Warwick’s (p. 99),
Derby’s (p. 120), King’s (p. 209).]

A. INTRODUCTION

The present chapter contains detailed chronicles—too often, I fear,
lapsing into arid annals of performances at Court or in the provinces—of all
the companies traceable in London during any year between 1558 and
1616. The household and other establishments to which the companies were
attached are taken as the basis of classification. This principle is open to

criticism. Certainly it has not always the advantage of presenting economic
units. It is improbable that there was any continuity as regards membership
between the bodies of actors successively appearing, often after long
intervals, under the names of Sussex or Hunsdon or Derby. On the other
hand, particular associations of actors can sometimes be discerned as
holding together under a change of patrons. Thus between 1571 and 1583
Laurence and John Dutton seem to have led a single company, which
earned the nickname of the Chameleons, first in the service of Sir Robert
Lane and then, turn by turn, in that of the Earls of Lincoln, Warwick, and
Oxford. The real successors, again, of the Derby’s men of 1593 are less the
Derby’s men of 1595–1618 than the Hunsdon’s men of 1594–1603, who in
course of time became the King’s men without any breach of their unity as
a trading association. Nevertheless, an arrangement under patrons is a
practicable one, since companies nearly always appear under the names of
their patrons in official documents, while an arrangement under trading
associations is not. Actors are a restless folk, and the history of the
Admiral’s men, or the Queen’s Revels, or the Lady Elizabeth’s men, will
show how constantly their business organizations were disturbed by the
coming and going of individuals, and by the breaking and reconstruction of
the agreements on which they were based. It is but rarely that we have any
clue to these intricacies; and I have therefore followed the households as the
best available guides, indicating breaches of continuity and affiliations,
where these appear to exist, and adopting as far as possible an order which,
without pretence of being scientific, will bring each household under
consideration roughly at the point at which its servants become of the
greatest significance to the general history of the stage. The method may
perhaps be described as that of a λαμπαδηφορία.
A study of the succession of the companies gives rise to a few general
considerations. During the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign the drama is
under the domination of the boy companies. This may be in part due to the
long-standing humanistic tradition of the Renaissance, although the lead is
in fact taken not so much by schoolboys in the stricter sense, as by the
trained musical establishments of the royal chapels and still more that of the
St. Paul’s choir under Sebastian Westcott. More important points perhaps
are, that the Gentlemen of the Chapel, who had been prominent under
Henry VIII, had ceased to perform, that the royal Interluders had been
allowed to decay, and that the other professional companies had not yet

found a permanent economic basis in London, while their literary
accomplishment was still upon a popular rather than a courtly level.
Whatever the cause or causes, the fact is undeniable. Out of seventy-eight
rewards for Court performances between 1558 and 1576, twenty-one went
to the Paul’s boys, fifteen to the royal chapels, and ten to schoolboys,
making a total of forty-six, as against only thirty-two paid to adult
companies. And if the first half of this period only be taken, the
disproportion is still greater, for by 1567 the Paul’s boys had received
eleven rewards, other boys two, and the adult companies six. A complete
reversal of this position coincides rather markedly with the building of the
first permanent theatres in 1576. Between 1576 and 1583 the adult
companies had thirty-nine rewards and the boys only seventeen. There is
also a rapid growth in the number of companies. Before 1576 the Earl of
Leicester’s men and the Duttons were alone conspicuous. After 1576 the
entertainment of a London company seems to become a regular practice
with those great officers the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Admiral, as
well as with special favourites of the Queen, such as the Earl of Leicester
himself or the Earl of Oxford. Stockwood in 1578 speaks of ‘eighte
ordinarie places’ in the City as occupied by the players. A Privy Council
order of the same year limits the right to perform to six companies selected
to take part in the Court festivities at Christmas, namely Leicester’s men,
Warwick’s, Sussex’s, Essex’s, and the Children of the Chapel and St. Paul’s.
Gabriel Harvey, writing to Edmund Spenser of the publication of his
virelays in the following summer, says:
‘Ye have preiudished my good name for ever in thrustinge me thus on the stage to
make tryall of my extemporall faculty, and to play Wylsons or Tarletons parte. I
suppose thou wilt go nighe hande shortelye to sende my lorde of Lycesters or my
lorde of Warwickes, Vawsis, or my lord Ritches players, or sum other freshe starteupp
comedanties unto me for sum newe devised interlude, or sum maltconceivid comedye
fitt for the Theater, or sum other paintid stage whereat thou and thy lively copesmates
in London maye lawghe ther mouthes and bellyes full for pence or twoepence
apeece.’[1]

Doubtless many of this mushroom brood of ‘freshe starteupp
comedanties’ never succeeded in making good their permanent footing in
the metropolis. Lord Vaux’s men, whom Harvey mentions, were never
fortunate enough to be summoned to Court; and the same may be said of
Lord Arundel’s men, Lord Berkeley’s, and Lord Abergavenny’s. Such men,

after their cast for fortune, had to drift away into the provinces, and pad the
hoof on the hard roads once more.
The next septennial period, 1583–90, witnessed the extinction, for a
decade or so, of the boy companies, in spite of the new impulse given to the
latter by the activity as a playwright of John Lyly. Of forty-five Court
payments made during these years, thirty apparently went to men and only
fifteen to boys. This ultimate success of the professional organizations may
largely have been due to their employment of such university wits as
Marlowe, Peele, Greene, Lodge, and Nashe in the writing of plays, with
which Lyly could be challenged on his own ground before the Court, while
a sufficient supply of chronicle histories and other popular stuff could still
be kept on the boards to tickle the ears of the groundlings. The undisputed
pre-eminence lay during this period with the Queen’s men, who made
within it no less than twenty-one appearances at Court. This company
enjoyed the prestige of the royal livery, transferred to it from the now
defunct Interluders, which had a ready effect in the unloosing of municipal
pockets. And at its foundation in 1583 it incorporated, in addition to
Tarlton, whose origin is unknown, the leading members of the pre-existing
companies: Wilson and Laneham from Leicester’s, Adams from Sussex’s,
and John Dutton from Oxford’s. The former fellows of these lucky ones
were naturally hardly able to maintain their standing. In January 1587
Leicester’s, Oxford’s, and the Admiral’s were still setting up their bills side
by side with those of the Queen’s.[2] But the first two are not heard of at
Court again, and even the Admiral’s were hardly able to make a show
except by coalition with other companies. Thus we find the Admiral’s
combining with Hunsdon’s in 1585, and with Strange’s perhaps from 1589
onwards, and it became the destiny of this last alliance, under the leadership
of Edward Alleyn, to dispossess the Queen’s men, after the death of Tarlton
in 1588, from their pride of place. The fall of the Queen’s men was sudden.
In 1590–1 they gave four Court plays to two by their rivals; in 1591–2 they
gave one, and their rivals six. In their turn they appear to have been reduced
to forming a coalition with Lord Sussex’s men.
The plague-years of 1592–4 brought disaster, chaos, and change into the
theatrical world. Only the briefest London seasons were possible. The
necessities of travelling led to further combinations and recombinations of
groups, one of which may have given rise to the ephemeral existence of

Lord Pembroke’s men. And, by the time the public health was restored, the
Queen’s had reconciled themselves to a provincial existence, and continued
until 1603 to make their harvest of the royal name, as their predecessors in
title had done, without returning to London at all. The combination of
which Alleyn had been the centre broke up, and its component elements
reconstituted themselves as the two great companies of the Chamberlain’s
and the Admiral’s men. Between these there was a vigorous rivalry, which
sometimes showed itself in lawsuits, sometimes in the more legitimate form
of competing plays on similar themes. Thus a popular sentiment offended
by the Chamberlain’s men in 1 Henry IV was at once appealed to by the
Admiral’s with Sir John Oldcastle. And when the Admiral’s scored a
success by their representation of forest life in Robin Hood, the
Chamberlain’s were quickly ready to counter with As You Like It. I think the
Chamberlain’s secured the better position of the two. They had their
Burbadge to pit against the reputation of Alleyn; they had their honey-
tongued Shakespeare; and they had a business organization which gave
them a greater stability of membership than any company in the hands of
Henslowe was likely to secure. If one may once more use the statistics of
Court performances as a criterion, they are found to have appeared thirty-
two times and their rivals only twenty times from 1594 to 1603. Between
them the Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s enjoyed for some years a
practical monopoly of the London stage, which received an official
recognition by the action of the Privy Council in 1597. But this state of
things did not long continue. Ambitious companies, such as Pembroke’s,
disregarded the directions of the Council. Derby’s men, Worcester’s,
Hertford’s, one by one obtained at least a temporary footing at Court, and in
1602 the influence of the Earl of Oxford was strong enough to bring about
the admission to a permanent home in London of a third company made up
of his own and Worcester’s servants. Even more dangerous, perhaps, to the
monopoly was the revival of the boy companies, Paul’s in 1599 and the
Chapel in 1600. The imps not only took by their novelty in the eyes of a
younger generation of play-goers. They began a warfare of satire, in which
they ‘berattled the common stages’ with a vigour and dexterity that betray
the malice of the poets against the players which had been a motive in their
rehabilitation.[3]
No material change took place at the coming of James. The three adult
companies, the Chamberlain’s, the Admiral’s, Worcester’s, passed

respectively under the patronage of James, Prince Henry, and Queen Anne.
[4]
On the death of Prince Henry in 1612 his place was taken by the Elector
Palatine. The Children of the Chapel also received the patronage of Queen
Anne, as Children of the Queen’s Revels. The competition for popular
favour continued severe. Dekker refers to it in 1608 and the preacher
Crashaw in 1610.[5] It is to be noticed, however, that Dekker speaks only of
‘a deadly war’ between ‘three houses’, presumably regarding the boy
companies as negligible. And in fact these companies were on the wane. By
1609 the Queen’s Revels, though still in existence, had suffered from the
wearing off of novelty, from the tendency of boys to grow older, from the
plague-seasons of 1603–4 and 1608–9, which they were less well equipped
than the better financed adults to withstand, from the indiscretions and
quarrels of their managers, and from the loss of the Blackfriars, of which
the King’s men had secured possession.[6] The Paul’s boys had been bought
off by the payment of a ‘dead rent’ or blackmail to the Master. A third
company, the King’s Revels, had been started, but had failed to establish
itself.[7] The three houses were not, indeed, left with an undisputed field.
Advantage was taken of the predilection of the younger members of the
royal family for the drama, and patents were obtained, in 1610 for a Duke
of York’s company, and in 1611 for a Lady Elizabeth’s company. These also
had but a frail life. In 1613 the Lady Elizabeth’s and the Queen’s Revels
coalesced under the dangerous wardenship of Henslowe. In 1615 the Duke
of York’s, now Prince Charles’s, men joined the combination. And finally in
1616 the Prince’s men were left alone to make up the tale of four London
companies, and the Lady Elizabeth’s and the Queen’s Revels disappeared
into the provinces. The list of men summoned before the Privy Council in
March 1615 to account for playing in Lent contains the names of the leaders
of the four companies, the King’s, the Queen’s, the Palsgrave’s, and the
Prince’s. The King’s played at the Globe and Blackfriars, the Queen’s at the
Red Bull, whence they moved in 1617 to the Cockpit, the Palsgrave’s at the
Fortune, and the Prince’s at the Hope. The supremacy of the King’s men
during 1603–16 was undisputed. Of two hundred and ninety-nine plays
rewarded at Court for that period, they gave one hundred and seventy-
seven, the Prince’s men forty-seven, the Queen’s men twenty-eight, the
Duke of York’s men twenty, the Lady Elizabeth’s men nine, the Queen’s
Revels boys fifteen, and the Paul’s boys three. Their plays, moreover, were
those usually selected for performance before James himself. It is possible,

however, that the Red Bull and the Fortune were better able to hold their
own against the Globe when it came to attracting a popular audience.
B. THE BOY COMPANIES

i. Children of Paul’s.
ii. Children of the Chapel and Queen’s Revels.
iii. Children of Windsor.
iv. Children of the King’s Revels.
v. Children of Bristol.
vi. Westminster School.
vii. Eton College.
viii. Merchant Taylors School.
ix. Earl of Leicester’s Boys.
x. Earl of Oxford’s Boys.
xi. Mr. Stanley’s Boys.

i. THE CHILDREN OF PAUL’S
High Masters of Grammar School:—William Lily (1509–22); John Ritwise (1522–
32); Richard Jones (1532–49); Thomas Freeman (1549–59); John Cook (1559–73);
William Malim (1573–81); John Harrison (1581–96); Richard Mulcaster (1596–
1608).
Masters of Choir School:—? Thomas Hikeman (c. 1521); John Redford (c. 1540);?
Thomas Mulliner (?); Sebastian Westcott (> 1557–1582); Thomas Giles (1584–1590
<); Edward Pearce (> 1600–1606 <).
[Bibliographical Note.—The documents bearing upon the early
history of the two cathedral schools, often confused, are printed and
discussed by A. F. Leach in St. Paul’s School before Colet (Archaeologia,
lxii. 1. 191) and in Journal of Education (1909), 503. M. F. J.
McDonnell, A History of St. Paul’s School (1909), carries on the
narrative of the grammar school. The official chroniclers of the cathedral,
perhaps owing to the loss of archives in the Great Fire, have given no
connected account of the choir school; with the material available on the
dramatic side they appear to be unfamiliar. Valuable contributions are W.
H. G. Flood, Master Sebastian, in Musical Antiquary, iii. 149; iv. 187;
and H. N. Hillebrand, Sebastian Westcote, Dramatist and Master of the
Children of Paul’s (1915, J. G. P. xiv. 568). Little is added to the papers
on Plays Acted by the Children of Paul’s and Music in St. Paul’s
Cathedral in W. S. Simpson, Gleanings from Old St. Paul’s (1889), 101,
155, by J. S. Bumpus, The Organists and Composers of St. Paul’s
Cathedral (1891), and W. M. Sinclair, Memorials of St. Paul’s Cathedral
(1909).]

Mr. Leach has succeeded in tracing the grammar school, as part of the
establishment of St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the beginning of the twelfth
century. It was then located in the south-east corner of the churchyard, near
the bell-tower, and here it remained to 1512, when it was rebuilt, endowed,
and reorganized on humanist lines by Dean Colet, and thereafter to 1876,
when it was transferred to Horsham in Sussex. Originally the master was
one of the canons; but by the beginning of the thirteenth century this officer
had taken on the name of chancellor, and the general supervision of the
actual schoolmaster, a vicar choral, was only one of his functions. Distinct
from the grammar school was the choir school, for which the responsible
dignitary was not the chancellor, but the precentor, in whose hands the
appointment of a master of the song school rested.[8] There was, however, a
third branch of the cathedral organization also concerned with the training
of boys. The almonry or hospital, maintained by the chapter for the relief of
the poor, seems to have been established at the end of the twelfth century,
and statutes of about the same date make it the duty of a canon residentiary
to assist in the maintenance of its pueri elemosinarii, and prescribe the
special services to be rendered them at their great annual ceremony of the
Boy Bishop on Innocents’ Day.[9] In the thirteenth century the supervision
of these boys was in the hands of another subordinate official, appointed by
the chapter and known as the almoner. The number of the boys was then
eight; it was afterwards increased, apparently in 1358, to ten.[10] The
almoner is required to provide for their literary and moral education, and
their liturgical duties are defined as consisting of standing in pairs at the
corners of the choir and carrying candles.[11] A later version of the statutes
provides for their musical education, and it is clear that these pueri
elemosinarii were in fact identical with or formed the nucleus of the boys of
the song school.[12] During the sixteenth century the posts of almoner and
master of the song school, although technically distinct, were in practice
held together, and the holder was ordinarily a member of the supplementary
cathedral establishment known as the College of Minor Canons.[13] To this
college had been appropriated the parish church of St. Gregory, on the south
side of St. Paul’s, just west of the Chapter or Convocation House, and here
the song school was already housed by the twelfth century.[14] The college
had also a common hall on the north of the cathedral, near the Pardon
churchyard; and hard by was the almonry in Paternoster Row.[15] The

statutes left the almoner the option of either giving the boys their literary
education himself, or sending them elsewhere. It naturally proved
convenient to send them to the grammar school, and the almoners claimed
that they had a right to admission without fees.[16] On the other side we find
the grammar school boys directed by Colet to attend the Boy Bishop
ceremony and make their offerings.[17] Evidently there was much give and
take between song school and grammar school.
As early as 1378 the scholars of Paul’s are said to have prepared a play
of the History of the Old Testament for public representation at Christmas.
[18]
Whether they took a share in the other miracles recorded in mediaeval
London, it is impossible to say. A century and a half later the boys of the
grammar school, during the mastership of John Ritwise, are found
contributing interludes, in the humanist fashion, to the entertainment of the
Court. On 10 November 1527 they gave an anti-Lutheran play in Latin and
French before the King and the ambassadors of Francis I, and in the
following year the Phormio before Wolsey, who also saw them, if Anthony
Wood can be trusted, in a Dido written by Ritwise himself.[19] There is no
evidence that Ritwise’s successors followed his example by bringing their
pupils to Court; and the next performances by Paul’s boys, which can be
definitely traced, began a quarter of a century later, and were under the
control of Sebastian Westcott, master of the song school, and were therefore
presumably given by boys of that school. Westcott in 1545 was a Yeoman
of the Chamber at Court.[20] He was ‘scolemaister of Powles’ by New
Year’s Day 1557, when he presented a manuscript book of ditties to Queen
Mary.[21] Five years earlier, he had brought children to Hatfield, to give a
play before the Princess Elizabeth; and the chances are that these were the
Paul’s boys.[22] With him came one Heywood, who may fairly be identified
with John Heywood the dramatist; and this enables us, more conjecturally,
to reduce a little further the gap in the dramatic history of the Paul’s choir,
for some years before, in March 1538, Heywood had already received a
reward for playing an interlude with ‘his children’ before the Lady Mary.[23]
There is nothing beyond this phrase to suggest that Heywood had a
company of his own, and it is not probable that he was ever himself master
of the choir school.[24] But he may very well have supplied them with plays,
both in Westcott’s time and also in that of his predecessor John Redford.
Several of Heywood’s verses are preserved in a manuscript, which also

contains Redford’s Wyt and Science and fragments of other interludes, not
improbably intended for performance by the boys under his charge.[25] A
play ‘of childerne sett owte by Mr. Haywood’ at Court during the spring of
1553 may also belong to the Paul’s boys.[26] Certain performances ascribed
to them at Hatfield, during the Princess Elizabeth’s residence there in her
sister’s reign, have of late fallen under suspicion of being apocryphal.[27]
From the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign Westcott’s theatrical enterprise
stands out clearly enough. On 7 August 1559 the Queen was entertained by
the Earl of Arundel at Nonsuch with ‘a play of the chylderyn of Powlles and
ther Master Se[bastian], Master Phelypes, and Master Haywod’.[28] If
‘Master Phelypes’ was the John Philip or Phillips who wrote Patient
Grissell (c. 1566), this play may also belong to the Paul’s repertory.
Heywood could not adapt himself again to a Protestant England, and soon
left the country. Sebastian Westcott was more fortunate. In 1560 he was
appointed as Head of the College of Minor Canons or Sub-dean.[29] Shortly
afterwards, being unable to accept the religious settlement, he was
sentenced to deprivation of his offices, which included that of organist, but
escaped through the personal influence of Elizabeth, in spite of some
searchings of the heart of Bishop Grindal as to his suitability to be an
instructor of youth.[30] In fact he succeeded in remaining songmaster of
Paul’s for the next twenty-three years, and during that period brought his
boys to Court no less than twenty-seven times, furnishing a far larger share
of the royal Christmas entertainment, especially during the first decade of
the reign, than any other single company. The chronicle of his plays must
now be given. There was one at each of the Christmases of 1560–1 and
1561–2, one between 6 January and 9 March 1562, and one at the
Christmas of 1562–3.[31] During the next winter the plague stopped London
plays. At the Christmas of 1564–5 there were two by the Paul’s boys, of
which the second fell on 2 January, and at that of 1565–6 three, two at
Court and one at the Lady Cecilia’s lodging in the Savoy. There were two
again at each of the Christmases of 1566–7 and 1567–8, and one on 1
January 1569. During the winter of 1569–70 the company was,
exceptionally, absent from Court. They reappeared on 28 December 1570,
and again at Shrovetide (25–7 February) 1571. On 28 December 1571 they
gave the ‘tragedy’ of Iphigenia, which Professor Wallace identifies with the
comedy called The Bugbears, but which might, for the matter of that, be

Lady Lumley’s translation from the Greek of Euripides. At the Christmas of
1572–3 they played before 7 January. On 27 December 1573 they gave
Alcmaeon. They played on 2 February 1575, and a misfortune which befell
them in the same year is recorded in a letter of 3 December from the Privy
Council, which sets out that ‘one of Sebastianes boyes, being one of his
principall plaiers, is lately stolen and conveyed from him’, and instructs no
less personages than the Master of the Rolls and Dr. Wilson, one of the
Masters of Requests, to examine the persons whom he suspected and
proceed according to law with them.[32] Five days later the Court of
Aldermen drew up a protest against Westcott’s continued Romish
tendencies.[33] The next Court performance by the boys was on 6 January
1576. On 1 January 1577 they gave Error, and on 19 February Titus and
Gisippus. They played on 29 December 1577, and one wonders whether it
was anything amiss with that performance which led to an entry in the Acts
of the Privy Council for the same day that ‘Sebastian was committid to the
Marshalsea’.[34] Whether this was so or not, the Paul’s boys were included
in the list of companies authorized to practise publicly in the City for the
following Christmas. On 1 January 1579 they gave The Marriage of Mind
and Measure, on 3 January 1580 Scipio Africanus, and on 6 January 1581
Pompey. A play on 26 December 1581 is anonymous, but may possibly be
the Cupid and Psyche mentioned as ‘plaid at Paules’ in Gosson’s Playes
Confuted of 1582.[35]
In the course of 1582 Sebastian Westcott died, and this event led to an
important development in the dramatic activities of the boys.[36] Hitherto
their performances, when not at Court, had been in their own quarters ‘at
Paules’, although the notice of 1578, as well as Gosson’s reference,
suggests that the public were not altogether excluded from their rehearsals.
Probably they used their singing school, which may have been still, as in
the twelfth century, the church of St. Gregory itself.[37] This privacy, even if
something of a convention, had perhaps enabled them to utilize the services
of the grammar school when they had occasion to make a display of
erudition.[38] After Westcott’s death, however, they appear to have followed
the example of the Chapel, who had already in 1576 taken a step in the
direction of professionalism, by transferring their performances to Farrant’s
newly opened theatre at the Blackfriars. Here, if the rather difficult
evidence can be trusted, the Paul’s boys appear to have joined them, and to

have formed part of a composite company, to which Lord Oxford’s boys
also contributed, and which produced the Campaspe and Sapho and Phao
of the earl’s follower John Lyly. Lyly took these plays to Court on 1 January
and 3 March 1584, and Henry Evans, who was also associated with the
enterprise, took a play called Agamemnon and Ulysses on 27 December. On
all three occasions the official patron of the company was the Earl of
Oxford. In Agamemnon and Ulysses it must be doubtful whether the Paul’s
boys had any share, for in the spring of 1584 the Blackfriars theatre ceased
to be available, and the combination probably broke up.[39] This, however,
was far from being the end of Lyly’s connexion with the boys, for the title-
pages of no less than five of his later plays acknowledge them as the
presenters. They had, indeed, a four years’ period of renewed activity at
Court, under the mastership of Thomas Giles, who, being already almoner,
became Master of the Song School on 22 May 1584, and in the following
year received a royal commission to ‘take up’ boys for the choir, analogous
to that ordinarily granted to masters of the Chapel Children.[40] There is no
specific mention of plays in the document, but its whole basis is in the
service which the boys may be called upon to do the Queen in music and
singing. Under Giles the company appeared at Court nine times during four
winter seasons; on 26 February 1587, on 1 January and 2 February 1588, on
27 December 1588, 1 January and 12 January 1589, and on 28 December
1589, 1 January and 6 January 1590. The title-pages of Lyly’s Endymion,
Galathea, and Midas assign the representation of these plays at Court to a 2
February, a 1 January, and a 6 January respectively. Endymion must
therefore belong to 1588 and Midas to 1590; for Galathea the most
probable of the three years is 1588. Mother Bombie and Love’s
Metamorphosis can be less precisely dated, but doubtless belong to the
period 1587–90. At some time or other, and probably before 1590, the
Paul’s boys performed a play of Meleager, of which an abstract only,
without author’s name, is preserved. It is not, I think, to be supposed that
Lyly, although he happened to be a grandson of the first High Master of
Colet’s school, had any official connexion either with that establishment or
with the choir school. It is true that Gabriel Harvey says of him in 1589,
‘He hath not played the Vicemaster of Poules and the Foolemaster of the
Theatre for naughtes’.[41] But this is merely Harvey’s jesting on the old
dramatic sense of the term ‘vice’, and the probabilities are that Lyly’s
relation as dramatist to Giles as responsible manager of the company was

much that which had formerly existed between John Heywood and
Sebastian Westcott. Nevertheless, it was this connexion which ultimately
brought the Paul’s plays to a standstill. Lyly was one of the literary men
employed about 1589 to answer the Martin Marprelate pamphleteers in
their own vein, and to this end he availed himself of the Paul’s stage,
apparently with the result that, when it suited the government to disavow its
instruments, that stage was incontinently suppressed.[42] The reason may be
conjectural, but the fact is undoubted. The Paul’s boys disappear from the
Court records after 1590. In 1591 the printer of Endymion writes in his
preface that ‘Since the Plaies in Paules were dissolved, there are certaine
Commedies come to my handes by chaunce’, and the prolongation of this
dissolution is witnessed to in 1596 by Thomas Nashe, who in his chaff of
Gabriel Harvey’s anticipated practice in the Arches says, ‘Then we neede
neuer wish the Playes at Powles vp againe, but if we were wearie with
walking, and loth to goe too farre to seeke sport, into the Arches we might
step, and heare him plead; which would bee a merrier Comedie than euer
was old Mother Bomby’.[43]
A last theatrical period opened for the boys with the appointment about
1600 of a new master. This was one Edward Pearce or Piers, who had
become a Gentleman of the Chapel on 16 March 1589, and by 15 August
1600, when his successor was sworn in, had ‘yealded up his place for the
Mastership of the children of Poules’.[44] I am tempted to believe that in
reviving the plays Pearce had the encouragement of Richard Mulcaster, who
had become High Master of the grammar school in 1596, and during his
earlier mastership of Merchant Taylors had on several occasions brought his
boys to Court. Pearce is first found in the Treasurer of the Chamber’s
Accounts as payee for a performance on 1 January 1601, but several of the
extant plays produced during this section of the company’s career are of
earlier date, and one of them, Marston’s i Antonio and Mellida, can hardly
be later than 1599. A stage direction of this play apparently records the
names of two of the performers as Cole and Norwood.[45] The Paul’s boys,
therefore, were ‘up again’ before their rivals of the Chapel, who cannot be
shown to have begun in the Blackfriars under Henry Evans until 1600.[46]
This being so, they were probably also responsible for Marston’s revision in
1599 of Histriomastix, which by giving offence to Ben Jonson, led him to
satire Marston’s style in Every Man Out of His Humour, and so introduced

the ‘war of the theatres’.[47] Before the end of 1600 they had probably
added to their repertory Chapman’s Bussy d’Ambois, and certainly The
Maid’s Metamorphosis, The Wisdom of Dr. Dodipoll, and Jack Drum’s
Entertainment, all three of which were entered on the Stationers’ Register,
and the first two printed, during that year. Jack Drum’s Entertainment
followed in 1601 and contains the following interesting passage of
autobiography:[48]
Sir Edward Fortune. I saw the Children of Powles last night,
And troth they pleas’d me prettie, prettie well:
The Apes in time will doe it handsomely.
Planet. I faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause: A man shall not be chokte
With the stench of Garlick; nor be pasted
To the barmie Iacket of a Beer-brewer.
Brabant Junior. ’Tis a good, gentle audience, and I hope the boies
Will come one day into the Court of requests.
Brabant Senior. I, and they had good Plaies. But they produce
Such mustie fopperies of antiquitie,
And do not sute the humorous ages backs,
With clothes in fashion.

The criticism, being a self-criticism, must not be taken too seriously. So
far as published plays are concerned, Histriomastix is the only one to which
it applies. In Marston, Chapman, and Middleton the company had enlisted
vigorous young playwrights, who were probably not sorry to be free from
the yoke of the professional actors, and appear to have followed the
exceptional policy of printing some at least of their new plays as soon as
they were produced.
On 11 March 1601, two months after the boys made their first bow at
Court, the Lord Mayor was ordered by the Privy Council to suppress plays
‘at Powles’ during Lent. It is to be inferred that they were, as of old, acting
in their singing school. Confirmation is provided by a curious note
appended by William Percy to his manuscript volume of plays, presumably
in sending them to be considered with a view to production by the boys.
The plays bear dates in 1601–3, but it can hardly be taken for granted that
they were in fact produced by the Paul’s or any other company. The note
runs:
A note to the Master of Children of Powles.

Memorandum, that if any of the fine and formost of these Pastorals and
Comoedyes conteyned in this volume shall but overeach in length (the children not to
begin before foure, after prayers, and the gates of Powles shutting at six) the tyme of
supper, that then in tyme and place convenient, you do let passe some of the songs,
and make the consort the shorter; for I suppose these plaies be somewhat too long for
that place. Howsoever, on your own experience, and at your best direction, be it.
Farewell to you all.[49]

Both parts of Marston’s Antonio and Mellida were entered on the
Stationers’ Register in the autumn of 1601 and printed in 1602. The second
part may have been on the stage during 1601, and in the same year the boys
probably produced John Marston’s What You Will, and certainly played
‘privately’, as the Chamberlain’s men did ‘publicly’, Satiromastix in which
Dekker, with a hand from Marston, brought his swashing blow against the
redoubtable Jonson. This also was registered in 1601 and printed in 1602.
There is no sign of the boys at Court in the winter of 1601–2. In the course
of 1602 their play of Blurt Master Constable, by Middleton, was registered
and printed. They were at Court on 1 January 1603, for the last time before
Elizabeth, and on 20 February 1604, for the first time before James. Either
the choir school or the grammar school boys took part in the pageant
speeches at the coronation triumph on 15 March 1604.[50] To the year 1604
probably belongs Westward Ho! which introduced to the company, in
collaboration with Dekker, a new writer, John Webster. Northward Ho! by
the same authors, followed in 1605. The company was not at Court for the
winter of 1604–5, but during that of 1605–6 they gave two plays before the
Princes Henry and Charles. For these the payee was not Pearce, but Edward
Kirkham, who is described in the Treasurer of the Chamber’s account as
‘one of the Mres of the Childeren of Pawles’. Kirkham, who was Yeoman of
the Revels, had until recently been a manager of the Children of the Revels
at the Blackfriars. It may have been the disgrace brought upon these by
Eastward Ho! in the course of 1605 that led him to transfer his activities
elsewhere.[51] With him he seems to have brought Marston’s The Fawn,
probably written in 1604 and ascribed in the first of the two editions of
1606 to the Queen’s Revels alone, in the second to them ‘and since at
Poules’. The charms of partnership with Kirkham were not, however,
sufficient to induce Pearce to continue his enterprise. The last traceable
appearance of the Paul’s boys was on 30 July 1606, when they gave The
Abuses before James and King Christian of Denmark.[52] Probably the plays
were discontinued not long afterwards. This would account for the large

number of play-books belonging to the company which reached the hands
of the publishers in 1607 and 1608. The earlier policy of giving plays to the
press immediately after production does not seem to have endured beyond
1602. Those now printed, in addition to Bussy D’Ambois, What You Will,
Westward Ho! and Northward Ho! already mentioned, included Middleton’s
Michaelmas Term, The Phoenix, A Mad World, my Masters, and A Trick to
Catch the Old One, together with The Puritan, very likely also by
Middleton, and The Woman Hater, the first work of Francis Beaumont. The
Puritan can be dated, from a chronological allusion, in 1606. The title-
pages of The Woman Hater, A Mad World, my Masters, and A Trick to
Catch the Old One specify them to have been ‘lately’ acted. It is apparent
from the second quarto of A Trick to Catch the Old One that the Children of
the Blackfriars took it over and presented it at Court on 1 January 1609.
This was probably part of a bargain as to which we have another record.
Pearce may have had at the back of his mind a notion of reopening his
theatre some day. But it is given in evidence in the lawsuit of Keysar v.
Burbadge in 1610 that, while it was still closed, he was approached on
behalf of the other ‘private’ houses in London, those of the Blackfriars and
the Whitefriars, and offered a ‘dead rent’ of £20 a year, ‘that there might be
a cessation of playeinge and playes to be acted in the said howse neere St.
Paules Church’.[53] This must have been in the winter of 1608–9, just as the
Revels company was migrating from the Blackfriars to the Whitefriars. The
agent was Philip Rosseter who, with Robert Keysar, was financially
interested in the Revels company. When the King’s men began to occupy
the Blackfriars in the autumn of 1609, they took on responsibility for half
the dead rent, but whether the arrangement survived the lawsuit of 1610 is
unknown.

ii. THE CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AND OF THE QUEEN’S REVELS
The Children of the Chapel (1501–1603).
Masters of the Children: William Newark (1493–1509), William Cornish (1509–
23), William Crane (1523–45), Richard Bower (1545–61), Richard Edwardes (1561–
6), William Hunnis (1566–97), Richard Farrant (acting, 1577–80), Nathaniel Giles
(1597–1634).
The Children of the Queen’s Revels (1603–5).
The Children of the Revels (1605–6).
Masters: Henry Evans, Edward Kirkham, and others.

The Children of the Blackfriars (1606–9).
The Children of the Whitefriars (1609–10).
Masters: Robert Keysar and others.
The Children of the Queen’s Revels (1610–16).
Masters: Philip Rosseter and others.
[Bibliographical Note.—Official records of the Chapel are to be
found in E. F. Rimbault, The Old Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal
(1872, Camden Soc.). Most of the material for the sixteenth-century part
of the present section was collected before the publication of C. W.
Wallace, The Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare (1912,
cited as Wallace, i), which has, however, been valuable for purposes of
revision. J. M. Manly, The Children of the Chapel Royal and their
Masters (1910, C. H. vi. 279), W. H. Flood, Queen Mary’s Chapel Royal
(E. H. R. xxxiii. 83), H. M. Hildebrand, The Early History of the Chapel
Royal (1920, M. P. xviii. 233), are useful contributions. The chief
published sources for the seventeenth century are three lawsuits
discovered by J. Greenstreet and printed in full by F. G. Fleay, A
Chronicle History of the London Stage (1890), 127, 210, 223. These are
(a) Clifton v. Robinson and Others (Star Chamber, 1601), (b) Evans v.
Kirkham (Chancery, May–June 1612), cited as E. v. K., with Fleay’s
pages, and (c) Kirkham v. Painton and Others (Chancery, July–Nov.
1612), cited as K. v. P. Not much beyond dubious hypothesis is added by
C. W. Wallace, The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars (1908, cited as
Wallace, ii). But Professor Wallace published an additional suit of
importance, (d) Keysar v. Burbadge and Others (Court of Requests,
Feb.–June 1610), in Nebraska University Studies (1910), x. 336, cited as
K. v. B. This is apparently one of twelve suits other than Greenstreet’s,
which he claims (ii. 36) to have found, with other material, which may
alter the story. In the meantime, I see no reason to depart from the main
outlines sketched in my article on Court Performances under James the
First (1909, M. L. R. iv. 153).]

The Chapel was an ancient part of the establishment of the Household,
traceable far back into the twelfth century.[54] Up to the end of the
fourteenth, we hear only of chaplains and clerks. These were respectively
priests and laymen, and the principal chaplain came to bear the title of
Dean.[55] Children of the Chapel first appear under Henry IV, who
appointed a chaplain to act as Master of Grammar for them in 1401.[56] In
1420 comes the first of a series of royal commissions authorizing the
impressment of boys for the Chapel service, and in 1444 the first
appointment of a Master of the Children, John Plummer, by patent.[57] It is
probably to the known tastes of Henry VI that the high level of musical
accomplishment, which had been reached by the singers of the Chapel

during the next reign was due.[58] The status and duties of the Chapel are set
out with full detail in the Liber Niger about 1478, at which date the
establishment consisted of a Dean, six Chaplains, twenty Clerks, two
Yeomen or Epistolers, and eight Children. These were instructed by a
Master of Song, chosen by the Dean from ‘the seyd felyshipp of Chapell’,
and a Master of Grammar, whose services were also available for the royal
Henchmen.[59] There is no further record of the Master of Grammar; but
with this exception the establishment continued to exist on much the same
footing, apart from some increase of numbers, up to the seventeenth
century.[60] Although subject to some general supervision from the Lord
Chamberlain and to that extent part of the Chamber, it was largely a self-
contained organization under its own Dean. Elizabeth, however, left the
post of Dean vacant, and the responsibility of the Lord Chamberlain then
became more direct.[61] It probably did not follow, at any rate in its full
numbers, a progress, but moved with the Court to the larger ‘standing
houses’, except possibly to Windsor where there was a separate musical
establishment in St. George’s Chapel.[62] It does not seem, at any rate in
Tudor times, to have had any relation to the collegiate chapel of St. Stephen
in the old palace of Westminster.[63] The number of Children varied
between eight and ten up to 1526, when it was finally fixed by Henry VIII
at twelve.[64] The chaplains and clerks were collectively known in the
sixteenth century as the Gentlemen of the Chapel, and the most important of
them, next to one who acted as subdean, was the Master of the Children,
who trained them in music and, as time went on, also formed them into a
dramatic company. The Master generally held office under a patent during
pleasure, and was entitled in addition to his fee of 7½d. a day or £91 8s.
1½d. a year as Gentleman and his share in the general ‘rewards’ of the
Chapel, to a special Exchequer annuity of 40 marks (£26 13s. 4d.), raised in
1526 to £40, ‘pro exhibicione puerorum’, which is further defined in 1510
as ‘pro exhibicione vesturarum et lectorum’ and in 1523 as ‘pro sustencione
et diettes’.[65] To this, moreover, several other payments came to be added
in the course of Henry VIII’s reign. Originally the Chapel dined and supped
in the royal hall; but this proved inconvenient, and a money allowance from
the Cofferer of the Household was substituted, which was fixed in 1544 at
1s. a day for each Gentleman and 2s. a week for each Child.[66] The
allowance for the Children was afterwards raised to 6d. a day.[67] Long

before this, however, the Masters had succeeded in obtaining an exceptional
allowance of 8d. a week for the breakfast of each Child, which was
reckoned as making £16 a year and paid them in monthly instalments of
26s. 8d. by the Treasurer of the Chamber. The costs of the Masters in their
journeys for the impressment of Children were also recouped by the
Treasurer of the Chamber. And from him they also received rewards of 20s.
when Audivi vocem was sung on All Saints’ Day, £6 13s. 4d. for the
Children’s feast of St. Nicholas on 6 December, and 40s. when Gloria in
Excelsis was sung on Christmas and St. John’s Days. These were, of course,
over and above any special rewards received for dramatic performances.[68]
In the provision of vesturae the Masters were helped by the issue from the
Great Wardrobe of black and tawny camlet gowns, yellow satin coats, and
Milan bonnets, which presumably constituted the festal and penitential
arrays of the choir.[69] The boys themselves do not appear to have received
any wages but, when their voices had broken, the King made provision for
them at the University or otherwise, and until this could be done, the
Treasurer of the Chamber sometimes paid allowances to the Master or some
other Gentleman for their maintenance and instruction.[70]
The earlier Masters were John Plummer (1444–55), Henry Abyngdon
(1455–78), Gilbert Banaster (1478–83?), probably John Melyonek (1483–
5), Lawrence Squier (1486–93), and William Newark (1493–1509).[71]
Some of these have left a musical or literary reputation, and Banaster is said
to have written an interlude in 1482.[72] But until the end of this period only
occasional traces of dramatic performances by the Chapel can be discerned.
An alleged play by the Gentlemen at the Christmas of 1485 cannot be
verified.[73] The first recorded performance, therefore, is one of the
disguisings at the wedding of Prince Arthur and Katharine of Spain in 1501,
in which two of the children were concealed in mermaids ‘singing right
sweetly and with quaint hermony’.[74]
Towards the end of Henry VII’s reign begins a short series of plays given
at the rate of one or two a year by the Gentlemen, which lasted through
1506–12.[75] Thereafter there is no other play by the Gentlemen as such
upon record until the Christmas of 1553, when they performed a morality of
which the principal character was Genus Humanum.[76] This had been
originally planned for the coronation on the previous 1 October, and as a

warrant then issued states that a coronation play had customarily been given
‘by the gentlemen of the chappell of our progenitoures’, it may perhaps be
inferred that Edward VI’s coronation play of ‘the story of Orpheus’ on 22
February 1547 was also by the Gentlemen.[77] In the meantime the regular
series of Chapel plays at Court had been broken after 1512, and when it was
taken up again in 1517 it was not by the Gentlemen, but by the Children.[78]
This is, of course, characteristic of the Renaissance.[79] But an immediate
cause is probably to be found in the personality of William Cornish, a
talented and energetic Master of the Children, who succeeded William
Newark in the autumn of 1509, and held office until his death in 1523.[80]
Cornish appears to have come of a musical family.[81] He took part in a play
given by the Gentlemen of the Chapel shortly before his appointment as
Master. And although it was some years before he organized the Children
into a definite company, he was the ruling spirit and chief organizer of the
elaborate disguisings which glorified the youthful court of Henry VIII from
the Shrovetide of 1511 to the visit of the Emperor Charles V in 1522, and
hold an important place in the story, elsewhere dealt with, of the Court
mask.[82] In these revels both the Gentlemen and the Children of the
Chapel, as well as the King and his lords and ladies took a part, and they
were often designed so as to frame an interlude, which would call for the
services of skilled performers.[83]
In view of Cornish’s importance in the history of the stage at Court, it is
matter for regret that none of his dramatic writing has been preserved, for it
is impossible to attach any value to the fantastic attributions of Professor
Wallace, who credits him not only with the anonymous Calisto and
Meliboea, Of Gentleness and Nobility, The Pardoner and the Frere, and
Johan Johan, but also with The Four Elements and The Four P. P., for the
authorship of which by John Rastell and John Heywood respectively there
is good contemporary evidence.[84] Cornish was succeeded as Master of the
Children by William Crane (1523–45) and Crane by Richard Bower, whose
patent was successively renewed by Edward VI, presumably by Mary, and
finally by Elizabeth on 30 April 1559.[85] His service was almost certainly
continuous, and it is therefore rather puzzling to be told that a commission
to take up singing children for the Chapel, similar to that of John Melyonek
in 1484, was issued in February 1550 to Philip van Wilder, a Gentleman of

the Privy Chamber.[86] Neither the full text nor a reference to the source for
the warrant is given, and I suspect the explanation to be that it was not for
the Chapel at all. Philip van Wilder was a lutenist, one of a family of
musicians of whom others were in the royal service, and he may not
improbably have had a commission to recruit a body of young minstrels
with whom other notices suggest that he may have been connected.[87]
Bower himself had a commission for the Chapel on 6 June 1552.[88]
Although the Children continued to give performances at Court both under
Crane and under Bower, it may be doubted whether they were quite so
prominent as they had been in Cornish’s time. Certainly they had to contend
with the competition of the Paul’s boys. Crane himself is not known to have
been a dramatist. It has been suggested that Bower’s authorship is indicated
by the initials R. B. on the title-page of Apius and Virginia (1575), but, in
view of the date of the publication, this must be regarded as very doubtful.
The chief Marian producer of plays was Nicholas Udall, but it remains
uncertain whether he wrote for the Chapel Children. Professor Wallace has
no justification whatever for his confident assertions that John Heywood
‘not only could but did’ write plays for the Chapel, that he ‘had grown up in
the Chapel under Cornish’, and that ‘as dramatist and Court-entertainer’ he
‘was naturally associated with the performances of the Chapel’.[89] There is
no proof whatever that Heywood began as a Chapel boy, and although he
certainly wrote plays for boys, they are nowhere said or implied to have
been of the Chapel company. There are scraps of evidence which indicate
that they may have been the Paul’s boys.[90] It is also conceivable that they
may have been Philip van Wilder’s young minstrels.
When Elizabeth came to the throne, then, the Chapel had already a
considerable dramatic tradition behind it. But for a decade its share in the
Court revels remains somewhat obscure. The Treasurer of the Chamber
records no payments for performances to its Masters before 1568.[91] A note
in a Revels inventory of 1560 of the employment of some white sarcenet ‘in
ffurnishinge of a pley by the children of the Chapple’ may apparently refer
to any year from 1555 to 1560, and it is therefore hazardous to identify the
Chapel with the anonymous players of the interlude of 31 December 1559
which contained ‘suche matter that they wher commondyd to leyff off’.[92]
Bower may of course have retained Catholic sympathies, but he died on 26
July 1561, and it is difficult to suppose that the high dramatic reputation of

his successor Richard Edwardes was not based upon a greater number of
Court productions than actually stand to his name.[93] Edwardes had been a
Gentleman of the Chapel from 1556 or earlier. His patent as Master is dated
on 27 October 1561, and on the following 10 December he received a
commission the terms of which served as a model for those of the next two
Masterships:[94]
Memorandum quod xo die Januarii anno infra scripto istud breve deliberatum fuit
domino custodi magni Sigilli apud Westmonasterium exequendum.
Elizabeth by the grace of God Quene of England Fraunce & Ireland defender of the
faythe &c. To our right welbeloved & faythfull counsaylour Sir Nicholas Bacon
knight Keper of our great Seale of Englande, commaundinge you that vnder our great
Seale aforsayd ye cause to be made our lettres patentes in forme followinge. To all
mayours sherifs bayliefes constables & all other our officers gretinge. For that it is
mete that our chappell royall should be furnysshed with well singing children from
tyme to tyme we have & by these presentes do authorise our welbeloved servaunt
Richard Edwardes master of our children of our sayd chappell or his deputie beinge
by his bill subscribed & sealed so authorised, & havinge this our presente comyssion
with hym, to take as manye well singinge children as he or his sufficient deputie shall
thinke mete in all chathedrall & collegiate churches as well within libertie[s] as
without within this our realme of England whatsoever they be, And also at tymes
necessarie, horses, boates, barges, cartes, & carres, as he for the conveyaunce of the
sayd children from any place to our sayd chappell royall [shall thinke mete] with all
maner of necessaries apperteynyng to the sayd children as well by lande as water at
our prices ordynarye to be redely payed when they for our service shall remove to any
place or places, Provided also that if our sayd servaunt or his deputie or deputies
bearers hereof in his name cannot forthwith remove the chyld or children when he by
vertue of this our commyssyon hathe taken hym or them that then the sayd child or
children shall remayne there vntill suche tyme as our sayd servaunt Rychard
Edwardes shall send for him or them. Wherfore we will & commaunde you & everie
of you to whom this our comyssion shall come to be helpinge aydinge & assistinge to
the vttermost of your powers as ye will answer at your vttermoste perylles. In wytnes
wherof &c. Geven vnder our privie seale at our Manor of St James the fourth daye of
Decembre in the fourth yere of our Raigne.
R. Jones.

At Christmas 1564–5 the boys appeared at Court in a tragedy by Edwardes,
which may have been his extant Damon and Pythias.[95] On 2 February
1565 and 2 February 1566 they gave performances before the lawyers at the
Candlemas feasts of Lincoln’s Inn.[96] There is nothing to show that the
Chapel had any concern with the successful play of Palamon and Arcite,
written and produced by Edwardes for Elizabeth’s visit to Oxford in
September 1566. Edwardes died on the following 31 October, and on 15
November William Hunnis was appointed Master of the Children.[97] His

formal patent of appointment is dated 22 April 1567, and the bill for his
commission, which only differs from that of Edwardes in minor points of
detail, on 18 April.[98] Hunnis had been a Gentleman at least since about
1553, with an interval of disgrace under Mary, owing to his participation in
Protestant plots. He was certainly himself a dramatist, but none of his plays
are known to be extant, and a contemporary eulogy speaks of his
‘enterludes’ as if they dated from an earlier period than that of his
Mastership. It is, however, natural to suppose that he may have had a hand
in some at least of the pieces which his Children produced at Court. The
first of these was a tragedy at Shrovetide 1568. In the following year is said
to have been published a pamphlet entitled The Children of the Chapel
Stript and Whipt, which apparently originated in some gross offence given
by the dramatic activities of the Chapel to the growing Puritan sentiment.
‘Plaies’, said the writer, ‘will never be supprest, while her maiesties
unfledged minions flaunt it in silkes and sattens. They had as well be at
their Popish service, in the deuils garments.’ And again, ‘Even in her
maiesties chappel do these pretty upstart youthes profane the Lordes Day by
the lascivious writhing of their tender limbs, and gorgeous decking of their
apparell, in feigning bawdie fables gathered from the idolatrous heathen
poets’. I should feel more easy in drawing inferences from this, were the
book extant.[99] But it seems to indicate either that the controversialist of
1569 was less careful than his successors to avoid attacks upon Elizabeth’s
private ‘solace’, or that the idea had already occurred to the Master of
turning his rehearsals of Court plays to profit by giving open performances
in the Chapel. That the Court performances themselves took place in the
Chapel is possible, but not very likely; the usual places for them seem to
have been the Hall or the Great Chamber.[100] But no doubt they sometimes
fell on a Sunday.
The boys played at Court on 6 January 1570 and during Shrovetide
1571. On 6 January 1572 they gave Narcissus, and on 13 February 1575 a
play with a hunt in it.[101] On all these occasions Hunnis was payee. An
obvious error of the clerk of the Privy Council in entering him as ‘John’
Hunnis in connexion with the issue of a warrant for the payment of 1572
led Chalmers to infer the existence of two Masters of the name of Hunnis.
[102]
During the progress of 1575 Hunnis contributed shows to the ‘Princely
Pleasures’ of Kenilworth, and very likely utilized the services of the boys in

these.[103] And herewith his active conduct of the Chapel performances
appears to have been suspended for some years. A play of Mutius Scaevola,
given jointly at Court by the Children of the Chapel and the Children of
Windsor on 6 January 1577, is the first of a series for which the place of
Hunnis as payee is taken by Richard Farrant. To this series belong unnamed
plays on 27 December 1577 and 27 December 1578, Loyalty and Beauty on
2 March 1579, and Alucius on 27 December 1579.[104] Farrant, who is
known as a musician, had been a Gentleman of the Chapel in 1553, and had
left on 24 April 1564, doubtless to take up the post of Master of the
Children of Windsor, in which capacity he annually presented a play at
Court from 1566–7 to 1575–6.[105] But evidently the two offices were not
regarded as incompatible, for on 5 November 1570, while still holding his
Mastership, he was again sworn in as Gentleman of the Chapel ‘from
Winsore’.[106] A recent discovery by M. Feuillerat enables us to see that his
taking over of the Chapel Children from Hunnis in 1576 was part of a
somewhat considerable theatrical enterprise. Stimulated perhaps by the
example of Burbadge’s new-built Theatre, he took a lease of some of the
old Priory buildings in the Blackfriars; and here, either for the first time, or
in continuation of a similar use of the Chapel itself, which had provoked
criticism, the Children appeared under his direction in performances open to
the public.[107] The ambiguous relation of the Blackfriars precinct to the
jurisdiction of the City Corporation probably explains the inclusion of the
Chapel in the list of companies whose exercises the Privy Council
instructed the City to tolerate on 24 December 1578. It is, I think, pretty
clear that, although Farrant is described as Master of the Chapel Children
by the Treasurer of the Chamber from 1577 to 1580, and by Hunnis himself
in his petition of 1583,[108] he was never technically Master, but merely
acted as deputy to Hunnis, probably even to the extent of taking all the
financial risks off his hands. Farrant was paid for a comedy at Lincoln’s Inn
at Candlemas 1580 and is described in the entry as ‘one of the Queen’s
chaplains’.[109] On 30 November 1580 he died and Hunnis then resumed his
normal functions.[110] The Chapel played at Court on 5 February 1581, 31
December 1581, 27 February 1582, and 26 December 1582. One of these
plays may have been Peele’s Arraignment of Paris; that of 26 December
1582 was A Game of Cards, possibly the piece which, according to Sir John
Harington, was thought ‘somewhat too plaine’, and was championed at

rehearsal by ‘a notable wise counseller’.[111] On the first three of these
occasions the Treasurer merely entered a payment to the Master of the
Children, without giving a name, but in the entry for the last play Hunnis is
specified. It is known, moreover, that Hunnis, together with one John
Newman, took a sub-lease of the Blackfriars from Farrant’s widow on 20
December 1581. They do not seem to have been very successful financially,
for they were irregular in their rent, and neglected their repairs. It was
perhaps trepidation at the competition likely to arise from the establishment
of the Queen’s men in 1583, which led them to transfer their interest to one
Henry Evans, a scrivener of London, from whom, when Sir William More
took steps to protect himself against the breach of covenant involved in an
alienation without his consent, it was handed on to the Earl of Oxford and
ultimately to John Lyly.[112] In November 1583, therefore, Hunnis found
himself much dissatisfied with his financial position, and drew up the
following memorial, probably for submission to the Board of Green Cloth
of the royal household:[113]
‘Maye it please your honores, William Hunnys, Mr of the Children of hir highnes
Chappell, most humble beseecheth to consider of these fewe lynes. First, hir Maiestie
alloweth for the dyett of xij children of hir sayd Chappell daylie vid a peece by the
daye, and xlli by the yeare for theyre aparrell and all other furneture.

‘Agayne there is no ffee allowed neyther for the mr of the sayd children nor for his
ussher, and yet neuertheless is he constrayned, over and besydes the ussher still to
kepe bothe a man servant to attend upon them and lykewyse a woman seruant to wash
and kepe them cleane.
‘Also there is no allowance for the lodginge of the sayd chilldren, such tyme as
they attend vppon the Courte, but the mr to his greate charge is dryuen to hyer
chambers both for himself, his usher chilldren and servantes.

‘Also theare is no allowaunce for ryding jornies when occasion serueth the mr to
trauell or send into sundrie partes within this realme, to take vpp and bring such
children as be thought meete to be trayned for the service of hir Maiestie.
‘Also there is no allowance ne other consideracion for those children whose voyces
be chaunged, whoe onelye do depend vpon the charge of the sayd mr vntill such tyme
as he may preferr the same with cloathing and other furniture, vnto his no smalle
charge.
‘And although it may be obiected that hir Maiesties allowaunce is no whitt less
then hir Maiesties ffather of famous memorie therefore allowed: yet considering the
pryces of thinges present to the tyme past and what annuities the mr then hadd out of
sundrie abbies within this realme, besydes sondrie giftes from the Kinge, and dyuers
perticuler ffees besydes, for the better mayntenaunce of the sayd children and office:

and besides also there hath ben withdrawne from the sayd chilldren synce hir
Maiesties comming to the crowne xijd by the daye which was allowed for theyr
breakefastes as may apeare by the Treasorer of the Chamber his acompt for the tyme
beinge, with other allowaunces incident to the office as appeareth by the auntyent
acomptes in the sayd office which I heere omytt.

‘The burden heerof hath from tyme to tyme so hindred the Mrs of the Children viz.
Mr Bower, Mr Edwardes, my sellf and Mr Farrant: that notwithstanding some good
helpes otherwyse some of them dyed in so poore case, and so deepelie indebted that
they haue not left scarcelye wherewith to burye them.
‘In tender consideracion whereof, might it please your honores that the sayde
allowaunce of vjd a daye apeece for the childrens dyet might be reserued in hir
Maiesties coffers during the tyme of theyre attendaunce. And in liew thereof they to
be allowed meate and drinke within this honorable householde for that I am not able
vppon so small allowaunce eny longer to beare so heauie a burden. Or otherwyse to
be consydred as shall seeme best vnto your honorable wysdomes.

‘[Endorsed] 1583 November. The humble peticion of the Mr of the Children of hir
highnes Chappell [and in another hand] To have further allowances for the finding of
the children for causes within mentioned.’

The actual request made by Hunnis seems a modest one. He seems to
have thought that for his boys to have the run of their teeth at the tables of
Whitehall would be a better bargain than the board-wages of 6d. a day.
Doubtless he knew their appetites. I do not think that the Green Cloth met
his views, for in the next reign the 6d. was still being paid and was raised to
10d. for the benefit of Nathaniel Giles.[114] Possibly Hunnis did get back the
£16 a year for breakfasts, which seems to be the fee described by him as 1s.
a day, although that in fact works out to £18 5s. a year, and the £9 13s. 4d.
for largess, if that also had been withdrawn, since these are included in fee
lists for 1593 and 1598.[115] The ‘perticuler ffees’ to which he refers are
presumably the allowances occasionally paid by Henry for the maintenance
of boys whose voices had changed. In any case Hunnis’s personal grievance
must have been fully met by liberal grants of Crown lands which were
made him in 1585.[116] It will be observed that he says nothing of any
profits derived by him from the dramatic activities of the Children; whether
in the form of rewards at Court or in that of admission fees to public
performances. Plays were no part of the official functions of the Chapel,
although it is consistent with the general policy of the reign towards the
London stage to suppose that Elizabeth and her economical ministers were
well enough content that the deficiencies of her Chapel maintenance should
be eked out, and her Christmas ‘solace’ rendered possible, out of the profits

of public exercise. So far, however, as the Chapel was concerned, this
convenient arrangement was, for the time, nearly at an end. The facts with
regard to the boy companies during 1584 are somewhat complicated. The
Treasurer of the Chamber paid the Master of the Chapel Children, without
specifying his name, for plays on 6 January and 2 February 1584. He also
paid John Lyly for plays by the Earl of Oxford’s ‘servants’ on 1 January and
3 March 1584, and Henry Evans for a play by the Earl of Oxford’s
‘children’ on 27 December 1584. Were this all, one would naturally assume
that Oxford had brought to Court the ‘lads’ who appeared under his name at
Norwich in 1580, and that these formed a company, quite distinct from the
Chapel, of which the Earl entrusted the management either jointly or
successively to Lyly and Evans. Lyly, of course, is known to have been at
one time in the Earl’s service.[117] One would then be left to speculate as to
which company played at the Blackfriars during 1584 and where the other
played. But the real puzzle begins when it is realized that in the same year
1584 two of Lyly’s plays, Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, were for the first
time printed, that these have prologues ‘at the Blackfriars’, that their title-
pages indicate their performance at Court, not by Oxford’s company, but by
the Chapel and the Paul’s boys, of which latter the Treasurer of the
Chamber makes no mention, and that the title-pages of the two issues of
Campaspe further specify, in the one case Twelfth Night, and in the other,
which is apparently corrected, New Year’s Day, as the precise date of
performance, while that of Sapho and Phao similarly specifies Shrove
Tuesday. But New Year’s Day and Shrove Tuesday of 1584 are the days
which the Treasurer of the Chamber assigns not to the Chapel, but to
Oxford’s company; and even if you accept Professor Feuillerat’s rather far-
fetched assumption that the days referred to in the title-pages were not
necessarily those falling in the year of issue, you will not find a New Year’s
Day, or for the matter of that a Twelfth Night, since the opening of the
Blackfriars, which, if a play-day at all, is not occupied either by some
Chapel or Paul’s play of which the name is known, or by some other
company altogether.[118] The conjecture seems inevitable that, when he
found himself in financial straits and with the rivalry of the Queen’s men to
face in 1583, Hunnis came to an arrangement with the Paul’s boys, who had
recently lost Sebastian Westcott, on the one hand, and with the Earl of
Oxford and his agents Lyly and Evans on the other, and put the Blackfriars
at the disposal of a combination of boys from all three companies, who

appeared indifferently at Court under the name of the Master or that of the
Earl. In the course of 1584 Sir William More resumed possession of the
Blackfriars. Henry Evans must have made some temporary arrangement to
enable the company to appear at Court during the winter of 1584–5.[119] But
for a year or two thereafter there were no boys acting in London until in
1586 an arrangement with Thomas Giles, Westcott’s successor at St. Paul’s,
afforded a new opportunity for Lyly’s pen.[120]
The Chapel had contributed pretty continuously to Court drama for
nearly a century. They now drop out of its story for about seventeen years.
[121]
In addition to the two plays of Lyly, one other of their recent pieces,
Peele’s Arraignment of Paris, was printed in 1584. Two former Children,
Henry Eveseed and John Bull, afterwards well known as a musician,
became Gentlemen on 30 November 1585 and in January 1586 respectively.
[122]
Absence from Court did not entail an absolute cessation of dramatic
activities. Performances by the Children are recorded at Ipswich and
Norwich in 1586–7 and at Leicester before Michaelmas in 1591. There is,
however, little to bear out the suggestion that the Chapel furnished the boys
who played at Croydon, probably in the archbishop’s palace, during the
summers of 1592 and 1593, other than the fact that the author of the play
produced in 1593, Summer’s Last Will and Testament, was Thomas Nashe,
who was also part author with Marlowe of Dido, one of two plays printed as
Chapel plays in 1594. The extant text of the other play, The Wars of Cyrus,
seems to be datable between 1587 and 1594. Hunnis died on 6 June 1597,
and on 9 June 1597 Nathaniel Giles, ‘being before extraordinary’, was
sworn as a regular Gentleman of the Chapel and Master of the Children.
Giles, like Farrant, came ‘from Winsore’. Born about 1559, he was
educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was appointed Clerk in St.
George’s Chapel, Windsor, and Master of the Children on 1 October 1595.
He earned a considerable reputation as a musician, and died in possession
of both Masterships at the age of seventy-five on 24 January 1634.[123] His
patent of appointment to the Chapel Royal is dated 14 July and his
commission 15 July 1597.[124] They closely follow in terms those granted to
Hunnis.[125]
Three years later the theatrical enterprise which had been dropped in
1584 was renewed by Giles, in co-operation with Henry Evans, who had

been associated with its final stages. The locality chosen was again the
Blackfriars, in the building reconstructed by James Burbadge in 1596, and
then inhibited, on a petition of the inhabitants, from use as a public play-
house. Of this, being ‘then or late in the tenure or occupacion of’ Henry
Evans, Richard Burbadge gave him on 2 September 1600 a lease for
twenty-one years from the following Michaelmas at a rent of £40.[126]
According to Burbadge’s own account of the matter, Evans ‘intended then
presentlye to erect or sett vp a companye of boyes ... in the same’, and
knowing that the payment of the rent depended upon the possibility of
maintaining a company ‘to playe playes and interludes in the said
Playhowse in such sort as before tyme had bene there vsed’, he thought it
desirable to take collateral security in the form of a bond for £400 from
Evans and his son-in-law Alexander Hawkins.[127] Long after, the
Blackfriars Sharers Papers of 1635 describe the lease as being to ‘one
Evans that first sett vp the boyes commonly called the Queenes Majesties
Children of the Chapell’.[128] I find nothing in this language to bear out the
contention of Professor Wallace that Evans’s occupation of the Blackfriars
extended back long before the date of his lease, and that, as already
suggested by Mr. Fleay, the Chapel plays began again, not in 1600, but in
1597.[129] Burbadge speaks clearly of the setting up of the company as still
an intention when the lease was drawn, and the reference to earlier plays in
the house may either be to some use of it unknown to us between 1596 and
1600, or perhaps more probably to the performances by Evans and others
before the time of James Burbadge’s reconstruction. Mr. Fleay’s suggestion
rested, so far as I can judge, upon the evidence for the existence of Jonson’s
Case is Altered as early as January 1599 and its publication as ‘acted by the
children of the Blacke-friers’. But this publication was not until 1609 and
represents a revision made not long before that date; and as will be seen the
company did not use the name Children of the Blackfriars until about 1606.
There is no reason to suppose that they were the original producers of the
play. A confirmatory indication for 1600 as the date of the revival may be
found in the appearance of the Chapel at Court, for the first time since
1584, on 6 January and 22 February 1601. On both occasions Nathaniel
Giles was payee. The performance of 6 January, described by the Treasurer
of the Chamber as ‘a showe with musycke and speciall songes’ was
probably Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels, which that description well fits; that of
22 February may have been the anonymous Contention between Liberality

and Prodigality. Both of these were published in 1601. Jonson has
preserved for us in his Folio of 1616 the list of the principal actors of
Cynthia’s Revels, who were ‘Nat. Field, Sal. Pavy, Tho. Day, Ioh.
Underwood, Rob. Baxter and Ioh. Frost’. The induction of the play is
spoken by ‘Iacke’ and two other of the Children, of whom one,
impersonating a spectator, complains that ‘the vmbrae, or ghosts of some
three or foure playes, departed a dozen yeeres since, haue bin seene walking
on your stage heere’. Liberality and Prodigality may be one of the old-
fashioned plays here scoffed at, but it is probable that Jonson also had in
mind Lyly’s Love’s Metamorphosis, which was published in 1601 as ‘first
playd by the Children of Paules, and now by the Children of the Chappell’,
and there may have been other revivals of the same kind. The company was
included in the Lenten prohibition of 11 March 1601. Later in the year they
produced Jonson’s Poetaster, containing raillery of the common stages,
which stimulated a reply in Dekker’s Satiromastix, and which, together with
their growing popularity, sufficiently explains the reference to the ‘aerie of
children, little eyases’ in Hamlet.[130] The Poetaster was published in 1602
and the actor-list of the Folio of 1616 contains the names of ‘Nat. Field, Sal
Pavy, Tho. Day, Ioh. Underwood, Wil. Ostler and Tho. Marton’. The full
name of Pavy, who died after acting for three years, is given as Salathiel in
the epigram written to his memory by Jonson; it appears as Salmon in a
document which adds considerably to our knowledge both of the original
constitution of the company and of the lines on which it was managed. This
is a complaint to the Star Chamber by one Henry Clifton, Esq., of Toftrees,
Norfolk, against a serious abuse of the powers of impressment entrusted
under the royal commission to Nathaniel Giles.[131] Clifton alleged that
Giles, in confederacy with Evans, one James Robinson and others, had set
up a play-house for their own profit in the Blackfriars, and under colour of
the commission had taken boys, not for the royal service in the Chapel
Royal, but employment in acting interludes. He specified as so taken, ‘John
Chappell, a gramer schole scholler of one Mr. Spykes schole neere
Criplegate, London; John Motteram, a gramer scholler in the free schole at
Westmi[n]ster; Nathan ffield, a scholler of a gramer schole in London, kepte
by one Mr. Monkaster; Alvery Trussell, an apprentice to one Thomas Gyles;
one Phillipp Pykman and Thomas Grymes, apprentices to Richard and
Georg Chambers; Salmon Pavey, apprentice to one Peerce’. These were all
children ‘noe way able or fitt for singing, nor by anie the sayd confederates

endevoured to be taught to singe’. Finally they had made an attempt upon
Clifton’s own son Thomas, a boy of thirteen, who had been seized by
Robinson in Christ Church cloister on or about 13 December 1600, as he
went from Clifton’s house in Great St. Bartholomew’s to the grammar
school at Christ Church, and carried off to the play-house ‘to exercyse the
base trade of a mercynary enterlude player, to his vtter losse of tyme, ruyne
and disparagment’. Clifton went to the Blackfriars, where his son was
‘amongste a companie of lewde and dissolute mercenary players’, and made
a protest; but Giles, Robinson, and Evans replied that ‘yf the Queene would
not beare them furth in that accion, she should gett another to execute her
comission for them’, that ‘they had aucthoritie sufficient soe to take any
noble mans sonne in this land’, and that ‘were yt not for the benefitt they
made by the sayd play howse, whoe would, should serve the Chappell with
children for them’. Then they committed Thomas Clifton to the charge of
Evans in his father’s presence, with a threat of a whipping if he was not
obedient, and ‘did then and there deliuer vnto his sayd sonne, in moste
scornefull disdaynfull and dispightfull manner, a scrolle of paper,
conteyning parte of one of theire sayd playes or enterludes, and him, the
sayd Thomas Clifton, comaunded to learne the same by harte’. Clifton
appealed to Sir John Fortescue and got a warrant from him for the boy’s
release after a day and a night’s durance. It was not, however, until a year
later, on 15 December 1601, that he made his complaint.[132] During the
following Christmas Giles brought the boys to Court on 6 and 10 January
and 14 February 1602, and then with the hearing of the case in the Star
Chamber during Hilary Term troubles began for the syndicate. Evans was
censured ‘for his vnorderlie carriage and behauiour in takinge vp of
gentlemens childeren against theire wills and to ymploy them for players
and for other misdemeanors’, and it was decreed that all assurances made to
him concerning the play-house or plays should be void and should be
delivered up to be cancelled.[133] Evans, however, had apparently prepared
himself against this contingency by assigning his lease to his son-in-law
Alexander Hawkins on 21 October 1601. This at least is one explanation of
a somewhat obscure transaction. According to Evans himself, the
assignment was to protect Hawkins from any risk upon the bond given to
Burbadge. On the other hand, there had already been negotiations for the
sale of a half interest in the undertaking to three new partners, Edward
Kirkham, William Rastall, and Thomas Kendall, and it was claimed later by

Kirkham that the assignment to Hawkins had been in trust to reassign a
moiety to these three, in return for a contribution of capital variously stated
at from £300 to £600. No such reassignment was, however, carried out.[134]
But although the lease from Burbadge was certainly not cancelled as a
result of the Star Chamber decree, it probably did seem prudent that the
original managers of the theatre should remain in the background for a time.
Nothing more is heard of James Robinson, while the partnership between
Evans and Hawkins on the one side and Kirkham, Rastall, and Kendall on
the other was brought into operation under articles dated on 20 April 1602.
For the observance of these Evans and Hawkins gave a bond of £200.[135]
Kirkham, Rastall, and Kendall in turn gave Evans a bond of £50 as security
for a weekly payment of 8s., ‘because after the said agreements made, the
complainant [Kirkham] and his said parteners would at their directions haue
the dieting and ordering of the boyes vsed about the plaies there, which
before the said complainant had, and for the which he had weekely before
that disbursed and allowed great sommes of monie’.[136]
Of the new managers, Rastall was a merchant and Kendall a
haberdasher, both of London.[137] Kirkham has generally been assumed to
be the Yeoman of the Revels, but of this there is not, so far as I know, any
definite proof. The association did not prove an harmonious one. According
to Evans, Kirkham and his fellows made false information against him to
the Lord Chamberlain, as a result of which he was ‘comaunded by his
Lordship to avoyd and leave the same’, had to quit the country, and lost
nearly £300 by the charge he was put to and the negligence of Hawkins in
looking after his profits.[138] This seems to have been in May 1602.
Meanwhile the performances continued. The company did not appear at
Court during the winter of 1602–3, but Sir Giles Goosecap and possibly
Chapman’s Gentleman Usher were produced by them before the end of
Elizabeth’s reign; and on 18 September 1602 a visit was paid to the theatre
by Philipp Julius, Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, of which the following
account is preserved in the journal of Frederic Gerschow, a member of his
suite:[139]
‘Von dannen sind wir auf die Kinder-comoediam gangen, welche im Argument
iudiciret eine castam viduam, war eine historia einer königlichen Wittwe aus
Engellandt. Es hat aber mit dieser Kinder-comoedia die Gelegenheit: die Königin hält
viel junger Knaben, die sich der Singekunst mit Ernst befleissigen müssen und auf

allen Instrumenten lernen, auch dabenebenst studieren. Diese Knaben haben ihre
besondere praeceptores in allen Künsten, insonderheit sehr gute musicos.’
‘Damit sie nun höfliche Sitten anwenden, ist ihnen aufgelegt, wöchentlich eine
comoedia zu agiren, wozu ihnen denn die Königin ein sonderlich theatrum erbauet
und mit köstlichen Kleidern zum Ueberfluss versorget hat. Wer solcher Action
zusehen will, muss so gut als unserer Münze acht sundische Schillinge geben, und
findet sich doch stets viel Volks auch viele ehrbare Frauens, weil nutze argumenta und
viele schöne Lehren, als von andern berichtet, sollen tractiret werden; alle bey Lichte
agiret, welches ein gross Ansehen macht. Eine ganze Stunde vorher höret man eine
köstliche musicam instrumentalem von Orgeln, Lauten, Pandoren, Mandoren, Geigen
und Pfeiffen, wie denn damahlen ein Knabe cum voce tremula in einer Basgeigen so
lieblich gesungen, dass wo es die Nonnen zu Mailand ihnen nicht vorgethan, wir
seines Gleichen auf der Reise nicht gehöret hatten.’

This report of a foreigner must not be pressed as if it were precise evidence
upon the business organization of the Blackfriars. Yet it forms the main
basis of the theory propounded by Professor Wallace that Elizabeth
personally financed the Chapel plays and personally directed the limitation
of the number of adult companies allowed to perform in London, as part of
a deliberate scheme of reform, which her ‘definite notion of what the
theatre should be’ had led her to plan—a theory which, I fear, makes his
Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars misleading, in spite of its value as a
review of the available evidence, old and new, about the company.[140]
Professor Wallace supposes that Edward Kirkham, acting officially as
Yeoman of the Revels, was Elizabeth’s agent, and that, even before he
became a partner in the syndicate, he dieted the boys and supplied them
with the ‘köstlichen Kleidern zum Ueberfluss’ mentioned by Gerschow,
accounting for the expenditure either through the Revels Accounts or
through some other unspecified accounts ‘yet to be discovered’.[141]
Certainly no such expenditure appeared in the Revels Accounts, and no
other official account with which Kirkham was concerned is known. It may
be pointed out that, if we took Gerschow’s account as authoritative, we
should have to suppose that Elizabeth provided the theatre building, which
we know she did not, and I think it may be taken for granted that her
payments for the Chapel were no more than those with which we are
already quite familiar, namely the Master’s fee of £40 ‘pro exhibicione
puerorum’, the board-wages of 6d. a day for each of twelve children,
possibly the breakfast allowance of £16 a year and the largess of £9 13s. 4d.
for high feasts, and the occasional rewards for actual performances. None of
these, of course, passed through the Revels Office, and although this office

may, as in the past, have helped to furnish the actual plays at Court, the cost
of exercising in public remained a speculation of the Master and his
backers, who had to look for recoupment and any possible profits to the
sums received from spectators. If it is true, as Gerschow seems to say, that
performances were only given on Saturdays, the high entrance charge of 1s.
is fully explained. The lawsuits, of course, bear full evidence to the
expenditure by the members of the syndicate upon the ‘setting forward’ of
plays.[142] Nor is there any ground for asserting, as Professor Wallace does,
that there were two distinct sets of children, one lodged in or near the palace
for chapel purposes proper, and the other kept at the Blackfriars for plays.
[143]
It is true that Clifton charged Giles with impressing boys who could
not sing, but Gerschow’s account proves that there were others at the
Blackfriars who could sing well enough, and it would be absurd to suppose
that there was one trained choir for the stage and another for divine service.
Doubtless, however, the needs of the theatre made it necessary to employ,
by agreement or impressment, a larger number of boys than the twelve
borne on the official establishment.[144] And that boys whose voices had
broken were retained in the theatrical company may be inferred from the
report about 1602 that the Dowager Countess of Leicester had married ‘one
of the playing boyes of the chappell’.[145] I cannot, finally, agree with
Professor Wallace in assuming that the play attended by Elizabeth at the
Blackfriars on 29 December 1601 was necessarily a public one at the
theatre; much less that it was ‘only one in a series of such attendances’. She
had dined with Lord Hunsdon at his house in the Blackfriars. The play may
have been in his great chamber, or he may have borrowed the theatre next
door for private use on an off-day. And the actors may even more probably
have been his own company than the Chapel boys.[146]
The appointment of a new Lord Chamberlain by James I seems to have
enabled Evans to return to England. He found theatrical affairs in a bad
way, owing to the plague of 1603, and ‘speach and treatie’ arose between
him and Burbadge about a possible surrender of his lease.[147] By
December, however, things looked brighter. Evans did some repairs to the
Blackfriars, and the enterprise continued.[148] Like the adult companies, the
partners secured direct royal protection under the following patent of 4
February 1604:[149]

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Mayors Shiriffes Justices of
Peace Baliffes Constables and to all other our officers mynisters and De licencia speciali
lovinge Subiectes to whome theis presentes shall come, greeting. pro Eduardo
Whereas the Queene our deerest wief hath for her pleasure and Kirkham et aliis pro
recrea[~c]on when she shall thinke it fit to have any playes or shewes le Revell domine
appoynted her servauntes Edward Kirkham Alexander Hawkyns Regine.
Thomas Kendall and Robert Payne to provyde and bring vppe a
convenient nomber of Children, whoe shalbe called children of her Revelles, knowe
ye that we have appointed and authorized and by theis presentes doe authorize and
appoynte the said Edward Kirkham Alexander Hawkins Thomas Kendall and Robert
Payne from tyme to tyme to provide keepe and bring vppe a convenient nomber of
Children, and them to practize and exercise in the quality of playinge by the name of
Children of the Revells to the Queene within the Black-fryers in our Cytie of London,
or in any other convenient place where they shall thinke fit for that purpose.
Wherefore we will and commaunde [you] and everie of you to whome it shall
appertayne to permytt her said Servauntes to keepe a convenient nomber of Children
by the name of Children of her Revells and them to exercise in the quality of playing
according to her pleasure. Provided allwaies that noe such Playes or Shewes shalbee
presented before the said Queene our wief by the said Children or by them any where
publiquelie acted but by the approbacion and allowaunce of Samuell Danyell, whome
her pleasure is to appoynt for that purpose. And theis our lettres Patentes shalbe your
sufficient warraunte in this behalfe. In witnes whereof &c., witnes our self at
Westminster the fourth day of February.
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

Apparently it was still thought better to keep the name of Evans out of the
patent, and he was represented by Hawkins; of the nature of Payne’s
connexion with the company I know nothing. The adoption of the name of
Children of the Queen’s Revels should perhaps be taken as indicating that,
as the boy-actors grew older, the original connexion with the Chapel
became looser. The use of Giles’s commission as a method of obtaining
recruits was probably abandoned, and there is no evidence that he had any
further personal association with the theatre.[150] The commission itself
was, however, renewed on 13 September 1604, with a new provision for the
further education of boys whose voices had changed;[151] and in December
Giles was successful in getting the board-wages allowed for his charges
raised from 6d. to 10d. a day.[152]
The Revels children started gaily on the new phase of their career, and
the Hamlet allusion is echoed in Middleton’s advice to a gallant, ‘if his
humour so serve him, to call in at the Blackfriars, where he should see a
nest of boys able to ravish a man’.[153] They were at Court on 21 February
1604 and on 1 and 3 January 1605. Their payees were Kirkham for the first
year and Evans and Daniel for the second. Evidently Daniel was taking a

more active part in the management than that of a mere licenser. Their play
of 1 January 1605 was Chapman’s All Fools (1605), and to 1603–5 may
also be assigned his Monsieur d’Olive (1606), and possibly his Bussy
d’Ambois (1607), and Day’s Law Tricks (1608). I venture to conjecture that
the boys’ companies were much more under the influence of their poets
than were their adult rivals; it is noteworthy that plays written for them got
published much more rapidly than the King’s or Prince’s men ever
permitted.[154] And it is known that one poet, who now began for the first
time to work for the Blackfriars, acquired a financial interest in the
undertaking. This was John Marston, to whom Evans parted, at an
unspecified date, with a third of the moiety which the arrangement of 1602
had left on his hands.[155] Marston’s earliest contributions were probably
The Malcontent (1604) and The Dutch Courtesan (1605). From the
induction to the Malcontent we learn that it was appropriated by the King’s
men, in return for the performance by the boys of a play on Jeronimo,
perhaps the extant I Jeronimo, in which the King’s claimed rights.
Marston’s satirical temper did not, however, prove altogether an asset to the
company; and I fear that the deference of its directors to literary suggestions
was not compatible with that practical political sense, which as a rule
enabled the professional players to escape conflicts with authority. The
history of the next few years is one of a series of indiscretions, which render
it rather surprising that the company should throughout have succeeded in
maintaining its vitality, even with the help of constant reconstructions of
management and changes of name. The first trouble, the nature of which is
unknown, appears to have been caused by Marston’s Dutch Courtesan.
Then came, ironically enough, the Philotas of the company’s official
censor, Samuel Daniel. Then, in 1605, the serious affair of Eastward Ho!
for which Marston appears to have been mainly responsible, although he
saved himself by flight, whereas his fellow authors, Jonson and Chapman,
found themselves in prison and in imminent danger of losing their ears.[156]
I do not think that the scandal arose on the performance of the play, but on
its publication in the late autumn.[157] The company did not appear at Court
during the winter of 1605–6, but the ingenious Kirkham seems to have
succeeded in transferring one of its new plays, Marston’s Fawn, and
possibly also Bussy D’Ambois, to Paul’s, and appeared triumphantly before
the Treasurer of the Chamber’s paymaster the following spring as ‘one of
the Masters of the Children of Pawles’. Meanwhile the Blackfriars company

went on acting, but it is to be inferred from the title-pages of its next group
of plays, Marston’s Sophonisba (1606), Sharpham’s The Fleir (1607), and
Day’s Isle of Gulls (1606), that its misdemeanour had cost it the direct
patronage of the Queen, and that it was now only entitled to call itself, not
Children of the Queen’s Revels, but Children of the Revels.[158] Possibly
the change of name also indicates that thereafter, not Daniel, but the Master
of the Revels, acted as its censor. Anne herself, by the way, must have felt
the snub, for it was probably at the Blackfriars that, if the French
ambassador may be trusted, she had attended representations ‘to enjoy the
laugh against her husband’.[159] The alias, whatever it connoted, proved but
an ephemeral one. By February 1606 one of the plays just named, the Isle of
Gulls, had given a new offence. Some of those responsible for it were
thrown into Bridewell, and a fresh reconstruction became imperative.[160] It
was probably at this date that one Robert Keysar, a London goldsmith,
came into the business. Kirkham, like Evans before him, discreetly retired
from active management, and the Children, with Keysar as ‘interest with
them’, became ‘Masters themselves’, taking the risks and paying the
syndicate for the use of the hall.[161] Kirkham claims that under this
arrangement the moiety of profits in which he had rights amounted to £150
a year, as against £100 a year previously earned.[162] Shortly afterwards the
dissociation of the Chapel from the Blackfriars was completed by a new
commission issued to Giles on 7 November 1606, to which was added the
following clause:
‘Prouided alwayes and wee doe straightlie charge and commaunde that none of the
saide Choristers or Children of the Chappell so to be taken by force of this
commission shalbe vsed or imployed as Comedians or Stage players, or to exercise or
acte any Stage playes Interludes Comedies or tragedies, for that it is not fitt or decent
that such as shoulde singe the praises of God Allmightie shoulde be trayned vpp or
imployed in suche lascivious and prophane exercises.’[163]

It is presumably to this pronouncement that Flecknoe refers in 1664,
when he speaks of the Chapel theatre being converted to the use of the
Children of the Revels, on account of the growing precision of the people
and the growing licentiousness of plays.[164] It is, however, curious to
observe that the abandoned titles of the company tended to linger on in
actual use. Evans in 1612 speaks of the syndicate as ‘the coparteners
sharers, and Masters of the Queenes Maiesties Children of the Revells (for
so yt was often called)’ in 1608;[165] while the name Children of the Chapel

is used in the Stationers’ Register entry of Your Five Gallants in 1608, at
Maidstone in 1610, and even in such official documents as the Revels
Accounts for 1604–5 and the Chamber Accounts for 1612–13.
Under Keysar the name was Children of the Blackfriars. For a couple of
years the company succeeded in keeping clear of further disaster. But on 29
March 1608 the French ambassador, M. de la Boderie, reported that all the
London theatres had been closed, and were now threatened by the King
with a permanent inhibition on account of two plays which had given the
greatest offence.[166] Against one of these, which dealt with the domestic
affairs of the French king, he had himself lodged a protest, and his
description leaves no doubt that this was one of the parts of Chapman’s
Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron, which was published, without the
offending scene, later in the year, as ‘acted at the Black-Friars’. The other
play was a personal attack upon James himself. ‘Un jour ou deux devant’,
says La Boderie, ‘ilz avoient dépêché leur Roi, sa mine d’Escosse, et tous
ses favorits d’une estrange sorte; car aprés luy avoir fait dépiter le ciel sur le
vol d’un oyseau, et faict battre un gentilhomme pour avoir rompu ses
chiens, ils le dépeignoient ivre pour le moins une fois le jour.’ This piece is
not extant, but I have recently come across another allusion to it in a letter
of 11 March 1608 to Lord Salisbury from Sir Thomas Lake, a clerk of the
signet in attendance upon the King at Thetford.[167]
‘His matie was well pleased with that which your lo. advertiseth concerning the
committing of the players yt have offended in ye matters of France, and commanded
me to signifye to your lo. that for ye others who have offended in ye matter of ye
Mynes and other lewd words, which is ye children of ye blackfriars, That though he
had signified his mynde to your lo. by my lo. of Mountgommery yet I should repeate
it again, That his G. had vowed they should never play more, but should first begg
their bred and he wold have his vow performed, And therefore my lo. chamberlain by
himselfe or your ll. at the table should take order to dissolve them, and to punish the
maker besides.’

Sir Thomas Lake appears to have been under the impression that two
companies were concerned, and that the ‘matters of France’ were not played
by the Children of Blackfriars. If so, we must suppose that Byron was
originally produced elsewhere, perhaps by the King’s Revels, and
transferred to the Blackfriars after ‘reformation’ by the Council. M. de la
Boderie, however, writes as if the same company were responsible for both
plays, and perhaps it is on the whole more probable that Sir Thomas Lake

misunderstood the situation. I feel very little doubt that the maker of the
play on the mines was once more Marston, who was certainly summoned
before the Privy Council and committed to Newgate, on some offence not
specified in the extant record, on 8 June 1608.[168] And this was probably
the end of his stormy connexion with the stage. He disappeared from the
Blackfriars and from literary life, leaving The Insatiate Countess
unfinished, and selling the share in the syndicate which he had acquired
from Evans about 1603 to Robert Keysar for £100. Before making his
purchase, Keysar, who tells us that he put a value of £600 on the whole of
the enterprise, got an assurance, as he thought, from the King’s men that
they would not come to any arrangement with Henry Evans which would
prejudice his interests.[169] This the King’s men afterwards denied, and as a
matter of fact the negotiations, tentatively opened as far back as 1603,
between Evans and Burbadge for a surrender of the lease were now coming
to a head, and its actual surrender took place about August 1608.[170] On the
ninth of that month Burbadge executed fresh leases of the theatre to a new
syndicate representing the King’s men.[171] The circumstances leading up to
Evans’s part in this transaction became subsequently the subject of hostile
criticism by Kirkham, who asserted that the lease, which Alexander
Hawkins held in trust, had been stolen from his custody by Mrs. Evans, and
that the surrender was effected with the fraudulent intention of excluding
Kirkham from the profits to which he was entitled under the settlement of
1602.[172] According to Evans, however, Kirkham was at least implicitly a
consenting party, for it was he who, after the King’s inhibition had brought
the profits to an end, grew weary of the undertaking and initiated measures
for winding it up. On or about 26 July 1608 he had had the ‘apparells,
properties and goods’ of the syndicate appraised and an equitable division
made. When some of the boys were committed to prison he had ‘said he
would deale no more with yt, “for”, quoth he, “yt is a base thing”, or vsed
wordes to such, or very like effect’. And he had ‘delivered up their
commission, which he had vnder the greate seale aucthorising them to plaie,
and discharged divers of the partners and poetts’. In view of this, Evans
claimed that he was fully justified in coming to terms with Burbadge.[173]
After all, the King’s anger proved only a flash in the pan. Perhaps the
company travelled during the summer of 1608, if they, and not the King’s
Revels, were ‘the Children of the Revells’ rewarded at Leicester on 21

August.[174] But by the following Christmas they were in London, and with
Keysar as their payee gave three plays at Court, where they had not put in
an appearance since 1604–5. Two of these were on 1 and 4 January 1609.
As they still bore the name of Children of Blackfriars, they had presumably
remained on sufferance in their old theatre, which the King’s men may not
have been in a hurry to occupy during a plague-stricken period.[175] But
when a new season opened in the autumn of 1609, new quarters became
necessary. These they found at Whitefriars, which had been vacated by the
failure of the short-lived King’s Revels company, and it was as the Children
of Whitefriars that Keysar brought them to Court for no less than five plays
during the winter of 1609–10. He had now enlisted a partner in Philip
Rosseter, one of the lutenists of the royal household, who carried out a
scheme, with the co-operation of the King’s men, for buying off with a
‘dead rent’ the possible competition of the Paul’s boys, who had closed their
doors about 1606, but might at any moment open them again.[176] More
than this, through the influence of Sir Thomas Monson, Rosseter was
successful in obtaining a new patent, dated on 4 January 1610, by which the
Children once more became entitled to call themselves Children of the
Queen’s Revels.[177] It ran as follows:
Iames by the grace of God &c., To all Maiors Sheriffes Iustices of
peace Bayliffes Constables and to all other our Officers Ministers and De concessione
loving Subiects to whome theis presentes shall come Greeting. Roberto Daborne &
Whereas the Quene our deerest wyfe hathe for hir pleasure, and aliis.
recreacion, when shee shall thinke it fitt to have any Playes or Shewes,
appoynted hir servantes Robert Daborne, Phillippe Rosseter, Iohn Tarbock, Richard
Iones, and Robert Browne to prouide and bring vpp a convenient nomber of Children
whoe shalbe called Children of hir Revelles, knowe ye that wee haue appoynted and
authorised, and by theis presentes do authorize and appoynte the said Robert Daborne,
Phillipp Rosseter, Iohn Tarbock, Richard Iones, and Robert Browne from tyme to
tyme to provide keepe and bring vpp a convenient nomber of children, and them to
practice and exercise in the quality of playing, by the name of Children of the Revells
to the Queene, within the white ffryers in the Suburbs of our Citty of London, or in
any other convenyent place where they shall thinke fitt for that purpose. Wherfore
wee will and commaund you and euery of you to whome it shall appertayne to permitt
her said seruants to keepe a conuenient nomber of Children by the name of the
Children of hir Revells, and them to exercise in the qualitye of playing according to
hir pleasure, And theis our lettres patentes shalbe your sufficient warrant in this
behaulfe. Wittnes our self at Westminster, the ffourth daye of Ianuary.
per breve de priuato sigillo.

Of the new syndicate Browne and Jones were old professional actors who
had belonged to the Admiral’s men a quarter of a century before, and had

since been prominent, Browne in particular, as organizers of English
companies for travel in Germany. Daborne was or became a playwright. Of
Tarbock I know nothing; he may have been a nominee of Keysar, whose
own name, perhaps for reasons of diplomacy, does not appear in the patent.
He may, of course, have retired, but a lawsuit which he brought in 1610
suggests that his connexion with the company was not altogether broken.
The Whitefriars had not the tradition of the Blackfriars, and Keysar was
aggrieved at the surrender of the Blackfriars lease by Evans over his head.
On 8 February 1610 he laid a bill in the Court of Requests against the
housekeepers of the King’s men, claiming a share in their profits since the
date of surrender, which he estimated at £1,500, on the strength of the one-
sixth interest in the lease assigned by Evans to Marston and by Marston to
him.[178] He asserted that he had kept boys two years in the hope of playing
‘vpon the ceasing of the generall sicknes’, and had spent £500 on that and
on making provision in the house, and had now, at a loss of £1,000, had to
disperse ‘a companye of the moste exparte and skilful actors within the
realme of England to the number of eighteane or twentye persons all or
moste of them trayned vp in that service, in the raigne of the late Queene
Elizabeth for ten yeares togeather and afterwardes preferred into her
Maiesties service to be the Chilldren of her Revells’.[179] Burbadge and his
fellows denied that they had made £1,500, or that they had attempted to
defraud Keysar either about the surrender of the lease or, as he also alleged,
the ‘dead rent’ to Paul’s, and they pointed out that his losses were really due
to the plague. He could recover his share of the theatrical stock from Evans.
Evans had had no legal right to assign his interest under the lease. As only
the pleadings in the case and not the depositions or the order of the court are
extant, we do not know what Evans, who was to be a witness, had to say.
[180]
The fact that one of the new Blackfriars leases of 1608 was to a
Thomas Evans leaves the transaction between Henry Evans and Burbadge
not altogether free from a suspicion of bad faith. Kirkham also found that
he had been either hasty or outwitted in 1608, and as the deaths of Rastall
and Kendall in that year had left him the sole claimant to any interest under
the arrangement of 1602, he had recourse to litigation. In the course of 1611
and 1612 he brought a ‘multiplicitie of suites’ against Evans and Hawkins,
and was finally non-suited in the King’s Bench.[181] Then, in May 1612,
Evans in his turn brought a Chancery action against Kirkham, in the hope of
getting his bond of 1602 cancelled, and thus securing himself against any

further persecution for petty breaches of the articles of agreement. The
result of this is unknown, but in the course of it many of the incidents of
1600–8 were brought into question, and Kirkham claimed that not merely
had Evans shut him out in 1604 from certain rooms in the Blackfriars which
he was entitled to use, but that by the surrender of the lease in 1608 he had
lost profits which he estimated at £60 a year.[182] Finally in July 1612
Kirkham brought a Chancery action against Evans, Burbadge, and John
Heminges, and also against the widow of Alexander Hawkins and Edward
Painton, to whom she was now married, for reinstatement in his moiety of
the lease. In this suit much of the same ground was again traversed, but the
Court refused to grant him any relief.
It is not altogether easy to disentangle the plays produced at the
Blackfriars under Keysar from those produced immediately afterwards at
the Whitefriars. The only title-page which definitely names the Children of
the Blackfriars is that of Jonson’s The Case is Altered (1609). But
Chapman’s Byron (1608) and May Day (1611) and Middleton’s Your Five
Gallants (n.d.?1608) also claim to have been acted at the Blackfriars. The
Q1 of Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One (1608) assigns it to Paul’s;
the Q2 both to Paul’s and Blackfriars, with an indication of a Court
performance on New Year’s Day, which can only be that of 1 January 1609.
This play, therefore, must have been taken over from Paul’s, when that
house closed in 1606 or 1607. As Middleton is not generally found writing
for Blackfriars, Your Five Gallants may have been acquired in the same
way. It is also extremely likely that Chapman’s Bussy d’Ambois passed
from Paul’s to Blackfriars on its way to the King’s men. No name of
company or theatre is attached to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Knight of the
Burning Pestle (1613) or to The Faithful Shepherdess (c. 1609). But the K.
B. P. was published with an epistle to Keysar as its preserver and can be
securely dated in 1607–8; it refers to the house in which it was played as
having been open for seven years, which just fits the Blackfriars. The
Faithful Shepherdess is of 1608–9 and a boys’ play; the commendatory
verses by Field, Jonson, and Chapman justify an attribution to the company
with which they had to do. Chapman’s The Widow’s Tears (1612) had been
staged both at Blackfriars and at Whitefriars before publication, and was
probably therefore produced shortly before the company moved house. The
greatest difficulty is Jonson’s Epicoene (S. R. 20 September 1610). No

edition is known to be extant earlier than the Folio of 1616, in which Jonson
ascribed the production to ‘1609’ and to the Children of the Revels.
According to the system of dating ordinarily adopted by Jonson in this
Folio, ‘1609’ should mean 1609 and not 1609–10. Yet the Children were not
entitled to call themselves ‘of the Revels’ during 1609. Either Jonson’s
chronology or his memory of the shifting nomenclature of the company has
slipped. The actor-list of Epicoene names ‘Nat. Field, Gil. Carie, Hug.
Attawel, Ioh. Smith, Will. Barksted, Will. Pen, Ric. Allin, Ioh. Blaney’.
Amongst these Field is the sole direct connecting link with the Chapel
actor-lists of 1600 and 1601. Keysar’s pleading shows us that from 1600 to
1610 the company had maintained a substantial identity throughout all its
phases, as successively Children of the Chapel, Children of the Queen’s
Revels, Children of the Blackfriars, Children of the Whitefriars; but part of
his grievance is its dispersal, and possibly the continuity with the second
Children of the Revels may not have been quite so marked. ‘In processe of
time’, say the Burbadges in the Blackfriars Sharers Papers of 1635, ‘the
boyes growing up to bee men, which were Underwood, Field, Ostler, and
were taken to strengthen the King’s service’.[183] This, which is written in
relation to the acquisition of the Blackfriars, is doubtless accurate as regards
Ostler and Underwood, and their transfer may reasonably be placed in the
winter of 1609–10. But it was not until some years later that Field joined
the King’s men.
The career of the second Queen’s Revels, but for the temporary
suppression of Epicoene owing to a misconstruction placed on it by
Arabella Stuart, was comparatively uneventful. They are recorded at
Maidstone as the Children of the Chapel about March 1610. They made no
appearance at Court during the following winter, and were again travelling
in the following autumn, when they came to Norwich under the leadership
of one Ralph Reeve, who showed the patent of 4 January 1610, and at first
claimed to be Rosseter, but afterwards admitted that he was not. As he could
show no letters of deputation, he was not allowed to play, although he
received a reward on the following day, which was recorded, not quite
correctly, as paid to ‘the master of the children of the King’s Revells’. By
29 August Barksted and Carey had left the company to join the newly
formed Lady Elizabeth’s men. We may therefore place at some time before
this date Barksted’s completion of Marston’s Insatiate Countess, which was
published in 1613 as ‘acted at Whitefriars’. The entry in the Stationer’s

Register of Field’s A Woman is a Weathercock (1612) on 23 November
1611 shows that he also had begun to experiment in authorship. As this had
been acted at Court, as well as by the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars, it
probably dates back to the winter of 1609–10. The company returned to
court on 5 January 1612 with Beaumont and Fletcher’s Cupid’s Revenge,
and the Clerk of the Revels entered them as the Children of Whitefriars.[184]
The travels of 1612 were under the leadership of Nicholas Long, and on 20
May another contretemps occurred at Norwich. The instrument of
deputation was forthcoming on this occasion, but the mayor chose to
interpret the patent as giving authority only to teach and instruct children,
and not to perform with them; and so once again ‘the Master of the Kings
Revells’ got his reward of 20s., but was not allowed to play. Between
Michaelmas and Christmas ‘the queens maiesties revellers’ were at Bristol,
and at some time during 1612–13 ‘two of the company of the childeren of
Revells’ received a reward at Coventry. Conceivably the provincial
company of Reeve and Long was a distinct organization from that in
London. Rosseter was payee for four performances at Court during the
winter of 1612–13. On the first occasion, in the course of November, the
play was Beaumont and Fletcher’s Coxcomb; on 1 January and again on 9
January it was Cupid’s Revenge; and on 27 February it was The Widow’s
Tears. In one version of the Chamber Accounts the company appears this
year as the Children of the Queen’s Revels, but in another under the
obsolete designation of Children of the Chapel. In addition to the plays
already named, Chapman’s Revenge of Bussy had been on the Whitefriars
stage before it was published in 1613; and it is conceivable that Chapman’s
Chabot and Beaumont and Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas and The
Nightwalker may be Queen’s Revels plays of 1610–13. They may also,
indeed, be Lady Elizabeth’s plays of 1613–16, but during this period the
Lady Elizabeth and the Queen’s Revels appear to have been practically
amalgamated, under an arrangement made between Henslowe and Rosseter
in March 1613 and then modified, first in 1614, and again on the addition of
Prince Charles’s men to the ‘combine’ in 1615. Yet in some way the
Children of the Revels maintained a separate individuality, at least in
theory, during these years, as may be seen from the patent of 3 June 1615,
which licensed Rosseter and Reeve, together with Robert Jones and Philip
Kingman, to build a new Blackfriars theatre in the house known as Porter’s
Hall.[185] The main purpose of this undertaking was expressed to be the

provision of a new house for the Children of the Queen’s Revels instead of
the Whitefriars, where Rosseter’s lease was now expired, although it was
also contemplated that use might be made of it by the Prince’s and the Lady
Elizabeth’s players. Porter’s Hall only stood for a short time before civic
hostility procured its demolition, and the single play, which we can be fairly
confident that the Children of the Revels gave in it, is Beaumont and
Fletcher’s Scornful Lady. This presumably fell after the amalgamation
under Henslowe broke up about the time of his death early in 1616. Field
appears to have joined the King’s men about 1615. The Queen’s Revels
dropped out of London theatrical life. Their provincial travels under
Nicholas Long had apparently terminated in 1612, as in 1614 he is found
using the patent of the Lady Elizabeth’s men (q. v.) in the provinces. But
some members of the company seem to have gone travelling during the
period of troubled relations with Henslowe, and are traceable at Coventry
on 7 October 1615, and at Nottingham in February 1616 and again later in
1616–17. On 31 October 1617 a new Queen’s Revel’s company was formed
by Rosseter, in association with Nicholas Long, Robert Lee of the Queen’s
men, and William Perry of the King’s Revels.[186]

iii. THE CHILDREN OF WINDSOR

Masters of the Children:—Richard Farrant (1564–80), Nathaniel Giles (1595–
1634).

The Chapel Royal at Windsor was served by an ecclesiastical college,
which had been in existence as far back as the reign of Henry I, and had
subsequently been resettled as St. George’s Chapel in connexion with the
establishment of the Order of the Garter by Edward III, finally incorporated
under Edward IV, and exempted from dissolution at the Reformation.
Edward III had provided for a warden, who afterwards came to be called
dean, 12 canons, 13 priest vicars, 4 clerks, 6 boy choristers, and 26 ‘poor
knights’. The boys were to be ‘endued with clear and tuneable voices’, and
to succeed the clerks as their voices changed. Their number was altered
from time to time; during the greater part of Elizabeth’s reign it stood at 10.
Each had an annual fee of £3 6s. 8d. They were lodged within the Castle, in
a chamber north of the chapel, and next to a building founded by James
Denton in 1520, known as the ‘New Commons’. This is now merged in the
canons’ houses, but a doorway is inscribed ‘Edes pro Sacellaenorum et
Choristarum conviviis extructae a. d. 1519’. There were also an epistoler
and a gospeller.[187] The music was ‘useyd after ye order and maner of ye
quenes chappell’.[188] One of the clerks, whose position corresponded to
that of the Gentlemen of the household Chapel Royal, was appointed by the
Chapter of the College to act as Organist and Master of the Children. The
College was privileged, like the Chapel Royal itself, to recruit its choir by
impressment. A commission for this purpose, issued on 8 March 1560,
merely repeats the terms of one granted by Mary, which itself had
confirmed earlier grants by Henry VIII and Edward VI.[189]
The Master at Elizabeth’s accession was one Preston.[190] But he was
deprived, as unwilling to accept the new ecclesiastical settlement; and the
first Master under whom the choristers appear to have acted at Court was
Richard Farrant. He had been a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal from about
1553, but was replaced on 24 April 1564, doubtless on his appointment as
Master at Windsor.[191] On the following 30 September the Chapter
assigned a chantry to the teacher of the choristers for an increase of his
maintenance.[192] On 5 November 1570, Farrant was reappointed a
Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, but evidently did not resign his Mastership.
[193]
On 11 February 1567 he began a series of plays with the ‘Children of
Windsor’ at Court, which was continued at Shrovetide 1568, on 22

February and 27 December 1569, at Shrovetide 1571, on 1 January 1572,
when he gave Ajax and Ulysses, on 1 January 1573, on 6 January 1574,
when he gave Quintus Fabius, on 6 January 1575, when he gave King
Xerxes, and on 27 December 1575. With the winter of 1576–7 the entries of
his name in the accounts of the Treasurer take a new form; he is no longer
‘Mr of the children of the Chappell at Wyndsore’ but ‘Mr of the children of
the Chappell’. The Revels Accounts for the same season record that on 6
January 1577 Mutius Scaevola was played at Court by ‘the Children of
Windsore and the Chappell’, and it is a fair inference that Farrant, in
addition to exercising his own office, was now also acting as deputy to
William Hunnis, the Master by patent of the Children of the Chapel Royal,
and had made up a combined company from both choirs for the Christmas
delectation of the Queen.[194] This interpretation of the facts was confirmed
when Professor Feuillerat was able to show from the Loseley archives that
in 1576 Farrant had taken a lease of rooms in the Blackfriars from Sir
William More and had converted them into the first Blackfriars theatre.[195]
Whether boys from Windsor continued to take a share in the performances
by the Chapel during 1577–8, 1578–9, and 1579–80, for all of which
Farrant was payee, we do not know; there is no further mention of them as
actors in the Court accounts, although they accompanied the singing men
from Windsor to Reading during the progress of 1576.[196] Farrant died on
30 November 1580, leaving a widow Anne, who in 1582 obtained the
reversion of a small lease from the Crown, and was involved in
controversies with Sir William More over the Blackfriars tenement at least
up to 1587.[197] He had acquired some reputation as a musician, and
amongst his surviving compositions are a few which may have been
intended for use in plays.[198] Farrant was succeeded at Windsor by
Nathaniel Giles, but only after an interval of either five or fifteen years.
Ashmole reports Giles’s monument as crediting him with forty-nine years’
service as Master of St. George’s before his death in 1634.[199] There must
be an inaccuracy, either here or in the date of 1 October ’37 Eliz.’ (1595)
upon a copy of his indenture of appointment by the Windsor chapter, which
is amongst Ashmole’s papers.[200] This recites that the chapter ‘are now
destitute of an experte and cunnynge man’, and that Giles ‘is well contented
to come and serve’ them. He is granted from the previous Michaelmas to
the end of his life ‘the Roome and place of a Clerk within the said ffree

Chappell and to be one of the Players on the Organes there, and also the
office of Instructor and Master of the ten Children or Choristers of the same
ffree Chappell, And the office of tutor, creansor, or governor of the same
tenn Children or Coristers’. He is to have an annuity of £81 6s. 8d. and
‘tholde comons howse’, wherein John Mundie lately dwelt, which he is to
hold on the same terms as ‘one Richarde ffarrante enjoyed the same’ at a
rent of £1 6s. 8d. His fee is to be ‘over and besides all such giftes, rewardes
or benevolences as from time to time during the naturall lief of him the said
Nathanaell Gyles shall be given bestowed or ymployed to or upon the
Choristers for singinge of Balattes, playes or for the like respects
whatsoever’. He is to maintain the children and to supply vacancies, ‘her
Maiesties comission for the taking of Children which her highnes hath
alredie graunted to the said Dean and Canons being allowed vnto him the
said Nathanaell Gyles for that purpose’. Evidently the door was left open
for a resumption of theatrical activities, such as was afterwards brought
about at the London Chapel Royal during the Mastership of Giles there; but
there is no proof that such a resumption ever took place at Windsor. It is
perhaps a fanciful conjecture that the boys may have helped with The Merry
Wives of Windsor about 1600.[201]

iv. CHILDREN OF THE KING’S REVELS
Masters:—Martin Slater and others.
[Bibliographical Note.—The chief source of information is J. Greenstreet, The
Whitefriars Theatre in the Time of Shakspere (N. S. S. Trans. 1887–92, 269), which
gives the text of the bill and answer in Androwes v. Slater (1609, Chancery).]

The accident of litigation brings into light a company of boys, who
appear to have acted for a brief and troubled period, which probably ended
in 1608 or early in 1609. The story is told by one George Androwes a silk-
weaver of London, and begins in February 1608. At that date a part of the
dissolved Whitefriars monastery was held, in contemplation of a lease from
Lord Buckhurst, by Michael Drayton and Thomas Woodford. The lease was
actually executed about the following March, and was for six years, eight
months, and twenty days, at a rent of £50. Woodford had assigned his
interest to one Lording Barry; and Barry in turn persuaded Androwes to
take over a third of it, and to join a syndicate, of which the active manager
was Martin Slater, who is described as a citizen and ironmonger of London,
but is, of course, well known as an actor in the Admiral’s and other

companies. The bill incorporates the terms of Articles of Agreement entered
into on 10 March 1608 by Slater on the one hand and Barry, Androwes, and
Drayton, together with William Trevell, William Cooke, Edward Sibthorpe,
and John Mason, all of London, gentlemen, on the other. They throw a good
deal of light upon the business organization of a theatrical enterprise. Slater
is to have a sixth part of the net profits of ‘any playes, showes, interludes,
musique, or such like exercises’ in the Whitefriars play-house or elsewhere,
together with lodging for himself and his family on the premises, and any
profits that can be made in the house ‘either by wine, beere, ale, tobacco,
wood, coales, or any such commoditie’. When the ‘pattent for playinge’
shall be renewed, Slater’s name is to be joined in it with Drayton’s, because
‘if any restrainte of their playinge shall happen by reason of the plague or
other wise, it shalbe for more creditt of the whole company that the said
Martyn shall travel with the children, and acquainte the magistrates with
their busines’. During any such travel his allowance is to be increased to a
share and a half, no apparel, books, or other property of the company is to
be removed without the consent of the sharers, and none of them is to print
any of the play-books, ‘except the booke of Torrismount, and that playe not
to be printed by any before twelve monthes be fully expired’. In order to
avoid debt, a sixth part is to be taken up each day of the ‘chardges of the
howse’ for the week, including ‘the gatherers, the wages, the childrens
bourd, musique, booke keeper, tyreman, tyrewoman, lights, the Maister of
the revells’ duties, and all other things needefull and necessary’. The
children are to be ‘bound’ for three years to Slater, who undertakes not to
part with ‘the said younge men or ladds’ during their apprenticeship except
on the consent of his fellow sharers.
The theatrical experience of the syndicate presumably rested with Slater
and Drayton. Of Trevell, Cooke, and Sibthorpe I know nothing, except that
Trevell, like Woodford, seems still to have had an interest in the lease of the
Whitefriars (cf. ch. xvii) in 1621. But Mason and Barry were the authors
respectively of The Turk (1610, S. R. 10 March 1609), and Ram Alley
(1611, S. R. 9 November 1610), the title-pages of which ascribe them to the
children of the King’s Revels, and thereby enable us to give a more definite
title to the boys, who are only described in the Chancery pleadings as ‘the
Children of the revells there beinge’, that is to say, at the Whitefriars. And
we can trace the King’s Revels a little farther back than February 1608 with
the aid of the earliest of similar entries on the title-pages of other plays,

which are, in the chronological order of publication, Sharpham’s Cupid’s
Whirligig (1607, S. R. 29 June 1607), Middleton’s Family of Love (1608, S.
R. 12 October 1607), Day’s Humour Out Of Breath (1608, S. R. 12 April
1608), Markham’s (and Machin’s) The Dumb Knight (1608, S. R. 6 October
1608), and Armin’s Two Maids of Moreclack (1609). If Lewis Machin was
the author of the anonymous Every Woman In Her Humour (1609), it is
possible that this ought to be added to the list. Clearly the boys were
playing at least as early as the first half of 1607 and the agreement of 1608
must represent a reconstruction of the original business organization. I do
not find anything in the plays to prove an earlier date than 1607, but it is
quite conceivable that the King’s Revels may have come into existence as
early as 1606, perhaps with the idea of replacing the Queen’s Revels after
their disgrace over The Isle of Gulls. But if so, the Queen’s Revels managed
to hold together under another name, and in fact proved more enduring than
their rivals. Mr. Fleay, however, suggests that the King’s Revels were a
continuation of the Paul’s boys, and played at the singing-school, and
apparently also that they were themselves continued as the Duke of York’s
men (H. of S. 152, 188, 202, 206). He did not, I think, know of Androwes v.
Slater, but Androwes v. Slater does not indicate that the King’s Revels were
at Whitefriars before 1608; rather the contrary.[202] The dates render Mr.
Fleay’s conjectures tempting, although it must be admitted that there is not
much evidence. But The Family of Love was played in a round theatre and
the Paul’s house was round. The curious description of the Duke of York’s
men at Leicester in 1608 as ‘of the White Chapple, London’, might
conceivably be a mistake for ‘of the Whitefriars’, but more probably
indicates that they came from the Boar’s Head (cf. ch. xvi). ‘The Children
of the Revells’ followed them at Leicester on 21 August 1608, but these
may have been the Blackfriars children under a not quite official name. A
complete search through the Patent Rolls for 1606–8 might disinter the
patent for the King’s Revels, which is referred to in the Articles of
Agreements; I find no obvious clue to it in the printed index of signet bills.
It seems possible that William Barksted (cf. ch. xv) may have belonged to
the King’s Revels.
The syndicate did not hold together long. It will be noticed that, in spite
of the attempt in the articles to bar the printing of plays, these had begun to
reach the stationers again as early as April 1608. The inhibition of 1608
hardly gave the company a chance, and then came the plague. They were

probably broken before the end of 1608, and although Mason and Barry had
at least the consolation that they had got their own plays staged, other
members of the syndicate could only reflect that they had lost their money.
And when dissensions broke out, and Slater sued Androwes on a bond of
£200 given by the sharers for observance of the articles, and this for
defaults which Androwes himself had not committed, it is not surprising
that Androwes drew the conclusion that he had been a gull. He took Slater
to Chancery, and alleged that he had been asked £90 and paid £70 for his
share in the expectation of a profit of £100 a year, and on the understanding
that the apparel was worth £400 when it was not worth £5, that he had been
led into building and other expenses to the tune of £300, that the lease had
been forfeited for non-payment of rent before any assignation had been
made to him, and that he had been clearly told by Slater that his obligation
was not to extend beyond any breaches of covenant that he might himself
commit. Slater denied any responsibility for Androwes’s
misunderstandings, and pointed out that he had himself been the principal
sufferer by the breakdown of the enterprise, since he and his family of ten
had been illegally turned out of the rooms to which they were entitled under
the articles of agreement, and were now driven to beg their bread. The view
taken by the court is not upon record.
The company which was described as the King’s Revels at Norwich in
1611 and 1612 was travelling under the Queen’s Revels patent of 1610, and
was therefore clearly misnamed. But a second King’s Revels company did
in fact come into existence through a licence given to William Hovell,
William Perry, and Nathan May under the royal signet on 27 February
1615. It performed only in the provinces, and is traceable at Norwich,
Coventry, and Leicester. Its warrant was condemned and withdrawn by an
order of the Lord Chamberlain on 16 July 1616 (Murray, ii. 343), and in the
following year the company seems to have amalgamated with the provincial
relics of the Queen’s Revels.

v. CHILDREN OF BRISTOL
Masters:—John Daniel (1615–17); Martin Slater, John Edmonds, Nathaniel Clay
(1618).

A signet bill for a patent for a company of Children of Bristol under the
patronage of Queen Anne was passed in June 1615, perhaps as a result of

her visit to that city in 1613.[203] On 10 July Sir George Buck wrote to John
Packer, the Earl of Somerset’s secretary, to say that the grant had been made
through the Queen’s influence on behalf of Samuel Daniel, and that he was
prepared to assent to it, without prejudice to his rights as Master of the
Revels.[204] The actual patent, dated 13 July, is made out to Daniel’s brother
John.[205]
Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices of peace, Mayors,
Sheriffes, Bayliffes, Constables, headboroughes and other our lovinge De concessione
subjectes and Officers greetinge. Knowe yee that wee at the mocion of regardante
our most deerelie loved consort the Queene have licenced and Iohannem Daniell.
authorised, And by theise presentes do licence and authorise, our
welbeloved subjectes Iohn Daniell and his Assignes to entertaine and bringe vp a
company of children and youthes vunder the name and title of the children of her
Maiesties royall Chamber of Bristoll, to vse and exercise the arte and qualitie of
playinge Comedies, histories, Enterludes, Moralles, Pastoralles, Stageplayes, and such
other like, as they have alreadie studied or hereafter shall studie or vse, aswell for the
solace and delight of our most derely loved Consort the Queene whensoever they
shalbe called, as for the recreacion of our loving Subiectes, And the said Enterludes or
other to shewe and exercise publiquely to their best commoditie, aswell in and about
our said Citie of Bristoll in such vsuall houses as themselves shall provide, as other
convenient places within the liberties and freedomes of any other Cittie, vniversitie,
Towne, or Burrowe whatsoever within our Realmes and Dominions, willing and
commaundinge you and every of you, as you tender our pleasures, not onelie to
permitt and suffer them herein without any your lettes, hinderances, molestacions, and
disturbances during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be aydinge and assistinge vnto
them, yf any wronge be done vnto them or to them offred, and to allowe them such
further curtesies as have bene given to other of the like qualitie, And alsoe what
further grace and favour you shall show vnto them for our sakes wee shall take kindly
at your handes. Provided alwaies and our will and pleasure is, all authoritie, power,
priviledge, and profitt whatsoever belonginge and properlie apperteyninge to the
Maister of the Revelles in respect of his office shall remayne and abide entire and in
full force, effect, and vertue, and in as ample sort as if this our Commission had never
byn made. In witnes whereof &c., witnes our selfe at Westminster the seaventeenth
day of Iuly.
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

The company is not traceable in London, but Daniel brought it to
Norwich in 1616–17. By April 1618 he had assigned his privilege to Martin
Slater, John Edmonds and Nathaniel Clay, who obtained, presumably from
the Privy Council, supplementary letters of assistance in which they are
described as ‘her Maiesties servants’, and are authorized to play as ‘her
Maiesties servants of her Royall Chamber of Bristoll’.[206] From a
complaint sent in the following June by the Mayor of Exeter to Sir Thomas
Lake, it emerges that, although the patent was for children, the company

consisted of five youths and several grown men.[207] Slater and Edmonds
still held their status as Queen’s men (q.v.) in 1619.

vi. WESTMINSTER SCHOOL
Head Masters:—John Adams (1540); Alexander Nowell (1543–53); Nicholas
Udall (1555–6); John Passey (1557–8, with Richard Spencer as usher); John Randall
(1563); Thomas Browne (1564–9); Francis Howlyn (1570–1); Edward Graunte
(1572–92); William Camden (1593–8, Undermaster 1575–93); Richard Ireland
(1599–1610); John Wilson (1610–22).
Choir Masters (?):—William Cornish (1480); John Taylor (1561–7); John
Billingsley (1572); William Elderton (1574).
[Bibliographical Note.—The best sources of information are: R.
Widmore, History of Westminster Abbey (1751); J. Welch [—C. B.
Phillimore], Alumni Westmonasterienses, ed. 2 (1852); Appendix to First
Report of the Cathedral Commissioners (1854); F. H. Forshall,
Westminster School, Past and Present (1884); J. Sargeaunt, Annals of
Westminster School (1898); A. F. Leach, The Origin of Westminster
School in Journal of Education, n. s. xxvii (1905), 79. Some valuable
records have been printed by E. J. L. Scott in the Athenaeum, and
extracts from others are given in the Observer for 7 Dec. 1919. A. F.
Leach has fixed the dates of Udall’s life in Encycl. Brit. s.v.]

There is no trace of any grammar school in the abbey of Westminster
until the fourteenth century. The Customary of 1259–83 (ed. E. M.
Thompson for Henry Bradshaw Soc.) only contemplates education for the
novices, and in the earliest almoner’s accounts, which begin with 1282,
entries of 1317 ‘in maintaining Nigel at school for the love of God’ (Leach,
80) and 1339–40, ‘pro scholaribus inueniendis ad scolas’ (E. H. Pearce, The
Monks of Westminster Abbey, 79), need only refer to the support of scholars
at a University. But from 1354–5 there were almonry boys (pueri
Elemosinariae) under the charge of the Sub-Almoner, and these are
traceable up to the dissolution. To them we may assign the ludus of the Boy
Bishop on St. Nicholas’ day, mentions of which have been noted in 1369,
1388, 1413, and 1540 (Mediaeval Stage, i. 360; Leach, 80). They had a
school house near ‘le Millebank’, and from 1367 the Almoner paid a
Magister Puerorum. From 1387 he is often called Magister Scolarum and in
the fifteenth century Magister Scolarium. From 1510 the boys under the
Magister become pueri grammatici, and may be distinct from certain pueri
cantantes for whom since 1479–80 the Almoner had paid a separate teacher
of singing. The first of these song-masters was William Cornish, doubtless
of the family so closely connected with the Chapel Royal (q.v.). In 1540 the

pueri grammatici were reorganized as the still existing College of St. Peter,
Westminster, which is therefore generally regarded as owing its origin to
Henry VIII, who on the surrender of the abbey in 1540 turned it into a
college of secular canons, and provided for a school of forty scholars. This
endured in some form through the reactionary reign of Mary, whose
favourite dramatist Nicholas Udall became its Head Master, although the
date of his appointment on 16 December 1555 (A. F. Leach in Encycl. Brit.,
s.v. Udall) makes it probable that, if he wrote his Ralph Roister Doister for
a school at all, it was for Eton (q.v.) rather than Westminster. His
predecessor Alexander Nowell is said by Strype to have ‘brought in the
reading of Terence for the better learning the pure Roman style’, and, as the
Sub-Almoner paid ‘xvid. for wryting of a play for the chyldren’ as early as
1521 (Observer), the performance of Latin comedies by the boys may have
been pre-Elizabethan. It is provided for in the statutes drafted by Dean Bill
(c. 1560) after the restoration of her father’s foundation by Elizabeth. These
statutes also contemplate a good deal of interrelation between the choir
school and the grammar school. They are printed in the Report of the
Cathedral Commission (App. I, 80). The personnel of the foundation was to
include (a) ‘clerici duodecim’, of whom ‘unus sit choristarum doctor’, (b)
‘decem pueri symphoniaci sive choristae’, presumably in continuation of
the former singing boys, (c) ‘praeceptores duo ad erudiendam iuventutem’,
(d) ‘discipuli grammatici quadraginta’. The ‘praeceptores’ are
distinguished later in the document as ‘archididascalus’ and
‘hypodidascalus’, and the former is also called ‘ludimagister’. By c. 5 the
choristers are to have a preference in elections to the grammar school. The
following section ‘De Choristis et Choristarum Magistro’ forms part of c.
9:
‘Statuimus et ordinamus ut in ecclesia nostra praedicta sint decem choristae, pueri
tenerae aetatis et vocibus sonoris ad cantandum, et ad artem musicam discendam, et
etiam ad musica instrumenta pulsanda apti, qui choro inserviant, ministrent, et
cantent. Ad hos praeclare instituendos, unus eligatur qui sit honestae famae, vitae
probae, religionis sincerae, artis musicae peritus, et ad cantandum et musica
instrumenta pulsanda exercitatus, qui pueris in praedictis scientiis et exercitiis
docendis aliisque muniis [? muneribus] in choro obeundis studiose vacabit. Hunc
magistrum choristarum appellari volumus. Cui muneri doctores et baccalaureos
musices aliis praeferendos censemus. Volumus etiam quoties eum ab ecclesia nostra
abesse contingat, alterum substituat a decano vel eo absente prodecano approbandum.
Prospiciat item puerorum saluti, quorum et in literis (donec ut in scholam nostram
admittantur apti censebuntur) et in morum modestia et in convictu educationem et
liberalem institutionem illius fidei et industriae committimus. Quod si negligens et in

docendo desidiosus, aut in salute puerorum et recta eorum educatione minime
providus et circumspectus, et ideo non tolerandus inveniatur, post trinam
admonitionem (si se non emendaverit) ab officio deponatur. Qui quidem choristarum
magister ad officium suum per se fideliter obeundum iuramento etiam adigetur.
Choristae postquam octo orationis partes memoriter didicerint et scribere mediocriter
noverint, ad scholam nostram ut melius in grammatica proficiant singulis diebus
profestis accedant, ibique duabus minimum horis maneant, et a praeceptoribus
instituantur.’

The following section ‘De Comoediis et Ludis in Natali Domini
exhibendis’ comes in c. 10:
‘Quo iuventus maiore cum fructu tempus Natalis Christi terat, et tum actioni tum
pronunciationi decenti melius se assuescat: statuimus ut singulis annis intra 12m post
festum Natalis Christi dies [? diem], vel postea arbitrio decani, ludimagister et
praeceptor simul Latine unam, magister choristarum Anglice alteram comoediam aut
tragoediam a discipulis et choristis suis in aula privatim vel publice agendam, curent.
Quod si non prestiterint singuli quorum negligentia omittuntur decem solidis
mulctentur.’

The statutes appear never to have been confirmed by the Crown, and
their practical adoption was subject to certain exceptions. Thus, it is stated
in the report of the Public Schools Commission in 1864 (i. 159) that there is
no reason to believe that the provision giving a preference to choristers in
elections for the grammar school was ever attended to.
Of plays and the like, however, there are various records. The first since
1521 is at the Lord Mayor’s Day of 1561, when the Merchant Taylors’
expenses for their pageant included items ‘to John Tayllour, master of the
Children of the late monastere of Westminster, for his children that sung
and played in the pageant’, and ‘to John Holt momer in reward for
attendance given of the children in the pageant’. Similar payments were
made to Taylor as ‘Mr of the quirysters’ for the services of the children on
the Ironmongers’ pageant of 1566.[208] In 1562 the choristers of
Westminster Abbey performed a goodly play before the Society of Parish
Clerks after their annual dinner.[209] In 1564–5 comes the first of a series of
Court performances, which received assistance from the Revels office. To
this occasion belongs a memorandum of ‘Thexpenses of twoo playes viz.
Heautontimoroumenos Terentii and Miles Gloriosus Plauti plaied by the
children of the grammer schoole in the colledge of Westminster and before
the Quenes maiestie anno 1564’.[210] The items include, ‘At ye rehersing
before Sir Thomas Benger for pinnes and suger candee vjd.’, ‘For a lynke to
bring thapparell from the reuells iiijd.’, ‘At the playing of Miles Glor: in

Mr. Deanes howse for pinnes half a thousand vjd.’, ‘Geuen to Mr. Holte
yeoman of the reuells xs.’, ‘To Mr. Taylor his man’, ‘For one Plautus geven
to ye Queenes maiestie and fowre other vnto the nobilitie xjs.’ It is not quite
clear whether the Heautontimorumenus, as well as the Miles Gloriosus, was
given before the Queen, but I think not. In 1565–6 Elizabeth was again
present at the play of Sapientia Solomonis, and there were payments ‘For
drawing the city and temple of Jerusalem and paynting towers’, ‘To a
woman that brawght her childe to the stadge and there attended uppon it’,
and for a copy of the play bound ‘in vellum with the Queenes Matie hir
armes and sylke ribben strings’, almost certainly that still extant as Addl.
MS. 20061 (cf. App. K), which shows that Elizabeth was accompanied by
Cecilia of Sweden.[211] Whether these plays were at the school or at Court is
not quite clear. I should, on the whole, infer the latter, but no rewards were
paid for them by the Treasurer of the Chamber. John Taylor was, however,
paid for plays by the Children of Westminster during the Shrovetide of
1566–7 and the Christmas of 1567–8; John Billingesley for their Paris and
Vienna on 19 February 1572; and William Elderton for their Truth,
Faithfulness, and Mercy on 1 January 1574. In 1567 also the boys are
recorded (Observer) to have played at Putney before Bishop Grindal. I
suppose that Billingesley and Elderton succeeded Taylor as Magistri
Choristarum. Taylor himself is probably the same who on 8 September
1557 was Master of the singing children at the hospital of St. Mary
Woolnoth. Elderton is presumably the same who brought the Eton boys to
Court in 1573. Whether he is also the bibulous balladist of the pamphleteers
(cf. ch. xv) is more doubtful. The absence of a payment for Miles Gloriosus
may suggest that this was given by the grammar school who, like the Inns
of Court, did not expect a reward, and that the English plays were given by
the choristers, who were on the same footing as the choristers of Paul’s. I
am not sure, however, that the wording of the statutes quite implies such a
sharp distinction between the two sets of boys, and it will be noticed that
Taylor, or his man, was in some way concerned with the Latin play. Very
possibly grammar boys and choristers acted together. With 1574 the Court
performances end, but expenses of plays are traceable in the college
accounts in 1604–5, 1605–6, 1606–7, and 1609–10, and up to about 1640,
when they stop for sixty-four years.[212]

vii. ETON COLLEGE

Head Masters:—William Malim (c. 1555–73); William Smyth (c. 1563); Reuben
Sherwood (c. 1571); Thomas Ridley (1579); John Hammond (1583); Richard Langley
(1594); Richard Wright (1611); Matthew Bust (1611–30).
[Bibliographical Note.—The best sources of information are J.
Heywood and T. Wright, Ancient Laws of King’s College and Eton
College (1850); Report of Public Schools Commission (1864); W. L.
Collins, Etoniana 1865); H. Maxwell-Lyte, History of Eton (1875, 4th
ed. 1911); W. Sterry, Annals of Eton College (1898).]

The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor was founded by
Henry VI in 1441. The Statutes of 1444 provide for a Boy Bishop
(Mediaeval Stage, i. 365), but the custom was discontinued before 1559–61,
when William Malim prepared a Consuetudinarium for a Royal
Commission appointed to visit the college. By this time, however,
Christmas plays by the boys had become the practice, and Malim writes:
[213]

‘Circiter festum D. Andreae [Nov. 30] ludimagister eligere solet pro suo arbitrio
scaenicas fabulas optimas et quam accommodatissimas, quas pueri feriis natalitiis
subsequentibus non sine ludorum elegantia, populo spectante, publice aliquando
peragant. Histrionum levis ars est, ad actionem tamen oratorum, et gestum motumque
corporis decentem tantopere facit, ut nihil magis. Interdum etiam exhibet Anglico
sermone contextas fabulas, quae habeant acumen et leporem.’

There are ‘numerous’ entries of expenditure on these plays in the Audit
Books from 1525–6 to 1572–3, of which a few only have been printed.[214]
There is also an inventory, apparently undated, of articles in ‘Mr.
Scholemasters chamber’, which includes ‘a great cheste bound about with
yron to keepe the players coats in’, and a list of the apparel, beards, and
properties. The Eton boys played under Udall before Cromwell in 1538
(Mediaeval Stage, ii. 196, 451), and it is possible that Ralph Roister Doister
may belong to his Eton mastership.[215] The only Court performance by
Eton boys on record was one on 6 January 1573, for which the payee was
Elderton, presumably the William Elderton who was payee for the
Westminster boys in the following year.

viii. MERCHANT TAYLORS SCHOOL
Head Masters:—Richard Mulcaster (1561–86); Henry Wilkinson (1586–92);
Edmund Smith (1592–9); William Hayne (1599–1625).

The London school of the Merchant Taylors was founded in 1561, and
its first master was Richard Mulcaster, or Moncaster, as his name is spelt in

some of the earlier records.[216] He was a student of King’s, Cambridge and
Christ Church, Oxford, who had been teaching in London since 1559. The
first performances by his boys, of which record remains, were in 1572–3. In
that and the following year they played before the Merchant Taylors
Company at the Common Hall.[217] Unfortunately the audience, who had
paid for their seats, and very likely Mulcaster himself, paid more attention
to the plays than to the dignitaries in whose hall they were given. The plays
were therefore stopped, and the following pleasing example of civic
pomposity inserted in the archives of the Company on 16 March 1574:[218]
‘Whereas at our comon playes and suche lyke exercises whiche be comonly
exposed to be seene for money, everye lewd persone thinketh himself (for his penny)
worthye of the chiefe and most comodious place withoute respecte of any other either
for age or estimacion in the comon weale, whiche bringeth the youthe to such an
impudente famyliaritie with theire betters that often tymes greite contempte of
maisters, parents, and magistrats foloweth thereof, as experience of late in this our
comon hall hath sufficyently declared, where by reasone of the tumultuous disordered
persones repayringe hither to see suche playes as by our schollers were here lately
played, the Maisters of this Worshipful Companie and their deare ffrends could not
have entertaynmente and convenyente place as they ought to have had, by no
provision beinge made, notwithstandinge the spoyle of this howse, the charges of this
Mystery, and theire juste authoritie which did reasonably require the contrary.
Therefore and ffor the causes ffirst above saide, yt is ordeyned and decreed by the
authoritie of this presente Courte, with the assente and consente of all the worshipfull
persones aforesaide, that henceforthe theire shall be no more plays suffered to be
played in this our Comon Hall, any use or custome heretofore to the contrary in
anywise notwithstandinge.’

Mulcaster, however, found more tolerant critics than his own employers.
His first appearance at Court was on 3 February 1573.[219] On 2 February
1574 he presented Timoclia at the Siege of Thebes and on 23 February
Percius and Anthomiris; at Shrovetide 1575 and on 6 March 1576 plays
unnamed; and on 12 February 1583 Ariodante and Geneuora. A
reminiscence of these performances has been left us by the seventeenth-
century judge, Sir James Whitelocke, who entered the school in 1575 and
left for St. John’s, Oxford, in 1588:
‘I was brought up at school under Mr Mulcaster, in the famous school of the
Merchantaylors in London.... Yeerly he presented sum playes to the court, in which
his scholers wear only actors, and I on among them, and by that meanes taughte them
good behaviour and audacitye.’[220]

In 1586 Mulcaster quarrelled with the Merchant Taylors and resigned. In
1596 he became High Master of St. Paul’s grammar school, but it is only

conjecture that his influence counted for anything in the revival of plays by
the choir master, Edward Pearce. Regular plays at Merchant Taylors
probably ceased on his withdrawal. When Sir Robert Lee, one of the
Company, became Lord Mayor in 1602, a payment was made to Mr.
Haines, the Schoolmaster, for a wagon and the apparel of ten scholars, who
represented Apollo and the Muses in Cheapside. But when James came to
dine at the hall on 16 July 1607, it was thought best to apply for help to
Heminges of the King’s men and Nathaniel Giles of the Chapel, on the
ground that the Schoolmaster and children were not familiar with such
entertainments.[221]

ix. THE EARL OF LEICESTER’S BOYS

Vide ch. xiii (Earl of Leicester’s men).

x. THE EARL OF OXFORD’S BOYS

Vide ch. xiii (Earl of Oxford’s men).

xi. MR. STANLEY’S BOYS

Vide ch. xiii (Earl of Derby’s men).

XIII
THE ADULT COMPANIES

i. The Court Interluders.
ii. The Earl of Leicester’s men.
iii. Lord Rich’s men.
iv. Lord Abergavenny’s men.
v. The Earl of Sussex’s men.
vi. Sir Robert Lane’s men.
vii. The Earl of Lincoln’s (Lord Clinton’s) men.
viii. The Earl of Warwick’s men.
ix. The Earl of Oxford’s men.
x. The Earl of Essex’s men.
xi. Lord Vaux’s men.
xii. Lord Berkeley’s men.
xiii. Queen Elizabeth’s men.
xiv. The Earl of Arundel’s men.
xv. The Earl of Hertford’s men.
xvi. Mr. Evelyn’s men.
xvii. The Earl of Derby’s (Lord Strange’s) men.
xviii. The Earl of Pembroke’s men.
xix. The Lord Admiral’s (Lord Howard’s, Earl of Nottingham’s), Prince Henry’s, and Elector
Palatine’s men.
xx. The Lord Chamberlain’s (Lord Hunsdon’s) and King’s men.
xxi. The Earl of Worcester’s and Queen Anne’s men.
xxii. The Duke of Lennox’s men.
xxiii. The Duke of York’s (Prince Charles’s) men.
xxiv. The Lady Elizabeth’s men.

i. THE COURT INTERLUDERS
Henry VII (22 Aug. 1485—21 Apr. 1509); Henry VIII (22 Apr. 1509—28 Jan.
1547); Edward VI (28 Jan. 1547—6 July 1553); Mary (19 July 1553—24 July 1554);
Philip and Mary (25 July 1554—17 Nov. 1558); Elizabeth (17 Nov. 1558—24 Mar.
1603).

The doyen of the Court companies, when Elizabeth came to the throne,
was the royal company of Players of Interludes. This had already half a
century of history behind it. Its beginnings are probably traceable in the
reign of Henry VII. Richard III had entertained a company, as Duke of
Gloucester, in 1482; but nothing is known of it during his short reign from
1583 to 1585.[222] Nor is a royal company discoverable amongst the earlier

records of Henry VII himself.[223] But from 1493 onwards Exchequer
documents testify to the continuous existence of a body of men under the
style of Lusores Regis, or in the vulgar tongue, Players of the King’s
Interludes. In 1494 there were four of them, John English, Edward May,
Richard Gibson, and John Hammond, and each had an annual fee, payable
out of the Exchequer, of £3 6s. 8d. In 1503 there were five, William Rutter
and John Scott taking the place of Hammond, but the total Exchequer
payment to the company of £13 6s. 8d. a year, seems to have remained
unaltered to the end of the reign.[224] They received, however, additional
sums from time to time, as ‘rewards’ for performances, which were charged
to the separate account of the Chamber.[225] In 1503, under the leadership of
John English, they attended the Princess Margaret to Edinburgh, for her
wedding with James IV of Scotland. Here they ‘did their devoir’, both on
the day of the wedding, 8 August, and on the following days. On 11 August
they played after supper, and on 13 August they played ‘a Moralite’ after
dinner.[226]
The royal company continued under Henry VIII, who appears to have
increased its numbers, and doubled the charge upon the Exchequer.[227] The
financial records are, however, a little complicated. The Exchequer officials
presumably continued to regard the establishment as consisting of four
members drawing fees of ten instead of five marks each.[228] But the
individual members were in fact paid on different scales. John English, the
leader, got £6 13s. 4d. Others got £3 6s. 8d. as before, and others again only
two-thirds of this amount, £2 4s. 5d. By this arrangement, it was possible to
maintain an actual establishment of from eight to ten within the limits of the
Exchequer allowance. It seems also to have been found convenient to
transfer the responsibility for some at least of the payments from the
Exchequer to the Treasurer of the Chamber.[229] The same distinction
between players of different grades is also reflected in the annual rewards
paid by the Treasurer of the Chamber for Christmas performances. These
were increased in amount, and for a time the general reward to the players
as a whole was supplemented by an additional sum to the ‘old’ players.
Ultimately an amalgamated sum of £6 13s. 4d. became the customary
reward for the company.[230] Details of a performance of Henry Medwall’s
Finding of Truth on 6 January 1514 are related by Collier from a document
which cannot be regarded as free from suspicion.[231] The name of Richard

Gibson now disappears from the notices of the company. He may, likely
enough, have given up playing on his appointment to be Porter and Yeoman
Tailor of the Great Wardrobe.[232] But in his capacity of officer in charge of
the Revels he must have maintained close relations with his former fellows,
and his Account for 1510 records the delivery to John English of a ‘red
satin ladies garment, powdered, with tassels of silver of Kolen’.[233] English
remained at the head of the company, and is traceable in the Chamber
Accounts up to 1531. John Scott died in 1528–9, in singular circumstances
which are detailed by a contemporary chronicler.[234] Other names which
come in succession before us are those of Richard Hole, George Maylor,
George Birch, John Roll or Roo (d. 1539), Thomas Sudbury or Sudborough
(d. 1546), Robert Hinstock, Richard Parrowe, John Slye, and John Young.
[235]
Some interesting information is disclosed by two lawsuits, in both of
which George Maylor figured. The first of these was a dispute between
John Rastell and Henry Walton as to the dilapidations of certain playing
garments, during which George Mayler, merchant tailor, aged 40, and
George Birch, coriar, aged 32, were called to give evidence as to the value
of the garments and their use for a royal banquet at Greenwich in 1527.[236]
In the second Mayler was himself a party. He is here described as a glazier,
and an agreement of November 1528 is recited between him and one
Thomas Arthur, tailor, whom he took as an apprentice for a year, promising
to teach him to play and to obtain him admission into the King’s company
and the right to the privileges (libertatem) thereof and ‘the Kinges bage’.
According to Mayler, he found Arthur meat and drink and 4d. a day, but
after seven weeks Arthur left him, beguiling away three of his covenant
servants upon a playing tour in the provinces, out of which they made a
profit of £30. He was, adds Mayler, ‘right harde and dull too taike any
lernynge, whereby he was nothinge meate or apte too bee in service with
the Kinges grace too maike any plaiez or interludes before his highnes’.
Arthur, on the other hand, alleged that it was Mayler who had broken the
indentures, and sued him before the sheriffs of London for £26 damages.
Owing to the accident of Mayler’s being in Ludgate prison and unable to
defend himself, the jury found against him for £4, and he appealed to
Chancery to remove the action to that court.[237] The King’s men, even
apart from their other occupations as Household servants or tradesmen,
were not wholly dependent on the royal bounty. The reward at Christmas

was supplemented by minor gifts from the Princess Mary, or from lords and
ladies of the Court, such as the Duke of Rutland and the Countess of
Devon;[238] and the glamour of the King’s badge doubtless added to the
liberality of the company’s reception in many a monastery, country
mansion, and town hall. They are found during the reign at the priories of
Thetford, Dunmow (1531–2), and Durham (1532–3), at the house of the
Lestranges at Hunstanton (23 October 1530), at New Romney (1526–7),
Shrewsbury (1527, 1533, 1540), Leicester (1531), Norwich (1533), Bristol
(1535, 1536, 1537, 1541), Cambridge (1537–8), Beverley (1540–1), and
Maldon (1546–7).[239] A private performance by the King’s men forms an
episode in the Elizabethan play of Sir Thomas More, although the Mason
there named cannot be traced amongst their number.
No important change in the status of the company is to be observed
under Edward VI. Some of the existing members seem to have retired, and
four new ones, Richard Coke, John Birch, Henry Heryot, and John Smyth,
were appointed.[240] The first three of these, together with two others,
Richard Skinner and Thomas Southey, received a warrant to the Master of
the Great Wardrobe on 15 February 1548, for the usual livery assigned to
yeomen officers of the household, which consisted of three yards of red
cloth, with an allowance of 3s. 4d. for the embroidering thereon of the royal
initials.[241] The fees of these five, and of George Birch and Robert
Hinstock, who were survivors from Henry VIII’s time, are traceable, as well
as the annual reward of £6 13s. 4d., in the Chamber Accounts.[242] Each
now got £3 6s. 8d. a year, under a warrant of 24 December 1548. The same
names appear in a list of 30 September 1552, with the exception of Robert
Hinstock, whose place had probably been taken by John Browne, appointed
as from the previous Christmas by a warrant of 9 June 1552, which
introduced the innovation of granting him a livery allowance of £1 3s. 4d. a
year instead of the actual livery.[243] If we suppose that John Smith and
John Young continued to be borne on the Exchequer pay-roll, the total
number of eight interlude-players provided for in fee-lists of Edward’s reign
is made up.[244] John Smith is probably to be identified with the ‘disard’ or
jester of that name who took part in George Ferrers’s Christmas gambols of
1552–3.[245] John Young may be the ‘right worshipful esquire John Yung’ to
whom William Baldwin dedicated his Beware the Cat in 1553. He certainly
survived into Elizabeth’s reign and was still drawing an annuity of £3 6s.

8d. as ‘agitator comediarum’ in 1569–70.[246] I have not noticed any
provincial performances by the company during 1547–53, except at Maldon
in 1549–50, but they are referred to more than once in the archives of the
Revels. The Revels Office made them an oven and weapons of wood at
Shrovetide 1548 and a seven-headed dragon at Shrovetide 1549. At
Christmas 1551–2 the Privy Council gave them a warrant to borrow
‘apparell and other fornyture’ from the Master, and Lord Darcy gave John
Birch and John Browne another for garments to serve in an interlude before
the King on 6 January 1552.[247] William Baldwin, in his Beware the Cat,
relates that during the Christmas of 1552–3, they were learning ‘a play of
Esop’s Crowe, wherin the moste part of the actors were birds’.[248] Their
only other play of which the name is known is that of Self Love, for which
Sir Thomas Chaloner gave them 20s. on a Shrove Monday in 1551–3.[249]
The company no doubt took their share in Court revels during the earlier
part of Mary’s reign. But when the eclipse of gaiety came upon her later
years they travelled. They are noted as the King and Queen’s men in 1555–
6 at Ipswich and Gloucester, in 1557 at Bristol, and in 1558 at Barnstaple,
and as the Queen’s men in 1555 at Leicester, in 1555–6 at Beverley, in
1556–7 at Beverley, Oxford, Norwich and Exeter, and in 1557–8 at
Beverley, Leicester, Maldon, Dover, Lyme Regis, and Barnstaple. The
nominal establishment continued to be eight.[250] But Heriot disappears
after 1552 and John Birch, Coke, and Southey after 1556, and their
vacancies do not seem to have been filled.[251]
Under Elizabeth the interlude players were certainly a moribund folk.
They were reappointed ‘during pleasure’ under a warrant of 25 December
1559, and apparently Edmund Strowdewike and William Reading took the
place of George Birch and Skinner.[252] They drew their fees of £3 6s. 8d.
and livery allowances of £1 3s. 4d. from the Treasurer of the Chamber. The
eight posts figure on the fee-lists long after there were no holders left.[253]
The last ‘reward’ to the company, not improbably for the anti-papal farce of
6 January 1559, is to be found in the Chamber Account for 1558–60. It may
be inferred that they never again played at Court. They were allowed to
dwindle away. Browne and Reading died in 1563, Strowdewike on 3 June
1568, and Smith survived in solitary dignity until 1580.[254] Up to about
1573 he kept up some sort of provincial organization, doubtless with the aid

of unofficial associates, and the Queen’s players are therefore traceable in
many municipal Account-books. In October 1559 they were at Bristol and
before Christmas at Leicester, in 1559–60 at Gloucester, in 1560–1 at
Barnstaple, in 1561 at Faversham,[255] in October–December 1561 at
Leicester, in 1561–2 at Gloucester, Maldon, and Beverley, in July 1562 at
Grimsthorpe, and on 4 October at Ipswich, in August 1563 at Bristol, in
1563–4 at Maldon, on 12 and 20 March 1564 at Ipswich again, and on 2
August at Leicester, in 1564–5 at Abingdon, Maldon, and Gloucester, in
1565–6 at Maldon, Oxford, and Shrewsbury, in July 1566 at Bristol, before
29 September at Leicester, and on 9 October at Ipswich, in July 1567 at
Bristol, in 1567–8 at Oxford and Gloucester, in 1568–9 at Abingdon,
Ipswich, and Stratford-upon-Avon, in August 1569 at Bristol, and on 7
December at Oxford, in 1569–70 at Gloucester and Maldon, before 29
September 1570 at Leicester, in 1570–1 at Winchester, and during October-
December 1571 at Leicester, in 1571–2 at Oxford, on 23 May 1572 at
Nottingham, and on 20 November at Maldon, in 1572–3 at Ipswich, on 7
January 1573 at Beverley, and in 1573 at Winchester. This list is not
exhaustive.[256] A reward to ‘the Queens Majesty’s men’ in the Doncaster
accounts for 1575 can hardly be assumed to refer to actors.

ii. THE EARL OF LEICESTER’S MEN
Robert Dudley; 5th s. of John, 1st Duke of Northumberland, nat. 24 June 1532 or
1533; m. (1) Amy, d. of Sir John Robsart, 4 June 1550, (2) Douglas Lady Sheffield, d.
of William, 1st Lord Howard of Effingham, May 1573, (3) Lettice Countess of Essex,
d. of Sir Francis Knollys, 1578; Master of the Horse, 11 Jan. 1559; High Steward of
Cambridge, 1562; Earl of Leicester, 29 Sept. 1564; Chancellor of Oxford, 31 Dec.
1564; Lord Steward, 1584–8; Absolute Governor of United Provinces, 25 Jan. 1586–
12 Apr. 1588; ob. 4 Sept. 1588.

The earliest mention of Lord Robert Dudley’s players is in a letter which
he wrote in June 1559 to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord President of the
North, as Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire, asking licence for them to perform
in that county, in accordance with the proclamation of 16 May 1559.[257]
The terms of the letter suggest that the company may already have played in
London, but it is probable, as nothing is said of a hearing by the Queen, that
they had not been at Court. They were there at each Christmas from 1560–1
to 1562–3, and then not for a decade. They were in 1558–9 at Norwich, in
1559–60 at Oxford, Saffron Walden, and Plymouth, in July 1560 at Bristol,
in October 1561 at Grimsthorpe, in 1561–2 at Oxford, Maldon, and

Ipswich, in September 1562 at Bristol, where they are called ‘Lord
Dudley’s’ players, on 12 November 1563 at Leicester, and on 17 November
at Ipswich, in 1563–4 at Maldon, on 2 January 1564 at Ipswich, and on 1
July at Leicester. They are also found, as the Earl of Leicester’s, in 1564–5
at Maldon, on 6 April 1565 at York, on 11 August 1569 at Nottingham, in
January 1570 at Bristol, on 4 May 1570 at Oxford, and in October-
December at Leicester, in 1570–1 at Abingdon, Barnstaple, and Gloucester,
on 9 August 1571 at Saffron Walden,[258] in October–December at
Leicester, in the same year at Beverley, on 15 July 1572 at Ipswich, and on
20 August at Nottingham. The gap in my records between 1565 and 1569 is
bridged in the fuller list covering other towns given by Mr. Murray.[259]
Information as to the company in 1572 is derived from the signatures to a
letter asking for appointment by Leicester, not merely as liveried retainers
but as household servants, in order to meet the terms of the proclamation of
3 January in that year.[260]
To the right honorable Earle of Lecester, their good lord and master.
Maye yt please your honour to understande that forasmuche as there is a certayne
Procalmation out for the revivinge of a Statute as touchinge retayners, as youre
Lordshippe knoweth better than we can enforme you thereof: We therfore, your
humble Servaunts and daylye Oratours your players, for avoydinge all inconvenients
that maye growe by reason of the saide Statute, are bold to trouble your Lordshippe
with this our Suite, humblie desiringe your honor that (as you have bene alwayes our
good Lord and Master) you will now vouchsaffe to reteyne us at this present as your
houshold Servaunts and daylie wayters, not that we meane to crave any further
stipend or benefite at your Lordshippes hands but our lyveries as we have had, and
also your honors License to certifye that we are your houshold Servaunts when we
shall have occasion to travayle amongst our frendes as we do usuallye once a yere,
and as other noble-mens Players do and have done in tyme past, Wherebie we maye
enjoye our facultie in your Lordshippes name as we have done hertofore. Thus
beyinge bound and readie to be alwayes at your Lordshippes commandmente we
committ your honor to the tuition of the Almightie.

Long may your Lordshippe live in peace,
A pere of noblest peres:
In helth welth and prosperitie
Redoubling Nestor’s yeres.

Your Lordshippes Servaunts most bounden
Iames Burbage.
Iohn Perkinne.
Iohn Laneham.
William Iohnson.
Roberte Wilson.

Thomas Clarke.

Several of these men were to achieve distinction in their ‘quality’; of
none of them is there any earlier record, unless John Perkin is to be
identified with the Parkins who had been in 1552–3 one of the train of the
Lord of Misrule.[261] By 6 December 1571 the company were in London.
[262]
Three years later they obtained a very singular favour in the patent of
10 May 1574, the general bearings of which have already been discussed.
[263]

Elizabeth by the grace of God quene of England, &c. To all Iustices,
Mayors, Sheriffes, Baylyffes, head Constables, vnder Constables, and pro Iacobo Burbage
all other our officers and mynisters gretinge. Knowe ye that we of oure & aliis de licencia
especiall grace, certen knowledge, and mere mocion haue licenced and speciali
auctorised, and by these presentes do licence and auctorise, oure
lovinge Subiectes, Iames Burbage, Iohn Perkyn, Iohn Lanham, William Iohnson, and
Roberte Wilson, seruauntes to oure trustie and welbeloued Cosen and Counseyllor the
Earle of Leycester, to vse, exercise, and occupie the arte and facultye of playenge
Commedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, stage playes, and such other like as they haue
alredie vsed and studied, or hereafter shall vse and studie, aswell for the recreacion of
oure loving subiectes, as for oure solace and pleasure when we shall thincke good to
see them, as also to vse and occupie all such Instrumentes as they haue alredie
practised, or hereafter shall practise, for and during our pleasure. And the said
Commedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, and stage playes, to gether with their musicke, to
shewe, publishe, exercise, and occupie to their best commoditie during all the terme
aforesaide, aswell within oure Citie of London and liberties of the same, as also
within the liberties and fredomes of anye oure Cities, townes, Bouroughes &c.
whatsoeuer as without the same, thoroughte oure Realme of England. Willynge and
commaundinge yow and everie of yowe, as ye tender our pleasure, to permytte and
suffer them herein withoute anye yowre lettes, hynderaunce, or molestacion duringe
the terme aforesaid, anye acte, statute, proclamacion, or commaundement heretofore
made, or hereafter to be made, to the contrarie notwithstandinge. Prouyded that the
said Commedies, Tragedies, enterludes, and stage playes be by the master of oure
Revells for the tyme beynge before sene & allowed, and that the same be not
published or shewen in the tyme of common prayer, or in the tyme of greate and
common plague in oure said Citye of London. In wytnes whereof &c. wytnes oure
selfe at Westminster the xth daye of Maye.
per breve de priuato sigillo

The names in this patent only differ from those in the letter of 1572 by
the omission of Thomas Clarke. By the time of its issue Leicester’s men
were again a Court company. They had made their reappearance at the
Christmas of 1572–3 with three plays, all given before the end of
December. They continued to appear in every subsequent year until the
formation of the Queen’s men in 1583. The building of the Theatre by
James Burbadge in 1576 gave them a valuable head-quarters in

London[264]; but they are still found from time to time about the provinces.
Their detailed adventures are as follows. In 1572–3 they were at Stratford-
on-Avon, on 8 August 1573 at Beverley, on 1 September at Nottingham,
and in October at Bristol. On 26 December they played Predor and Lucia at
Court, on 28 December Mamillia, and on 21 February 1574 Philemon and
Philecia. In 1573–4 they were at Oxford and Leicester, on 13 June 1574 at
Maldon, on 3 December at Canterbury. In 1574 they were also at Doncaster,
where they played in the church. For the Court they rehearsed Panecia, and
this was probably either their play of 26 December in which ‘my Lord of
Lesters boyes’ appeared, or that of 1 January 1575, in which there were
chimney-sweepers. From 9 to 27 July 1575 Elizabeth paid her historic visit
to Kenilworth, and there is no proof, but much probability, that the
company were called upon to take their part in her entertainment. Its
chronicler, Robert Laneham, may well have been a kinsman of the player. I
have not come across them elsewhere this year, except at Southampton.
They played at Court on 28 December 1575 and 4 March 1576, and are
described in the account for their payment as ‘Burbag and his company’. A
record of them at Ipswich in 1575–6 as ‘my Lorde Robertes’ men is
probably misdated. On 30 December 1576 they acted The Collier at Court.
In 1576–7 they were at Stratford-on-Avon, in September 1577 at Newcastle,
and between 13 and 19 October at Bristol, where they gave Myngo.[265] In
1577–8 they were also at Bath. They were at Court on 26 December 1577
and were to have performed again on 11 February 1578, but were displaced
for Lady Essex’s men. They may have been at Wanstead in May 1578 when
Leicester entertained Elizabeth with Sidney’s The May Lady. On 1
September they were at Maldon, on 9 September at Ipswich, and on 3
November at Lord North’s at Kirtling. They played A Greek Maid at Court
on 4 January 1579.[266] Their play on 28 December 1579 fell through
because Elizabeth could not be present, but they played on 6 January 1580.
In 1579–80 they were at Ipswich and Durham, and from 15 to 17 May 1580
at Kirtling. Vice-Chancellor Hatcher’s letter of 21 January 1580 to Burghley
about Oxford’s men (vide infra) shows that Leicester’s had then recently
been refused leave to play at Cambridge. They played Delight at Court on
26 December and appeared again on 7 February 1581. That Wilson was still
a member of the company in 1581 is shown by the reference to him in the
curious Latin letter written by one of Lord Shrewsbury’s players on 25

April of that year.[267] In the following winter they did not come to Court,
but on 10 February 1583 they returned with Telomo.[268]
The best of Leicester’s men, including Laneham, Wilson, and Johnson,
appear to have joined the Queen’s company on its formation in March 1583.
Probably the Queen’s also took over the Theatre. James Burbadge himself
may have given up acting. Nothing more is heard of Leicester’s men until
1584–5, when players under his name visited Coventry, Leicester,
Gloucester, and Norwich. They were at Dover in June 1585, and at Bath as
late as August. These may have been either the relics of the old company, or
a new one formed to attend the Earl in his expedition to aid the States-
General in the Low Countries. He was appointed to the command of the
English forces on 28 August, and reached Flushing on 10 December. The
pageants in his honour at Utrecht, Leyden, and the Hague were remarkable.
Stowe records festivities at Utrecht on St. George’s Day, 23 April 1586.
These included an after-dinner show of ‘dauncing, vauting, and tumbling,
with the forces of Hercules, which gave great delight to the strangers, for
they had not seene it before’.[269] It is a reasonable inference that the
performers in The Forces of Hercules were English.[270] And on 24 March
1586 Sir Philip Sidney, writing to Walsingham from Utrecht, says:
‘I wrote to yow a letter by Will, my lord of Lester’s jesting plaier, enclosed in a
letter to my wife, and I never had answer thereof ... I since find that the knave
deliverd the letters to my ladi of Lester.’[271]

That the ‘jesting plaier’ was William Shakespeare is on the whole less
likely than that he was the famous comic actor, William Kempe; and this
theory is confirmed by a mention in an earlier letter of 12 November 1585
from Thomas Doyley at Calais to Leicester himself of ‘Mr. Kemp, called
Don Gulihelmo’, as amongst those remaining at Dunkirk.[272] Leicester
returned to England in November 1586. ‘Wilhelm Kempe, instrumentist’
and his lad ‘Daniell Jonns’ were at the Danish Court at Helsingör in August
and September of the same year; and so, from 17 July to 18 September,
were five ‘instrumentister och springere’ whose names may evidently be
anglicized as Thomas Stevens, George Bryan, Thomas King, Thomas Pope,
and Robert Percy (cf. ch. xiv). Some or all of these men are evidently the
company of English comedians referred to by Thomas Heywood as
commended by the Earl of Leicester to Frederick II of Denmark. Stevens
and his fellows, but not apparently Kempe, went on to Dresden. Some of

them ultimately became Lord Strange’s men. But it seems to me very
doubtful whether, as is usually suggested, they passed direct into his service
from that of Leicester.[273] They did not leave Dresden until 17 July 1587.
But Leicester’s were at Exeter on 23 March 1586. They played at Court on
27 December 1586, and were in London about 25 January 1587. They were
at Abingdon, Bath, Lathom, Coventry, Leicester, Oxford, Stratford-on-
Avon, Dover, Canterbury, Marlborough, Southampton, Exeter, Gloucester,
and Norwich during 1586–7. Kempe may, of course, have been with them
on these occasions; but if Stevens and the rest passed as Leicester’s in the
Low Countries, it is likely that they ceased to do so when they went to
Denmark.
Finally, Leicester’s men were at Coventry, Reading, Bath, Maidstone,
Dover, Plymouth, Gloucester, York, Saffron Walden, and probably Exeter in
1587–8.[274] On 4 September they were at Norwich, and here William
Stonage, a cobbler, was committed to prison at their suit, ‘for lewd words
uttered against the ragged staff’.[275] As late as 14 September they did not
yet know that the lord in whose name they wore this badge was dead, for on
that day, unless the records are again in error, they were still playing at
Ipswich.[276]

iii. LORD RICH’S MEN
Richard Rich; nat. c. 1496; cr. 1st Baron Rich, 26 Feb. 1548; Lord Chancellor, 23
Oct. 1548–21 Dec. 1551; m. Elizabeth Jenks; ob. 12 June 1567.
Robert, s. of 1st Baron; nat. c. 1537; succ. as 2nd Baron, 1567; ob. 1581.

The company was at Ipswich on 3 May 1564, Saffron Walden in 1563–4,
Maldon in 1564–5, York on 6 April 1565, and Ipswich on 31 July 1567.
Then it secured a footing in London, and appeared at Court during the
Christmas of 1567–8, on 26 December 1568, and on 5 February 1570. On 2
February 1570 it played at the Lincoln’s Inn Candlemas ‘Post Revels’.[277]
It was also at Canterbury in 1569, Saffron Walden in 1569–70, and Maldon
in 1570. Presumably it was a later company to which Gabriel Harvey
referred in 1579 (cf. p. 4), and the death of Lord Rich in 1581 might
naturally have led to its disbandment or change of service.

iv. LORD ABERGAVENNY’S MEN

Henry Neville, s. of George, 3rd Lord Abergavenny; succ. as 4th Lord, 1535; ob.
1586.

The only London record of this company is a civic licence for it of 29
January 1572 (App. D, No. xxi), but it is found in provincial records at
Dover, Canterbury, Leicester, Bristol, and Faversham in 1571 and 1572, and
at Ludlow in 1575–6.

v. THE EARL OF SUSSEX’S MEN
Thomas Radcliffe, s. of Henry, 2nd Earl; nat. c. 1526; m. (1) Elizabeth, d. of
Thomas Earl of Southampton, (2) Frances, d. of Sir William Sidney, 26 Apr. 1555;
succ. as 3rd Earl, 17 Feb. 1557; Lord Chamberlain, 13 July 1572; ob. 9 June 1583.
Henry Radcliffe, s. of Henry, 2nd Earl; nat. c. 1530; m. Honora, d. of Anthony
Pound, before 24 Feb. 1561; succ. as 4th Earl, 1583; ob. 14 Dec. 1593.
Robert Radcliffe, s. of 4th Earl; nat. c. 1569; m. (1) Bridget, d. of Sir Charles
Morison, who ob. Dec. 1623, (2) Frances Shute; succ. as 5th Earl, 1593; acting Earl
Marshal, 1597, 1601; ob. 22 Sept. 1629.

The third Earl of Sussex had a company, which proved one of the most
long-lived of the theatrical organizations of Elizabeth’s time and held
together, now in London and now in the provinces, under no less than three
earls. It first makes its appearance at Nottingham on 16 March 1569, at
Maldon in 1570, on 28 January 1571, and on 20 August 1572, at Ipswich in
1571–2, at Canterbury and Dover in 1569 and 1570, and in 1569–70 at
Bristol, Gloucester, and Ludlow, where it was of six men. Sussex became
Chamberlain in July 1572 and in the following winter his company came to
the Court, whose Christmases it helped to enliven pretty regularly until the
death of its first patron in 1583. As I have shown elsewhere (ch. vi), Sussex
seems to have had occasional deputies in Lord Howard of Effingham and
Lord Hunsdon during his term of office, but it is probably justifiable to
assume that, when the Chamberlain’s men are referred to at any time during
1572–83, Sussex’s men are meant, and in 1577 and 1581 there is clear
evidence that the names are used synonymously. Oddly enough, Howard’s
men are also referred to in one record of 1577 (cf. p. 134) as the
Chamberlain’s, but that is probably a slip. The detailed history of the
company during this period is as follows. In 1572–3 they were at Bath, in
July 1573 at Leicester, on 14 September at Nottingham, in 1573–4 at
Coventry, in 1574, on some date before 29 September, at Leicester again,
on 13 July at Maldon, and in September at Wollaton (Francis
Willoughby’s). They rehearsed two Court plays for Christmas on 14

December, Phedrastus and Phigon and Lucia, but in the end did not give a
performance. In 1574–5 they were at Gloucester, in 1575 at Maldon, and
before 29 September at Leicester. They played at Court on 2 February 1576.
Their payee was John Adams, the only actor whose name is recorded in
connexion with the company. In 1575–6 they were at Ipswich, on 27 July
1576 at Cambridge, and between 29 July and 5 August at Bristol, where
they played The Red Knight. On 2 February 1577 they played The
Cynocephali at Court. In 1576–7 they were at Coventry and Bath, on 30
May 1577 at Ipswich, and on 31 August at Nottingham. On 2 February
1578 they played at Court. In 1577–8 they were at Bath, on 15 July 1578 at
Maldon, in the same year at Bristol, and in 1578–9 at Bath. Thereafter their
activities seem to have been mainly confined to London. They were named
by the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor among the Court companies for the
Christmas of 1578–9 (App. D, No. xl), and played The Cruelty of a
Stepmother on 28 December 1578, The Rape of the Second Helen on 6
January, and Murderous Michael on 3 March 1579. In the following winter
their pieces were The Duke of Milan and the Marquess of Mantua on 26
December, Portio and Demorantes on 2 February, and Sarpedon on 16
February 1580.[278] The names of their Court plays on 27 December 1580
and 2 February 1581 are unfortunately not recorded. On 14 September they
recur in the provinces, at Nottingham.[279] They missed the next winter at
Court, and made their last appearance there for a decade in Ferrar on 6
January 1583.
Either the death of their patron in June 1583, or possibly the formation of
the Queen’s men in the previous March, eclipsed them, but in 1585 they
reappear as a provincial company, visiting Dover on 15 May, Bath on 22
July and in May 1586, Coventry twice in 1585–6, Ipswich in 1586–7, York
in 1587, Leicester before Michaelmas of the same year, and Coventry in
September. Here they were playing under the name of the Countess of
Sussex. In 1587–8 they were at Coventry and Bath, on 18 April 1588 at
Ipswich, on 17 February 1589 at Leicester, on 1 March at Ipswich, on 19
November at Leicester again, in the course of 1589 at Faversham, and in
1588–9 at Aldeburgh. On 17 February 1590 they were at Ipswich. In the
spring of 1591 they appear to have made a temporary amalgamation with a
group of the Queen’s men (q.v.) and appeared with them on 14 February at
Southampton, on 24 March at Coventry, and during 1590–1 at Gloucester.

This arrangement probably terminated in May, and on 11 August Sussex’s
were alone at Leicester.[280]
They enter the charmed London circle again with a Court performance
on 2 January 1592.[281] It is possible that they had attracted the services of
Marlowe, for Kyd in a letter, probably to be dated in 1593, speaks of
himself as having been in the service of a lord for whose players Marlowe
was writing, and there are some traces of connexion between Kyd and the
house of Radcliffe. During the plague of 1593 the company were obliged to
travel again, and on 29 April the Privy Council Register records the issue of
‘an open warrant for the plaiers, servantes to the Erle of Sussex, authorysinge them to
exercyse theire qualitie of playinge comedies and tragedies in any county, cittie,
towne or corporacion not being within vijen miles of London, where the infection is
not, and in places convenient and tymes fitt.’[282]

The company were at Ipswich, Newcastle, and York in 1592–3. They
were at Winchester on 7 December 1593; then came to London under the
patronage of the fifth Earl, and, although not at Court, had a season of about
six weeks, beginning on 26 December and ending on 6 February, with
Henslowe, probably at the Rose. The names and dates of their plays and
sums received at each, probably by himself as owner of the theatre, are
noted by Henslowe in his diary. The company performed on thirty nights, in
twelve plays. Henslowe’s receipts averaged £1 13s., amounting to £3 1s. on
the first night and £3 10s. on each of the next two, and thereafter fluctuating
greatly, from a minimum of 5s. to a maximum of £3 8s. This last was at the
production of the one ‘new’ play of the season, Titus Andronicus, on 24
January. The enterprise was brought to an abrupt termination by a renewed
alarm of plague, and a consequent inhibition of plays by the Privy Council
on 3 February. Titus Andronicus was played for the third and last time on 6
February, and on the same day the book was entered for copyright purposes
in the Stationers’ Register. The edition published in the same year professes
to give the play as it was played by ‘the Earle of Darbie, Earle of
Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex their Servants’. I suppose it to have passed,
probably in a pre-Shakespearian version, from Pembroke’s to Sussex’s,
when the former were bankrupt in the summer of 1593 (cf. infra), and to
have been revised for Sussex’s by the hand of Shakespeare. If so, it is a
plausible conjecture that certain other plays, which were once Pembroke’s
and ultimately came to the Chamberlain’s men, also passed through the

hands of Sussex’s. Such were The Taming of A Shrew, The Contention of
York and Lancaster, and perhaps the Ur-Hamlet, 1 Henry VI, and Richard
III. There is no basis for determining whether any of Shakespeare’s work on
the York tetralogy was done for Sussex’s; but it is worth noting that one of
their productions was Buckingham, a title which might fit either Richard III
or that early version of Henry VIII, the existence of which, on internal
grounds, I suspect. Of Sussex’s other plays in this season, one, George a
Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, was published as theirs in 1599; another,
Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, probably belonged to Henslowe, as it was acted in
turn by nearly every company which he financed; and of the rest, God
Speed the Plough, Huon of Bordeaux, Richard the Confessor, William the
Conqueror, Friar Francis, Abraham and Lot, The Fair Maid of Italy, and
King Lud, nothing is known, except for the entry of God Speed the Plough
in 1601 and an edifying tale related about 1608 by Thomas Heywood in
connexion with an undated performance of Friar Francis by the company
at King’s Lynn.[283]
At Easter 1594 Henslowe records another very brief season of eight
nights between 1 and 9 April, during which the Queen’s and Sussex’s men
played ‘together’. This suggests to Dr. Greg that the companies appeared on
different nights, but to me rather that they combined their forces, as they
seem to have already done at Coventry in 1591. Henslowe’s receipts
averaged £1 17s. The repertory included, besides The Fair Maid of Italy and
The Jew of Malta, King Leare, doubtless to be identified with King Leire
and his Three Daughters (1605), The Ranger’s Comedy, and Friar Bacon
and Friar Bungay. The latter was published in 1594 as a Queen’s play. Both
it and The Ranger’s Comedy were played at a later date by the Admiral’s,
and may have belonged to Henslowe. Strange’s had played Friar Bacon in
1592–3.
Thereafter Sussex’s men vanish from the annals; they may have been
absorbed in the Queen’s men for travelling purposes. Later players under
the same name are recorded at Coventry in 1602–3, Dover in 1606–7,
Canterbury in 1607–8, Bristol, Norwich, and Dunwich in 1608–9, Leicester
on 31 August 1615, and Leominster in 1618, and it may be these to whom
Heywood alludes as visiting King’s Lynn. If so, their possession of Friar
Francis suggests some affiliation to the earlier company.

vi. SIR ROBERT LANE’S MEN
Robert Lane, of Horton, Northants; nat. c. 1528; Kt. 2 Oct. 1553; m. (1) Catherine,
d. of Sir Roger Copley, (2) Mary, d. of John Heneage.

I have not come across Sir Robert Lane’s men except at Bristol in
August 1570, and at Court during the Christmas of 1571–2. On 27
December 1571 they played Lady Barbara and on 17 February 1572
Cloridon and Radiamanta. The first performance was paid for by a warrant
of 5 January to Laurence Dutton; the second by a warrant of 26 February, in
which, according to the entry in the Privy Council Register, Dutton was
again named.[284] But the Treasurer of the Chamber records the payment as
made to John Greaves and Thomas Goughe. Probably this company is
identical with that found next year in the service of the Earl of Lincoln.

vii. THE EARL OF LINCOLN’S (LORD CLINTON’S) MEN
Edward Fiennes de Clinton; s. of Thomas, 8th Lord Clinton and Saye, nat. 1512;
m. (1) Elizabeth Lady Talboys, d. of Sir John Blount, 1534, (2) Ursula, d. of William
Lord Stourton, c. 1540, (3) Elizabeth Lady Browne, ‘the fair Geraldine,’ d. of Gerald,
9th Earl of Kildare, c. 1552; succ. as 9th Baron, 1517; Lord High Admiral, 1550–3,
and again 13 Feb. 1558; 1st Earl of Lincoln, 4 May 1572; ambassador to France,
1572; Lord Steward, 1581–5; ob. 16 Jan. 1585.
Henry Fiennes de Clinton, s. of Edward and Ursula; nat. c. 1541; m. (1) Catharine,
d. of Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, Feb. 1557, (2) Elizabeth, d. of Sir Richard
Morison and wid. of William Norreys, after 1579; Kt. 29 Sept. 1553; succ. as 2nd
Earl, 16 Jan. 1585; ob. 29 Sept. 1616.

Players serving the Lord Admiral were at Winchester in 1566–7. A
company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln and led by Laurence Dutton
played at Court during the Christmas of 1572–3, and a company under that
of Lord Clinton, and also led by Dutton, in Herpetulus the Blue Knight and
Perobia on 3 January 1574, and on 27 December 1574 and 2 January 1575.
For 1574–5 they rehearsed three plays, one of which was Pretestus.
Probably these are the same company transferred by the Lord Admiral to
his son. Dutton was with Sir Robert Lane’s men in 1571–2 and with the
Earl of Warwick’s in 1575–6. The whole company may have taken service
with Lincoln instead of Lane as a result of the statute of 1572 (App. D, No.
xxiv), but it does not seem to have been altogether absorbed in Warwick’s,
as Lord Clinton’s men are found at Southampton on 24 June 1577, when
they were six in number, at Bristol in July, and at Coventry in 1576–7. A
later company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln has a purely provincial
record in 1599–1604. There is an isolated notice at Norwich in 1608–9.

viii. THE EARL OF WARWICK’S MEN
Ambrose Dudley, 3rd s. of John, 1st Duke of Northumberland; nat. c. 1528; m. (1)
Anne Whorwood, (2) Elizabeth Talboys, c. 1553, (3) Anne, d. of Francis, Earl of
Bedford, 11 Nov. 1565; Master of Ordnance, 12 Apr. 1560; Earl of Warwick, 26 Dec.
1561; Chief Butler of England, 4 May 1571; Privy Councillor, 5 Sept. 1573; ob. 20
Feb. 1590.

Dudley seems to have had players in London in January 1562, when they
were rewarded by the Duchess of Suffolk.[285] They are also found in 1559–
64 at Oxford, Gloucester, Bristol, Plymouth, Winchester, Dover,
Canterbury, and Norwich. Their only Court performances upon record were
two during the Christmas of 1564–5. In 1564–5 they were apparently at
Canterbury.[286]
After an interval of ten years there are Warwick’s men at Court on 14
February 1575 and also at Stratford in the course of 1574–5, at Lichfield
between 27 July and 3 August during the progress,[287] and at Leicester
before 29 September 1575. At the following Christmas they gave three
plays at Court, on 26 December 1575 and 1 January and on 5 March 1576.
John and Laurence Dutton and Jerome Savage were their payees. Laurence
Dutton and possibly others of the company had been, a year before, in Lord
Clinton’s service. During the next four winters they appeared regularly at
Court, and are recorded at Leicester in 1576 and Nottingham on 1
September 1577. On 26 December 1576 they played The Painter’s
Daughter, and on 18 February 1577 The Irish Knight. The names of their
plays on 28 December 1577 and 6 January and 9 February 1578 are not
preserved. They were notified by the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor as
one of the Court companies for the Christmas of 1578–9 (App. D, No. xl),
and played The Three Sisters of Mantua on 26 December and The Knight in
the Burning Rock on 1 March. A play intended for 2 February was not
performed, but payment was made to Jerome Savage. Gabriel Harvey (cf. p.
4) mentions them as a London company in the summer of 1579. On 1
January 1580 they played The Four Sons of Fabius. A Winchester record of
‘Lord Ambrose Dudley’s’ men in 1581–2 must be an error.
The Duttons were evidently a restless folk, and the disappearance of
Warwick’s men and the appearance of Oxford’s men in 1580 is to be
explained by another transfer of their services. This is referred to in the
following verses:[288]

The Duttons and theyr fellow-players forsakyng the Erle of Warwycke theyr
mayster, became followers of the Erle of Oxford, and wrot themselves his
Comoedians, which certayne Gentlemen altered and made Camoelions. The Duttons,
angry with that, compared themselves to any gentleman; therefore these armes were
devised for them.

The fyeld, a fart durty, a gybbet crosse-corded,
A dauncing Dame Flurty of alle men abhorred;
A lyther lad scampant, a roge in his ragges,
A whore that is rampant, astryde wyth her legges,
A woodcocke displayed, a calfe and a sheepe,
A bitch that is splayed, a dormouse asleepe;
A vyper in stynche, la part de la drut,
Spell backwarde this Frenche and cracke me that nut.

Parcy per pillery, perced with a rope,
To slythe the more lytherly anoynted with sope;
A coxcombe crospate in token of witte,
Two eares perforate, a nose wythe slytte.
Three nettles resplendent, three owles, three swallowes,
Three mynstrellmen pendent on three payre of gallowes,
Further sufficiently placed in them
A knaves head, for a difference from alle honest men.

The wreathe is a chayne of chaungeable red,
To shew they ar vayne and fickle of head;
The creste is a lastrylle whose feathers ar blew,
In signe that these fydlers will never be trew;
Whereon is placed the horne of a gote,
Because they ar chast, to this is theyr lotte,
For their bravery, indented and parted,
And for their knavery innebulated.

Mantled lowsy, wythe doubled drynke,
Their ancient house is called the Clynke;
Thys Posy they beare over the whole earthe,
Wylt please you to have a fyt of our mirthe?
But reason it is, and heraultes allowe welle,
That fidlers should beare their armes in a towelle.

In 1587–8 tumblers were at Bath under Warwick’s name. I do not
understand the entry of his men in the Ipswich accounts, as playing on 10
March 1592. Ambrose Dudley died in 1590, and his doubtfully legitimate
nephew, Sir Robert Dudley, does not seem even to have claimed the title
until 1597. The Ipswich records are unreliable, but possibly Lady Warwick
maintained a company for a while. The Corporation of London were

considering some ‘cause’ of hers as to plays in May 1594 (App. D, No.
xcviii).

ix. THE EARL OF OXFORD’S MEN
John de Vere, s. of John, 15th Earl of Oxford; nat. c. 1512; succ. as 16th Earl and
Lord Great Chamberlain, 21 Mar. 1540; m. Margaret Golding, 1547; ob. 3 Aug. 1562.
Edward de Vere, s. of John, 16th Earl of Oxford; nat. 2 Apr. 1550; succ. as 17th
Earl and Lord Great Chamberlain, 3 Aug. 1562; m. (1) Anne, d. of William Lord
Burghley, Dec. 1571, (2) Elizabeth Trentham, c. 1591; ob. 24 June 1604. Of his
daughters by (1), Elizabeth m. William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, 26 Jan. 1595;
Bridget m. Francis, Lord Norris; Susan m. Sir Philip Herbert, afterwards Earl of
Montgomery, 27 Dec. 1604.

The Earls of Oxford had their players as far back as 1492.[289] A
company belonging to the 16th Earl caused a scandal by playing in
Southwark at the moment when a dirge was being sung for Henry VIII in
St. Saviour’s on 6 February 1547.[290] It is probably the same company
which is traceable in 1555–6 at Dover, in 1557–8 at Ipswich, in 1559–60
and 1560–1 at Maldon, and in 1561–2 at Barnstaple, Maldon, and Ipswich.
Murray (ii. 63) adds a few notices. There is no sign of it at Court, and it is
likely that the 17th Earl discontinued it soon after his succession. The last
notices of it are at Leicester, Plymouth, and Ipswich in 1562–3.
At a later date, however, this Earl was clearly interested in things
dramatic. He took part in a Shrovetide device at Court in 1579, and is
recorded in Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia (1598) to have been himself a
playwright and one of ‘the best for comedy amongst us’ (App. C, No. lii). In
1580 the Duttons and the rest of the Earl of Warwick’s men transferred
themselves to his service, and thereby laid themselves open to satire upon
their fickleness (cf. supra). I do not know whether it was their resentment at
this that brought them into trouble, but on 12 April 1580 the Lord Mayor
wrote to Sir Thomas Bromley, the Lord Chancellor, about a disorder at the
Theatre two days before, which he understood to be already before the
Privy Council; and on 13 April we find the Council committing Robert
Leveson and Laurence Dutton, servants of the Earl of Oxford, to the
Marshalsea for a fray with the Inns of Court. On 26 May the matter was
referred to three judges for examination, and on 18 July Thomas Chesson,
sometime servant to the Earl, was released on bail (App. D, Nos. xliii, xliv).
These notices suggest that the company had arranged, possibly during the
absence of Leicester’s men from town, to occupy the Theatre. In view of

their disgrace, it was no doubt better for them to travel, and on 21 June John
Hatcher, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, wrote to Lord Oxford’s father-in-
law, Lord Burghley, to acknowledge recommendations received from him,
as well as from the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chamberlain Sussex, that
Oxford’s men should be allowed to ‘show their cunning in several plays
already practised by them before the Queen’s majesty’, and to explain that,
in view of pestilence, the need for industry at commencement, a previous
refusal to Leicester’s men, and a Privy Council order of 1575 against
assemblies in Cambridge, he had thought it better to give them 20s., and
send them away unheard.[291] They are traceable provincially in 1580–3.
[292]
At Norwich (1580–1) the payment was made to ‘the Earle of
Oxenfordes lads’, and at Bristol (Sept. 1581) there were nine boys and a
man. These were probably boys of the Earl’s domestic chapel, travelling
either with the Duttons or as a separate company.
The Duttons joined the Queen’s company, John on its first establishment
in 1583. It is in the following winter, however, that an Oxford’s company
first appears at Court. Here the Earl’s ‘servauntes’ performed on 1 January
and 3 March 1584. Their payee was John Lyly, who had probably been for
some years in the Earl’s service. Provincial performances continue during
1583–5, and in the records the company are always described as ‘players’ or
‘men’.[293] On 27 December 1584 Agamemnon and Ulysses was played at
Court by the Earl of Oxford’s ‘boyes’. For this the payee was Henry Evans,
probably the same who in 1600 set up the Chapel plays. I do not feel much
doubt that the companies under Lyly and Evans were the same, or that in
1583–4 they in fact consisted of a combination of Oxford’s boys, Paul’s and
the Chapel, working under Lyly and Evans at the Blackfriars theatre.[294]
This arrangement had, no doubt, to be modified when Sir William More
recovered possession of the premises in the spring of 1584, and after the
performance of December 1584 Oxford perhaps ceased to maintain boy
players and contented himself with another company of his servants, who
made an appearance at Court on 1 January 1585, under John Symons, in
feats of activity and vaulting. These tumblers had apparently been Lord
Strange’s men in 1583, and by 1586 had returned into the service of the
Stanley family.
An Oxford’s company did not again perform at Court, but his ‘plaiers’
were at Norwich in 1585–6, and Ipswich in 1586–7,[295] and players under

his name were notified to Walsingham amongst others setting up their bills
in London on 25 January 1587 (App. D, No. lxxviii). They were at York in
June 1587 and Maidstone in 1589–90. Finally, at the end of the reign,
comes a letter from the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor on 31 March 1602,
which informs him that at the Earl’s suit the Queen has tolerated a new
company formed by a combination of his servants and those of the Earl of
Worcester, and that they are to play at the Boar’s Head (App. D, No. cxxx).
Oxford’s men had probably then been established for some little time, as
they are indicated as having played The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (1600, S.
R. 23 October 1600) by the title-page, and The History of George
Scanderbarge by the entry in the Stationers’ Register (3 July 1601). Meres’s
reference to Oxford in 1598 suggests that they may have been in existence
still earlier, as it is natural to suppose that he wrote comedies for his own
men. Some of the writers, however, with whom Meres groups him belong
to the early years of the reign, although others are contemporary. From
1602 the company was no doubt merged in Worcester’s, which in its turn
became Queen Anne’s.

x. THE EARL OF ESSEX’S MEN
Walter Devereux, s. of Sir Richard Devereux and g.s. of Walter, Lord Bourchier
and 1st Viscount Hereford; nat. 1541; succ. as 2nd Viscount Hereford, 1558; m.
Lettice, d. of Sir Francis Knollys, c. 1561; 1st Earl of Essex, 4 May 1572; ob. 22 Sept.
1576.
Lettice, Countess of Essex, b. c. 1541; m. (2) Robert, Earl of Leicester, 21 Sept.
1578, (3) Sir Christopher Blount, July 1589; ob. 25 Dec. 1634.
Robert Devereux, s. of 1st Earl of Essex; b. 19 Nov. 1566; succ. as 2nd Earl, 1576;
m. Frances, Lady Sidney, d. of Sir Francis Walsingham, 1590; Master of the Horse, 23
Dec. 1587; Earl Marshal, 28 Dec. 1597; Chancellor of Cambridge University, 10 Aug.
1598; rebelled, 8 Feb. 1601; executed, 25 Feb. 1601.

The Bourchiers, Earls of Essex, whom the Devereux succeeded through
an heiress, had their players well back into the fifteenth century. In fact, the
earliest household troop on record is that of Henry Bourchier, first earl of
the senior creation, which is found at Maldon in 1468–9 and at Stoke-by-
Nayland on 9 January 1482.[296]
Walter Devereux had a company, which visited Bath, Bristol, Gloucester,
and Nottingham in 1572–3, Wollaton (Francis Willoughby’s) in July 1574,
Coventry on 29 August, and Leicester before 29 September 1574,
Gloucester, Dover, and Coventry in 1574–5, Coventry and Leicester in

1575–6, Nottingham in September 1576, and Bristol in September 1577. On
the Earl’s death the Countess retained the company, and under her name it
appeared at Coventry and Oxford in 1576–7. On 11 February 1578 it gave
its only performance at Court, taking the place of Leicester’s men, to whom
that day had originally been assigned. It was included in the list of Court
companies sent to the Lord Mayor in December 1578 (App. D, No. xl), but
gave no play that winter. The Privy Council described it as the Earl of
Essex’s men, and it played under that name at Coventry in 1577–8 and at
Ipswich in 1579–80; but at Oxford, Coventry, and Stratford-on-Avon in
1578–9, and at Oxford in 1579–80, it is still called the Countess of Essex’s.
It could hardly have borne that name after August 1579, when the
Countess’s secret marriage with Leicester was revealed to Elizabeth, and
doubtless her disgrace debarred it from any further Court favour.
Robert Earl of Essex had a provincial company from 1581 to 1596. In
1581–2 it was at Exeter, in July 1584 at Ludlow, in 1583–4 at Leicester,
Stratford-on-Avon, and Ipswich, and in 1584–5 at Bath. On 26 June 1585 it
played at Thorpe in Norwich, in spite of a prohibition by the Corporation,
and was sentenced to be excluded from civic reward in future. In 1585–6 it
was at Coventry and Ipswich, in 1586 before 29 September at Leicester, and
possibly about May at Oxford, on 27 February 1587 at York, on 16 July at
Leicester, and in the course of the year at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1587–8 it
was at Coventry, Ipswich, Saffron Walden, and Leicester, in 1588–9 at
Bath, Saffron Walden, and Reading, on 7 September 1589 at Knowsley, on
31 October at Ipswich, and in the same year at Faversham. It was also at
Coventry and Faversham in 1589–90, at Maldon in 1590, and twice at
Faversham in 1590–1, and is last recorded at Ludlow in April 1596. Murray
adds some intermediate dates. A company of Essex’s men which appeared
at Coventry in 1600–1 is probably distinct. The execution of Essex on 25
February 1601 must have brought it to a premature end.

xi. LORD VAUX’S MEN
William Vaux, 3rd Lord Vaux; nat. c. 1542; m. (1) Elizabeth Beaumont, (2) Mary
Tresham; ob. 20 Aug. 1595.
Edward Vaux, 4th Lord Vaux; nat. 1588; ob. 1661.

These companies are extremely obscure. Gabriel Harvey mentions the
first in 1579 (cf. p. 4); the second was at Leicester in October-December

1601, Coventry in 1603–4 and 1608, and Skipton in 1609.

xii. LORD BERKELEY’S MEN
Henry FitzHardinge Berkeley, Baron Berkeley; succ. 1553; m. Catherine, d. of
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; ob. 1613; father of Thomas Berkeley, nat. 11 July
1575; m. Elizabeth, d. of Sir G. Carey, afterwards 2nd Baron Hunsdon, 19 Feb. 1596;
ob. 22 Nov. 1611.

The only London record of this company is in July 1581, when some of
them, including Arthur King and Thomas Goodale, were committed to the
Counter after a brawl with Inns of Court men. Lord Berkeley apologized to
the Lord Mayor on their behalf, and said that they would go to the country
(App. D, Nos. xlix, l). Their other appearances are all in the country, at
Bristol between 6 and 12 July 1578, where they played What Mischief
Worketh in the Mind of Man, at Bath on 11 July 1578 and on another day in
1578–9, at Abingdon in 1579–80, Stratford-on-Avon in 1580–1, Maldon in
1581, Stratford-on-Avon in 1582–3, Barnstaple in 1583–4, and Bath in
1586–7. Long after they, or a later company under the same name, reappear
at Coventry in 1597–8, at Leicester in 1598 before Michaelmas, at Saffron
Walden in 1598–9, and at Coventry and elsewhere in 1603–10. Lord
Berkeley’s name is sometimes misspelt in the account-books as ‘Bartlett’.
[297]

xiii. QUEEN ELIZABETH’S MEN

The origin of this company, the most famous of all the London
companies during the decade of the ’eighties, can be dated with an extreme
minuteness.[298] The Revels Accounts for 1582–3 record an expenditure of
20s. in travelling charges by
‘Edmond Tylney Esquire Master of the office being sente for to the Courte by
Letter from Mr. Secreatary dated the xth of Marche 1582. To choose out a companie
of players for her majestie.’[299]

The date then was 10 March 1583, and the business was in the hands of
Sir Francis Walsingham. Lord Chamberlain Sussex, to whom it would
naturally have fallen, was ill in the previous September[300] and died on the
following 9 June. Walsingham’s agency in the matter is confirmed in the
account of the formation of the company inserted by Edmund Howes in the
1615 and 1631 editions of Stowe’s Annales:

‘Comedians and stage-players of former time were very poor and ignorant in
respect of these of this time: but being now grown very skilful and exquisite actors for
all matters, they were entertained into the service of divers great lords: out of which
companies there were twelve of the best chosen, and, at the request of Sir Francis
Walsingham, they were sworn the queens servants and were allowed wages and
liveries as grooms of the chamber: and until this yeare 1583, the queene had no
players. Among these twelve players were two rare men, viz. Thomas Wilson, for a
quicke, delicate, refined, extemporall witt, and Richard Tarleton, for a wondrous
plentifull pleasant extemporall wit, he was the wonder of his time. He lieth buried in
Shoreditch church. [In a note] He was so beloved that men use his picture for their
signs.’[301]

Howes is not altogether accurate. ‘Thomas’ is obviously a mistake for
‘Robert’ Wilson. Elizabeth had maintained players before, the Interluders,
although they had cut little figure in the dramatic history of the reign, and
the last of them had died in 1580. Dr. Greg thinks that the players were not
appointed as grooms of the Chamber, on the ground that their names do not
appear in a list of these officers appended to a warrant of 8 November 1586.
[302]
But Tarlton is described as ‘ordenary grome off her majestes chamber’
in the record of his graduation as a master of fence in 1587, and both he and
his ‘fellow’, William Johnson, are described as ‘grooms of her majesties
chamber’ in his will of 1588. Their absence from Dr. Greg’s list is probably
due to their treatment as a special class of grooms of the chamber in
ordinary without fee, who were not called upon to perform the ordinary
duties of the office, such as helping to watch the palace.[303] That they had
liveries, which were red coats, is borne out by the particular mention of the
fact that they were not wearing them, in the depositions concerning a very
untoward event which took place in the first few months of their service.
On the afternoon of 15 June 1583 they were playing at the Red Lion in
Norwich. A dispute as to payment arose between a servant of one Mr.
Wynsdon and Singer, who, in a black doublet and with a player’s beard on,
was acting as gatekeeper. Tarlton and Bentley, who was playing the duke,
came off the stage, and Bentley broke the offender’s head with the hilt of
his sword. The man fled, pursued by Singer with an arming-sword which he
took off the stage, and by Henry Browne, a servant of Sir William Paston.
Both of them struck him, and one of the blows, but it was not certain
whose, proved mortal.[304]
Several other places, besides Norwich, received a visit from the Queen’s
men during the first summer of their existence. In April they were at Bristol,

on 9 July at Cambridge, and between 24 July and 29 September at
Leicester. Their travels also extended to Gloucester, Aldeburgh,
Nottingham, and Shrewsbury.[305] In the winter they returned to London,
and on 26 November the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Mayor to bespeak
for them permission to play in the City and the liberties upon week-days
until Shrovetide. The City accordingly licensed them to play at the Bull and
the Bell, but with unwelcome limitations, for on 1 December it was
necessary for Walsingham to write a personal letter, explaining that it was
not the intention of the Council that the licence to play should be confined
to holidays. The City record gives the names of the twelve members of the
company as Robert Wilson, John Dutton, Richard Tarlton, John Laneham,
John Bentley, Thobye Mylles, John Towne, John Synger, Leonall Cooke,
John Garland, John Adams, and William Johnson. The company made its
initial appearance at Court on 26 December, and played again on 29
December, and on 3 March 1584. Their public performances probably
continued through the spring, but in June there were disturbances in and
around the Middlesex theatres, and the City obtained leave from the
Council to suppress plays. The Queen’s submitted to an injunction from
William Fleetwood, the Recorder; and their leader advised him to send for
the owner of the Theatre, who was Lord Hunsdon’s man, and bind him.
They travelled again, and are found in 1583–4 at Bath and Marlborough,
and in October or November at Dover. When the winter came on, they once
more approached the Council and requested a renewal of the previous
year’s privilege, submitting articles in which they pointed out that the time
of their service was drawing near, and that the season of the year was past
to play at any of the houses outside the City. They also asked for favourable
letters to the Middlesex justices. The City opposed the concession, and
begged that, if it were granted, the number and names of the Queen’s men
might be set out in the warrant, complaining that in the previous year, when
toleration was granted to this company alone, all the playing-places were
filled with men calling themselves the Queen’s players. The records do not
show whether the Council assented.[306] The company appeared four times
at Court, giving Phillyda and Corin on 26 December, Felix and Philiomena
on 3 January 1585, Five Plays in One on 6 January, and an antic play and a
comedy on 23 February. They had prepared a fifth performance, of Three
Plays in One, for 21 February, but it was not called for. Mr. Fleay has
conjectured that the Five Plays in One and the Three Plays in One may

have been the two parts of Tarlton’s Seven Deadly Sins.[307] The payment
for this winter’s plays was made to Robert Wilson.
There is no evidence that the company were travelling in 1585. They
were at Court again on 26 December and on 1 January and 13 February
1586. During 1586 they were at Maidstone, in July at Bristol, on 22 August
and later at Faversham, and before 29 September at Leicester. In 1585–6
they were also at Coventry. On 26 December 1586 and on 1 and 6 January
and 28 February 1587 they were at Court, and in the same January a
correspondent of Walsingham’s names them amongst other companies then
playing regularly in the City (App. D, No. lxxviii). During 1586–7 they
were at Bath, Worcester, Canterbury, and Stratford-on-Avon, whence
Malone thought that they might have enlisted Shakespeare.[308] They were
at Bath again on 13 July 1587, and at Aldeburgh on 20 May and 19 July.
Before 29 September they were at Leicester, on 9 September at York, where
it is recorded that they ‘cam in her Majesties lyvereys’, twice in September
at Coventry, and at Aldeburgh on 16 December. They were at Court on 26
December 1587 and on 6 January and 18 February 1588.
A subsidy list of 30 June 1588 shows that Tarlton, Laneham, Johnson,
Towne, Adams, Garland, John Dutton, Singer, and Cooke were then still
household players.[309] It can, perhaps, hardly be assumed that the whole of
the company is here represented. Mills, Wilson, and Bentley may have
dropped out since 1583. But one would have expected to find the name of
Laurence Dutton beside that of John, as he was certainly a Queen’s man by
1589. Knell also acted with Tarlton in The Famous Victories of Henry the
Fifth, and must have belonged to the company. He also may have been dead
by 1588. And this must certainly be the case if he is the William Knell
whose widow Rebecca John Heminges married on 10 March 1588. There is
some reason to suppose that Heminges himself joined the Queen’s men,
perhaps in right of his wife. The composition of the list of 1583 generally
bears out the statement of Howes, that the Queen’s men were selected as the
best out of the companies of divers great lords, for Wilson, Laneham, and
Johnson belonged to Leicester’s in 1572, Adams to Sussex’s in 1576, and
Dutton, after a chameleon past, to Oxford’s in 1580. Mr. Fleay, who did not
know either the list of 1583 or that of 1588, declares that the original
members of the company included James Burbadge and William Slaughter,
and probably John Perkyn.[310] Of these William Slaughter is merely what

the philologists would call a ‘ghost’-name, for there is no evidence that any
such actor ever existed.[311] Evidently James Burbadge did not join the
Queen’s men. Probably Mr. Fleay was biased by his knowledge that these
men acted at the Theatre, which was Burbadge’s property. But this could
prove nothing, as the relations between particular companies and particular
theatres were much less permanent than Mr. Fleay is apt to suppose. The
Queen’s seem to have been acting at the Theatre when Fleetwood
suppressed them in June 1584, but the owner of the house, who can hardly
be any other than James Burbadge, is specifically described as Lord
Hunsdon’s man, which of course does not necessarily signify that he was a
player at all. Moreover, it is clear from the official correspondence of the
following autumn, not only that, as we know from other sources, the
companies regularly moved in from the suburban houses to the City inn-
yards at the approach of winter, but also that the Queen’s in particular had
in the winter of 1583 dispersed themselves for their public performances
over various play-places. The view that they did not exclusively attach
themselves to Burbadge’s, or to any other one theatre, is further borne out
by the indications in the Jests of Tarlton, which there is no reason to reject,
however apocryphal they may be in detail, as evidence of the theatrical
conditions under which the famous mime appeared. The Jests frequently
speak of Tarlton as a Queen’s man and never mention any other company in
connexion with him.[312] And, as it happens, they record performances at
the Curtain,[313] the Bell,[314] and the Bull,[315] but none at the Theatre.
Nashe, however, tells us that Tarlton made jests of Richard Harvey and his
Astrological Discourse of 1583 there;[316] and an entry in the Stationers’
Register makes it possible to add that shortly before his death he appeared
at the Bel Savage.[317] The stage-keeper in Bartholomew Fair (1614), Ind.
37, gives us a reminiscence of a scene between Tarlton and John Adams, ‘I
am an Asse! I! and yet I kept the Stage in Master Tarletons time, I thanke
my starres. Ho! and that man had liu’d to haue play’d in Bartholmew Fayre,
you should ha’ seene him ha’ come in, and ha’ beene coozened i’ the
Cloath-quarter, so finely! And Adams, the Rogue, ha’ leap’d and caper’d
vpon him, and ha’ dealt his vermine about, as though they had cost him
nothing. And then a substantiall watch to ha’ stolne in vpon ’hem, and taken
’hem away, with mistaking words, as the fashion is, in the Stage-practice.’

Tarlton’s own talent probably ran more to ‘jigs’ and ‘themes’ than to the
legitimate drama. But the palmy days of the Queen’s company were those
that intervened between its foundation in 1583 and his death on 3
September 1588. To it belonged the men whom such an actor of the next
generation as Thomas Heywood could remember as the giants of the past,
[318]
and whose reputation Edward Alleyn’s friends were ready to back him
to excel.[319] From 1588 the future of the stage lay with Alleyn and the
Admiral’s men and Marlowe, and it may reasonably be supposed that the
Queen’s men were hard put to it to hold their own against their younger
rivals. Adams probably survived Tarlton, and his name appears to be
traceable as that of the clowns in A Looking Glass for London and England
(c. 1590) and James IV (c. 1591). In 1587–8 the Queen’s visited Coventry
and Exeter, and in 1588 Dover, and on two occasions Faversham. On 19
July and 14 August they were at Bath. The Bath accounts for this year also
show a payment ‘to the quenes men that were tumblers’. Owing to Tarlton’s
death or to some other reason, the Queen’s men prolonged their travels far
into the winter. On 31 October they were at the Earl of Derby’s house at
New Park, Lancashire; on 6 November ‘certen of’ them were at Leicester;
on 10 December they were at Norwich and on 17 December at Ipswich. But
they reached the Court in time for the performance on 26 December, with
which they seem to have had the prerogative of opening the Christmas
season, and appeared again on 9 February. They must have had some share
in the Martin Marprelate controversy, which raged during 1589. In the
previous year, indeed, Martin was able to claim Tarlton as an ally who had
‘taken’ Simony ‘in Don John of London’s cellar’, and was himself accused
of borrowing his ‘foolery’ from Laneham. But when the bishops determined
to meet the Puritans with literary weapons like their own, they naturally
turned to the Queen’s men amongst others. About April 1589 A Whip for an
Ape bids Martin’s grave opponents to ‘let old Lanam lash him with his
rimes’, and although it cannot be assumed that, if the Maygame of
Martinism was in fact played at the Theatre, it was the Queen’s men who
played it, Martin’s Month’s Minde records in August the chafing of the
Puritans at players ‘whom, saving their liveries (for indeed they are hir
Majesty’s men ...) they call rogues’. Influence was brought to bear to
suppress the anti-Martinist plays. A pamphlet of October notes that Vetus
Comoedia has been ‘long in the country’; and this accords with the fact that
the provincial performances of the Queen’s men began at an unusually early

date in 1589. They are found at Gloucester on 19 April, at Leicester on 20
May, at Ipswich on 27 May, at Aldeburgh on 30 May, and at Norwich on 3
June. On 5 July they were at the Earl of Derby’s at Lathom, and on 6 and 7
September at another house of the Earl’s at Knowsley. On 22 September
Lord Scrope wrote from Carlisle to William Asheby, the English
ambassador in Scotland, that they had been for ten days in that town. He
had heard from Roger Asheton of the King’s desire that they should visit
Scotland, and had sought them out from ‘the furthest parte of Langkeshire’.
[320]
One would be glad to know whether they did in fact visit Scotland. In
any case they were back in England and at Bath by November. During
1588–9 they were also at Reading, at Nottingham, and twice at Coventry.
Both the Nottingham records and those of Leicester furnish evidence that
for travelling purposes they divided themselves into two companies. At
Leicester the town account for 1588–9 shows ‘certen of her Maiests
playars’ as coming on 6 November, and ‘others moe of her Mayestyes
playars’ as coming on 20 May; that of Nottingham for the same year has an
entry of ‘Symons and his companie, being the Quenes players’ and another
of ‘the Quenes players, the two Duttons and others’. The arrangement was
of course natural enough, seeing that even in London the Queen’s men were
sufficiently numerous to occupy more than one inn-yard. Laurence Dutton
was evidently by now a member of the company with his brother John. It is
to be presumed that Symons is the John Symons who on not less than five
occasions presented ‘activities’ at Court, in 1582–3 with Strange’s (q.v.), in
1585 with Oxford’s, in 1586 with ‘Mr. Standleyes boyes’, in 1587–8 with a
company under his own name, and in 1588–9 either with the Admiral’s or
possibly with the Queen’s itself.
Doubtless the incorporation of Symons into the Queen’s service explains
the appearance of the Queen’s tumblers at Bath in 1589. Performances at
Court, for which John Dutton and John Laneham received payment, took
place on 26 December 1589 and 1 March 1590. During 1589–90 the
company were at Coventry, Ludlow, Nottingham, Bridgnorth, and
Faversham, on 22 April 1590 at Norwich, on 24 June under the leadership
of ‘Mr. Dutton’ at Knowsley, and on 30 October at Leicester. Acrobatic
feats still formed a part of their repertory, and in these they had the
assistance of a Turkish rope-dancer.[321] There were further Court
performances on 26 December and on 1, 3, and 6 January, and 14 February

1591. It is to be noted that payment was made for the play of 1 January to
‘John Laneham and his companye her maiesties players’ and for the rest by
a separate warrant to ‘Lawrence Dutton and John Dutton her maiesties
players and there companye’; and that this distinction indicates some
further development of the tendency to bifurcation already observed may be
gathered from a study of the provincial records for 1590–1. On the very day
of the performance of 14 February Queen’s men were also at Southampton,
and the form of the entry indicates that they were there playing in
conjunction with the Earl of Sussex’s men. This was the case also at
Coventry on 24 March and at Gloucester during 1590–1.[322] At Ipswich
during the same year there are two entries, of ‘the Quenes players’ on 15
May 1591 and of ‘another company of the Quenes players’ on 18 May.
Obviously two groups were travelling this year and one had strengthened
itself by a temporary amalgamation with Sussex’s. Perhaps the normal
combination was restored when the two groups found themselves on the
same road at the end of May, for Queen’s men are recorded alone at
Faversham on 2 June 1591, at Wirkburn on 18 August, and at Coventry on
24 August and 20 October.
It was probably during this summer that Greene, having sold Orlando
Furioso to the Queen’s men for twenty nobles, resold it ‘when they were in
the country’ to the Admiral’s for as much more. The winter of 1591–2
marks a clear falling-off in the position of the company at Court, since they
were only called upon to give one performance, on 26 December, as against
six assigned to Lord Strange’s men, with whom at this date Alleyn and the
Admiral’s men appear to have been in combination. Yet it was still possible
for the City, writing to Archbishop Whitgift on 25 February 1592, to
suggest that Elizabeth’s accustomed recreation might be sufficiently served,
without the need for public plays, ‘by the privat exercise of hir Mats own
players in convenient place’.[323] That they were again making use of the
Theatre may perhaps be inferred from a passage in Nashe’s Summer’s Last
Will and Testament of the following autumn, in which a Welshman is said to
‘goe ae Theater, and heare a Queenes Fice, and he make hur laugh, and
laugh hur belly-full’.[324] During 1591–2 they were at Nottingham,
Coventry, Stratfordon-Avon, twice at Aldeburgh, and twice at Bath. In 1592
they were at Rochester, on 27 May at Norwich, before 29 September at
Leicester, and early in September at Chesterton close to Cambridge. Here

they came into conflict with the authorities of Cambridge University, who
were apprehensive of infection from the crowds assembled at Sturbridge
fair, and forbade them to play. Encouraged by Lord North and by the
constables of Chesterton, they disobeyed, set up their bills upon the college
gates, and gave their performance. It is interesting to note that ‘one Dutton’
was ‘a principale’, and to remember that, twelve years before, the Duttons
had gone to Cambridge as Lord Oxford’s men and had been refused
permission to play by the University authorities.[325] The outcome of the
present encounter was a formal protest by the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of
Houses to the Privy Council for which they requested Burghley’s support as
Chancellor of the University. After a further appeal about a year later, they
succeeded in obtaining a confirmation of their privileges.[326] Another letter
from the University to their Chancellor, written on 4 December 1592, is of a
different character. Its object is to excuse themselves from accepting an
invitation conveyed through the Vice-Chamberlain to present an English
comedy before Elizabeth at Christmas. Sir Thomas Heneage appears to
have given it as a reason for his request ‘that her Maiesties owne servantes,
in this time of infection, may not disport her Highnes wth theire wonted and
ordinary pastimes’.[327]
On 11 October 1592 the Queen’s men were at Aldeburgh, on the same
day as, and conceivably in association with, Lord Morley’s men, although
the payments are distinct. They did not in fact appear at Court during the
Christmas of 1592–3, although both Lord Pembroke’s and Lord Strange’s
did. They were at Coventry and Stratford-on-Avon in the course of 1592–3,
at Leicester in June 1593 and again after Michaelmas, at Bath on 22 August,
and at York in September. On 6 January 1594 they returned to Court and
gave what proved to be their last performance there. On 1 April they began
to play at one of Henslowe’s theatres ‘to geather’—that is to say, either
alternately or in combination—with Sussex’s men, who had already
performed there for the six weeks between Christmas and Lent. Possibly
this was a renewal of an earlier alliance of 1591. Only eight performances
are recorded, and of the five plays given only King Leire can very
reasonably be assigned to the repertory of the Queen’s men. The others
were The Jew of Malta and The Fair Maid of Italy, which Sussex’s men had
been playing in the winter, Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which
was played for Henslowe by other companies both before and after, and was

probably his property, and The Ranger’s Comedy, the performances of
which were being continued by the Admiral’s men in the following autumn,
but which it is possible that they or Henslowe may have acquired from the
Queen’s. For there can be no doubt that the Queen’s men, whether because
they had ceased to be modish, or because their finances had proved unable
to stand the strain of the plague years, were now at the end of their London
career. On 8 May 1594 the significant entry occurs in Henslowe’s diary of a
loan of £15 to his nephew Francis Henslowe ‘to lay downe for his share to
the Quenes players when they broke & went into the contrey to playe’.[328]
This by itself would not perhaps be conclusive, as there are other years in
which the company began its provincial wanderings as early as May. But
from the present journey there is nothing to show that they ever returned,
and it may fairly be reckoned as another sign of defeat that while The
Troublesome Reign of King John (1591) was the only play certainly theirs
which was printed before 1594, no less than nine found their way into the
publishers’ hands during that and the following year. These were, besides
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594, S. R. 14 May 1594), with which they
probably had only a recent connexion, A Looking Glass for London and,
England (1594, S. R. 5 March 1594), King Leire (1594, S. R. 14 May
1594), James IV and The Famous Victories of Henry V (1598, S. R. 14 May
1594), The True Tragedy of Richard III (1594, S. R. 19 June 1594), Selimus
(1594), Peele’s Old Wive’s Tale (1595, S. R. 16 April 1595), and Valentine
and Orson (S. R. 23 May 1595), of which no copy is known to be extant.
Somewhat later came Sir Clyomon and Clamydes (1599).
The Queen’s men were at Coventry on 4 July 1594, at Bristol in August,
and at Bath and Barnstaple, where they were unlucky enough to break down
the ceiling in the Guildhall, during 1593–4, and thereafter they are traceable
right up to the end of the reign, at Coventry, Oxford, and Bath in 1594–5, at
Leicester both before and after Michaelmas 1595, twice at Coventry and at
Ludlow in 1595–6, at Stratford-on-Avon on 16 and 17 July 1596, at Bristol
in August, at Leicester between October and December 1596, and at
Faversham and Bridgnorth in the same year, at Coventry, at Dunwich, and
twice at Bath in 1596–7, at Bristol again about Christmas 1597, at
Nottingham on 8 July 1597, at Bristol about 25 July, at Bath in 1597–8, at
Leicester on 9 January 1598, at Maldon in 1598, at Ipswich and Reading in
1598–9, at Maldon in 1599, at Dunwich in 1599–1600, at Ipswich on 2 June
1600, and at Leicester before 29 September in the same year, at Coventry

and Bath in 1600–1, at York in July 1602, at Leicester on 30 September
1602, at Belvoir in August or September of the same year, and at Coventry
in 1602–3. But little, naturally enough, is known of the personnel of the
company during this period of its decay. On 1 June 1595 Francis Henslowe
borrowed another £9 from his uncle ‘to laye downe for his hallfe share wth
the company wch he dothe playe wth all’,[329] and I see no particular reason
to suppose that this was another company than the Queen’s. The loan is
witnessed by William Smyght, George Attewell, and Robert Nycowlles,
each of whom is described as ‘player’. It is likely enough that these were
now fellows of Francis Henslowe. Attewell had been payee for Lord
Strange’s men in 1591. The earlier loan was witnessed by John Towne,
Hugh Davis, and Richard Alleyn. Davis and Alleyn appear elsewhere in
connexion with Henslowe, but Towne was certainly a Queen’s man. He is in
the 1588 list and is described as ‘one of her Majesties plears’ when on 8
July 1597 he obtained a release of debts due to Roger Clarke of
Nottingham.[330] The other men of 1588 had nearly all vanished. John
Singer had joined the Admiral’s by the autumn of 1594. I should not be
surprised, however, to find that John Garland was still with the Queen’s. He
was an associate of Francis Henslowe in the Duke of Lennox’s men in
1604, and was then ‘owld’ Garland. Indeed, it seems probable that, when
the Queen’s men lost their last shred of claim to a livery on Elizabeth’s
death, they made an attempt still to hold together under the patronage of
Lennox. John Shank was once a Queen’s man.

xiv. THE EARL OF ARUNDEL’S MEN
Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel; nat. c. 1511; m. (1) Katherine, d. of Thomas
Grey, Marquis of Dorset, before 1532, (2) Mary, Countess of Sussex, d. of Sir John
Arundel, after 1542; succ. Jan. 1544; Lord Chamberlain, 1544; Lord Steward, 1553,
and again 1558–64; ob. 24 Feb. 1580.
Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel, s. of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk,
attainted 1572, and Mary, d. and h. of 12th Earl; nat. 28 June 1557; m. Anne, d. of
Thomas, Lord Dacre, 1571; succ. Feb. 1580; sent to Tower, 25 Apr. 1585, and ob.
there, 19 Oct. 1595.

The Earls of Arundel had players as far back as the fifteenth century.[331]
The 12th Earl entertained Elizabeth with a mask at Nonsuch on 5 August
1559. He had players, who were rewarded by the Duchess of Suffolk,
apparently during a London visit, in December 1561. The 13th Earl had a
company in 1584. It was in London when plays were suppressed in June,

and obediently submitted. It seems to have been located at the Curtain. It
can be traced at Ipswich on 1 July, at Leicester before 29 September, at
Aldeburgh in 1583–4, at Norwich in 1585–6, and thereafter no more.

xv. THE EARL OF HERTFORD’S MEN
Edward Seymour, s. of Edward, Protector and 1st and attainted Duke of Somerset;
nat. 25 May 1539; cr. Earl of Hertford, 13 Jan. 1559; m. (1) Lady Catherine Grey, d.
of Henry, Duke of Suffolk, c. Nov. 1560, (2) Frances, d. of William, 1st Lord Howard
of Effingham, before 1582, (3) Frances, d. of Thomas, Lord Howard of Bindon and
widow of Henry Pranell, Dec. 1600; ob. 6 Apr. 1621.

These are among the most obscure of the companies. They appeared at
Canterbury in 1582, Faversham in 1586, Newcastle in October 1590,
Leicester on 22 November 1590, and Bath, Marlborough, and Southampton
in 1591–2. During the progress of 1591 Elizabeth was entertained from 20
to 24 September by the Earl at Elvetham in Hampshire ‘beeing none of the
Earles chiefe mansion houses’ (cf. ch. xxiv). This was really a visit of
reconciliation, for much of Hertford’s life had been spent in disgrace, owing
to his first marriage with the heiress, under Henry VIII’s will, to Elizabeth’s
throne. The entertainment was very elaborate, and at its close Elizabeth
protested to the Earl that it was so honourable ‘as hereafter he should find
the rewarde thereof in her especiall favour’. No doubt Hertford’s players
took a part, and shared the ‘largesse’ which she bestowed upon the ‘actors’
of the pastimes before she departed. I think it must have also been their
success on this occasion which earned them their only appearance at Court,
on the following 6 January 1592. I have elsewhere tried to show that there
is a special connexion between this Elvetham entertainment and A
Midsummer-Night’s Dream,[332] and if any special company is satirized in
Bottom and his fellows, I feel sure that it must have been the Earl of
Hertford’s and not, as Mr. Fleay thinks, the Earl of Sussex’s.[333]
Probably the company went under in the plague of 1592–4, and in 1595
Hertford was again in disgrace for presuming so far upon his favour as to
claim a declaration of the validity of his first marriage. But there were
players under his name at Coventry in 1596–7, at Ipswich in 1600–1, and
on 8 May 1602, at Norwich in 1601, and at Bath in 1601–2, and this
company appeared at Court on 6 January 1603. Their payee was Martin
Slater, formerly of the Admiral’s, and since then, possibly, an associate of
Laurence Fletcher in his Scottish tours. In 1604–5 they were at Norwich. In

1606 they visited Leicester, on 9 July Oxford, and on 2 December the Earl
of Derby wrote to the Mayor of Chester to bespeak for them the use of the
town-hall. In 1606–7 they were at Coventry.

xvi. MR. EVELYN’S MEN (1588)
George Evelyn, of Wotton, Surrey; nat. 1530; ob. 1603.

Collier gives no authority for the following rather puzzling statement:
[334]

‘In Feb. 1587, the Earl of Warwick obtained a warrant for the payment of the claim
of George Evelyn of Wotton, for provisions supplied to the Tower, and for the reward
of actors on Shrove Tuesday for a Play, the title of which is not given nor the name of
the company by which it was performed: the whole sum amounted to only 12s.’

The date intended must be 1588, as in 1587 Shrovetide fell in March.
But there is probably some misunderstanding, as no such payment occurs in
the Treasurer of the Chamber’s accounts, and the sum named is too small
for a reward. Moreover, private gentlemen do not seem to have entertained
Court companies at so late a date. The Revels Account for 1587–8 only
records seven plays. Of these the Treasurer of the Chamber paid for six, and
the seventh was presented by Gray’s Inn.

xvii. THE EARL OF DERBY’S (LORD STRANGE’S) MEN
Henry Stanley, s. of Edward, 3rd Earl of Derby; nat. 1531; known as Lord Strange;
m. Margaret, d. of Henry, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, 7 Feb. 1555; succ. as 4th Earl, 24
Oct. 1572; Lord Steward, 1588; ob. 25 Sept. 1593.
Ferdinando Stanley, 2nd s. of Henry, 4th Earl of Derby; nat. c. 1559; m. Alice, d.
of Sir John Spencer of Althorp, 1579; summoned to Parliament as Lord Strange, 28
Jan. 1589; succ. as 5th Earl of Derby, 25 Sept. 1593; ob. 16 Apr. 1594.
William Stanley, s. of Henry, 4th Earl of Derby; nat. 1561; succ. as 6th Earl of
Derby, 16 Apr. 1594; m. Elizabeth, d. of Edward, 17th Earl of Oxford, 26 Jan. 1595;
ob. 29 Sept. 1642.

The companies connected with the great northern house of Stanley
present a history perhaps more complicated than that of any other group,
partly because it seems to have been not unusual for the heir of the house to
entertain players during his father’s lifetime. The 3rd Earl had a company in
Henry the Eighth’s reign. His successor had one as Lord Strange, which is
only recorded in the provinces, in 1563–70.[335] Four years later he had
again a company as Earl of Derby. The earliest mention of it is at Coventry
in 1573–4. It was at Dover and Coventry in 1577–8, at Ipswich on 28 May

1578, at Nottingham on 31 August 1578, at Bristol in the same year, and at
Bath in 1578–9. In the last three months of 1579 it was at Leicester; and
during the following Christmas it made its first appearance at Court with a
performance of The Soldan and the Duke of —— on 14 February 1580. In
1579–80 it was at Stratford-on-Avon, Exeter, and Coventry, on 1 January
1581 at Court, in 1580–1 at Bath, Leicester, Nottingham, Exeter, and
Winchester, in 1581–2 at Nottingham, Winchester, and Abingdon, in
October to December 1582 at Leicester, and in 1582–3 at Bath, Norwich,
and Southampton. Its last appearance at Court was in Love and Fortune on
30 December 1582.
I think that the Earl of Derby’s players must be taken to be distinct from
another company, which was performing during much the same period of
years under the name of Lord Strange. These men are found in 1576–7 at
Exeter, in 1578–9 at Bath, Ipswich, Rochester, Nottingham, Coventry, and
Stratford-on-Avon. They also made their first appearance at Court in the
winter of 1579–80. Their performance was on 15 January 1580, and they
are spoken of, not as players, but as tumblers. On the other hand they
appear as players at Bath, side by side with Derby’s men, in 1580–1 and
1582–3, and as players also at Bristol, Canterbury, and Gloucester in 1580–
1, Plymouth in 1581–2, and Barnstaple in 1582–3 and 1583–4. With the
tumbling at Court in 1580 begins a rather puzzling series of records. There
are further Court entries of feats of activity by Lord Strange’s men on 28
December 1581, and of feats of activity and tumbling on 1 January 1583.
For this last occasion the payee of the company was John Symons. Two
years later Symons and his ‘fellows’ were again at Court with feats of
activity and vaulting, but they were then under the patronage, not of Lord
Strange, but of the Earl of Oxford. There would be nothing extraordinary
about such a transference of service, were it not that during the following
Christmas, on 9 January 1586, tumbling and feats of activity are ascribed to
John Symons and ‘Mr. Standleyes boyes’, and that by ‘Mr. Standley’ one
can hardly help assuming either Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, or some
other member of his family to be intended. This inference is confirmed by a
mention of Lord Strange’s men at Faversham in 1585–6, and it becomes
necessary to assume that, after attaching himself for a year to the Earl of
Oxford, Symons thought better of it, and returned to his original master.
Symons and his company again showed feats of activity on 28 December
1587. No patron is named on this occasion, but as Strange’s men are

traceable at Coventry during 1587–8, it is natural to assume that they were
still holding together. Now a new complication comes in. There were
activities again at Court in the winter of 1588–9, and Symons certainly took
part in them.[336] But the only men companies to whom payments were
made were the Queen’s and the Admiral’s, who now reappear at Court after
absence during two winters, and it is only in the case of the Admiral’s that
the payment is specified to be for activities. If the restless Symons had
joined the Admiral’s men, it cannot have been for long, since in the course
of 1588–9 he was leading one section of the Queen’s men to Nottingham.
Nor had Strange’s yet entirely broken up, for on 5 November 1589, both
they and the Admiral’s, evidently playing as distinct companies, were
suppressed by the Lord Mayor in the City.[337] Strange’s, who were then at
the Cross Keys, played contemptuously, and some of them were
imprisoned. A year later, the Admiral’s were with Burbadge at the Theatre,
and there I conceive that the residue of Strange’s, deserted by Symons, had
joined them. If they were too many for the house, we know that the Curtain
was available as an ‘easer’. After the quarrel with Burbadge in May 1591,
the two companies probably went together to the Rose. The main evidence
for such a theory is that, while the Privy Council record of play-warrants
include two for the Admiral’s men in respect of plays and feats of activity
on 27 December 1590 and 16 February 1591, the corresponding Chamber
payments are to George Ottewell on behalf of Strange’s men.
This amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s, tentative perhaps in
1588–9, and conclusive, if not in 1589–90, at any rate in 1590–1, lasted
until 1594. So far as Court records are concerned, the company seems to
have been regarded as Strange’s. But the leading actor, Edward Alleyn, kept
his personal status as the Lord Admiral’s servant, and it is to be observed
that, for whatever reason, both the Admiral’s and Strange’s continue to
appear, not only in combination, but also separately in provincial
documents.[338] Of this various explanations are conceivable. One is that the
municipal officials were not very precise in their methods, and when an
amalgamated company came before them, sometimes entered the name of
one lord, sometimes of the other, sometimes of both. Another is that a few
of the Admiral’s men may have been left out of the amalgamation and have
travelled separately under that name. We know, of course, that Richard
Jones and others went abroad in 1592, but they may have spent some time

in the provinces first. And thirdly, it is possible that, while the combined
company performed as a whole in London, they found it more economical
to take their authorities from both lords with them, when they went to the
country in the summer, and to unite or divide their forces as convenience
prompted. I am the more inclined to this third conjecture, in that the
‘intollerable’ charge of travelling with a great company and the danger of
‘division and separacion’ involved were explicitly put forward by Lord
Strange’s men in a petition to the Privy Council for leave to quit Newington
Butts, where they had been commanded to play during a long vacation, and
return to their normal quarters, doubtless at the Rose, on the Bankside. They
particularly wanted to avoid going to the country, but Newington Butts did
not pay, and they were backed by the Thames watermen, who lost custom
when the Rose was not open. It is not clear whether this petition belongs to
1591 or 1592.[339] The provincial records show that the company probably
travelled during 1592, but not 1591. If the petition belongs to 1592, it is
obvious that the plague intervened, and I strongly suspect that the
company’s fears proved justified, and that the reorganization for provincial
work did in fact lead to a ‘division and separacion’, by the splitting off of
some members of the combine as Pembroke’s men (q.v.).
This, however, anticipates a little. To Alleyn’s talent must be attributed
the remarkable success of the company in the winter of 1591–2, during
which they were called upon to give six performances at Court, on 27 and
28 December, 1 and 9 January, and 6 and 8 February, as against one each
allotted to the Queen’s, Sussex’s, and Hertford’s men. On 19 February 1592
the company began a season with Philip Henslowe, probably at the Rose,
and played six days a week for a period of eighteen weeks, during which
they only missed Good Friday and two other days. Henslowe records in his
diary the name of the play staged at each of the hundred and five
performances, together with a sum of money which probably represents his
share of the takings.[340] If so, his average receipts were £1 14s. 0d.; but the
daily amounts fluctuated considerably, sometimes falling to a few shillings
and again rising to twice the average on the production of a new or popular
play or during the Easter or Whitsun holiday. Twenty-three plays in all were
given, for any number of days from one to fifteen; the same play was rarely
repeated in any one week. Five of the plays are marked in the diary with the
letters ne, which are reasonably taken to indicate the production of a new

piece. These were ‘Harey the vj’, probably Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI, Titus
and Vespasian, probably the play on which was based Shakespeare’s Titus
Andronicus, the Second Part of Tamar Cham, The Tanner of Denmark, and
A Knack to Know a Knave. The eighteen old plays included Marlowe’s Jew
of Malta, Greene’s Orlando Furioso and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,
Greene and Lodge’s A Looking Glass for London; also Muly Mollocco
which might be Peele’s Battle of Alcazar, Four Plays in One, which is
conjectured to be a part of Tarlton’s Seven Deadly Sins, and Jeronimo,
which is almost certainly Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. There was also a play,
sometimes given on the day before this last, under the varying titles of Don
Horatio, the Comedy of Jeronimo, or The Spanish Comedy, which does not
appear to have been preserved.[341] The same fate has befallen the other ten
plays, of which the names were Sir John Mandeville, Henry of Cornwall,
Clorys and Orgasto, Pope Joan, Machiavel, Bindo and Richardo, Zenobia,
Constantine, Jerusalem, and Brandimer. From the financial point of view,
the greatest successes were Titus and Vespasian, The Jew of Malta, 2 Tamar
Cham, 1 Henry VI, and The Spanish Tragedy. These averaged respectively
for Henslowe £2 8s. 6d. for seven days, £2 3s. 6d. for ten days, £2 1s. 6d.
for five days, £2 0s. 6d. for fifteen days, and £1 17s. 0d. for thirteen days.
The Seven Deadly Sins and perhaps also the Looking Glass must have
passed in some way into the hands of Strange’s or the Admiral’s, or into
Henslowe’s, from the Queen’s.
The performances came to an end on 23 June, for on that day the Privy
Council inhibited all plays until Michaelmas. Whether the Newington Butts
episode and the watermen’s petition followed or not, at any rate plague
intervened in the course of the summer, and the company had to face the
disadvantages of travelling. They were afoot by 13 July and still on 19
December. Ten days later, Henslowe resumed his account, and the
resemblance of the list of plays to that of the previous spring renders it
reasonable to suppose that the actors were the same.[342] The season lasted
to the end of January 1593, and a play was given on each of the twenty-six
week-days of this period. Muly Mollocco, The Spanish Tragedy, A Knack to
Know a Knave, The Jew of Malta, Sir John Mandeville, Titus and
Vespasian, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1 Henry VI, and 2 Tamar Cham
all made their appearance again. In addition, there were a comedy called
Cosmo, and two new plays, The Jealous Comedy, which may, I think, be

The Comedy of Errors, and The Tragedy of the Guise, which is usually
accepted as Marlowe’s Massacre of Paris. The first representation of the
former yielded Henslowe £2 4s. 0d., that of the latter £3 14s. 0d.; as in the
spring, his daily takings averaged £1 14s. 0d. Besides their public
performances, Strange’s men were called upon for three plays at Court, on
the evenings of 27 and 31 December 1592 and 1 January 1593.
The plague made a new inhibition of plays necessary on 28 January, but
it does not seem to have been for some months that Strange’s men made up
their minds to travel. A special licence issued in their favour by the Privy
Council on 6 May is registered in the following terms:
‘Whereas it was thought meet that during the time of the infection and
continewaunce of the sicknes in the citie of London there shold no plaies or enterludes
be usd, for th’ avoiding of th’ assemblies and concourse of people in anie usual place
apointed nere the said cittie, and though the bearers hereof, Edward Allen, servaunt to
the right honorable the Lord Highe Admiral, William Kemp, Thomas Pope, John
Heminges, Augustine Phillipes and Georg Brian, being al one companie, servauntes to
our verie good the Lord the Lord Strainge, ar restrained their exercize of playing
within the said citie and liberties thereof, yet it is not therby ment but that they shal
and maie in regard of the service by them don and to be don at the Court exercize
their quallitie of playing comodies, tragedies and such like in anie other cities, townes
and corporacions where the infection is not, so it be not within seaven miles of
London or of the Coort, that they maie be in the better readines hereafter for her
Majesty’s service whensoever they shalbe therunto called. Theis therfore shalbe to wil
and require you that they maie without their lett or contradiccion use their said
exercize at their most convenient times and places (the accustomed times of Devine
praiers excepted).’[343]

The importance of this document is in the information which it gives as
to the composition of the company. Presumably only the leaders are named,
and of these Alleyn alone is specially designated as an Admiral’s man.
Kempe, at any rate, and probably also Pope and Bryan, were in Leicester’s
service in the Low Countries during 1586, and all three were together
during the same year in Denmark. Whether they had belonged, as has
sometimes been supposed, to Leicester’s long-enduring company of Court
players is less certain. Pope and Bryan passed from Denmark to Germany,
and may have joined the Admiral’s or Strange’s on their return. They also
were acrobats as well as players.[344] Kempe, however, seems to have
parted company from the others in Denmark, and may have joined
Strange’s independently, presumably before 10 June 1592, when A Knack to
Know a Knave, in which he played ‘merrimentes’, was produced. Heminges
may possibly have been a Queen’s man.

Some details of the 1593 tour and the names of two or three more
members of the company are found in the familiar correspondence of
Alleyn with his wife, whom he had married on 22 October 1592, and with
Philip Henslowe, who was her step-father.[345] On 2 May he writes from
Chelmsford, and on 1 August from Bristol. Here he had received a letter by
Richard Cowley and he sends his reply by a kinsman of Thomas Pope. At
the moment of writing he is ready to play Harry of Cornwall. He asks that
further letters may be sent to him by the carriers to Shrewsbury, West
Chester, or York, ‘to be keptt till my Lord Stranges players com’. He does
not expect to be home until All Saints’ Day. A reply from Henslowe and
Mrs. Alleyn on 14 August is in fact addressed to ‘Mr. Edwarde Allen on of
my lorde Stranges players’. This mentions an illness of Alleyn at Bath
during which one of his fellows had had to play his part. With these letters
is one written to Mrs. Allen on behalf of a ‘servant’ of Alleyn’s, whose
name was Pige or Pyk, by the hand of Mr. Doutone, possibly Edward
Dutton, but perhaps more probably Thomas Dowten or Downton, who was
later a sharer among the Admiral’s men. The provincial records, subject to
the confusion of company nomenclature already noted, appear to confirm
the visits to Bath, Shrewsbury, and York, to indicate others to Southampton,
Leicester, Coventry, Ipswich, and Newcastle, and to show that some
temporary alliance had been entered into with the purely provincial
company of Lord Morley.[346] After 25 September 1593 Strange’s men of
course became Derby’s men.
I now come to a difficult point. There exists amongst the Dulwich papers
a ‘plott’ or prompter’s abstract of a play called The Second Part of the
Seven Deadly Sins, which an ingenious conjecture of Mr. Fleay has
identified on internal evidence with the Four Plays in One included in the
Strange’s repertory of 1592.[347] In this leading parts were taken, not only
by ‘Mr. Pope’, ‘Mr. Phillipps’, and ‘Mr. Brian’, but also by ‘Richard
Burbadge’; lesser ones by Richard Cowley, John Duke, Robert Pallant, John
Sincler, Thomas Goodale, William Sly, J. Holland, and three others
described only as Harry, Kitt, and Vincent; and female parts by Saunder,
Nick, Robert, Ned, Will, and T. Belt, who may be presumed to have been
boys.[348] Alleyn, Kempe, and Heminges are not named, but there are
several parts to which no actors are assigned. What, however, is the date of
the ‘plott’? Not necessarily 1592, for the performance of Four Plays in One

in that year was only a revival. The authorship of the Seven Deadly Sins is
ascribed to Tarlton, and therefore the original owners were probably the
Queen’s men. They are not very likely to have parted with it before
Tarlton’s death in 1588 brought the first shock to their fortunes, but clearly
it may have come into the possession of Strange’s or the Admiral’s or the
combined company before ever they reached the Rose. And surely the
appearance of Richard Burbadge suggests that the ‘plott’ was brought from
the Theatre, and represents a performance there. He is very unlikely to have
joined at the Rose the company which had just been driven there by a
quarrel with his father. It is true that in the ‘plott’ of Dead Man’s Fortune,
which also probably dates from the sojourn of the Admiral’s (q.v.) at the
Theatre, he was apparently not playing leading parts but only a messenger.
But the wording is obscure, and after all the absence of the prefix ‘Mr.’
from his name in the ‘plott’ of the Sins may indicate, in accordance with the
ordinary usage of the Dulwich documents, that he was not yet a sharer
when it was drawn up. Apparently, then, at least four of Strange’s men, as
we find them in 1593, besides Alleyn, had been playing at the Theatre about
1590–1. These were Pope, Phillips, Bryan, and Cowley. Obviously we
cannot say whether it was to the original Admiral’s or the original Strange’s
that they belonged. One other point of personnel must not be overlooked.
Shakespeare contributed to the repertory of Strange’s in 1592 and perhaps
also in 1593. Greene calls him a Shake-scene, but neither the ‘plott’ of
1590, nor the licence of 1593, nor the Alleyn correspondence of the same
year, yields his name.[349]
Derby’s men did not appear at Court during the winter of 1593–4. On 16
April 1594 Lord Derby died. On 16 May the company used the Countess’s
name at Winchester. It seems clear that during the summer there was some
reshuffling of the companies, that Alleyn took the leadership of a new body
of Admiral’s men, that several other members of the old combination,
including Pope, Heminges, Kempe, and Phillips, joined with Burbadge,
Shakespeare, and Sly, under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain, Henry
Lord Hunsdon, and that, after a short period of co-operation with each other
and Henslowe, the two companies definitely parted. In the course of 1594
the name of Derby’s men appeared upon the title-page of Titus Andronicus,
probably because they had played it in its earlier form of Titus and
Vespasian in 1592–3, before it passed to Pembroke’s and from them to
Sussex’s. In the same year was published A Knack to Know a Knave (S. R.

7 January 1594) as played ‘by Ed. Allen and his companie’ and with
‘merrimentes’ by Kemp. This also belongs to the 1592–3 repertory, of the
other plays in which 1 Henry VI, like Titus Andronicus, passed ultimately to
the Chamberlain’s men, and a considerable number, either as their own
property or that of Henslowe, to the Admiral’s. These included Tamar
Cham, The Battle of Alcazar, The Spanish Tragedy, The Jew of Malta, The
Massacre of Paris, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, and probably Orlando
Furioso, of Orlando’s part in which a transcript, with alterations in Alleyn’s
hand, is preserved at Dulwich.[350] The only play not named in Henslowe’s
diary which can be traced to the company is Fair Em, which bears the name
of Lord Strange’s men on its title-page, but of which the first edition is
undated.
It is possible that those of the fifth Earl of Derby’s men who did not take
service with the Lord Chamberlain, passed into a provincial period of
existence under his successor, the sixth Earl. A company bearing his name
was at Norwich on 15 September 1594, at Dunwich in 1594–5 and 1595–6,
at Coventry, Bath, and Stratford in 1595–6, at Leicester between October
and December 1596, at Bath in 1596–7, at Maldon in 1597, at Coventry
twice in 1597–8, at Leicester in 1597–8, and between October and
December 1598, at Wollaton (Percival Willoughby’s) on 7 October 1599,
and at Leicester again on 16 October 1599. Letters of 30 June 1599 relate
that the Earl of Derby was then ‘busy penning comedies for the common
players’, and it is perhaps natural to suppose that his own company were
chosen as the exponents of his art.[351] This perhaps explains its appearance
at Court during the winters of 1599–1600 and 1600–1. Four performances
were given, on 3 and 5 February 1600 and 1 and 6 January 1601, and for
these Robert Browne, who had been both with Worcester’s men and the
Admiral’s, but much of whose dramatic career had been spent in Germany,
was the payee. In an undated letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Lady Derby writes,
‘Being importuned by my Lord to intreat your favor that his man Browne,
with his companye, may not be bared from ther accoustomed plaing, in
maintenance wherof they have consumde the better part of ther substance, if
so vaine a matter shall not seame troublesum to you, I could desier that your
furderance might be a meane to uphold them, for that my Lord taking delite
in them, it will kepe him from moer prodigall courses’.[352] To this company
are doubtless to be assigned Edward IV, perhaps by Heywood (1600, S. R.

28 August 1599), and the anonymous Trial of Chivalry (1605, S. R. 4
December 1604), both of which are credited to Derby’s men on their title-
pages. It again becomes provincial and is traceable at Norwich on 27
February and 9 June 1602, at Ipswich on 4 June 1602, and thereafter up to
1618, chiefly at Coventry and at Gawthorpe Hall, the house of Derby’s
neighbours, the Shuttleworths.[353]
John Taylor, the water-poet, returned from his journey to Scotland in
1618 at the Maidenhead Inn, Islington, and here after supper on 14 October
‘we had a play of the Life and Death of Guy of Warwick, played by the
Right Honourable the Earl of Derby his men’. Presumably this was Day and
Dekker’s play entered on the Stationers’ Register in 1619, which Mr. Bullen
declines to identify with the Guy of Warwick published as ‘by B. J.’ in 1661.
[354]

xviii. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE’S MEN
Henry Herbert, s. of William, 1st Earl of Pembroke; nat. c. 1534; succ. as 2nd Earl,
17 Mar. 1570; m. (1) Catherine, d. of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, 21 May 1553, (2)
Catherine, d. of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 17 Feb. 1563, (3) Mary, d. of Sir
Henry Sidney, c. Apr. 1577; President of Wales, 1586; residences, Baynard’s Castle,
London, Wilton House, Wilts., Ludlow Castle, &c.; ob. 9 Jan. 1601.
[Bibliographical Note.—Halliwell-Phillipps collected provincial
records and other notes on Pembroke’s men in A Budget of Notes and
Memoranda (1880). The Bill, Answer, and Replication in Shaw et al. v.
Langley (1597–8, Court of Requests) are in C. W. Wallace, The Swan
Theatre and the Earl of Pembroke’s Servants (1911, E. S. xliii. 340).]

There is an isolated record of a Pembroke’s company at Canterbury in
1575–6, hardly to be regarded as continuous with that which makes its
appearance in the last decade of the century. Fleay, 87, puts the origin of the
latter in 1589, and supposes it to be a continuation of Worcester’s men after
the death of their original patron in 1589, and to be the company ridiculed
by Nashe (iii. 324) for playing Delphrigus and The King of the Fairies, in
his preface to Greene’s Menaphon (1589). But this Worcester’s company is
not in fact traceable during 1585–9, and Fleay’s theory is only based on the
allusion to Hamlet in the same preface (iii. 315), and the assumption that
the Ur-Hamlet, like some other plays, passed to the Chamberlain’s from
Pembroke’s, whereas it may just as well have passed to them from
Strange’s. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of Pembroke’s before
1592 and no reason to suppose that it had an earlier existence. It will be

well to detail the few facts of its history before attempting anything in the
nature of conjecture. It was at Leicester in the last three months of 1592 and
made its only appearances at Court on 26 December 1592 and 6 January
1593. In the following summer it travelled, and is found at York in June, at
Rye in July, and in 1592–3 at Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Coventry, Bath, and
Ipswich. But it had little success. Henslowe wrote to Alleyn on 28
September, ‘As for my lorde a Penbrockes wch you desier to knowe wheare
they be they ar all at home and hausse ben this v or sixe weackes for they
cane not saue ther carges wth trauell as I heare & weare fayne to pane ther
parell for ther carge’.[355] About the same time three of their plays came to
the booksellers’ hands. These were Marlowe’s Edward the Second (1594, S.
R. 6 July 1593), The Taming of A Shrew (1594, S. R. 2 May 1594), and The
True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (1595). Probably the play to which
this last is a sequel, 1 Contention of York and Lancaster (1594, S. R. 12
March 1594) was also theirs, although the name of the company is not on
the title-page. It is on the title-page of Titus Andronicus (1594), and its
position suggests that the play passed to them from Strange’s and from
them before publication to Sussex’s. All these plays, with the exception of
Edward II, seem to have been worked upon by Shakespeare, and probably
they ultimately became part of the stock of the Chamberlain’s men. These
men were playing Titus Andronicus and The Taming of The Shrew in June
1594, and that they also owned The Contention in its revised form of 2, 3
Henry VI is suggested both by its inclusion in the First Folio and by the
reference in the Epilogue to Henry V not only to the loss of France but also
to the bleeding of England ‘which oft our stage hath shown’.
I now enter a region of conjecture. It seems to me, on the whole, likely
that the origin of Pembroke’s men is to be explained by the special
conditions of the plague-years 1592–3, and was due to a division for
travelling purposes of the large London company formed by the
amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s. Such a division had been
foreshadowed as likely to be necessary in the petition sent by Strange’s men
to the Privy Council during the summer of 1592 or earlier, and may actually
have become necessary when, after all, the plague rendered travelling
imperative. If this suggestion is well founded, it becomes not difficult to
explain some of the transferences of acting rights in certain plays which
seem to have taken place. Thus Strange’s may have handed over Titus

Andronicus in its earlier form of Titus and Vespasian to Pembroke’s for the
travels of 1593, and may also have handed over The Contention of York and
Lancaster, if that was originally theirs, as is suggested by their production
of 1 Henry VI, which belongs to the same closely related series. This opens
up a more important line of speculation. It is usual to assume that one of the
members of Strange’s from 1592 or earlier until its reconstitution as the
Chamberlain’s in 1594 was William Shakespeare, and there is no reason to
doubt his authorship at any rate of the Talbot scenes, which we know from
Nashe to have been staged as part of 1 Henry VI in 1592. At the same time,
the names of at least seventeen of Strange’s and the Admiral’s men in 1590–
3 are otherwise known, and his is not one of them, and in particular his
prominence amongst the Chamberlain’s men from the very beginning
renders it extremely unlikely that, if he had been a member of the company
in 1593, he would not have been mentioned in the Privy Council warrant of
6 May. Further, it seems to me impossible to resist the inference that the
attribution to him of Titus Andronicus both by Francis Meres in 1598 and in
the First Folio of 1623 can only be explained by his revision under that
name of Titus and Vespasian, and that this was for the second production of
the play as ‘ne’ for Henslowe by Sussex’s men on 24 January 1594. There
is, therefore, really some basis for the suggestion made long ago by
Halliwell-Phillipps that he is to be looked for during these years in
Pembroke’s company until its collapse and then in Sussex’s, and that it was
from this rather than directly from Strange’s that he went to the
Chamberlain’s.[356] On the other hand, it may be that for a time he was not
attached as an actor to any company at all. It is possible that he took
advantage of the plague-interval to travel in Italy and only resumed the
regular exercise of his profession when the Chamberlain’s company was
formed. In any event, it must have been he who revised The Contention as
2, 3 Henry VI, and the close stylistic relation of these plays to 1 Henry VI
makes it probable that the work on all three belongs to about the same date.
The limitations of conjecture on so intricate a question are obvious, but I
can conceive the order of events as being somewhat as follows.
Shakespeare’s first dramatic job, which earned him the ill will of Greene,
was the writing or re-writing of 1 Henry VI for Strange’s, in the early spring
of 1592. During the winter of 1592–3 he revised The Contention for
Pembroke’s and completed the series of his early histories with Richard III,
and, as I am inclined to suspect, also an Ur-Henry VIII. He also wrote The

Jealous Comedy or Comedy of Errors for Strange’s. In the summer of 1593
Sussex’s took over the plays of the bankrupt Pembroke’s, including the
Shakespearian histories Titus and Vespasian and The Taming of A Shrew.
Some at least of these Pembroke’s had themselves derived in 1592 or 1593
from Strange’s. During the winter of 1593–4 Sussex’s played either Richard
III or Henry VIII as Buckingham, and also Titus and Vespasian revised for
them by Shakespeare as Titus Andronicus. Alarmed at the further inhibition
of plays in February, they allowed the revised Titus and unrevised texts of
The Taming of A Shrew and The Contention to get into the hands of the
booksellers. Whether Shakespeare had already revised A Shrew or did so
later for the Chamberlain’s (q.v.) I am uncertain. Finally, by the transfer of
their plays to the Chamberlain’s men, who at once revived A Shrew and
Titus Andronicus, and by the incorporation of Strange’s men in the same
company, the original stock of Strange’s plays, as distinct from the
Admiral’s, came together in the same hands once more. On the assumption
that Shakespeare never left Strange’s, it is difficult to explain either the
fortunes of Titus Andronicus, or the absence from the lists of Strange’s plays
in Henslowe’s diary of Richard III, which must have been written about
1592–4. The silence as regards Strange’s both of the Court records and of
Henslowe’s diary during the winter of 1593–4 makes it unlikely that they
were in London, and they would surely not produce a new play in the
country.
Nothing further is heard of a Pembroke’s company for three or four
years.[357] But in 1597 one appeared in London about which we have rather
full information, recently increased by Mr. Wallace’s discovery of a Court
of Requests suit in which they were concerned. Towards the end of
February in that year Robert Shaw, Richard Jones, Gabriel Spencer, William
Bird alias Borne, and Thomas Downton, who describe themselves in a suit
of the following November as Pembroke’s servants, together with others
their ‘accomplices and associates’, entered into an agreement with Francis
Langley to play for twelve months ending on 20 February 1598 at the
Swan. Each man gave a bond of £100, which was apparently to safeguard
Langley against any failure by the company as a whole or of Robert Shaw
or a sufficient substitute in particular to perform during this period, or
against any performance elsewhere, otherwise than ‘in private places’,
within five miles of London. Langley found £300 for apparel and, as he
claimed, making ready of the play-house, and was to receive a moiety of the

takings of the galleries and to be repaid for the apparel out of the other
moiety. Of the men concerned, Jones and Downton had been Admiral’s men
during 1594–7, and their transference coincides with a three weeks’ break in
the performances of the Admiral’s at the Rose from 12 February onwards.
Mr. Wallace (E. S. xliii. 357) says that Shaw, Spencer, and Bird were also of
the Admiral’s, but of this there is no evidence. If Pembroke’s had any
continued life during 1594–7, they may have shared it. But this seems
improbable, and on the whole I am inclined to think that they came from the
Chamberlain’s (q.v.). Plays were given at the Swan for some months, and
Langley took £100 from the galleries, and £100 more for apparel. Then
came an inhibition of plays near London on 28 July 1597, caused by the
production of The Isle of Dogs, as a result of which one of the authors,
Nashe, fled, and the other, Jonson, together with Shaw and Spencer, was
committed to the Marshalsea. The definite evidence that Shaw and Spencer
were Pembroke’s men at the Swan, now produced by Mr. Wallace, confirms
my conjecture (M. L. R. iv. 411, 511) that The Isle of Dogs was an adventure
of that house and not, as has sometimes been thought, of the Rose. Either in
anticipation of a prolonged closing of the house or for some other reason,
the company now desired to shake off their relations with Langley. Early in
August Jones returned to Henslowe and made a new covenant with him. His
example was followed by Shaw, Spencer, and Bird, and early in October by
Downton. Their prescience was justified, for when in the course of October
the chief offenders were released, and the inhibition, which was nominally
terminable on 1 November, was in practice relaxed, it proved that, while
Henslowe was able to get a new licence for the Rose, Langley could get
none for the Swan. He urged them to try their fortunes without a licence, as
others of their company were willing to do, but they not unnaturally
refused, and Henslowe (i. 54) records, ‘The xj of October begane my lord
Admerals and my lord of Penbrockes men to playe at my howsse 1597’. He
describes the company under the double name again on 21 and 23 October
and 5 November, but on 1 December and thereafter as the Lord Admiral’s
(i. 68–70). A study of the Admiral’s repertory for 1597–8 suggests that
some or all of the plays Black Joan, Hardicanute, Bourbon, Sturgflattery,
Branholt, Friar Spendleton, Alice Pierce, and Dido and Aeneas may have
been brought in by Pembroke’s men.
The five seceders had not heard the last of Langley. He sued them at
common law on the bonds given not to play in a rival house. They

successfully applied to have the case transferred to the Court of Requests,
and in the course of the pleadings maintained, firstly, that they were
prevented from playing at the Swan by the restraint and Langley’s failure to
get a licence; secondly, that Langley had orally assented to their transfer to
Henslowe; thirdly, that they could not appear at the Swan as a company,
since Langley had ‘procured from them’ two (or, as they afterwards said,
three) of their associates, to whom he had returned their obligations; and
fourthly, that Langley had suffered no damage, since other men were
occupying his house. They also complained that Langley had never handed
over the apparel for which they had recouped him out of their gallery
takings. The negotiations with Langley which they describe seem to have
taken place during October. About the covenants entered into with
Henslowe as far back as the beginning of August they said nothing, and
whether either Langley or the court ever found out about these, and what
the ultimate decision of the court on the main issue was, must remain
uncertain. But certain loans entered in Henslowe’s diary suggest that in
March 1598 Langley was in a position to arrest Bird, and that in September
of the same year some kind of agreement was arrived at, under which
Langley received £35, as well as £19 or more for a rich cloak (i. 63, 72, 73,
95, 96). It is possible that a ‘sewt agenste Thomas Poope’ of the
Chamberlain’s, for which Henslowe (i. 72) made a personal advance of 10s.
to William Bird on 30 August 1598, may also have been connected with the
shiftings of companies in 1597.
The names of the two or three members of the company to whom
Langley gave back their bonds are not stated in the pleadings. Perhaps one
was Jonson, and the other two might conceivably have been Humphrey and
Anthony Jeffes, since the name of ‘Humfrey’ stands with that of ‘Gabriel’ in
stage-directions to 3 Henry VI, and Henslowe’s list of the reconstituted
Admiral’s company as it stood in October 1597–January 1598 contains ‘the
ij Geffes’, who are not traceable in the 1594–7 company and may well have
come in with the five Pembroke’s men. Langley tells us that certain
‘fellows’ of his opponents had taken a more reasonable line than theirs and
returned to the Swan. How long these men remained there we do not know,
but probably they secured Pembroke’s patronage after the five had been
definitely merged in the Admiral’s, for by the end of 1597 there was clearly
a distinct Pembroke’s company again. Provincial records yield the name,
not only at Bath in 1596–7 and at Bristol in September 1597, which may

point to a tour of the undivided Swan company during the period of
restraint, but also at Bath in 1598–9, at Bristol in July 1598, at Leicester
between October and December, at Dover on 7 October, at Coventry on 12
December, and at Bewdley on 22 December. They were at Norwich in April
1599, at Coventry on 4 July, and at Bristol in July. They were at York on 21
January 1600, Bristol in April, Marlborough in May, and Leicester before
Michaelmas. In October they were in relationship with Henslowe, who
notes ‘my Lordes of Penbrockes men begane to playe at the Rosse’, and
records performances of Like Unto Like and Roderick on 28 and 29 October
respectively.[358] The former brought him 11s. 6d. and the latter 5s., and
there apparently the experiment ended, and with it, so far as is known, the
career of Pembroke’s men. It is just possible that they were merged in
Worcester’s company, which arose shortly afterwards. Mr. Fleay expands
this possibility into a definite theory that Kempe, Beeston, Duke, and
Pallant left the Chamberlain’s men for Pembroke’s in 1599, and ultimately
passed from these to Worcester’s. This is improbable as regards Kempe, and
unproved as regards the rest.[359]

xix. THE LORD ADMIRAL’S (LORD HOWARD’S, EARL OF NOTTINGHAM’S), PRINCE
HENRY’S, AND ELECTOR PALATINE’S MEN

Charles Howard, s. of William, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, g.s. of Thomas,
2nd Duke of Norfolk; nat. 1536; m. (1) Catherine Carey, d. of Henry Lord Hunsdon,
Lady of the Privy Chamber, (2) Margaret Stuart, d. of James Earl of Murray, c. 1604;
succ. as 2nd Baron, 29 Jan. 1573; Deputy Lord Chamberlain, 1574–5; Vice-Admiral,
Feb. 1582; Lord Chamberlain, c. Dec. 1583; Lord High Admiral, 8 July 1585–1619;
Earl of Nottingham, 22 Oct. 1596; Lord Steward, 1597; ob. 14 Dec. 1624.
Henry Frederick, s. of James VI of Scotland and I of England; nat. 19 Feb. 1594;
cr. Duke of Rothesay, 30 Aug. 1594; succ. as Duke of Cornwall, 24 Mar. 1603; cr.
Earl of Chester and Prince of Wales, 4 June 1610; ob. 6 Nov. 1612.
Frederick, s. of Frederick IV, Count Palatine of the Rhine; nat. 19 Aug. 1596; succ.
as Frederick V, 1610; m. Princess Elizabeth of England, 14 Feb. 1613; elected King of
Bohemia, 1619; ob. 1632.
[Bibliographical Note.—The material preserved amongst the papers
of Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn at Dulwich has been fully
collected and studied by W. W. Greg in Henslowe’s Diary (1904–8) and
Henslowe Papers (1907), which replace the earlier publications of
Malone, Collier, and others from the same source. I have added a little
from Professor Wallace’s researches and elsewhere, and have attempted
to give my own reading of the evidence, which differs in a few minor
points from Dr. Greg’s.]

It was perhaps his employment as deputy to the Earl of Sussex in the
office of Lord Chamberlain which led Lord Howard to encourage players. A
company, under the name of Lord Howard’s men, appeared at Court for the
first time at the Christmas of 1576–7. On 27 December they played Tooley,
and on 17 February The Solitary Knight.[360] They came again for the last
time in the following winter, and performed on 5 January 1578. They were
also at Kirtling on 3 December 1577, Saffron Walden in 1577–8, Ipswich
on 24 October 1577, in 1578–9, and perhaps on 8 October 1581, Bristol,
where they gave The Queen of Ethiopia, between 31 August and 6
September 1578, Nottingham on 19 December 1578, and Bath and
Coventry in 1578–9.
Howard again had players at Court, after he became Admiral in 1585.
The first record of them is at Dover in June 1585. Later in the year they
were playing in conjunction with the Lord Chamberlain’s (Lord
Hunsdon’s). ‘The Lorde Chamberlens and the Lord Admirall’s players’
were rewarded at Leicester in October-December 1585, and ‘the servants of
the lo: admirall and the lo: Chamberlaine’ for a play at Court on 6 January
1586.[361] During the same Christmas, however, the Admiral’s played alone
on 27 December 1585, and as Hunsdon’s survived in the provinces, the two
organizations may have been amalgamated for one performance only. The

Admiral’s were at Coventry, Faversham, Ipswich, and Leicester in 1585–6.
They were reported to Walsingham amongst other London companies on 25
January 1587 (App. D, No. lxxviii), although they did not appear at Court
during this winter. In 1586–7 they were at Cambridge, Coventry, Bath,
York, Norwich, Ipswich, Exeter, Southampton, and Leicester. By November
they were back in London, and on the 16th an accident at their theatre is
thus related by Philip Gawdy to his father:[362]
‘Yow shall vnderstande of some accydentall newes heare in this towne thoughe my
self no wyttnesse thereof, yet I may be bold to veryfye it for an assured troth. My L.
Admyrall his men and players having a devyse in ther playe to tye one of their
fellowes to a poste and so to shoote him to deathe, having borrowed their callyvers
one of the players handes swerved his peece being charged with bullett missed the
fellowe he aymed at and killed a chyld, and a woman great with chyld forthwith, and
hurt an other man in the head very soore. How they will answere it I do not study
vnlesse their profession were better, but in chrystyanity I am very sorry for the
chaunce but God his iudgementes ar not to be searched nor enquired of at mannes
handes. And yet I fynde by this an old proverbe veryfyed ther never comes more hurte
than commes of fooling.’

Possibly the company went into retirement as a result of this disaster; at
any rate nothing more is heard of them until the Christmas of 1588–9. They
then came to Court, and were rewarded for two interludes and ‘for
showinge other feates of activitye and tumblinge’ on 29 December 1588
and 11 February 1589.[363] On 6 November 1589 they were playing in the
City, and were suppressed by the Lord Mayor, because Tilney, the Master of
the Revels, misliked their plays. Probably they had been concerning
themselves with the Marprelate controversy. Strange’s men, who were
evidently performing as a separate company, shared their fate. It may have
been this misadventure which led the Admiral’s to seek house-room with
James Burbadge at the Theatre (q.v.), where some evidence by John Alleyn,
who, with James Tunstall, was of their number, locates them in November
1590 and May 1591. A relic of this period may be presumed to exist in the
‘plot’ of Dead Man’s Fortune, preserved with other plots belonging to the
company at Dulwich, in which Burbadge, doubtless Richard Burbadge, then
still a boy, appeared. Certainly there is nothing to connect Burbadge with
the company at any other date. Other actors in the piece were one Darlowe,
‘b[oy?] Samme’, and Robert Lee, later of Anne’s men. The Admiral’s again
showed ‘feats of activitie’ at Court on 28 December 1589, and a play on 3
March 1590. In 1589–90 they were at Coventry, Ipswich, Maidstone,
Marlborough, Winchester, and Gloucester, and in 1590–1 at Winchester and

Gloucester. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine was published in 1590 as ‘shewed upon
stages in the City of London’ by the Admiral’s men. The Court records for
the following winter present what looks at first sight like a curious
discrepancy. The accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber include
payments for plays and activities on 27 December 1590 and 16 February
1591 to Lord Strange’s men. The corresponding warrants, however, were
made out, according to the Privy Council Register, for the Admiral’s.
Probably there is no error here, and the entries are evidence of an
amalgamation between the two companies, which possibly dated from as
far back as the winter of 1589, and which seems to have endured until the
summer of 1594. Technically, it would seem that it was the Admiral’s who
were merged in Strange’s men. It is the latter and not the former who
generally appear in official documents during this period. I have therefore
dealt with its details for both companies, with the question of the precise
date of the amalgamation, and with the possibility that the plot of The Seven
Deadly Sins and its list of actors also belong to a Theatre performance of
about 1590, in my account of Strange’s men, and need only remark here
that the name of the Admiral’s does not altogether fall into disuse,
especially in provincial records, and that the leading actor, Edward Alleyn,
in particular, is shown by an official document to have retained his personal
status as an Admiral’s servant.
It is a question of some interest how early Alleyn’s connexion with the
Admiral’s may be supposed to have begun. Was he, for example, the
original Tamburlaine of 1587, and was it as an Admiral’s man that Nashe
referred to him, if it was he to whom Nashe referred, as the Roscius of the
contemporary players in his Menaphon epistle of 1589? He is known to
have been a member of Worcester’s company in 1583. Dr. Greg is disposed
to think that he remained with them until the death of the third Earl of
Worcester on 22 February 1589, and then joined the Admiral’s.[364] It is,
however, to be observed that there is no trace of Worcester’s men between
1584 and 1590, and that it is in 1585 that the Admiral’s men begin to appear
at Court. On the whole, it commends itself to me as the more probable
conjecture that the first Earl of Worcester’s company passed into Howard’s
service, when he became Admiral in 1585, and that the players of the fourth
Earl of Worcester between 1590 and 1596 were distinct from those of his
father. The issue concerns others besides Edward Alleyn himself. Amongst
the members of Worcester’s company in 1583 were Robert Browne, James

Tunstall, and Richard Jones; and all three of these are found concerned with
Alleyn in matters of theatrical business during 1589–91. The most
important document is a deed of sale by ‘Richarde Jones of London yoman’
to ‘Edwarde Allen of London gent’ for £37 10s. of ‘all and singuler suche
share parte and porcion of playinge apparrelles, playe bookes, instrumentes,
and other comodities whatsoeuer belonginge to the same, as I the said
Richarde Jones nowe haue or of right ought to haue joyntlye with the same
Edwarde Allen, John Allen citizen and inholder of London and Roberte
Browne yoman’.[365] This is dated 3 January 1589. There are also three
deeds of sale to Edward and John Alleyn of theatrical apparel between 1589
and 1591, and to two of these James Tunstall was a witness.[366] On Dr.
Greg’s theory as to the date at which Alleyn took service with the Lord
Admiral, the organization in whose properties Richard Jones had an interest
would naturally be Worcester’s men; on mine it would be the Admiral’s,
and it would follow that Jones and Browne, as well as Alleyn, had joined
that company. We have seen that James Tunstall had done so by 1590–1.
John Alleyn was an elder brother of Edward. There is nothing to connect
him with Worcester’s men. He was a servant of Lord Sheffield in November
1580 and of the Lord Admiral in 1589.[367] A letter of one Elizabeth
Socklen to Edward Alleyn refers to a time ‘when your brother, my lovinge
cozen John Allen, dwelt with my very good lord, Charles Heawarde’, and
this rather suggests that his service was in some household capacity, and not
merely as player.[368] If so, it may have been through him that Edward
Alleyn and his fellows became Admiral’s men. The first period of their
activity seems to have lasted from 1585 to 1589, and it was no doubt
Edward Alleyn’s genius, and perhaps also his business capacity, which
enabled them to offer a serious rivalry to the Queen’s company. I suspect
that in 1589 or 1590 they were practically dissolved, and this view is
confirmed by the fact that their most important play was allowed to get to
the hands of the printers. Alleyn, with the help of his brother, bought up the
properties, and allied himself with Lord Strange’s men, and so far as the
Admiral’s continued to exist at all for the next few years, it was almost
entirely in and through him that it did so. After a financial quarrel with
James Burbadge in May 1591, the combined companies moved to the Rose.
There is nothing to show whether the Alleyns bought up Robert Browne’s
interest as well as that of Richard Jones. At any rate Browne began in 1590
that series of continental tours which occupied most of the rest of his career

(cf. ch. xiv). Jones joined him in one of these adventures in 1592, and it is
possible that John Bradstreet and Thomas Sackville, who went with them,
were also old Admiral’s men. But I do not think that it is accurate to regard
this company, as Dr. Greg seems to be inclined to do, as being itself under
the Admiral’s patronage. It is true that they obtained a passport from him,
but this was probably given rather in his capacity as warden of the seas than
in that of their lord. His name is not mentioned in any of the foreign records
of their peregrinations. It is not possible to say which, other than Alleyn, of
the members of the 1592–3 Strange’s and Admiral’s company, whose names
have been preserved, came from each of the two contributing sources. They
do not include either John Alleyn or James Tunstall, or Edward Browne, a
Worcester’s man of 1583, who reappears with Tunstall among the Admiral’s
after 1594. Nor is it possible to say how far the repertory of Strange’s men,
as disclosed by the 1592–3 entries in Henslowe’s diary, included plays
drawn from the Admiral’s stock. This may have been the case with The
Battle of Alcazar, which was printed as an Admiral’s play in 1594, and with
Orlando Furioso, which contemporary gossip represents Greene as selling
first to the Queen’s and then to the Admiral’s. And it may have been the
case with 1 Tamar Cham, which passed to the later Admiral’s. Neither
Tamburlaine nor The Wounds of Civil War, printed like The Battle of
Alcazar as an Admiral’s play in 1594, is recorded to have been played by
Strange’s.
When the companies settled down again to a London life after the
conclusion of the long plague in 1594, the Admiral’s men reconstituted
themselves as an independent company with Alleyn at its head, leaving the
greater number of their recent comrades of the road to pass, as the Lord
Chamberlain’s men, under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon. The personal
alliance between Alleyn and Henslowe, whose step-daughter, Joan
Woodward, he had married on 22 October 1592, led to the institution of
close business relations between the company and the pawnbroker, and the
record of these in the famous diary enables us to follow with a singular
minuteness the almost daily fortunes of the Admiral’s men during the
course of some nine or ten years, broken into two periods by a
reconstruction of the company in 1597 and finally closing about the time of
their conversion into Prince Henry’s men in 1604. The precise nature of the
position occupied by Henslowe has been carefully investigated by Dr. Greg,
[369]
and has already been briefly considered in these pages (ch. xi). He was

not a member of the company, but its landlord, and, probably to an
increasing extent, its financier. In the former capacity he received, after
every day’s performance, a fluctuating sum, which seems to have
represented half the amount received for admission to the galleries of the
house; the other half, with the payments for entrance to the standing room
in the yard, being divided amongst such of the players as had a share in the
profits. Out of this, of course, they had to meet all expenditure other than by
way of rent, such as the wages of hired men, payments for apparel and play-
books, fees to the Master of the Revels for the licensing of plays, and the
like. In practice it became convenient for Henslowe, who was a capitalist,
while many of the players lived from hand to mouth, to advance sums to
meet such expenditure as it fell due, and to recoup himself from time to
time out of the company’s profits. It seems likely that, when the system was
in full working, the moiety of the gallery money, which remained after the
deduction of the rent, was assigned for the purpose of these repayments.
During the period 1597–1604 Henslowe’s entries in his diary are mainly in
the nature of a running account of these advances and of the receipts set off
against them; for 1594–7 similar entries occur irregularly, but the principal
record is a daily list, such as Henslowe had already kept during his shorter
associations with Strange’s, the Queen’s, and Sussex’s companies in the
course of 1592–4, of each performance given, with the name of the play and
of the amount accruing to Henslowe himself in the form of rent. This list
renders possible a very interesting analysis, both of the repertory of the
company and of some at least of the financial conditions of their enterprise.
The entries start with the heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge
the 14 of Maye 1594 by my lord Admeralls men’. After three days, during
which The Jew of Malta, Cutlack, and The Ranger’s Comedy, all of which
are found in the later repertory of the company, were given, they stop
abruptly.[370] To about the same date may be assigned a fragmentary
account, headed ‘Layd owt for my Lorde Admeralle seruantes as ffoloweth
1594’, and recording expenditure for coming and going to Court and to
Somerset House, the residence of the Lord Chamberlain, ‘for mackinge of
our leater twise’, and ‘for drinckinge with the jentellmen’, all evidently
concerned with the initial business of forming and licensing the company.
[371]
On 5 June the account of performances is resumed with a fresh
heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge at Newington my Lord

Admeralle men and my Lorde Chamberlen men as ffolowethe 1594’.[372]
Henslowe’s takings only averaged 9s. for the first ten days, probably on
account of the distance of Newington Butts from London.[373] The takings
for the three days in May averaged 41s., and it may perhaps be inferred that
these May performances were at the Rose, and that some fear of renewed
plague on the part of the authorities led to their being relegated to a safer
quarter. The tentative character of these early performances is shown by the
fact that the Admiral’s were still sharing a theatre with the Chamberlain’s.
To the repertory of the latter it seems safe to assign three of the seven plays
produced, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, and The Taming of A Shrew, and
probably also a fourth, Hester and Ahasuerus, as there is no later sign of
this amongst the Admiral’s plays. This leaves three others to be regarded as
the Admiral’s contribution, The Jew of Malta and Cutlack, which they had
played in May and were often to play again, and Belin Dun, to which are
attached the letters ‘ne’, Henslowe’s normal indication of a new play.[374]
There is nothing in the order in which the plays were taken to indicate an
alternation of the two companies, and it is likely enough that neither was
yet fully constituted, and that they actually joined forces in the same
performances.
After the tenth play on 15 June, Henslowe drew a line across the page,
and although the entries continue without any indication of a change in the
conditions under which the performances were given, I can only concur in
the conjecture of Mr. Fleay and Dr. Greg that at this point the Admiral’s
plays were transferred to the Rose, and the combination with the
Chamberlain’s ceased.[375] A sudden rise in the amount of Henslowe’s
takings, and the absence from the rest of the list of the four plays named
above and of any other attributable to the Chamberlain’s repertory, are alike
strongly in favour of this view, which may be treated as a practical
certainty. Henceforward the fortunes of the company seem to have followed
a smooth course for the space of three years. Their proceedings may be
briefly summed up as follows. They played for thirty-nine consecutive
weeks from 15 June 1594 to 14 March 1595, appearing at Court during this
season on 28 December, 1 January, and 6 January. After a break of thirty-
seven days during Lent, opportunity of which was taken to repair the Rose,
they played again for ten weeks from Easter Monday, 21 April, to 26 June
1595. Then came a vacation of fifty-nine days, with visits to Bath and

Maidstone. They began again in London on 25 August 1595 and played for
twenty-seven weeks to 28 February 1596, giving Court performances on 1
January, 4 January, and 22 and 24 February. This took them to the end of
the first week in Lent. After forty-three days’ interval, they played for
fifteen weeks, from Easter Monday, 12 April, to 23 July 1596. Their
summer vacation lasted for ninety-five days, and they are noted during
1595–6 at Coventry, Bath, Gloucester, and Dunwich. In the autumn they
started playing on 27 October, but the receipts were low, and if the record is
complete, they suspended performances between 15 and 25 November, and
then went on to 12 February 1597, making up a season of about fourteen
weeks in all. They do not seem to have played at Court at all this winter.
This year they rather disregarded Lent, stopping for eighteen days only,
during a reconstruction of the company, and then playing three days a week
until Easter, and then regularly until the end of July, in all twenty-one
weeks. To certain irregularities at the close of this season it will be
necessary to refer later. During the three years, then, there were three winter
and three summer seasons of London playing, covering about a hundred
and twenty-six weeks. Except in Lent or at the beginning or end of a
season, or occasionally, probably for climatic reasons, at other times,
especially in December, plays were given upon every week-day. It emerges
from Dr. Greg’s re-ordering of Henslowe’s very inaccurate dates that there
were no plays on Sundays.[376] On the other hand, a summons to play at
Court in the evening did not necessarily entail a blank day in the afternoon.
The total number of performances during the three years was seven hundred
and twenty-eight. It is reasonable to assume that Henslowe’s takings varied
roughly with those of the company, although the reserve must be made that
different plays might prove the most attractive to the galleries and to the
yard respectively. The amounts entered range from a minimum of 3s. to a
maximum of 73s. Dr. Greg calculates the average over ‘certain typical
periods of 1595’ as 30s.;[377] during the first half of 1597 it was 24s. The
fluctuations are determined, partly by the popularity or novelty of the plays
presented, partly by the season of the year, and doubtless the weather and
the competition of other amusements. There were generally some high
receipts during Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun weeks. Unfortunately there
is no means of estimating the proportion which Henslowe’s share bore to
that which fell for division among the players. Some light is thrown upon
the expenses by the subsidiary accounts of advances, which Henslowe

began to keep from time to time in 1596. In May of that year he lent Alleyn
‘for the company’ a total amount of £39 in several instalments, and
recovered it by small sums of £1 to £3 at a time during the next three
months.[378] A longer account extending from October 1596 to March 1597
reaches, with the aid of a miscalculation, a total of £52. Of this £22 was
repaid during the same period, chiefly by deductions from the profits of first
nights, and an acknowledgement given for the balance of £30.[379] The
advances were made through various members of the company, and the
purposes specified include apparel for three new plays, travelling expenses,
and fees to playwrights. A third account, if I am right in the interpretation of
some very disputable figures, shows an expenditure at the average rate of
31s. a day during the six months from 24 January to 28 July 1597, of which,
however, nearly half was in fact incurred during the first twenty-four days
of the period. In this case only the sums and not the purposes for which they
were advanced are entered.[380]
During the three years the Admiral’s men produced new plays to the total
number of fifty-five, and at the average rate of one a fortnight. The
productions were not at regular intervals, and often followed each other in
successive weeks. There is, however, no example of two new productions in
the same week.[381] These are the names and dates of the new plays:

Belin Dun (10 June 1594).
Galiaso (28 June 1594).
Philipo and Hippolito (9 July 1594).
2 Godfrey of Bulloigne (19 July 1594).
The Merchant of Emden (30 July 1594).
Tasso’s Melancholy (13 Aug. 1594).
The Venetian Comedy (27 Aug. 1594).
Palamon and Arcite (18 Sept. 1594).
The Love of an English Lady (26 Sept. 1594).
A Knack to Know an Honest Man (23 Oct. 1594).
1 Caesar and Pompey (8 Nov. 1594).
Diocletian (16 Nov. 1594).
The Wise Man of West Chester (3 Dec. 1594).
The Set at Maw (15 Dec. 1594).
The French Comedy (11 Feb. 1595).

The Mack (21 Feb. 1595).
Olympo (5 Mar. 1595).[382]
1 Hercules (7 May 1595).
2 Hercules (23 May 1595).
1 The Seven Days of the Week (3 June 1595).
2 Caesar and Pompey (18 June 1595).
Longshanks (29 Aug. 1595).
Crack me this Nut (5 Sept. 1595).
The New World’s Tragedy (17 Sept. 1595).
The Disguises (2 Oct. 1595).
The Wonder of a Woman (16 Oct. 1595).
Barnardo and Fiammetta (30 Oct. 1595).
A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies (14 Nov. 1595).
Henry V (28 Nov. 1595).
Chinon of England (3 Jan. 1596).
Pythagoras (16 Jan. 1596).
2 The Seven Days of the Week (23 Jan. 1596).
The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (12 Feb. 1596).
Julian the Apostate (29 Apr. 1596).
1 Tamar Cham (7 May 1596).
Phocas (20 May 1596).
2 Tamar Cham (11 June 1596).
Troy (25 June 1596).
The Paradox (1 July 1596).
The Tinker of Totnes (23 July 1596).
Vortigern, Valteger, or Hengist (4 Dec. 1596).
Stukeley (10 Dec. 1596).
Nebuchadnezzar (18 Dec. 1596).
That Will Be Shall Be (30 Dec. 1596).
Jeronimo (7 Jan. 1597).
Alexander and Lodowick (14 Jan. 1597).[383]
Woman Hard to Please (27 Jan. 1597).
Guido (21 Mar. 1597).
Five Plays in One (7 Apr. 1597).
A French Comedy (18 Apr. 1597).
Uther Pendragon (29 Apr. 1597).
The Comedy of Humours (11 May 1597).

The Life and Death of Henry I (26 May 1597).
Frederick and Basilea (3 June 1597).
The Life and Death of Martin Swart (30 June 1597).

Oblivion has overtaken the great majority of these plays. Longshanks is
possibly Peele’s Edward I, and Jeronimo certainly Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy.
The title of The Wise Man of West Chester agrees with the subject of
Munday’s John a Kent and John a Cumber, the manuscript of which is
dated December 1595. One would be more willing to identify Henry V with
The Famous Victories, if the latter had not been printed in 1598 with the
name of the Queen’s men on its title-page. A Knack to Know an Honest
Man was printed, as acted ‘about the Citie of London’, but without any
company name, in 1596 (S. R. 26 November 1595). Stukeley was also
printed without a name, as The Famous History of the Life and Death of
Captain Thomas Stukeley, in 1605 (S. R. 11 August 1600). 1 Tamar Cham
and Frederick and Basilea are extant in ‘plots’ alone, and Belin Dun, or
Bellendon, as Henslowe writes it, was entered in the Stationers’ Register on
24 November 1595 as The true tragicall historie of Kinge Rufus the first
with the life and deathe of Belyn Dun the first thief that ever was hanged in
England, but is not known to be extant. The list also contains two of the
early works of George Chapman, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1598,
Admiral’s, S. R. 15 August 1598), and The Comedy of Humours, which can
be safely identified with A Humorous Day’s Mirth (1599, Admiral’s).
Ingenious attempts have been made to trace in some of the remaining titles
other plays by Chapman, or by Heywood, Dekker, and the like, or presumed
early drafts of these, or the English originals of plays or titles preserved in
German versions; but in most cases the material available is so scanty as to
render the game a hazardous one.[384] It appears, however, from Henslowe’s
notes of advances during 1596–7 that payment was made to Heywood for a
book, from which it may be inferred that his activity as a dramatist for the
company had already began. Payments to ‘marcum’ and ‘Mr. porter’
perhaps indicate the same of Gervase Markham and Henry Porter.[385]
It is evident that some of the plays marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe cannot have
been new in the fullest sense. This applies to Jeronimo, which had been
played by Strange’s men as an old play during 1592–3, and to 2 Tamar
Cham, which had been produced by the same company on 28 April 1592,
and on that occasion also marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe. It applies also to

Longshanks and Henry V, if these are really the same as Edward I and The
Famous Victories. And it may, of course, apply also in other cases, which
cannot now be distinguished. Two explanations are possible. One is that
plays were treated as new, for the purpose of Henslowe’s entries, which
were only new to the repertory of the particular company concerned, having
been purchased by them or by Henslowe from the stock of some other
company. There is, however, no indication that Henslowe received any
special financial advantage from the production of a new play, such as
would give point to such an arrangement. The other, and perhaps the most
plausible, is that an old play was marked ‘ne’ if it had undergone any
substantial process of revision before revival. But it must be admitted that
the problem set is one that we have hardly the means to solve.
In addition to their new and revised plays, the Admiral’s had a
considerable stock of old ones. Some of these they were playing, when they
began their first season in June 1594. Several others were revived in the
course of that season, and a few at later dates. The only new play of the
repertory which reached the stage of revival during the three years was
Belin Dun, which was originally produced on 10 June 1594, played to the
end of the year, then dropped, and afterwards revived for a single
performance on 11 July 1596, and for a series in the spring of 1597. But it is
not likely that many new plays were written during the plague years, and
probably most of the revived plays of 1594–5 were a good deal more than
two or three years old. A list of the plays not marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe,
nineteen in number, follows. It is, however, possible that some of them are
only plays in the list already given, masquerading under different names.

Cutlack.
The Ranger’s Comedy.
The Guise, or, The Massacre of Paris.
The Jew of Malta.
Mahomet.
1 Tamburlaine.
Dr. Faustus.
The Love of a Grecian Lady, or, The Grecian Comedy.[386]
The French Doctor.
Warlamchester.
2 Tamburlaine.

The Siege of London.
Antony and Valia.[387]
1 Long Meg of Westminster.[388]
The Welshman.[389]
1 Fortunatus.
Osric.
Time’s Triumph and Fortune’s.
The Witch of Islington.

Five plays of Marlowe’s are conspicuous in the list. Mahomet might be
either Greene’s Alphonsus, King of Arragon or Peele’s lost Turkish
Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek. Fortunatus, as revised by Dekker in
1599, is extant, but it is doubtful whether Dekker was writing early enough
to have been the author of the original play. Conjectural identifications of
some of the other titles have been attempted.[390] There is, perhaps, a
natural inclination to eke out our meagre knowledge of the repertory of the
earlier Admiral’s men, as it was constituted before 1590, by the assumption
that the old and the revised new plays of 1594–7 belong to that stock. But
this can only be proved to be so in the case of 1 and 2 Tamburlaine, where
the title-page of the 1590 edition comes to our assistance. There is no trace
between 1594 and 1597 of any of the other three plays, The Battle of
Alcazar, The Wounds of Civil War, and Orlando Furioso, which there is
independent evidence for connecting with the Admiral’s. And it must be
borne in mind that there were several other sources from which a supply of
old plays might be drawn. Alleyn seems to have bought up the books and
properties of the pre-1590 men, and we do not know how far he also
retained rights in some or all of the plays produced during his alliance with
Strange’s. Moreover, there were plenty of opportunities for either Alleyn,
Henslowe, or the Admiral’s men as a whole, to acquire copies from one or
more of the companies, Pembroke’s, the Queen’s, Sussex’s, which went
under in the plague years. Henry V, if identical with The Famous Victories,
had certainly been a Queen’s play; The Ranger’s Comedy had been played
for Henslowe by the Queen’s and Sussex’s in April 1594; Jeronimo and The
Guise had been similarly played by Strange’s in 1592–3; and the fact that
Strange’s, the Queen’s, Sussex’s, and the Admiral’s, all in turn played The
Jew of Malta leads to a strong suspicion that it was Henslowe’s property

and placed by him at the disposal of any company that might from time to
time be occupying his theatre.
The Rose was what is now known as a ‘repertory’ house. A very
successful play might be repeated on the night after its first production or
revival, or in the course of the same week. But as a rule one performance a
week was the limit, and after a play had been on the boards a few weeks,
the intervals between its appearances rapidly became greater. The Wise Man
of West Chester, which was presented thirty-two times between December
1594 and July 1597, had a longer life than any other new play during the
three years. Next came A Knack to Know an Honest Man, with twenty-one
performances in two years, 1 Seven Days of the Week, with twenty-one
performances in fifteen months, and The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, with
twenty-two performances in fourteen months. Belin Dun, although not
continuously upon the stage for long together, achieved with the aid of its
revival a total of twenty-four performances. The only other new plays, that
outlived a year, were 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne and A Toy to Please Chaste
Ladies. Even such highly successful plays as 1 and 2 Hercules ceased to be
heard of after six months. The usual run of a play was anything from six to
seventeen nights, but sixteen plays failed to obtain even such a run, and
several plays, which apparently did well enough on the first night, were not
repeated at all. As a rule the first night of a play brought Henslowe the
highest returns; but this was by no means invariably the case, and the
success of any play, which held the boards for as many as six nights, can
perhaps best be measured by its average returns. By far the most fortunate
was The Comedy of Humours which averaged 53s. for the eleven nights
available before the summer season of 1597 closed. Next came 1 and 2
Hercules with 42s. and 43s. respectively, 1 Seven Days of the Week with
35s., and The Wise Man of West Chester with 34s. On the other hand the
average of Henry I was no more than 19s. and that of the second French
Comedy no more than 16s. The highest individual returns were those from
the first nights of 1 and 2 Hercules, 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, and 1 Seven
Days of the Week, which yielded 73s., 70s., 71s., and 70s. respectively, and
that from the sixth night of the Comedy of Humours, which was also 70s.
The booking for this play shows a curious progress, being 43s., 55s., 58s.,
64s., 66s., 70s., for the first six nights. Similarly The Wise Man of West
Chester, which began with a bad first night of 33s., rose to a good average,
while 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, for all its start of 70s., ended with an average

of only 28s. The worst first night taking was the 22s. of Nebuchadnezzar,
and this affords another curious example of box-office fluctuations, for,
though it achieved no higher average than 22s., it rose on its third night to
68s. The worst takings, on other than first nights, were 3s. for Chinon of
England,[391] 4s. for Vortigern, and for Olympo, and 5s. twice over for A
Woman Hard to Please. Probably these were due to weather or other
accidents, as each play averaged enough to justify a reasonable run. The
success of the old plays followed much the same lines as that of the new
ones. They ran for anything from one night to twenty-four, this total being
reached by Dr. Faustus. The best average returns were the 32s. and 38s. of 1
and 2 Tamburlaine, the 30s. of Mahomet, the 29s. of 1 Long Meg of
Westminster, the 27s. of The Guise, and the 26s. of The Jew of Malta; the
best individual returns the 72s. and 71s. yielded by the respective first
nights of Dr. Faustus and 1 Tamburlaine. The persistent popularity of
Marlowe’s work comes out quite clearly from the statistics; and the success
of Chapman’s first attempts is also not to be overlooked.
The personnel of the Admiral’s men during 1594–7 can be determined
with some approach to certainty. They were Edward Alleyn, John Singer,
Richard Jones, Thomas Towne, Martin Slater, Edward Juby, Thomas
Downton, and James Donstone. Their names are found in a list written in
the diary, without any explanation of its object, amongst memoranda of
1594–6.[392] There can be little doubt that it represents the principal
members of the company, and in most cases corroborative evidence is
available. The books of the Treasurer of the Chamber indicate Alleyn,
Jones, and Singer as payees for the Court money of 1594–5, and Alleyn and
Slater for that of 1595–6. Alleyn, Slater, Donstone, and Juby are noted in
Henslowe’s subsidiary accounts for 1596 as responsible for advances made
by him on behalf of the company.[393] Another advance was made to
Stephen the tireman, and he is doubtless the Stephen Magett who also
appears in personal financial relations with Henslowe during 1596.[394]
Transactions by way of loan, sale, or pawn are also noted by Henslowe
during 1594–7 with Slater, Jones, Donstone, Singer, and Towne, and also
with Edward Dutton and Richard Alleyn.[395] These latter were probably not
sharers in the company, but can be traced with others amongst its
subordinate members by means of the ‘plot’ of Frederick and Basilea,
which it is reasonable to connect with the performances of the play in June

and July 1597, since it was a new play on 3 June, and it is recorded in the
diary that Martin Slater, who figures in the ‘plot’, left the company on 18
July. It is to be inferred from the plot that the principal parts in Frederick
and Basilea were taken by Mr. Alleyn, Mr. Thomas Towne, Mr. Martin
[Slater], Mr. Juby, Mr. Donstone, and R. Alleyn; that minor male parts were
taken by Edward Dutton, Thomas Hunt, Robert Ledbetter, Black Dick,
Pigge, Sam, Charles, and the ‘gatherers’ or money-takers and other
‘attendants’; and that female parts were taken by Edward Dutton’s boy Dick
and two other boys known as Will and Griffen. Apparently the play,
although not employing all the principal actors, made considerable demands
on the minor staff. Dr. Greg may be right in identifying Sam and Charles
with the Samuel Rowley and Charles Massey who became members of the
company at a later date.[396] It will be seen that the only name in
Henslowe’s undated list which cannot be verified as that of a member of the
company during 1594–7 is that of Thomas Downton; but it may safely be
accepted. Downton had accompanied Alleyn on the provincial tour with
Strange’s men in 1593. So had Pigge or Pyk. Jones and Donstone, who is
the same as Tunstall, had belonged to Worcester’s men in 1583, and
probably to the Admiral’s men before 1590; Jones had been abroad, as we
have seen, during the plague years. John Singer had been a member of the
Queen’s men in 1588. The other names now come into the story for the first
time. Henslowe’s advances for 1596 included sums ‘to feache Fletcher’ and
‘to feache Browne’.[397] It can only be matter of conjecture whether there is
evidence here of negotiations for the incorporation in the company of
Robert Browne and of Laurence Fletcher, at a later date a colleague of
Slater’s, and if so, whether they led to any fruitful result.
The departure of Martin Slater on 18 July 1597 was only one of several
changes which profoundly modified the composition of the company in the
course of that year.[398] In February Richard Jones and Thomas Downton
went to the Swan as Pembroke’s men, and the disturbance thereby caused
probably accounts for the three weeks’ cessation of playing during Lent.
The Swan enterprise was brought to a disastrous conclusion after five
months by the production of The Isle of Dogs, which not only brought
personal trouble on the chief offenders, but also led to a restraint of plays at
all the theatres. This event synchronizes with the first appearance in the
diary of Nashe’s collaborator in The Isle of Dogs, Ben Jonson. On 28 July

Henslowe lent him no less a sum than £4, and took Alleyn and Singer as
witnesses. On the same day he opened an account headed ‘℞ of
Bengemenes Johnsones share as ffoloweth’ with a first instalment of 3s. 9d.
[399]
On this very day of 28 July the Privy Council’s inhibition fell, and
Jonson went to prison and paid no more instalments. It is impossible to say
whether his ‘share’ was in the Admiral’s company or in Pembroke’s. In any
event, although he continued to write for the Admiral’s men after 1597,
there is no further sign that he was either a ‘sharer’, or indeed an actor in
any capacity.
One result of the restraint was that Jones and Downton not merely
returned to the Rose, but brought at least three other of Pembroke’s men,
Robert Shaw, Gabriel Spencer, and William Bird, known also by the alias
of Borne, with them. Henslowe was thus enabled, almost immediately after
playing stopped, to set about the reconstitution of his company, and the
memoranda of agreement which he noted in his diary during the next
fourteen months are so interesting for the light which they throw upon his
relations with the actors, that I think it well, before discussing them, to
transcribe them in full. There are in all eleven of them, as follows:[400]

i. (Thomas Hearne)
Memorandom that the 27 of Jeuley 1597 I heayred Thomas Hearne with ij pence
for to searve me ij yeares in the qualetie of playenge for fyve shellynges a weacke for
one yeare & vjs viijd for the other yeare which he hath covenanted hime seallfe to
searue me & not to departe frome my companey tyll this ij yeares be eanded wittnes
to this
John Synger.
Jeames Donston.
Thomas Towne.

ii. (John Helle)

Lent John Helle the clowne the 3 of Aguste 1597 in redy money the some of xs. At
that tyme I bownd hime by ane a sumsett of ijd to contenew with me at my howsse in
playinge tylle Srafte tid next after the date a boue written yf not to forfytte vnto me
fortipowndes wittneses to the same
E Alleyn
John Synger
Jeames Donstall.
Edward Jubey

Samewell Rowley.

iii. (Richard Jones)
Memorandom that the 6 of Aguste 1597 I bownd Richard Jones by & a sumsett of
ijd to contenew & playe with the companye of my lord Admeralles players frome
Mihelmase next after the daye a bowe written vntell the eand & tearme of iij yeares
emediatly followinge & to playe in my howsse only known by the name of the Rosse
& in no other howse a bowt London publicke & yf restraynte be granted then to go for
the tyme into the contrey & after to retorne agayne to London yf he breacke this a
sumsett then to forfett vnto me for the same a hundreth markes of lafull money of
Ingland wittnes to this E Alleyn & John Midelton.

iv. (Robert Shaw)

More over Richard Jones at that tyme [6 Aug. 1597] hath tacken one other ijd of
me vpon & asumset to forfet vnto me one hundrethe markes yf one Robart Shaee do
not playe with my lordes Admeralles men as he hath covenanted be fore in euery
thinge & time to the oter moste wittnes E Alleyn John Midellton.

v. (William Borne)
Memorandom that the 10 of Aguste 1597 William Borne came & ofered hime
sealfe to come and playe with my lord Admeralles mean at my howsse called by the
name of the Rosse setewate one the back after this order folowinge he hath receued of
me iijd vpon & a sumsette to forfette vnto me a hundrethe marckes of lafull money of
Ingland yf he do not performe thes thinges folowinge that is presentley after libertie
being granted for playinge to come & to playe with my lordes Admeralles men at my
howsse aforsayd & not in any other howsse publicke a bowt London for the space of
iij yeares beginynge imediatly after this restraynt is recaled by the lordes of the
cownsell which restraynt is by the meanes of playinge the Jeylle of Dooges yf he do
not then he forfettes this asumset afore or ells not wittnes to this E Alleyn & Robsone.

vi. (Thomas Downton)
Memorandom that the 6 of October 1597 Thomas Dowton came & bownd him
seallfe vnto me in xxxxll in & a somesett by the receuing of iijd of me before wittnes
the covenant is this that he shold frome the daye a bove written vntell Sraftid next
come ij yeares to playe in my howsse & in no other a bowte London publickely yf he
do with owt my consent to forfet vnto me this some of money a bove written wittnes
to this
E Alleyn
Wm Borne
Dicke Jonnes
Robarte Shawe
John Synger

vii. (William Kendall)

Memorandum that this 8th of December 1597 my father Philyp Hinshlow hierd as
a covenauant servant Willyam Kendall for ij years after the statute of Winchester with
ij single penc a to geue hym for his sayd servis everi week of his playng in London xs
& in the cuntrie vs for the which he covenaunteth for the space of those ij years to be
redye att all tymes to play in the howse of the sayd Philyp & in no other during the
said terme.
Wittnes my self the writer of this E Alleyn.

viii. (James Bristow)
Bought my boye Jeames Brystow of William Agusten player the 18 of Desember
1597 for viijli.

ix. (Richard Alleyn)
Memorandom that this 25 of Marche 1598 Richard Alleyne came & bownde hime
seallfe vnto me for ij yeares in & asumsette as a hiered servante with ij syngell pence
& to contenew frome the daye aboue written vnto the eand & tearme of ij yeares yf he
do not performe this covenant then he to forfette for the breache of yt fortye powndes
& wittnes to this

Wm Borne.
Thomas Dowton.
Gabrell Spencer.
Robart Shawe.
Richard Jonnes.

x. (Thomas Heywood)
Memorandom that this 25 of Marche 1598 Thomas Hawoode came and hiered
hime seallfe with me as a covenante searvante for ij yeares by the receuenge of ij
syngell pence acordinge to the statute of Winshester & to begine at the daye a boue
written & not to playe any wher publicke a bowt London not whille these ij yeares be
expired but in my howsse yf he do then he doth forfett vnto me by the receuinge of
these ijd fortie powndes & wittnes to this
Antony Monday
Gabrell Spencer
Robart Shawe
Richard Alleyn.
Wm Borne
Thomas Dowton
Richard Jonnes.

xi. (Charles Massey and Samuel Rowley)

Memorandom that this 16 of November 1598 I hired as my covenant servantes
Charles Massey & Samewell Rowley for a yeare & as mvche as to Sraftide begenynge
at the daye a bove written after the statute of Winchester with ij syngell pence & for
them they haue covenanted with me to playe in my howes & in no other howsse
dewringe the thime publeck but in mine yf they dooe with owt my consent yf they
dooe to forfett vnto me xxxxli a pece wittnes
Thomas Dowton
Robart Shawe
Wm Borne
Jubey
Richard Jonnes.

Evidently the position of James Bristow is distinct from that of the other
players. He was a ‘boy’ or apprentice, whose indentures had been
transferred to Henslowe for a consideration by his former master. In the rest
of the cases, the essence of the agreement appears to be the undertaking by
the player under bond to play only with the Admiral’s men at Henslowe’s
house. It is interesting to notice that in the agreement with Hearne
Henslowe calls the company ‘my company’; and the fact that its members
were constituted Henslowe’s covenant servants seems to argue a closer
personal relation between the organization and its financier, than might on
other grounds have been inferred. Dr. Greg, indeed, draws a distinction
between the agreements with Jones, Shaw, Borne, and Downton, whom he
regards as merely ‘binding themselves to play at Henslowe’s house like
other sharers’, and those with the rest, whom he regards as ‘placing
themselves in the position of covenant servants to him, which would seem
to imply that they were merely hired men’.[401] But I do not think that there
is any justification for this theory in the terms of the documents, and it
immediately gets Dr. Greg into difficulties about Massey and Rowley, who,
as we shall see, were in fact on the footing of full members of the company
even before the date of their agreement. I do not mean that I deny the
distinction between sharers and hired men, which is of course important,
but that I do not think that it is relevant to the contractual relations set up by
the agreements. I am not quite clear whether Henslowe’s memoranda,
which are written throughout, including the names of the witnesses, in his
own hand or Alleyn’s, constitute the formal instruments under which the
agreements were effected, or are merely notes for his own information. But
in either event their terminology is loose. They are not always expressed as
being agreements of hiring, or for service, even in the cases of those men
whom Dr. Greg does not suppose to have been sharers, and they are not

careful to specify the considerations, other than the formal 2d. or 3d., which
the actors were to receive. Wages are, in fact, provided for only in the
agreements with Hearne and Kendall, and it is quite possible that, if we had
the full terms before us, we should find that, while some of the others were
also to receive wages, some were to find their recompense in a share of
such profits as the company might make. It is probable that, even where
Henslowe undertook to pay wages, the general agreement between him and
the company provided for the shifting of that liability to them. They
certainly had to pay him, at the rate of 3s. a week, for the services of his
boy Bristow.[402] To a slightly later date belongs an agreement with an
unnamed actor, in which the hirer is not Henslowe but Thomas Downton,
and this I add in order to complete the series.[403]

xii.
Thomas Downton the 25 of Janewary 1599 ded hire as his couenante servante
—— for ij yers to begyne at Shrofe Tewesday next & he to geue hime viijs a wecke as
longe as they playe & after they lye stylle one fortnyght then to geue hime hallfe
wages wittnes P H & Edward Browne & Charlles Masey.

The appearance of Jones as guarantee for Shaw is due to the fact that, as
a result of The Isle of Dogs, the latter was languishing with Gabriel Spencer
and Ben Jonson in the Marshalsea. Meanwhile some at least of the company
travelled. Henslowe lent Alleyn 40s. for John Singer and Thomas Towne
‘when they went into the contrey’ and noted that this was ‘at ther last
cominge’. There is another entry of a small loan to Singer on 9 August, so
they cannot have started before that; and they must have been back by 6
October, when Singer witnessed the agreement with Thomas Downton.
Possibly Edward Dutton and Richard Alleyn, who also borrowed money
from Henslowe, went with them.[404] The Privy Council warrants for the
release of the prisoners in the Marshalsea were signed on 3 October,[405]
and a few days later Henslowe, more successful than Langley of the Swan
in getting the licence for his house renewed, even before the formal
expiration of the restraint on 1 November, was in a position to resume his
play list with the heading, ‘The xj of Octobe begane my lord Admerals &
my lorde of Penbrockes men to play at my howsse 1597’.[406] The entries of
plays are few and irregular up to 5 November, and then stop. A note is
appended that on 26 November the Master of the Revels was paid for four
weeks. The performances included one new play, Friar Spendleton, and

five old ones, Jeronimo, The Comedy of Humours, Dr. Faustus,
Hardicanute, and Bourbon, of which the last two do not belong to the
1594–7 repertory, and may have been contributed by Pembroke’s men. The
diary also contains an account of weekly receipts running from 21 October
1597 to 4 March 1598, under the heading, ‘A juste a cownte of all suche
monye as I haue receyed of my lord Admeralles & my lord of Penbrocke
men as foloweth be gynynge the 21 of October 1597’, and some notes of
individual advances and repayments, mainly through Robert Shaw and
Thomas Downton, on behalf of the company, from 23 October to 12
December.[407] In the course of these the company is again described on 23
October and 5 November as ‘the company of my lord Admeralles men &
my lord Penbrockes’, but on 1 December as ‘the companey of my lord
Admeralles men’; and the substance of the whole of these advances is set
out again, without any reference to Pembroke’s men, at the beginning of a
continuous account from 21 October onwards, which is headed, ‘A juste a
cownt of all suche money as I haue layd owt for my lord Admeralles
players begynyng the xj of October whose names ar as foloweth Borne
Gabrell Shaw Jonnes Dowten Jube Towne Synger & the ij Geffes’.[408]
Nothing very certain is known of the previous career of Humphrey and
Anthony Jeffes, but if the former is the ‘Humfrey’ who appears with
‘Gabriel’ [Spencer] in the stage-directions to 3 Henry VI it is most likely
that these men also came from Pembroke’s.[409]
The responsible members of the Admiral’s company at the beginning of
the third period of their existence were, then, so far as their relations to
Henslowe were concerned, Thomas Downton, Richard Jones, Edward Juby,
Thomas Towne, John Singer, Robert Shaw, William Borne, who seems to
have had the regular alias of William Bird, Gabriel Spencer, Humphrey
Jeffes, and Anthony Jeffes. To these must probably be added a number of
hired men, including Thomas Hearne, John Helle, William Kendall, Richard
Alleyn, Thomas Heywood, and probably Charles Massey, Samuel Rowley,
Thomas Hunt, and Stephen Maget the tireman, and of apprentices,
including James Bristow and Pigge. Of the sharers Downton, Jones, Juby,
Towne, and Singer had alone belonged to the earlier Admiral’s men.
Slater’s departure involved the company in a lawsuit, the nature of which is
not stated in the diary. Professor Wallace, however, has found an
independent record of a Queen’s Bench action by Thomas Downton to

recover £13 6s. 8d., the value of a playbook which Downton had lost in the
parish of St. Mary le Bow on 1 December 1597, and Slater had ‘found’,
refused to surrender, and was alleged to have disposed of for his own profit.
Damages of £10 10s. were awarded on 3 November 1598.[410] Donstone
also seems to have dropped out or may have been dead; he witnessed
Helle’s agreement on 3 August 1597, and thereafter no more is heard of
him. But incomparably the greatest loss was that of Edward Alleyn, who
now retired from the stage and did not return to it for a period of three
years.[411] From 29 December 1597 to 8 November 1598 Henslowe made
notes of playing goods bought ‘sence my sonne Edward Allen leafte
[p]laynge’, and it would appear that the company acknowledged a debt of
£50 in respect of his interest on retirement.[412] In place of Alleyn, it would
seem that the lead was taken by Robert Shaw and Thomas Downton,
perhaps as representing the two elements of which the company was made
up. These two were joint payees for the Court money of both 1597–8 and
1598–9. For 1599–1600 Shaw was sole payee. It was, moreover, most
often, although by no means always, to one or other of these men that
Henslowe’s advances on behalf of the company were made. It must be
added that some of the new-comers appear to have sought private assistance
from Henslowe in order to enable them to take up their shares. On 14
January 1598, he opened an account of sums received ‘of Humfreye Jeaffes
hallfe share’, entered seven instalments up to 4 March, amounting to a total
of 60s. 6d., and then noted, ‘This some was payd backe agayne vnto the
companey of my lord Admeralles players the 8 of Marche 1598, & they
shared yt amonste them’. There is a later account, running from 29 April to
21 July 1598, and amounting by small instalments to 35s., of ‘all such
money as I dooe receue for Umfrey Jeaffes and Antoney Jeaffes ... of the
companey’.[413] Possibly the brothers only held a single share between
them. A similar transaction took place with Gabriel Spencer. On 20 April
1598 this actor gave an acknowledgement for £4 and between 6 April and
24 June Henslowe carried to an account headed ‘℞ of Gabrell Spencer at
severall tymes of his share in the gallereyes’ a total of 25s. 6d., of which 5s.
6d. was paid over to Downton.[414] In addition, personal loans were
negotiated from time to time by various members of the company, and the
reasons given for these indicate that in the course of 1598, besides the
dispute of the ex-Pembroke’s men with Langley, Bird and perhaps the

company as a whole were engaged in litigation with Thomas Pope,
presumably the actor in the Chamberlain’s company.[415]
There does not seem to have been much further change in the
composition of the Admiral’s men during 1597–1600. An acknowledgement
of the state of their account with Henslowe between 8 and 13 March 1598
bears the signatures of ‘J. Singer, Thomas Downton, William Birde, Robt
Shaa, Richard Jones, Gabriell Spenser, Thomas Towne, Humfry Jeffes,
Charles Massye, and Samuell Rowlye’.[416] The last two had evidently
become sharers in the course of the year. Juby and Anthony Jeffes do not
sign, but this is probably due to an accident, as they were certainly sharers
both in 1597 and in 1600.[417] Gabriel Spencer was killed by Ben Jonson
(cf. ch. xxiii) on 22 September 1598. On 26 September Henslowe wrote to
Alleyn at the Brill in Sussex, ‘Now to leat you vnderstand newes I will teall
you some but yt is for me harde & heavey. Sence you weare with me I haue
loste one of my company which hurteth me greatley; that is Gabrell, for he
is slayen in Hogesden fylldes by the handes of Bengemen Jonson
bricklayer’.[418] No doubt Henslowe wrote from the heart. Probably
Spencer’s share was not yet paid for, and in addition small personal loans to
the amount of 66s. stand undischarged against him in the diary, of which the
last was on 19 May ‘to bye a plume of feathers which his mane Bradshawe
feched of me’. Richard Bradshaw was an actor and may have played as a
hired man with the company. A fragmentary ‘plot’ of Troilus and Cressida,
probably to be dated in April 1599, yields the names of ‘Mr. Jones’ and his
‘boy’, Thomas Hunt, Stephen, Proctor, and Pigge. Mr. Jones’s boy is shown
by a note of 17 November 1599 in the diary to have been called James.[419]
Of Proctor no more is known. Stephen is probably Stephen Magett, the
tireman, and Pigge was with Alleyn on the tour of Strange’s men in 1593.
He is also mentioned, with Dobe, Whittcombe, and Anderson, who may
have been actors, in some inventories of properties belonging to Alleyn or
to the company in March 1598.[420] Thomas Downton also had in June 1600
a ‘boye’ who played in Cupid and Psyche.[421] Another acknowledgement
of account, dated on 10 July 1600, only differs from the former one by the
omission of Spencer’s name and the inclusion of those of Juby and Anthony
Jeffes.[422] The alleged manuscript notes to a copy of Dekker’s Shoemaker’s
Holiday (q.v.), produced in January 1600, which are discredited by Dr.
Greg, give the cast as composed of ‘Jones, H. Jeffes, Rowley, Shawe,

Massy, Dowton, Singer, Jewby, Towne, A. Jeffes, Birde, Wilson, Flower,
Price, Day, Dowton’s boy Ned and Alleine’; the last for a female part.
Certainly nothing is known of Day or Wilson as actors for the Admiral’s, or
of Price at any such early date, or of Flower at all. But if the document is a
forgery, it is a very pointless, and at the same time a very cautious one. And
how did the forger, unless he were Collier or Cunningham, know that Day
was an actor at all?
The records kept by Henslowe for the period 1597–1600 differ
considerably in character from those for 1594–7. The diurnal list of plays
performed and of rent-takings disappears altogether. On the other hand, the
records of advances made, for the books and licensing of plays, for
costumes and properties, and for certain miscellaneous items of
expenditure, become full and systematic. A per contra account is also kept
of weekly sums received by Henslowe in repayment of such advances, and
from time to time a balance is struck, and the hands of the company taken
to a settlement or acknowledgement of debt. Henslowe’s book-keeping,
however, if not exactly faulty, is not always sufficiently lucid to make the
whole of the financial transactions perfectly clear. In the absence of the
daily entries of performances, the weekly records of repayments make it
possible to determine roughly the periods covered by the theatrical seasons.
[423]
The company played for twenty continuous weeks from 11 October
1597 to about 4 March 1598, apparently with some irregularity at the
beginning and again about Christmas time. Their Court plays were on 27
December and 28 February. In Lent they had a three weeks’ interval, during
the course of which they met to read a book in New Fish Street, and ‘played
in Fleatstreet pryuat’.[424] Playing was resumed about 25 March and lasted
for some fifteen weeks, until about 8 July, making thirty-five weeks in all
for the year 1597–8. The company only took two weeks’ vacation in the
summer and are not likely to have travelled, although on 27 September,
after the new season had begun, Borne is found riding to the Lord Admiral
at Croydon at the time of the Queen’s visit there.[425] They played for thirty-
one weeks from about 22 July to 24 February 1599, with performances at
Court on 27 December, 6 January and 18 February, and stopped for three
weeks in Lent. The summer season lasted for eleven weeks from about 19
March to 3 June, making forty-four weeks playing for 1598–9. On Easter
Eve Towne and Richard Alleyn went to Court for some unspecified

purpose. About the same time Anthony Jeffes was making purchases against
St. George’s Day.[426] The interval of this summer was seventeen weeks, but
I have no evidence of any travelling. The next season was one of nineteen
weeks from about 29 September 1599 to 10 February 1600, with Court
performances on 27 December and 1 January, and was followed by a
Lenten interval of about four weeks. At the beginning of February they
bought a drum and trumpets ‘when to go into the contry’.[427] Whether
these were for use during the short break in Lent or not until the following
summer must remain uncertain; at any rate the purchase confirms the view
that there had been no provincial tour since 1596.[428] Finally they played
for nineteen weeks from about 2 March to 13 July, thus completing thirty-
six weeks for 1599–1600. Apparently the summer season was diversified by
a visit to Windsor for the Garter installation of Henri IV of France on 27
April.[429] In all they seem to have played for about 115 weeks or something
under 690 days in 1597–1600, as compared with 728 days in 1594–7.
The entries of sums paid for plays usually give the names of the authors
as well as those of the plays, and therefore furnish a good deal of material
for reconstituting the literary side of the company’s activity. Henslowe’s
terminology is neither precise nor uniform, but it is clear that, while the
payments were always entered as loans to the company, they were often
made direct by him to the playwrights, on the ‘appointment’ of one or more
of its members. Sometimes they are expressed as being ‘to bye a boocke of’
a play; that is to say, for the purchase outright of an old or even a new
manuscript. But a new play was generally commissioned, upon the strength
of a sample or of an outline of the plot, and in such cases payment was
made by instalments, of which the earlier ones were ‘lent upon’ or ‘in
earneste of’ or ‘in parte paymente of’, and the last ‘in full paymente of’ the
book. Portions of the manuscript were handed over as security for the
earlier payments. Production was very rapid, and a play put together in two
or three weeks often represented the collaboration of as many as four or
even five or six authors. The procedure, which prevailed during the whole
of the period covered by the diary, is illustrated by a small group of letters
preserved amongst the miscellaneous papers found at Dulwich. Thus on 8
November 1599 Shaw writes with regard to 2 Henry Richmond, ‘Mr.
Henshlowe, we haue heard their booke and lyke yt. Their pryce is eight
poundes, which I pray pay now to Mr. Wilson, according to our promysse’;

and accordingly Henslowe includes in his account, by an entry written and
signed by Wilson, a sum of £8 ‘by a note vnder the hand of Mr. Rob:
Shaw’.[430] On 14 June 1600 Shaw writes again, ‘I pray you, Mr.
Henshlowe, deliuer vnto the bringer hereof the some of fyue & fifty
shillinges to make the 3ll fyue shillinges which they receaued before full six
poundes in full payment of their booke called the fayre Constance of
Roome, whereof I pray you reserue for me Mr. Willsons whole share which
is xjs. which I to supply his neede deliuered him yesternight.’ The diary
duly records the payment to Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Dekker ‘at the
a poyntment of Roberte Shawe’ of 44s.[431] Similarly Samuel Rowley writes
on 4 April 1601, ‘Mr. Hinchloe, I haue harde fyue shetes of a playe of the
Conqueste of the Indes & I dow not doute but it wyll be a verye good playe;
tharefore I praye ye delyuer them fortye shyllynges in earneste of it & take
the papers into your one hands & on Easter eue thaye promyse to make an
ende of all the reste’. The earnest and several supplementary earnests were
paid to Day, Haughton, and Smith, but the completion of the play lagged
until the following September.[432] An undated letter of Rowley’s relates to
the withdrawal of a play, ‘Mr. Hynchlo, I praye ye let Mr. Hathwaye haue
his papars agayne of the playe of John a Gante & for the repayement of the
monye back agayne he is contente to gyue ye a byll of his hande to be
payde at some cartayne tyme as in your dyscressyon yow shall thinke good;
which done ye may crose it oute of your boouke & keepe the byll; or else
wele stande so much indetted to you & kepe the byll our selues’. Henslowe
appears to have thought it safer to adopt the second alternative, as
incomplete payments to the amount of £1 19s. 0d. for The Conquest of
Spain by John of Gaunt still stand in his ‘boouke’.[433] Other letters of the
same kind concern Six Yeomen of the West, and Too Good to be True.[434]
The normal price for a new play during 1597–1601 seems to have been £6,
but sometimes it fell to £5 or possibly even £4, and sometimes the
playwrights succeeded in squeezing out a few shillings more. One or two of
them, notably Chapman, were able to secure a higher rate from the
beginning; and about 1599 a general tendency towards a higher scale of
prices becomes discernible. The ‘book’ of an old play could generally be
purchased for about £2.
In attempting to estimate the actual ‘output’ of the company, one is faced
by the difficulty that some of the plays commissioned are not shown by the

diary to have reached the stage of payment in full, and that it must,
therefore, remain doubtful whether they were ever completed. It is possible
that, as Dr. Greg thinks,[435] some of the payments were made direct by the
company, instead of through Henslowe. But the correspondence just quoted
rather suggests that any such arrangement would be exceptional; and it
would not be inconsistent with human nature, if the extremely out-at-
elbows men of letters who hung about the Rose occasionally found it
profitable to take their ‘earnest’ for a play, and then to find plausible reasons
for indefinitely delaying its completion. Probably in the long run they had
to account for the advance, but the example of The Conquest of Spain
shows that such a repayment would not necessarily find its way into
Henslowe’s account. This view is borne out by an examination of the affairs
of one of the most impecunious of them all, Henry Chettle, during 1598–9.
During the first six months of the year, he had a hand in half a dozen plays,
all of which were completed and paid for in full. But on one of these, 1
Black Bateman of the North, Henslowe appears, perhaps by an oversight, to
have paid him £1 too much. At the beginning of May £1 was lent to Chettle
upon this play, and the loan does not appear to have been considered when,
on 22 May, a further sum of £6 was laid out upon ‘a boocke called Blacke
Battmane of the North ... which coste sixe powndes’. On 24 June Chettle
borrowed 10s., not apparently on any particular play, and Henslowe seems
then to have recalled the overpayment, and noted against Chettle’s name in
the diary, ‘All his parte of boockes to this place are payde which weare dew
unto hime & he reastes be syddes in my deatte the some of xxxs.’ Chettle
collaborated in several other plays, which got completed during the year,
but no deduction seems to have been made from his share of the fees in
respect of this debt. In addition he had £5 upon A Woman’s Tragedy, upon
condition ‘eather to deliver the playe or els to paye the mony with in one
forthnyght’; he had 5s. in earnest upon Catiline’s Conspiracy; and he had £1
14s. 0d. in earnest upon Brute, probably a continuation of an older 1 Brute
bought by the company. When the last payment on Brute was made on 16
September Henslowe noted, ‘Hary Cheattell vntell this place owes vs viijli
ixs dew al his boockes & recknynges payd’. This amount is precisely made
up of the 30s. due on 24 June and the sums paid on account of these three
plays. By 22 October Chettle had completed 2 Brute and managed
somehow to get £6 for it in full. On the same day he gave Henslowe an
acknowledgement of a debt, not of £8 9s. 0d., but of £9 9s. 0d. In

November he got an earnest of £1 for Tis no Deceit to Deceive the
Deceiver, and £1 for ‘mending’ Robin Hood, and in January 1599 30s. ‘to
paye his charges in the Marshallsey’. Small loans of a shilling or two are
also noted in the margin of the book, and appear to be quite distinct from
the company’s account with him, and to indicate private generosities of
Henslowe. In February 1599 Chettle had finished Polyphemus, and it is
recorded that in full payment of £6 he got £2 10s. down, ‘& strocken of his
deatte which he owes vnto the companey fyftye shelenges more’. A separate
entry in the diary indicates that he paid off yet another 10s. out of his fee for
The Spencers in March.[436] Material is not available for the further tracing
of this particular chain of transactions, but the inference that credit obtained
for an unfinished play had sometimes to be redeemed out of the profits of a
finished one is irresistible. Chettle, at least, does not seem to have been
hardly treated, but obviously the unbusinesslike methods of the playwrights
kept down the price of plays, and a familiar device of the modern Barabbas
was anticipated when Henry Porter was obliged, on the receipt of an
earnest, to give Henslowe ‘his faythfulle promysse that I shold haue alle the
boockes which he writte ether him sellfe or with any other’.[437] Whatever
Henslowe’s precise financial relations with the company may have been, by
the way, he seems to have been in a position to pose as paymaster, so far as
the poets were concerned.
On the whole, I think it must be concluded that, if the diary fails to
record payments to the amount of at least £5 for a new play, there is prima
facie evidence that that play never got itself finished. Occasionally, of
course, apparently incomplete payments may be explained by the fact that
the same play is entered under more than one name. Occasionally, also, a
particular play may have been tacitly debited with payments not specifically
expressed in the diary to have been made in respect of that play. Thus a sum
of £2 paid on 4 February 1598 ‘to dise charge Mr. Dicker owt of the
cownter in the Powltrey’ was probably treated as an instalment of the price
of Phaethon on which Dekker was then working, and for which otherwise
only £4 is entered. Another sum of £3 10s. paid on 30 January 1599 ‘to
descarge Thomas Dickers frome the a reaste of my lord Chamberlens men’
seems similarly to have gone towards The First Introduction of the Civil
Wars of France. And Haughton probably got 10s. less than he would
otherwise have done for Ferrex and Porrex, because he had required a loan

of that amount on 10 March 1600, ‘to releace him owt of the Clyncke’.[438]
The record, again, for a few plays is most likely rendered imperfect by the
loss of a leaf or two from the manuscript, which once contained entries for
the end of April and beginning of May 1599.[439] When these factors have
been taken into consideration, the resultant total of possibly unfinished
plays is not a very large one, amounting for 1597–1600 on my calculation
to not more than twenty as against fifty-six new plays duly completed and
paid for in full. Of these twenty it is very likely that some were in fact
finished, either for other companies, or for the Admiral’s men themselves,
later than the period covered by the diary. It is, however, consonant with the
literary temperament to suppose that some at least remained within the
category of unrealized projects. The most puzzling problem is that of
Haughton’s A Woman will have her Will. For this it is impossible to trace
payments beyond £2 10s., and these are not stated to be in full. Yet the play
is not only now extant but was certainly extant in 1598. In this case I see no
alternative to Dr. Greg’s theory of direct payments by the company.
Henslowe’s notes of advances to authors are not the sole material which
is available for drawing up an account of the repertory of the Admiral’s
men. There are also entries of the purchase of costumes and properties for
certain plays, and of fees for the licensing of plays by the Master of the
Revels. And there is a valuable series of inventories, formerly preserved at
Dulwich, and dating from 1598, which record respectively the stock of
apparel and properties in the hands of the Admiral’s men during the second
week of March, their play-books at the same date, and the additions made
out of Henslowe’s purchases up to about the following August.[440] The
theory that some of the plays recorded in the diary were never finished
receives confirmation from the absence of any corroborative proof of their
existence in these subsidiary entries and documents, whereas such evidence
exists in the case of a very large proportion of the plays for which the diary
records payment in full. It must not, however, be assumed, either that every
play completed necessarily got produced, although it is not likely that many
were withheld, or that a play was necessarily not produced, because no
special apparel or properties were bought for it, since it may have been
quite possible to mount some plays out of the company’s existing stock.
The number of fees paid for licensing is so small in proportion to the

number of plays certainly produced, that these fees cannot all be supposed
to have passed through Henslowe’s hands.
Subject to the difficulties discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, I think
that the following is a fairly accurate account of the repertory of the
company for the three years now in question.[441] During 1597–8 they
purchased seventeen new plays. These, with the names of their authors,
were:

Mother Redcap (Drayton and Munday).
Phaethon (Dekker).
1 Robin Hood (Munday).
2 Robin Hood (Chettle and Munday).
The Triangle of Cuckolds (Dekker).[442]
The Welshman’s Prize, or, The Famous Wars of Henry I and the Prince
of Wales (Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton).[443]
1 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons (Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and
Wilson).
2 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons (Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and
Wilson).
King Arthur (Hathway).
Love Prevented (Porter).[444]
A Woman will have her Will (Haughton).
1 Black Bateman of the North (Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).
2 Black Bateman of the North (Chettle and Wilson).
The Madman’s Morris (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).
The Funeral of Richard Cœur de Lion (Chettle, Drayton, Munday, and
Wilson).
Hannibal and Hermes (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).[445]
Valentine and Orson (Hathway and Munday).

There is evidence of the actual performance of Mother Redcap,
Phaethon (January), 1 and 2 Robin Hood (March), 1 Earl Godwin (April),
King Arthur (May), 2 Earl Godwin (June), 1 Black Bateman (June).
Properties were bought for The Madman’s Morris in July, and the next
season probably opened with it. To the new plays must be added Friar
Spendleton, produced as ‘ne’ on 31 October, and Dido and Aeneas. A loan

of 30s. on 8 January ‘when they fyrst played Dido at nyght’ suggests a
supper, not a night performance. Either play may have been purchased at
the end of 1596–7, or may have come from Pembroke’s stock. The same
applies to Branholt and Alice Pierce, which were probably new when
properties were purchased for them in November and December. The
company also bought on 12 December two jigs from two young men, for
which they paid 6s. 8d. Hardly any of the 1597–8 new plays are extant. The
two parts of Robin Hood are The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon,
and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, printed without Munday’s
name as Admiral’s plays in 1601. Haughton’s A Woman will have her Will
was entered on the Stationers’ Register on 3 August 1601, and printed with
the alternative title of Englishmen for my Money in 1616. Phaethon
probably underlies Dekker and Ford’s The Sun’s Darling, and it is a
plausible conjecture of Mr. Fleay’s that Love Prevented may be 1 The Two
Angry Women of Abingdon, printed as an Admiral’s play in 1599, and not to
be traced elsewhere in the diary. The payments for four plays during the
year, besides the puzzling A Woman will have her Will, were incomplete. I
take it that the £2 paid to Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson for Pierce
of Exton was transferred to the account for 2 Earl Godwin, which otherwise
lacks just that amount of the full £6; that Chettle failed to deliver A
Woman’s Tragedy; that Chapman’s Isle of a Woman was held over until
1598–9; and that a projected tragedy of Ben Jonson’s was similarly held
over, and then indefinitely postponed owing to the tragedy in real life of
Spencer’s death. There are two entries with regard to this. On 3 December
1597, Henslowe lent Jonson 20s. ‘vpon a boocke which he showed the
plotte vnto the company which he promysed to deliver vnto the company at
Cryssmas next’. On 23 October 1598, a month after the duel, not Jonson,
but Chapman, received £3 ‘one his playe boocke & ij ectes of a tragedie of
Bengemenes plotte’. I think that Chapman’s own play was The Four Kings
and that he finished it in 1599; but I see no sign that he ever did anything
with ‘Bengemenes plotte’.
Of older plays the Admiral’s revived at the beginning of the year
Chapman’s success of the previous spring, The Comedy of Humours; also
the perennial Dr. Faustus, and two pieces which, as they formed no part of
the 1594–7 repertory, may have been brought in by Pembroke’s men,
Hardicanute and Bourbon. They bought for £8 from Martin Slater 1 and 2
Hercules, Phocas, Pythagoras, and Alexander and Lodowick, all of which

had been produced between May 1595 and January 1597, and had evidently
been retained by Slater when he left the company. These books presumably
do not include that which became the subject of the lawsuit between Slater
and the Admiral’s men, and as they had afterwards to buy back some of
their old books in a precisely similar way from Alleyn, it is probable that a
retiring member of the company had a right to claim a partition of the
repertory. They also bought The Cobler of Queenhithe,[446] and from Robert
Lee, formerly of the Admiral’s men and afterwards of Queen Anne’s, The
Miller. But of these seven purchased plays, the only one that they can be
proved to have revived is one of the Hercules plays, for which they bought
properties in July. The book-inventory shows that they had plays called
Black Joan and Sturgflattery,[447] also possibly from Pembroke’s stock; and
the property-inventories that they had properties and clothes, if not in all
cases books,[448] for The Battle of Alcazar[449] and for a number of pieces
staged during 1594–7, including Mahomet,[450] Tamburlaine,[451] The Jew
of Malta,[452] 1 Fortunatus,[453] The Siege of London,[454] Belin Dun,[455]
Tasso’s Melancholy,[456] 1 Caesar and Pompey,[457] The Wise Man of West
Chester,[458] The Set at Maw,[459] Olympo,[460] Henry V,[461] Longshanks,
[462]
Troy,[463] Vortigern,[464] Guido,[465] Uther Pendragon.[466] To these
must be added Pontius Pilate,[467] revived in 1601 and perhaps from the
Pembroke’s stock, and others now unidentifiable.[468] As the company
revived The Blind Beggar of Alexandria in 1601 they probably had this
also.[469]
The new plays purchased in 1598–9 were twenty-one in number:

Pierce of Winchester (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).
Hot Anger Soon Cold (Chettle, Jonson, and Porter).
Chance Medley (Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson).
[470]

Worse Afeared than Hurt (Dekker and Drayton).[471]
1 Civil Wars of France (Dekker and Drayton).
The Fount of New Fashions (Chapman).[472]
2 The Conquest of Brute, or, Brute Greenshield (Chettle).[473]
Connan, Prince of Cornwall (Dekker and Drayton).
2 Civil Wars of France (Dekker and Drayton).

3 Civil Wars of France (Dekker and Drayton).
The Four Kings (Chapman).[474]
War without Blows and Love without Suit (Heywood).[475]
First Introduction of the Civil Wars of France (Dekker).
2 Two Angry Women of Abingdon (Porter).
Joan as Good as my Lady (Heywood)
Friar Fox and Gillian of Brentford (Anon.).
The Spencers (Chettle and Porter).
Troy’s Revenge and the Tragedy of Polyphemus (Chettle).
Troilus and Cressida (Chettle and Dekker).
Agamemnon, or, Orestes Furious (Chettle and Dekker).[476]
The World Runs on Wheels, or, All Fools but the Fool (Chapman).[477]

The property and licence entries only make it possible to trace the actual
performance during the year of Pierce of Winchester (October), 1 and 2
Civil Wars of France (October and November), The Fount of New Fashions
(November), 2 Angry Women of Abingdon (February), 2 Conquest of Brute
(March), The Four Kings (March), The Spencers (April), and Agamemnon
(June). Probably, in view of the extant fragment of a ‘plot’ Troilus and
Cressida should be added. The production of Troy’s Revenge was deferred
until the following October. No one of this year’s new plays is extant,
unless, as is possible, All Fools but the Fool was an early form of
Chapman’s All Fools.[478] Earnests were paid in the course of 1598–9 for
Catiline’s Conspiracy (Chettle), Tis no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver
(Chettle), William Longsword[479] (Drayton), Two Merry Women of
Abingdon (Porter), and an unnamed pastoral tragedy by Chapman, but there
is no reason to suppose that any one of these was ever finished. On 9
August 1598 Munday had 10s. in earnest of an unnamed comedy ‘for the
corte’ and Drayton gave his word for the book to be done in a fortnight, but
the project must have been dropped, as the entry was cancelled. Of old
plays the company revived in August Vayvode, in November The Massacre
at Paris, in which Bird played the Guise,[480] in December 1 The Conquest
of Brute, bought from John Day, and in March Alexander and Lodowick,
bought from Martin Slater in the preceding year. As to Vayvode, the entries
are rather puzzling. In August Chettle received £1 ‘for his playe of
Vayvode’, and the purchase of properties show that the production took

place. But in the following January there was a payment of £2 to Alleyn ‘for
the playe of Vayvod for the company’. Possibly Alleyn had some rights in
the manuscript, which were at first overlooked. On 25 November Chettle
had 10s. ‘for mendinge of Roben Hood for the corte’. Either 1 or 2 Robin
Hood was therefore probably the play given on 6 January 1599. At the
beginning of the year the company bought Mulmutius Dunwallow from
William Rankins and another old play called Tristram of Lyons, but it must
be uncertain whether they played them. A reference in Guilpin’s Skialetheia
suggests that The Spanish Tragedy may have been on the boards of the Rose
not long before September 1598.[481]
The new plays completed during 1599–1600, twenty in all, were:

The Gentle Craft (Dekker).[482]
Bear a Brain (Dekker).[483]
Page of Plymouth (Dekker and Jonson).
Robert II, or, The Scot’s Tragedy (Chettle, Dekker, Jonson, and
Marston).[484]
The Stepmother’s Tragedy (Chettle and Dekker).
1 Sir John Oldcastle (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).
Cox of Collumpton (Day and Haughton).
2 Henry Richmond (Wilson).
2 Sir John Oldcastle (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).
Patient Grissell (Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton).
The Whole History of Fortunatus (Dekker).
Thomas Merry, or, Beech’s Tragedy (Day and Haughton).
Jugurtha (Boyle).[485]
The Seven Wise Masters (Chettle, Day, Dekker, and Haughton).
Ferrex and Porrex (Haughton).
Cupid and Psyche, or, The Golden Ass (Chettle, Day, and Dekker).
Damon and Pythias (Chettle).
Strange News out of Poland (Haughton and Pett).
1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Chettle and Day).
1 Fair Constance of Rome (Dekker, Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and
Wilson).

It is possible to verify the actual performance of Page of Plymouth
(September), 1 Sir John Oldcastle (November),[486] Fortunatus (December),
The Gentle Craft (January), Thomas Merry (January), Patient Grissell
(January), 2 Sir John Oldcastle (March), The Seven Wise Masters (March),
Ferrex and Porrex (May), Damon and Pythias (May), Strange News out of
Poland (May), Cupid and Psyche (June). Sir John Oldcastle must of course
be regarded as a counterblast to the Henry IV plays of the Chamberlain’s
men, in which the character of Falstaff originally bore the name of the
Lollard hero. One infers that it had a considerable success, for the company
gave 10s. for ‘Mr. Mundaye and the reste of the poets at the playnge of Sr
John Oldcastell the ferste tyme’, and Henslowe notes in the margin that this
was ‘as a gefte’. It is with some hesitation that I have included Fortunatus
in the list of new plays, because it is impossible to suppose that it was not
based upon the earlier Fortunatus, already an old play in 1596, of the
properties of which the Admiral’s men certainly retained possession. But
Dekker was paid on the scale of a new play, for he got a full £6 in the
course of November for the book, together with an additional £1 ‘for the
altrenge of the boocke’ and £2 a fortnight later ‘for the eande of
Fortewnatus for the corte’. I take it that this was the Court play of 27
December. That of 1 January was another of Dekker’s, The Gentle Craft,
also called The Shoemaker’s Holiday, which was published in the year
‘1600’ as played before the Queen ‘on New Year’s Day at night last’ by the
Admiral’s men. Fortunatus, 1 Sir John Oldcastle,[486] Patient Grissell, and
1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green have also been preserved, while the
publication, also in the course of the twelve months ending on 24 March
1601, of Look About You as an Admiral’s play must surely render plausible
the hypothesis, rejected by Dr. Greg, of its identity with Bear a Brain. It
would seem that Thomas Merry furnishes one of the two parallel plots of
Robert Yarington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies, and a notice by Simon
Forman suggests that Cox of Collumpton was ultimately finished.[487] An
outline of the opening scenes of 2 Henry Richmond is among the Dulwich
papers.[488] Publication was a form of popularity which the actors were apt
to resent. The Admiral’s men spent £2 on 18 March 1600 ‘to geue vnto the
printer to staye the printing of Patient Gresell’. This did not prevent the play
being entered on the Stationers’ Register on 28 March, but does perhaps
explain why the earliest known edition is dated 1603. The unfinished plays
of 1599–1600 were The Poor Man’s Paradise (Haughton), The Orphans’

Tragedy (Chettle),[489] an unnamed Italian tragedy by Day, The Arcadian
Virgin (Chettle and Haughton), Owen Tudor (Drayton, Hathway, Munday,
and Wilson), Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight (Dekker),[490] The Spanish
Moor’s Tragedy (Day, Dekker, and Haughton),[491] The English Fugitives
(Haughton), The Devil and his Dame (Haughton),[492] The Wooing of Death
(Chettle), Judas (Haughton),[493] 2 Fair Constance of Rome (Hathway), and
an unnamed play by Chettle and Day.[494] Except in so far as Fortunatus
was an old play, I find no trace of a revival during 1599–1600, but it may be
assumed that some of the productions of the last two years still held the
boards.
The year 1600 was another turning-point in the history of the company.
Probably at some date between 14 August, when the first entry in a fresh
account was made, and 28 October, when Pembroke’s men were in
occupation of the Rose, they crossed the river, and took up their quarters at
Alleyn’s recently built Fortune, on the north-west boundary of the City. A
more important event still was the return of Alleyn himself to the stage,
from which he had been absent for three years. It is suggested in the Privy
Council letter of 8 April 1600 to the Middlesex justices in favour of the
Fortune project, that this step was determined by the personal wish of the
Queen to see the great actor at Court with his fellows again.[495] It is not
quite clear on what terms he rejoined the company. There was a
‘composicion’ or agreement, in connexion with which a payment of £4 was
made to him on 11 November. The next entry, which is undated, runs, ‘Pd
vnto my sonne Alleyn for the firste weckes playe the xj parte of xvijll ixs
which came to therti & ij shellinges’. There are no further entries of the
same kind until the date of a reckoning in February 1602, when Henslowe
paid Alleyn 27s. 6d. ‘dew to my sone out of the gallery money’. Probably
this was a share of some small residue, the origin of which cannot now be
traced. The earlier payment suggests that Alleyn received one full share of
the actors’ takings, for, if I am right in supposing that the brothers Jeffes
only held half a share each, there would have been just ten sharers besides
himself. Or possibly his share may have been limited to the actors’ moiety
of the gallery takings, and the outgoings may all have been charged to the
receipts from the yard. Certainly Alleyn does not seem to have had any
responsibility for these outgoings. His name is never put with those of other
sharers to Henslowe’s periodical reckonings, and if his play-books were

used, they were bought from him. On the other hand, he sometimes,
although not so often as some of his fellows, ‘appointed’ payments, and he
received the Court money for the company, alike in 1601, 1602, and 1603.
That his share did not pass through Henslowe’s hands after the date of the
first instalment is perhaps explained by the assumption that, as the owner
and joint occupier with Henslowe of the Fortune, the appointment of a
‘gatherer’ for the gallery money may naturally have fallen to him.
Some such change in the financial arrangements may also account for
the fact that, while Henslowe’s record of advances continues on the same
lines as that for 1597–1600, the notes of weekly repayments are now
discontinued. As a result it is no longer possible to determine with any
exactness the length of the theatrical seasons, since, naturally enough, the
outgoings did not altogether stop while the house was closed. Their course,
however, suggests intervals in February and March 1601, February to April
1602, August 1602 and January and February 1603. It is possible, although
not very likely, that there was no cessation of playing during the summer of
1601. I find no evidence of further provincial travels before the end of the
reign. These were, I think, years of prosperity. The players still required
small personal advances from time to time, and Thomas Towne was
reduced to pawning a pair of stockings on 13 March 1602.[496] But it is
noticeable that about the previous June Henslowe opened an account under
the heading, ‘Begininge to receue of thes meane ther privet deates which
they owe vnto me’, and was able to enter in it a series of repayments by
Jones, Downton, Bird, and Shaw.[497] Bird, however, still owed £10 10s. on
12 March 1602, and Henslowe noted, ‘He is cleere of all debtes &
demaundes except theis debtes and such stocke & covenentes as I maie
clayme & challendge of him by reason of his coniunction with the
companie’.[498] Whether the playwrights reaped any benefit may be
doubted. The tendency to a rise of prices which showed itself in 1599 was
hardly maintained. Some of them were still impecunious enough. The
company had, on more than one occasion to redeem a play which the
unfortunate Chettle had pawned with one Bromfield, a mercer; and in
March 1602 he seems to have followed Porter’s example and put his hand,
for a consideration of £3, to an instrument binding him to write for them
alone.[499] There were some legal troubles in the course of 1601. A sum of
£21 10s. had to be paid on a bond to a Mr. Treheren during March, and in

August there were fees to a jury and a clerk of assizes. The company had
also to find 10s. in May ‘to geatte the boye into the ospetalle which was
hurt at the Fortewne’.[500] Information as to the composition of the
company at some time between Alleyn’s return and February 1602 is given
by the ‘plot’ of The Battle of Alcazar, although, as this is mutilated, it must
not be treated as negative evidence, and in particular the names of W. Borne
and John Singer are missing.[501] All the other sharers, however, are found
in it—‘Mr. Ed. Allen, Mr. Doughton, Mr. Juby, Mr. Shaa, Mr. Jones, Mr.
Towne, Antony Jeffes, H. Jeffes, Mr. Charles [Massey], and Mr. Sam
[Rowley]’. There are also Mr. Rich. Allen and Mr. Hunt, who were not
sharers, but whose long service had apparently earned them the dignity of
the ‘Mr.’, W. Kendall, Jeames, who was possibly Henslowe’s apprentice
James Bristow and possibly Jones’s boy of the same name, and Dob, who
was probably the Dobe of the 1598 inventory. The remaining names, all of
which are new, are those of W. Cartwright, who, however, had witnessed a
loan for Henslowe as far back as 21 April 1598,[502] Dick Jubie, Ro. Tailor,
George Somerset, Tho. Drum, [Thomas] Parsons, Harry, and the ‘boys’ of
Mr. Allen and Mr. Towne. The only important woman’s part, that of
Callipolis, is assigned by the ‘plot’ to Pisano, which does not look like an
actor’s name and may be a mistake. The services of Bristow were evidently
leased out by Henslowe to the company or some one of its members, at a
rate of 3s. a week. Antony Jeffes paid two weeks’ arrears ‘for my boyes
Jeames wages’ in August 1600, and Henslowe charged the company £6 10s.
on the same account in the following February.[503] Another boy attached to
the company about the same time must have been ‘Nick’, for whom hose
‘to tumbell in be fore the quen’ were bought on 25 December 1601. Hugh
Davis, for the mending of whose tawny coat ‘which was eatten with the
rattes’ 6s. 7d. was paid in November 1601, was perhaps a hired man. A list
of the responsible members of the company is attached by Henslowe to a
reckoning cast between 7 and 23 February 1602. They were then ‘John
Singer, Thomas Downton, William Byrd, Edward Juby, Thomas Towne,
Humphrey Jeffs, Anthony Jeffs, Samuel Rowley, and Charles Massy’.[504] A
note is added that £50 had been advanced ‘to geve vnto Mr. Jonnes & Mr.
Shaw at ther goinge a waye’. This departure must have been quite recent.
Shaw had been agent for the company on the previous 21 January, and the
list of continuing members is in fact in his handwriting. The last instalment

of Jones’s private debt had been paid off on 1 November. His three years’
agreement with Henslowe had expired at Michaelmas 1600. Richard Alleyn
must have died in September 1602, for on the 19th of that month his widow
borrowed £5 10s. to take her mantle and sheet and face-cloth out of pawn.
[505]
Neither Shaw nor Jones nor Richard Alleyn is in the plot of 1 Tamar
Cham, which may reasonably be assigned to a date in the vicinity of the
purchase of the book from Alleyn on 2 October 1602. This is of interest,
partly because it is complete, and partly because there was a procession in
the play, and the number of supernumeraries required must have tried the
resources of the establishment to their utmost. All the principal members of
the company appeared—‘Mr. Allen, Mr. Denygten, Mr. Boorne, Mr. Towne,
Mr. Singer, Mr. Jubie, H. Jeffs, A. Jeffs, Mr. Charles [Massey], and Mr. Sam
[Rowley]’; and in addition Dick Jubie, W. Cart[wright], George [Somerset],
Tho. Parsons, and Jeames [Bristow], who were in The Battle of Alcazar, and
W. Parr, Tho. Marbeck, Jack Grigorie, Gedion, Gibbs, Tho. Rowley, Rester,
‘old Browne’, Ned Browne, ‘the red fast fellow’ and several boys,
described, perhaps in some cases twice over, as Jack Jones, ‘little Will’,
‘little Will Barne’, who do not seem to be identical, ‘Gils his boy’, ‘Mr.
Denyghtens little boy’, perhaps the same already recorded in 1600, and ‘the
other little boy’. ‘Old Browne’ can hardly be Robert Browne, who seems to
have been in Germany; but Ned Browne may be the Edward Browne who,
like Robert, was a member of Worcester’s company in 1583. Little is added
by the only other extant ‘plot’, the fragmentary one of 2 Fortune’s Tennis.
This is difficult to date, but it must be later than Dekker’s 1 Fortune’s
Tennis of September 1600, and may not improbably be Munday’s Set at
Tennis of December 1602. The few names which it contains—Mr. Singer,
Sam, Charles, Geo[rge Somerset], R. Tailor, W. Cartwright, Pavy—suggest
proximity to The Battle of Alcazar and 1 Tamar Cham. The only fresh one
is that of Pavy, who may or may not be connected with the Salathiel Pavy
of Ben Jonson’s epitaph. Both 1 Tamar Cham and 2 Fortune’s Tennis must
be earlier than January 1603, a month which saw the retirement of the old
Queen’s man, John Singer. So at least may be inferred from the fact that he
makes no further appearance in the diary after 13 January, when he received
£5 ‘for his play called Syngers Vallentarey’. I take ‘vallentarey’ to mean
‘valediction’. His name is absent from the next list of the company, which
belongs to 1604. He probably left to become an ordinary Groom of the

Chamber in the royal household, a post which he is found occupying at the
time of Elizabeth’s funeral.[506]
The succession of new plays was not quite so rapid during 1600–3 as in
previous periods. I can only trace thirty-one in all, as against fifty-five in
1594–7 and sixty-two in 1599–1600. It may well have been the case that
Alleyn, who had ‘created’ parts in the ’eighties and early ’nineties, had a
tendency towards revivals. For 1600–1 the company bought only seven new
books. These were:

1 Fortune’s Tennis (Dekker).
Hannibal and Scipio (Hathway and Rankins).
Scogan and Skelton (Hathway and Rankins).
All is not Gold that Glisters (Chettle).
2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Day and Haughton).
The Six Yeomen of the West (Day and Haughton).
King Sebastian of Portugal (Chettle and Dekker).

None of these plays is extant, but the purchase of properties testifies to
the performance of 2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green in April and The Six
Yeomen of the West in July. Moreover, Day received a bonus of 10s.
between 27 April and 2 May ‘after the playinge of’ the former piece. Only
£1 was paid for 1 Fortune’s Tennis, but the existence of a ‘plot’ for 2
Fortune’s Tennis suggests that it must have been completed. Probably it was
a short topical overture designed to celebrate the opening of the Fortune.
[507]
Unfinished plays were Robin Hood’s Pennyworths (Haughton)[508] and
The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt (Hathway and Rankins). The
revivals included Phaethon (January), The Blind Beggar of Alexandria
(May), and The Jew of Malta (May). Dekker had £2 for ‘alterynge of’
Phaethon for the Court, and this was therefore the Admiral’s play of 6
January 1601. They also appeared on 28 December and 2 February. Dr.
Faustus was entered on 7 January; the earliest print (1604) bears their
name. The new books of 1601–2 were fourteen in number, as follows:[509]

The Conquest of the West Indies (Day, Haughton, and Smith).
3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Day and Haughton).
The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (Chettle).[510]
1 The Six Clothiers (Hathway, Haughton, and Smith).

The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey (Chettle, Drayton, Munday, and Smith).
Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp (Chettle, Day, and
Haughton).
Judas (Bird and Rowley).[511]
Too Good to be True (Chettle, Hathway, and Smith).
Malcolm King of Scots (Massey).
Love Parts Friendship (Chettle and Smith).
Jephthah (Dekker and Munday).
Tobias (Chettle).
The Bristol Tragedy (Day).
Caesar’s Fall, or, The Two Shapes (Dekker, Drayton, Middleton,
Munday, and Webster).

At least ten of these appear to have been played: 2 Cardinal Wolsey
(August), 3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (September), Judas (January),
The Conquest of the West Indies (January), Malcolm King of Scots (April),
Love Parts Friendship (May), 1 Cardinal Wolsey (June), Jephthah (July),
and at uncertain dates, Tobias and probably The Bristol Tragedy.[512] None
is now extant. The unfinished plays were The Humorous Earl of Gloucester
with his Conquest of Portugal (Wadeson), 2 Tom Dough[513] (Day and
Haughton), The Orphan’s Tragedy (Chettle),[514] 2 The Six Clothiers
(Hathway, Haughton, and Smith),[515] The Spanish Fig (Anon.),[516]
Richard Crookback (Jonson),[517] A Danish Tragedy (Chettle),[518] and A
Medicine for a Curst Wife (Dekker).[519] There was considerable activity of
revival during the year. Six old plays belonging to the 1594–7 repertory, for
some of which the company already held the properties,[520] were bought
from Alleyn at £2 each, Mahomet in August, The Wise Man of West Chester
in September, Vortigern in November, and The French Doctor, The
Massacre at Paris, and Crack Me this Nut in January. The first and the last
three of these certainly were played, and the revival of The Massacre at
Paris appears to have caused annoyance to Henri IV.[521] In addition,
properties were bought for one of the Hercules plays in December, Dekker
got 10s. for a prologue and epilogue to Pontius Pilate[522] in January, and
Jonson wrote additions to The Spanish Tragedy, possibly those now extant,
in September, although it may be doubted whether the further additions
contemplated in the following June were ever made. There is nothing to

show what was selected, other than Nick’s tumbling, for the Admiral’s only
Court play of 1601–2, which took place on 27 December.
The season of 1602–3 was, of course, shortened by the death of
Elizabeth and the outbreak of plague. The new plays numbered nine. They
were:

Samson (Anon.).
Felmelanco (Chettle and Robinson).
Joshua (Rowley).
Randal Earl of Chester (Middleton).
Merry as May Be (Day, Hathway, and Smith).
The Set at Tennis (Munday).
1 The London Florentine (Chettle and Heywood).
Singer’s Voluntary (Singer).
The Boss of Billingsgate (Day, Hathway, and another).[523]

It must be added that in September properties were bought for a ‘new
playe’ called The Earl of Hertford, which it seems impossible to identify
with any of the pieces bought. This looks like one of the rare cases in which
payment did not pass through Henslowe’s hands. This and Samson are the
only new plays of the year, the actual performance of which can be verified;
and none of these plays is extant.[524] I suspect, however, that Munday’s Set
at Tennis is the 2 Fortune’s Tennis of which a ‘plot’ survives. The payment,
of only £3, was ‘in full’, and it may, like 1 Fortune’s Tennis, have been a
short piece of some exceptional character, motived by the name of the
theatre in which it was presented. Unfinished plays at the end of the season
were The Widow’s Charm (Munday or Wadeson),[525] William Cartwright
(Haughton), Hoffman (Chettle),[526] 2 London Florentine (Chettle and
Heywood), The Siege of Dunkirk and Alleyn the Pirate (Massey). The
revival of old plays continued. Costumes for Vortigern, one of those bought
from Alleyn in the previous year, were in preparation during September,
and Alleyn’s stock yielded three more, Philip of Spain and Longshanks in
August and Tamar Cham, probably the second part, as the extant ‘plot’
testifies, in October. The last two of these belonged to the Admiral’s
repertory of 1594–7, but the origin of Philip of Spain is unknown. A book
of The Four Sons of Aymon, for which £2 was paid to Robert Shaw, was

probably also old, and was bought on condition that Shaw should repay the
£2, unless the play was used by the Admiral’s or some other company with
his consent by Christmas 1604. Bird and Rowley had £4 in September for
additions to Dr. Faustus. Dekker completed some alterations of Tasso’s
Melancholy, another 1594–7 play, in December, and in the same month
Middleton wrote ‘for the corte’ a prologue and epilogue to Greene’s Friar
Bacon and Friar Bungay, which I should suppose to have been Henslowe’s
property, as it was played by Strange’s men in 1592–3 and the Queen’s and
Sussex’s in 1594. This probably served for the first of the three appearances
made by the Admiral’s at Court, on 27 December. The other two were on 6
March and on a date unspecified. For one of these occasions Chettle was
writing a prologue and epilogue at the end of December, but the play is not
named.[527] One of the new plays, Merry as May Be, was intended for
Court, when the first payment on account of it was made on 9 November.
On 12 March 1603 Henslowe practically closes the detailed record
which he had kept continuously in his diary since October 1597 of his
financial transactions, otherwise than by way of rent, with the Admiral’s
men. A brief review of these is not without interest.[528] His advances from
21 October 1597 to 8 March 1598 amounted to £46 7s. 3d., and to this he
took the signatures of the company, with the note, ‘Thes men dothe
aknowlege this deat to be dewe by them by seatynge of ther handes to
yette’. By 28 July a further amount of £120 15s. 4d. had been incurred,
making a total of £166 17s. 7d. for 1597–8.[529] During the same period he
entered weekly receipts from the company to a total of £125. These must
have gone to an old debt, for he did not balance them with the payments for
the year, but carried on the whole debit of £166 17s. 7d. to 1598–9.
Apparently, however, he was not satisfied with the way in which
expenditure was outstripping income, for he headed a new receipts account,
‘Here I begyne to receue the wholle gallereys frome this daye beinge the 29
of July 1598’, and the weekly entries become about double what they were
during 1597–8. On the other hand, there is also a considerable increase in
the rate of expenditure. It is an ingenious and, I think, sound conjecture of
Dr. Greg’s, that throughout 1594–1603 Henslowe was taking half the
gallery money for rent, and that, at different times, he also took either the
other half, or another quarter only, to recoup himself for his advances.[530]
The outgoings entered during 1598–9 reach £435 7s. 4d., but some items

for March and April 1599 are probably missing, owing to a mutilation of
the manuscript.[531] The receipts for the same period were £358 3s. On 13
October 1599, about a fortnight after the beginning of the 1599–1600
season, a balance was struck. Henslowe credited the company with the £358
received from the gallery money, and debited them with £632 advanced by
him. This includes £166 17s. 7d. for 1597–8, £435 7s. 4d. for 1598–9, and
£29 15s. 1d., which may reasonably be taken as the sum of the missing
entries for March and April 1599. The balance of £274 remained as a debt
from the company. They did not, however, set their hands to a reckoning
until the end of the next year, on 10 July 1600. During 1599–1600 a fresh
account had been running, on which Henslowe’s receipts were £202 10s.
and his payments £222 5s. 6d. At the reckoning the company’s indebtedness
is calculated at £300, and is admitted by the formula, ‘which some of three
hundred powndes we whose names are here vnder written doe acknowledge
our dewe debt & doe promyse payment’. To this their signatures are
appended. There is, however, an unexplained discrepancy of £6 4s. 6d., as
the old debt of £274 and the 1599–1600 debit balance of £19 15s. 6d. only
make up £293 15s. 6d.
From 1600 onwards there are no records of receipts. A continuous
account of payments is kept up to 7 February 1602. The total amounts to
£304 10s. 4d., but Henslowe sums it in error as £308 6s. 4d., and notes,
‘Frome ther handes to this place is 308ll-06s-04d dewe vnto me & with the
three hundred of owld is £608-06-04d’. He then adds the £50 paid to Jones
and Shaw on retirement, ‘which is not in this recknynge’. Above this
summary comes a list of names, said by Dr. Greg to be in Shaw’s hand, of
those sharers who were continuing in the company, headed by the figures
‘211. 9. 0.’ I think the interpretation is that £386 17s. 4d. of the £608 6s. 4d.
was paid out of gallery money or other sources, leaving £211 9s., together
with the £50 for Jones and Shaw, chargeable on the company. This is borne
out by the remnant of the accounts, which is headed, ‘Begininge with a new
recknyng with my lord of Notingames men the 23 daye of Febreary 1601 as
foloweth’. The expenditure on this new reckoning up to 12 March 1603
was, as calculated by Henslowe, £188 11s. 6d., and he adds to this total a
sum of £211 9s. ‘vpon band’, being evidently the residue of the debt as it
stood at the close of the old reckoning, and makes a total of £400 0s. 6d.
This, with the £50 for Jones and Shaw, was no doubt what the company

owed when the detailed account in the diary closed. There was, however, an
unstated amount of gallery receipts during 1602–3 to set against it; and in
fact a retrospect of the whole series of figures shows that there would have
been a pretty fair equivalence of gallery money and advances throughout,
but for the exceptionally heavy expenditure of 1598–9, £465 2s. 5d. in all,
which left the company saddled with an obligation which they never quite
overtook. This expenditure was more than half the total expenditure of £854
5s. 6d. for the triennium 1597–1600, and nearly as much as the whole
expenditure of £493 1s. 10d. for the triennium 1600–3, during which it may
be suspected that the business capacities of Alleyn brought about
considerable economies.
The accounts may be looked at from another point of view. If the
unanalysable sum of £29 15s. 1d. for the missing items of March and April
1599 be neglected, there was a total expenditure for the six years of £1,317
11s. 3d. Of this £652 13s. 8d., being about half, went in payments in respect
of play-books; £561 1s. 1d. for properties and apparel; and £103 16s. 6d. in
miscellaneous outgoings, such as licensing fees, legal charges, musical
instruments, travelling expenses, merry-makings and the like. Thus, if the
company supped together at Mr. Mason’s of the Queen’s Head, or met to
read a ‘book’ at the Sun in New Fish Street, Henslowe would put his hand
into his pocket to pay the score, and would not forget afterwards to debit the
company with the amount in his diary.[532] It must, of course, be borne in
mind that only part of this miscellaneous expenditure was incurred through
Henslowe. He certainly did not, for example, pay all the fees for the
licensing of new plays by the Master of the Revels. And of course there
were many matters, in particular the wages of hired actors and servitors, for
which the company had regularly to find funds in other ways. It is probable
that only play-books, properties, and apparel were normally charged to his
account, although the convenience of an occasional extension of his
functions can readily be understood. Dr. Greg may be right in thinking that
his position as agent for the company in its purchases was a natural
development of his pawnbroking business.[533] But during the period under
review he did not, as a rule, supply them with goods himself. A sale of ‘A
shorte velluett clocke wraght with bugell & a gearcken of velluet layd with
brade coper sylver lace’ for £4 on 28 November 1598 was exceptional.
Usually the payments are to tradesmen, to the mercers Stone, Richard

Heath, and Robert Bromfield, to ‘him at the Eagell and Chylld’ for armour,
to Mrs. Gosson for head-tires, and for wigs to one Father Ogle, who is
mentioned also in the Revels Accounts and in the play of Sir Thomas More.
Sometimes ready-made garments, new or second-hand, were bought. A
doublet and hose of sea-water green satin cost £3 and a doublet and
‘venesyons’ of cloth of silver wrought with red silk £4 10s. But often stuffs
were obtained in piece and made up by tailors, of whom the company
employed two, Dover and Radford, the latter known, for the sake of
distinction, as ‘the little tailor’. These and William White, who made the
crowns, probably worked at the theatre, in the tiring-house. The company
gave 6s. a yard for russet broadcloth and the same for murrey satin, 12s. for
other satins, 12s. 6d. for taffeties, and no less than £1 for ‘ij pylle velluet of
carnardyn’. Laces cost 1d. each; copper lace anything from 4s. a pound to
1s. 2d. an ounce. Of this they used quantities, and in the summer of 1601
they had run up a considerable ‘old debt’ to the copper lace-man, as well as
another to Heath the mercer, which had to be paid off by degrees. The more
expensive garments, such as a rich cloak bought of Langley for £19, were,
of course, an investment on the part of the company, and were worn in their
time by many sharers and hired men in different parts. But the principal
actors had also, as Alleyn’s inventory shows, their private wardrobes.
Henslowe was prepared to furnish these on the instalment system. Thus
Richard Jones bought in 1594 ‘a manes gowne of pechecoler in grayne’ for
£3 payable in weekly sums of 5s., and Thomas Towne in 1598 ‘a blacke
clothe clocke layd with sylke lace’ for 26s. 8d. at 1s. weekly. It was as hard
to keep these glories as to procure them. On one occasion the company
came to the rescue and lent Thomas Downton £12 10s., to fetch out of pawn
two cloaks, ‘which they exsepted into the stock’. The one was ‘ashecolerd
velluet embradered with gowld’, the other ‘a longe black velluet clocke
layd with sylke lace’.[534]
The termination of the record of advances after 12 March 1603 indicates
an interruption of performances, probably due to the increasing illness of
Elizabeth, who died on the following 24 March. Thereafter there are only a
few winding-up entries in the diary. The company must have immediately
begun to travel under the leadership of Thomas Downton, who in the course
of 1602–3 received a gift for them from the Corporation of Canterbury,
‘because it was thought fitt they should not play at all, in regard that our
late Queene was then very sicke or dead as they supposed’. London

playing, if resumed at all, must have very soon been stopped again by the
plague. There was some further small expenditure, of which the details are
not given, before Henslowe noted that, in addition to the bond for £211 9s.,
‘Ther reasteth dew vnto me to this daye beinge the v daye of Maye 1603
when we leafte of playe now at the Kynges cominge all recknynges abated
the some of a hundred fowerscore & sevntenepowndes & thirteneshellynges
& fowerpence I saye dew—£197 13s. 4d. the fyftye powndes which Jonnes
& Shawe had at ther goinge a way not reconed’. The company travelled
again during the plague, being traceable as the Admiral’s men in 1602–3 at
Bath and York and on 18 August 1603 at Leicester, and as the Earl of
Nottingham’s in 1602–3 at Coventry. The tour was over by 21 October, on
which date Joan Alleyn wrote to her husband at the house of Mr. Chaloner
in Sussex, telling him amongst other things that ‘all of your owne company
ar well at theyr owne houses’, that all the other companies had returned,
that ‘Nicke and Jeames be well’, and that ‘Browne of the Boares head’ had
not gone into the country at all, and was now dead, ‘& dyed very pore’.
This might be either Edward Browne, or the ‘old Browne’ who appeared
with him in 1 Tamar Cham in the previous autumn. In any case, it is clear
from the reference to him that he was not a regular member of Alleyn’s
company. ‘Jeames’ is no doubt James Bristow, who, as Henslowe’s
apprentice, would be likely to form part of his household; and ‘Nicke’, who
seems to have been in the same position, may be supposed to be the Nick
who tumbled before the Queen at Christmas 1601.
The Jacobean records of the company seem meagre in the absence of
Henslowe’s detailed register of proceedings. About Christmas 1603 they
were taken into the service of Prince Henry, and are hereafter known as the
Prince’s players.[535] They are entered amongst other ‘Officers to the
Prince’ as receiving four and a half yards of red cloth apiece as liveries for
the coronation procession on 15 March 1604, and their names are given as
‘Edward Allen, William Bird, Thomas Towne, Thomas Dowton, Samuell
Rowley, Edward Jubie, Humfry Jeffes, Charles Massey, and Anthony
Jeffes’.[536] Alleyn, even if not a ‘sharer’, was therefore a member of the
company in its official capacity. He is also named as the Prince’s servant,
both in the printed account of the entertainment at which, dressed as a
Genius, he delivered a speech, and in Stowe’s description of a bear-baiting
which formed part of the festivities.[537] It may, however, be inferred that he

took an early opportunity of leaving a profession to which he had only been
recalled by the personal whim of the late Queen.[538] He was joint payee
with Juby in the warrant of 19 February, but Juby’s name stands alone in
another of 17 April and in those of all subsequent years up to 1615. And
when the company received a formal licence by patent on 30 April 1606,
Alleyn’s name was omitted, and does not appear in any further list of its
members. It is true that as late as 11 May 1611 he is still described in a
formal document as the Prince’s servant, but he may have held some other
appointment, actual or honorific, in the household.[539] A note of his
resources about 1605, however, includes ‘my share of aparell, £100’.[540]
And he certainly remained interested in the company. They were his tenants
at the Fortune, although an unexecuted draft of a lease to Thomas Downton
dated in 1608 suggests that he may have taken steps to transfer the whole or
a share of his direct interest to them. Under this lease Downton was to
receive during thirteen years a thirty-second part of the daily profits
accruing to Henslowe and Alleyn, and in return to pay £27 10s., a rent of
10s. annually and his proportionate share of repairs, and to bind himself to
play in the house and not elsewhere without consent.[541] On 11 April 1612
Robert Browne is found writing to Alleyn on behalf of one Mr. Rose, lately
‘entertayned amongst the princes men’, to request his interest as one ‘who
he knowes can strike a greter stroke amongst them then this’ to procure him
a ‘gathering place’ for his wife.[542] Another letter from Bird to Alleyn, also
about a gatherer, is amusing enough to quote in full. It is undated.

‘Sir there is one Jhon Russell, that by yowr apoyntment was made a gatherer wth
vs, but my fellowes finding often falce to vs, haue many tymes warnd him ffrom
taking the box. And he as often, with moste damnable othes, hath vowde neuer to
touch, yet not with standing his execrable othes, he hath taken the box, & many tymes
moste vnconsionablye gathered, for which we haue resolued he shall neuer more
come to the doore; yet for your sake, he shall haue his wages, to be a nessessary
atendaunt on the stage, and if he will pleasure himself and vs, to mend our garmentes,
when he hath leysure, weele pay him for that to. I pray send vs word if this motion
will satisfie you; for him his dishonestye is such we knowe it will not, Thus yealding
our selues in that & a farr greater matter to be comaunded by you I committ you to
god. Your loving ffrend to comaunde. W Birde.’[543]

With the exception of Alleyn, all the players of the 1604 list and no
others appear in the patent of 1606, the text of which follows:[544]
Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices, Maiors, Sheriffes,
bailiffes, Constables, headboroughes and other our officers and loving De concessione
subiectes greeting. Knowe ye that wee of our especiall grace, certaine licenciae pro
knowledge, and meere mocion haue licenced and auctorized, and by Thoma Downton et
theis presentes doe licence and auctorize Thomas Downton, Thomas aliis.
Towne, William Byrde, Edwarde Iuby, Samuell Rowle, Humfrey
Ieffes, Charles Massey, and Anthonie Ieffes, Servauntes to our dearest sonne the
Prince, and the rest of theire Associates to vse and exercise the arte and facultie of
playing Commedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Moralls, Pastoralls,
Stageplayes, and such other like as they haue alreadie studied or hereafter shall vse or
studie, aswell for the recreacion of our loving subiectes, as for our solace and pleasure
when wee shall thincke good to see them, during our pleasure, And the said
Commedies, Tragedies, histories, Enterludes, Moralls, pastoralls, stageplaies, and
suche like to shewe and exercise publiquelie to their best Commoditie, aswell within
theire nowe vsuall house called the Fortune within our Countie of Middlesex, as alsoe
within anie Towne halls or Moutehalls or other convenient places within the libertie
and ffredome of anie other Cittie, vniversitie, Towne, or Boroughe whatsoever, within
our Realmes and Domynions, willing and Commaunding you and everie of you, as
you tender our pleasure, not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without anie
your lettes, hindraunces, or molestacions during our saide pleasure, but alsoe to be
aiding and assisting vnto them yf anie wrong be to them offered, And to allowe them
such former curtesies as hath been given to men of theire place and quallitie, And
alsoe what further favour you shall shewe vnto them for our sake wee shall take
kindelie at your handes. Prouided alwaies, and our will and pleasure ys, that all
auctoritie, power, priuiledges, and profittes whatsoever belonging and properlie
appertaining to the Maister of our Revells in respecte of his office, and everie Clause,
article, or graunte conteined within the letteres patentes or Commission, which haue
heretofore been graunted or directed by the late Queene Elizabeth our deere Sister, or
by our selves, to our welbeloued servantes Edmonde Tilney, Maister of the office of
our said Revells, or to Sir George Bucke knighte, or to either of them in possession or
reversion, shall be remayne and abide entire, and in full force estate and vertue, and in
as ample sorte as yf this our Commission had never been made. In witnesse whereof
etc. Witnesse our selfe at Westminster the Thirtith daie of Aprill. per breve de priuato
sigillo.

Between 1606 and 1610 it seems to have been thought desirable to
strengthen the composition of the company by the introduction of new
blood. A list of ‘Comedyanes and Playores’, included in the establishment
book drawn up when Henry formed his own Household as Prince of Wales
in 1610, contains six names in addition to the eight of the patent.[545] They
are ‘Edward Colbrande, Wm. Parre, Rychard Pryore, William Stratford,
Frauncys Grace, and John Shanke’. Of these William Parr, who is in the
plot of 1 Tamar Cham in 1602, is alone traceable in the earlier records of
the company. Shank had been of Pembroke’s and Queen Elizabeth’s men.
Henslowe entered two more advances in his diary, one for ‘facynge of a
blacke grogren clocke with taffytye’, the other to Dekker and Middleton in
earnest of The Patient Man and the Honest Whore. This was entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 9 November 1604, and printed as The Honest Whore
during the year. The name of Towne is in a stage-direction. On 14 March
‘1604’, which may have been either 1604 or 1605, Henslowe had a final
reckoning with the company and noted ‘Caste vp all the acowntes frome the
begininge of the world vntell this daye beinge the 14 daye of Marche 1604
by Thomas Dowghton & Edward Jube for the company of the prynces men
& I Phillipe Henslow so ther reasteth dew vnto me P Henslow the some of
xxiiijli all reconynges consernynge the company in stocke generall
descarged & my sealfe descarged to them of al deates’.[546] With this, so far
as the extant book goes, the record of his transactions with the company
practically ceases. The only exception is a note of receipts at the Fortune
during the three days next after Christmas in 1608, which amounted to 25s.,
45s., and 44s. 9d. respectively.[547] Something of the career of the Prince’s
men may be gleaned from other sources. They played at Court before James
on 21 January and 20 February 1604, and before Henry on 4, 15, and 22
January; and during the following Christmas before Anne on 23 November
1604 and before Henry on 24 November, 14 and 19 December, and on 15
and 22 January and 5 and 19 February 1605. On 8 February 1605 their play
of Richard Whittington, of which nothing further is known, was entered on
the Stationers’ Register.[548] In the same year Samuel Rowley’s When You
See Me, You Know Me, was printed as played by them. During the
Christmas of 1605–6 they gave three plays before James and three before
Henry.[549] In 1604–5 they were at Maidstone and Winchester, in 1605–6 at
Bath, on 17 July 1606 at Oxford, and on 17 October at Ipswich. During the

Christmas of 1606–7 they gave six plays before James. Dekker’s Whore of
Babylon was entered on the Stationers’ Register on 20 April 1607 and
printed as theirs in the same year. In 1606–7 they were at Bath. During the
Christmas of 1607–8 they gave four plays before James and Henry. In
1607–8 they were at Maidstone and Saffron Walden, and on 1 October 1608
they were at Leicester; but a visit of the same year from ‘the Princes players
of the White Chapple, London’ is rather to be assigned to the Duke of
York’s men (q.v.). They gave three plays before James and Henry during the
Christmas of 1608–9, four before James during that of 1609–10, and four
before James during that of 1610–11. Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring
Girl was printed in 1611 as lately played by them at the Fortune, and Field’s
Amends for Ladies (c. 1610–11) names ‘Long Meg and the Ship’ as in their
repertory. Presumably their Long Meg of Westminster of 1595 still held the
boards.[550] In 1608–9 they were at Shrewsbury and Saffron Walden, in
1609–10 at Shrewsbury and Hereford, in 1610–11 at Shrewsbury and
Winchester.
They played at Court before James on 28 and 29 December 1611, giving
on the second night The Almanac, and before Henry in February and
Elizabeth in April 1612. On 1 October 1612 the lewd jigs, songs, and
dances at the Fortune are recited in an order of the Middlesex justices as
tending to promote breaches of the peace. One of these may have been the
occasion on which an obscure actor, Garlick by name, made himself
offensive to the more refined part of his audience.[551] On the following 7
November Henry died and on 7 December his players figured in his funeral
procession.[552]
They found a new patron in the Elector Palatine, then in England, and on
entering his service got a new patent, which bears date 11 January 1613 and
closely follows in its terms that of 1606.[553] The house specified for them
was again the Fortune, which they had no doubt continuously occupied
since its opening in 1600. The players named were ‘Thomas Downton,
William Bird, Edward Juby, Samuell Rowle, Charles Massey, Humfrey
Jeffs, Frank Grace, William Cartwright, Edward Colbrand, William Parr,
William Stratford, Richard Gunnell, John Shanck, and Richard Price’.
Possibly Price may be the Pryor of the 1610 list. Cartwright and Gunnell
are new since that list, but Cartwright had been in The Battle of Alcazar and
1 Tamar Cham plots of 1601 and 1602. These two must be supposed to

have taken the places of Thomas Towne and Antony Jeffes. Thomas Towne
had enjoyed an annuity of £12 out of Alleyn’s manor of Dulwich from 28
October 1608 to 15 January 1612, but on 5 November 1612 ‘widow Towne’
is mentioned,[554] and further evidence of his death is supplied by a letter
from Charles Massey to Alleyn, not dated, but from internal evidence
written not very long after the prince’s death, to which reference is made.
Massey is in debt and wants £50. He offers two things as security. One is
‘that lyttell moete I have in the play hovsses’; from which it may be
inferred that, like Downton, he had obtained an interest in the Fortune,
although what the second house may have been can hardly be conjectured.
The other is his interest under ‘the composisions betwene ovre compenye
that if any one give over with consent of his fellowes, he is to receve three
score and ten poundes (Antony Jefes hath had so much) if any on dye his
widow or frendes whome he appoyntes it tow reseve fyfte poundes (Mres
Pavie and Mres Tovne hath had the lyke)’. In order to be in a position to
repay the loan at the end of the year he undertakes to get Mr. Jube to reserve
‘my gallery mony and my quarter of the hovse mony’ for the purpose, and
should it prove at the end of six months that this will be insufficient, he will
be prepared to surrender his whole share, with the exception of 13s. 4d. a
week for household expenses.[555] From this letter it may also be gathered
that Antony Jeffes had retired, and apparently that Pavy, whose name is
found in the plot of 2 Fortune’s Tennis, which I assign to 1602–3, had at
some time become a sharer in the company. One other player, originally in
1597 a hired man, had evidently reached some prominence between that
date and 1614. William Fennor, in the course of a rhyming controversy with
John Taylor, makes the following boast of his histrionic talent:
And let me tell thee this to calme thy rage,
I chaleng’d Kendall on the Fortune stage;
And he did promise ‘fore an audience,
For to oppose me. Note the accidence:
I set up bills, the people throngd apace,
With full intention to disgrace, or grace;
The house was full, the trumpets twice had sounded,
And though he came not, I was not confounded,
But stept upon the stage, and told them this,
My aduerse would not come: not one did hisse,
But flung me theames: I then extempore
Did blot his name from out their memorie,
And pleasd them all, in spight of one to braue me,

Witnesse the ringing plaudits that they gaue me.[556]

As the Elector Palatine’s men the company played at Court during the
winter of 1613–14, twice before James and once before Charles. They were
amongst the companies which performed irregularly in the Lent of 1615,
and Humphrey Jeffes and Thomas Downton were summoned before the
Privy Council to account for their misdoing. One of the irregular licences
condemned by the Lord Chamberlain on 16 July 1616 was an
exemplification of the patent of 1613, taken out by Charles Marshall,
Humphrey Jeffes, and William Parr for provincial purposes.

xx. THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S (LORD HUNSDON’S) AND KING’S MEN
Henry Carey, s. of William Carey and Mary, sister of Anne Boleyn; nat. c. 1524; cr.
1st Lord Hunsdon, 13 Jan. 1559; m. Anne, d. of Sir Thomas Morgan; Warden of East
Marches and Governor of Berwick, Aug. 1568; Lord Chamberlain, 4 July 1585; lived
at Hunsdon House, Herts., and Somerset House, London; ob. 22 July 1596.
George Carey, s. of Henry, 1st Lord Hunsdon; nat. 1547; Kt. 18 May 1570; m.
Elizabeth, d. of Sir John Spencer of Althorp; Captain-General of Isle of Wight, 1582;
succ. as 2nd Baron, 22 July 1596; Lord Chamberlain, 17 Mar. 1597; lived at
Carisbrooke Castle, Hunsdon House, Drayton, and Blackfriars; ob. 9 Sept. 1603.

A company of Lord Hunsdon’s men was at Leicester in the last three
months of 1564, at Norwich and Maldon in 1564–5, at Plymouth before
Michaelmas in 1565, at Canterbury in the autumn of 1565, at Gloucester
and Maldon in 1565–6, at Bristol in July 1566, and at Canterbury in the
spring of 1567. Another makes its appearance at Ludlow on 13 July 1581,
and at Doncaster in 1582. In the winter Lord Hunsdon was apparently
deputy for the Earl of Sussex as Lord Chamberlain, and took occasion to
bring his men to Court, where they acted Beauty and Housewifery on 27
December 1582. They did not again appear at Court, but when plays were
temporarily suppressed on 14 June 1584 the owner of the Theatre,
presumably James Burbadge, made a claim to be Lord Hunsdon’s man.
Meanwhile ‘my L. Hunsdouns and my Lords Morleis players being bothe
of one companye’ are recorded at Bristol in March 1583, and Lord
Hunsdon’s alone at Norwich in 1582–3, Bath in June 1583, and Exeter in
July 1583. Hunsdon became Lord Chamberlain on 4 July 1585. Between
October and December of that year, a visit was paid to Leicester by ‘the
Lord Chamberlens and the Lord Admiralls players’, and on 6 January 1586
‘the servants of the lo: Admirall and the lo: Chamberlaine’ gave a play at
Court. These entries suggest an amalgamation of Hunsdon’s men with those

of Lord Admiral Howard, both of whom had perhaps been weakened by the
formation of the Queen’s men in 1583. But if so, it was only a partial or
temporary one, for while the Admiral’s men established themselves in
London, the Chamberlain’s are traceable in the provinces, at Coventry in
1585–6, at Saffron Walden in 1587–8, and at Maidstone in 1589–90.
An interval of four or five years renders improbable any continuity
between this company and the famous Lord Chamberlain’s company, which
first emerged on the resorting of the plague-stricken mimes in 1594, passed
under royal patronage in 1603, and prolonged an existence illumined by the
genius of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger and
Shirley, until the closing of the theatres in 1642. The first notice of the new
organization is in June 1594, when ‘my Lord Admeralle men and my Lorde
Chamberlen men’ played from the 3rd to the 13th of the month, either in
combination or separately on allotted days, for Henslowe at Newington
Butts.[557] Some of the plays given during this period can be traced to the
subsequent repertory of the Admiral’s men; others, which cannot, may be
assigned to the Chamberlain’s. They are Hester and Ahasuerus, Titus
Andronicus, Hamlet, and Taming of A Shrew, which, although so described,
may of course have been really the Taming of The Shrew, Shakespeare’s
adaptation of the older play entered in the Stationers’ Register on the
previous 2 May. It is ingeniously, and I think rightly, inferred from a line
drawn in Henslowe’s account after 13 June, that from that date all the
performances recorded are by the Admiral’s men, probably at the Rose, and
that his relations with the Chamberlain’s men had ceased. The company is
found at Marlborough about September, and on 8 October Lord Hunsdon
wrote to the Lord Mayor, asking permission for ‘my nowe companie’ to
continue an occupation of the Cross Keys,[558] on which it seems to have
already entered. Henceforward the company was regularly established in
London, took the lead annually at Court, and except for brief periods of
inhibition in 1596, 1597, and possibly 1601, does not appear to have
travelled during the remainder of Elizabeth’s reign. Whether Hunsdon’s
men got the Cross Keys for the winter or not, they probably had from the
beginning the use of the Theatre for the summer seasons, for Richard
Burbage, the son of the owner, was one of their leading members, and on 15
March 1595 appears as joint payee with William Kempe and William
Shakespeare for two plays given at Court on 26 and 28 December 1594.

These plays cannot be identified, but Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost
and Romeo and Juliet may well have been produced this winter.[559] Most
likely the date 28 December was entered in the payment warrant by mistake
for 27 December, for the Admiral’s men are also recorded as playing at
Court on 28 December, and on the same night ‘a company of base and
common fellows’, with whom one is bound to identify the Chamberlain’s
men, played ‘a Comedy of Errors’ as part of the Christmas revels of the
Prince of Purpoole at Gray’s Inn.[560] There seems to be some echo of
Romeo and Juliet in the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude of A Midsummer-
Night’s Dream, which may very well have been given at Greenwich or
Burghley House for the wedding of William Stanley, Earl of Derby, and
Elizabeth Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, on 26 January 1595.
Another possible occasion for the production, however, is the wedding of
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Carey and grand-daughter of Lord
Hunsdon, to Thomas, son of Henry Lord Berkeley on 19 February 1596.
This took place at Blackfriars, presumably in Sir George Carey’s house
there.[561]
To 1595 or thereabouts I also assign Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of
Verona and King John and Richard II.[562] The company played at Court on
26, 27, and 28 December 1595 and 6 January and 22 February 1596. In the
warrant for their fees, dated on 21 December 1596, and made payable to
John Heminges and George Bryan, they are described as ‘servauntes to the
late Lord Chamberlayne and now servauntes to the Lorde Hunsdon’. It is
clear that, when the first Lord Hunsdon died on 22 July 1596, the players
had been retained by his son and heir, Sir George Carey. The Lord
Chamberlainship passed to Lord Cobham; but he died on 5 March 1597,
and on 17 March the post was given to the second Lord Hunsdon. The
company, then, was properly known as Lord Hunsdon’s men from 22 July
1596 to 17 March 1597; before and after that period it was the Lord
Chamberlain’s men.
To 1596 I assign Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Evidence of the
occupation of the Theatre about this time by the company is to be found in
Lodge’s allusion to a revival of Hamlet there, for this play is not likely to
have been in other hands.[563] It is not an unreasonable conjecture that
James Burbadge destined to their use the play-house in the Blackfriars,
which he purchased in February, and had converted for ‘publique’ use by

November of this year. If so, he and they were disappointed, for a petition
of the inhabitants, amongst the signatories to an alleged copy of which Lord
Hunsdon himself is somewhat oddly found, led to an intervention of the
Privy Council, who forbade plays to be given within the liberty.[564] At this
time also the Corporation seem to have succeeded in finally and
permanently expelling the players from the City inns which had long been
their head-quarters, and Nashe connects this persecution with the loss of
‘their old Lord’, by whom he doubtless means Henry Lord Hunsdon. It is
possible that plays were inhibited altogether during the summer of 1596,
although no formal order to that effect is preserved, for Hunsdon’s went to
Faversham, and Nashe himself was disappointed of ‘an after harvest I
expected by writing for the stage and for the presse’.[565]
In the following winter the company played at Court on 26 and 27
December 1596 and on 1 and 6 January and 6 and 8 February 1597. Their
payees, for this and for the next two years, were Thomas Pope and John
Heminge. In 1597 began the printing of plays written by Shakespeare for
this company, with a ‘bad’ quarto of Romeo and Juliet, bearing on its title-
page the name of Lord Hunsdon’s men and ‘good’ quartos of Richard II and
Richard III, bearing that of the Lord Chamberlain’s.[566] From the text of
Richard II was omitted the deposition scene, which did not appear in print
until after the death of Elizabeth. The only Shakespearian productions that
can be plausibly ascribed to this year are those of the two parts of Henry IV.
The presentation of Sir John Oldcastle in the original versions of these
seems to have led to a protest, and the character was renamed Sir John
Falstaff. It is not improbable that the offence taken was by Lord
Chamberlain Cobham, whose ancestress, Joan Lady Cobham, Oldcastle had
married.[567] It is impossible to say whether either this scandal or any
possible interpretation of disloyalty put upon Richard II contributed to the
inhibition of plays on 28 July, of which the main exciting cause was
certainly the performance of The Isle of Dogs at the Swan on the Bankside.
[568]
For the second time since their formation in 1594 the company had to
travel. They are traceable at Rye in August, at Dover between 3 and 20
September, at Marlborough, Faversham, and Bath during 1596–7, and at
Bristol about 29 September. This inhibition was removed early in October.
There is some reason to believe that, when the Chamberlain’s men resumed
playing, it was not at the Theatre, as to the renewal of the lease of which the

Burbadges were disputing with their ground landlord, but at the Curtain.
Marston, in one and the same passage of his Scourge of Villainy, entered in
the Stationers’ Register on 8 September 1598, alludes to the acting of
Romeo and Juliet and to ‘Curtaine plaudeties’, while almost simultaneously
Edward Guilpin in his Skialetheia, entered on 15 September, speaks of ‘the
unfrequented Theater’. The transfer may, however, not have taken place
until 1598.[569]
The company played at Court on 26 December 1597 and on 1 and 6
January and 26 February 1598. It is conceivable that one of these plays may
have been a revised version of Love’s Labour’s Lost, which was printed as
‘newly corrected and augmented’ and ‘as it was presented before her
Highnes this last Christmas’ in 1598. On the other hand, it is also possible
that this print may have been intended to replace an earlier ‘bad’ quarto, not
now preserved, and if so, the reference to the representation may have been
carried on from the earlier title-page. In 1598 were also printed 1 Henry IV,
and the anonymous Mucedorus, which may have already belonged to the
Chamberlain’s repertory, as it was certainly revised for them about 1610.
The Merchant of Venice was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 22 July,
but with a proviso that it must not be printed ‘without lycence first had from
the Right honorable the lord chamberlen’. On 7 September 1598 was
entered in the Stationers’ Register the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres,
with its list of Shakespeare’s plays up to date, including the mysterious
Love’s Labours Won, which I incline to identify with the Taming of the
Shrew.[570] The earliest play not mentioned by Meres is probably Much Ado
about Nothing, which may belong to 1598 itself. Another production of this
year was Jonson’s Every Man In his Humour, which was still a new play
about 20 September, when an Almain in the audience lost 300 crowns.
Possibly John Aubrey has this period in mind when he says that Jonson
‘acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green Curtaine, a kind of nursery or
obscure play-house, somewhere in the suburbes, I thinke towardes
Shoreditch or Clarkenwell’.[571] Jonson, however, was in prison soon after
the production of the play for the manslaughter of Gabriel Spencer on 22
September in Hoxton Fields, and there is no other evidence that he ever
acted with the Chamberlain’s men. His own name is not in the list of the
original ‘principall Comoedians’ affixed to the text of Every Man In his

Humour in the folio of 1616. This is of great value, as being the earliest
extant list of the company. The ten names given are:

Will. Shakespeare.
Aug. Philips.
Hen. Condel.
Will. Slye.
Will. Kempe.
Ric. Burbage.
Joh. Flemings.
Tho. Pope.
Chr. Beeston.
Joh. Duke.

It must not, of course, be assumed, either that the list is in itself quite
complete, or that there had been no changes amongst the Chamberlain’s
men between 1594 and 1598; but as those named include five out of the six
payees for that period, they may perhaps be taken, with the sixth payee,
George Bryan, who does not reappear after 1596, and was by 1603 an
ordinary groom of the Chamber of the royal Household, as fairly
representing the original constitution of the company.[572] And an inference
to its origin at once becomes possible, for of these eleven men five (Kempe,
Pope, Heminges, Phillips, and Bryan) formed, with Edward Alleyn, the
company of Lord Strange’s men to whom Privy Council letters of assistance
were granted in 1593, and at least six (Pope, Phillips, Bryan, Burbadge,
Duke, and Sly) are to be found in the cast of 2 Seven Deadly Sins as
performed by Strange’s or the Admiral’s or the two together about 1590–1.
It will be remembered that the Strange’s company of 1593, known as the
Earl of Derby’s after 25 September 1593, was apparently formed by a
combination of the earlier Strange’s and Admiral’s men somewhere near the
time of this performance, if not earlier, and that its composite character
never wholly disappeared, Alleyn in particular, who was its leading
member, retaining his personal status as an Admiral’s man. It seems clear
that in 1594 the combination broke up, that Alleyn became the nucleus of a
new Admiral’s company at the Rose, and that the group with whom he had
been travelling took fresh service with the Lord Chamberlain. It is not, I
think, quite accurate to treat this transaction as a mere continuance of Lord

Derby’s men under the style of Lord Chamberlain’s, entailing no
reconstruction other than a change of patron following upon Lord Derby’s
death on 16 April 1594. On the one hand a Derby’s company continued in
existence, and is traceable under the sixth earl from 1594 to 1617. On the
other hand, while we do not know what business reconstruction there may
have been, a very fundamental change is involved in the replacement of
Alleyn as principal actor by Richard Burbadge, who is not at all likely to
have played with Strange’s men after the break between the Admiral’s and
his father at the Theatre in 1591. Except for Alleyn, all the more important
members of the company, as it existed in 1593, seem to have been included
in the transfer to Lord Hunsdon. It is, however, little more than conjecture
that finds Henry Condell and Christopher Beeston in the ‘Harry’ and ‘Kitt’,
or Alexander Cooke, Nicholas Tooley, and Robert Gough, who were
numbered amongst the King’s men at a later date, in the ‘Saunder’, ‘Nick’,
and ‘R. Go.’ of the 2 Seven Deadly Sins plot. Alleyn’s correspondence of
1593 adds Richard Cowley to the list of Lord Strange’s men, and, as we
shall find him acting as a payee for the Chamberlain’s men in 1601, he may
have been one of them from the beginning. In any case he had joined them
by 1598, as the stage-directions of Much Ado about Nothing show that he
played Verges to Kempe’s Dogberry.[573]
There is, of course, one conspicuous Chamberlain’s man who is not
discoverable either in the Privy Council letter of 1593 or in the 2 Seven
Deadly Sins of 1590–1. Even the audacity of Mr. Fleay has not attempted to
identify the ‘Will’ of the plot with Will Shakespeare. Some relations, if only
as author, Shakespeare must have had with Lord Strange’s men, when they
produced 1 Henry VI on 3 March 1592, and Greene’s satire of him as a
‘Shake-scene’ in the same year must indicate that he was an actor as well as
an author.[574] He may have stood aside altogether during the period of the
provincial tours, and devoted himself to poetry, and perhaps, although this
is very conjectural, to travel abroad. Or he may, as I have already suggested,
have joined Lord Pembroke’s men (q.v.), whom I suspect to have been an
offshoot for provincial purposes of the Strange’s combination, and have
passed from them to Lord Sussex’s, ultimately rejoining his old fellows in
1594. The possibility of identifying certain minor members of the
Chamberlain’s company is also affected by this somewhat obscure problem
of Pembroke’s men. The most obvious of these is John Sincler or Sincklo,

who was in the cast of 2 Seven Deadly Sins as played by the Admiral’s or
Strange’s about 1590–1, and must have ultimately joined the
Chamberlain’s, as his name occurs in a stage-direction to Q1 of 2 Henry IV
(1600), and in the induction to The Malcontent (1604). It also occurs in
stage-directions to 3 Henry VI and the Taming of The Shrew in the Folio of
1623.[575] These both happen to be plays which passed through the hands of
Pembroke’s, and the inference may be that Sincler had also passed through
this company. But this is far from being conclusive. It is the revised and not
the unrevised texts that yield the name, and although I think it likely, on
stylistic grounds, that the revision of 3 Henry VI was done for Pembroke’s
(q.v.), it is probable from the reference in Henry V, epil. 12, to the loss of
France and the civil wars, ‘which oft our stage hath shown’, that the play
was revived by the Chamberlain’s, and it may have been in such a revival
that Sincler took part. As to the Shrew, it is impossible to say whether
Shakespeare’s work upon it was before or after its transfer to the
Chamberlain’s. In any case the Chamberlain’s were playing it in some form
on 13 June 1594, so that here again the appearance of Sincler’s name cannot
ear-mark him as Pembroke’s. We can now go a step farther. The stage-
directions to 3 Henry VI contain not only Sincler’s name, but those of a
certain ‘Gabriel’ and a certain ‘Humfrey’, not common Elizabethan names
even separately, and certainly suggesting, when found in combination, the
Gabriel Spencer and Humphrey Jeffes, who were fellows of the Admiral’s
in 1597. Now Spencer, and very likely also Jeffes, had come from
Pembroke’s, the short-lived Pembroke’s of 1597 at the Swan. Had they been
Pembroke’s men ever since 1593? If so, it would be difficult to resist the
conclusion that the performance which brought their names into the text of
3 Henry VI, and with theirs John Sincler’s, was one by Pembroke’s about
that date. The obstacle is that there is no known evidence, in provincial
records or elsewhere, for any continuous existence of Pembroke’s between
1593 and 1597. Pending the discovery of any such evidence, it seems better
to assume that Sincler, Spencer, and Jeffes were all Chamberlain’s men
before 1597, and that it was from a combination of discontented elements in
that company and in the Admiral’s that the Pembroke’s of the Swan arose.
If so, the rest of the Pembroke’s men not traceable as coming from the
Admiral’s, namely Robert Shaw, William Bird alias Borne, and probably
Anthony Jeffes, may also have come from the Chamberlain’s; and such an
origin might explain the suit with Thomas Pope in which Bird was

entangled in 1598.[576] Two other minor actors in the company about 1597
were probably Harvey and Rossill, whose names appear to have got into the
text of 1 Henry IV in place of those of Bardolph and Peto, whom they
represented.[577] The list of actors in Shakespeare’s plays given by the
editors of the First Folio includes Samuel Crosse, of whom nothing more is
known except that he was of an early generation. As the list in the Folio
appears to be limited to Chamberlain’s and King’s men, excluding for
example Alleyn, who certainly acted in Shakespearian plays, e.g. 1 Henry
VI, it may be that Crosse was for a short time a member of the company
soon after 1594.
It is hardly possible to carry the analysis of origins any further with
profit, or to assume that the groups which segregated themselves from the
Strange-Admiral’s combination in 1594 bore any close correspondence to
the respective contributions of Strange’s and the Admiral’s to that
combination in 1589 or 1590. The only name that can be connected with
Strange’s men before 1588 is John Symons and neither he nor George
Attewell, their payee in 1591, became a Chamberlain’s man. Hypotheses
have been framed, mainly in the hope of affiliating Shakespeare to Lord
Leicester’s men, who are supposed to have carried him away from
Stratford-on-Avon when they visited it in 1586–7, and ultimately to have
become Lord Strange’s men.[578] So far as Shakespeare is concerned, the
first record of him on the boards is in 1592, and the interval since his hegira
from Stratford may have been quite otherwise spent. The proof of
continuity between Leicester’s men and Strange’s altogether fails, since the
latter made their appearance a decade before the former came to an end.
The only member of the Lord Chamberlain’s company of 1594 who can be
traced to Leicester’s service was Kempe, and he had left Leicester’s men by
the summer of 1586 and was in Denmark. With him were Bryan and Pope,
who afterwards spent a year in Germany, and may have joined either
Strange’s or the Admiral’s on their return. The only other Chamberlain’s
man, who can be assigned to an earlier company than Strange’s, is
Heminges, who was probably at some time a Queen’s man.
The Chamberlain’s men evidently started business in 1594 with
something of a repertory derived by inheritance or purchase from
antecedent companies. Our knowledge of this is mainly confined to plays
with which Shakespeare was concerned as author or reviser. They certainly

did not get all the plays produced by Strange’s men at the Rose during 1592
and 1593. Some of these were Henslowe’s property; others passed with
Alleyn to the Admiral’s men. But they got The Jealous Comedy, if I am
right in identifying this with The Comedy of Errors. They probably got 1
Henry VI, for although the appearance of a Shakespearian play in the 1623
Folio is not perhaps, in view of the composition of the 1647 ‘Beaumont and
Fletcher’ Folio, absolute proof that the King’s men possessed the copy, their
stage had often shown both the loss of France and the bleeding of England
before Henry V was produced in 1599.[579] And they got Titus and
Vespasian, as revised, after passing through the hands of Pembroke’s men,
for production by Sussex’s under the title of Titus Andronicus. Three other
of Pembroke’s men’s plays came to them, The Taming of A Shrew and 2 and
3 Henry VI, and probably Hamlet belongs to the same group. It is of course
only a guess of mine that these also went with Shakespeare to Sussex’s men
and came thence with him. Titus Andronicus and A Shrew, indeed, became
available in print during 1594, but not Hamlet, and not Henry VI, except in
the obsolete version called The Contention of York and Lancaster. I think
Shakespeare must also have brought Richard III and possibly an early
version of Henry VIII, and that one or other of these had already been
played by Sussex’s as Buckingham. Of the provenance of Hester and
Ahasuerus nothing can be said. It is not necessary to suppose that the
Chamberlain’s acquired any plays from the stock of the Queen’s men. It is
true that Shakespeare subsequently made some use of The Troublesome
Reign of King John, The Famous Victories of Henry V, and King Leire, but
these were all in print before he needed them.[580] Alphonsus, Emperor of
Germany, published in 1654 as a play the King’s men at the Blackfriars is
believed by some to be an early play, possibly by Peele, and if so, may
belong to the repertory of 1594.
I now return to the chronicle of the Chamberlain’s men from 1598
onwards. The restriction of the London companies by the action of the
Privy Council to two had left them in direct rivalry with the Admiral’s at the
Rose. Disputes broke out. Henslowe made a loan to William Bird of the
Admiral’s on 30 August 1598 to follow a ‘sewt agenste Thomas Poope’,
and another to Thomas Downton on 30 January 1599, ‘to descarge Thomas
Dickers [Dekker] from the areaste of my lord chamberlens men’.[581] The
company played at Court on 26 December 1598 and 1 January and 20

February 1599. During this winter they undertook the enterprise of finding
a new head-quarters on the Bankside. The disputes between landlord and
tenants as to the lease of the Theatre had reached a crisis, and in December
or January the Burbadges removed the timber of the house across the
Thames, to serve as material for the construction of the Globe. The lease of
the new site was signed on 21 February 1599. Under it one moiety of the
interest was retained by Richard Burbadge and his brother Cuthbert, who
was not himself an actor; the other was assigned to Shakespeare, Pope,
Phillips, Heminges, and Kempe.[582] Shortly afterwards Kempe made over
his share to the other four. Presumably he now quitted the company, having
first, as a stage-direction shows, played Peter in the revised version of
Romeo and Juliet printed in 1599. His place was probably taken by Robert
Armin, formerly of Lord Chandos’s men, who describes himself in two
successive issues of his Fool upon Fool (1600 and 1605), first as ‘clonnico
del Curtanio’, and then as ‘clonnico del Mondo’, and who had therefore
probably joined the Chamberlain’s men before their actual transfer to the
Globe. As the Theatre had to be built, this is not likely to have taken place
until the autumn of 1599, and it must therefore remain doubtful which
house was the ‘wooden O’ of Henry V, produced during the absence of
Essex in Ireland between 27 March and 28 September 1599. It was,
however, certainly at the Globe that Thomas Platter saw Julius Caesar on
21 September.[583] ‘This fair-filled Globe’, too, is named in the epilogue to
Jonson’s Every Man Out of his Humour, which is ascribed in the Folio of
1606 to 1599, although if this be correct, an apparent allusion to Kempe’s
journey to Norwich in the spring of 1600 must, on the assumption that it is
a real allusion, be an interpolation. The ‘principall Comoedians’ in this play
were Burbadge, Heminges, Phillips, Condell, Sly, and Pope. Four of the
1598 names are missing. Shakespeare evidently stood aside. Kempe had
gone. Beeston and Duke may have gone also, although it is only a
conjecture of Mr. Fleay’s that they and Kempe now seceded to Pembroke’s
men at the Rose, and they are not definitely heard of again until they are
found with Worcester’s men in August 1602.[584] Mr. Fleay thinks that
another Worcester’s man, Robert Pallant, had accompanied them; but,
although Pallant was with Strange’s or the Admiral’s about 1590, there is no
evidence that he was ever a Chamberlain’s man. Conceivably he may have
joined the King’s men about 1619, but that is another matter.[585] About

November 1599 was published A Warning for Fair Women, which belonged
to the company.
The Court plays called for from the Chamberlain’s men during the
following winter were on 26 December 1599 and on 6 January and 3
February 1600. Heminges was sole payee, and occupied the same position
in every subsequent year, up to and beyond 1616, except in 1600–1, when
Richard Cowley was associated with him, and for a special payment made
to Burbadge in 1604. On 6 March 1600 the company had an opportunity of
rendering direct service to their patron Lord Hunsdon, by playing Henry IV,
still oddly called Sir John Oldcastle, after a dinner which he gave to the
Flemish ambassador, Ludovic Verreyken, presumably at his house in the
Blackfriars.[586] To 1600 I assign Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor,
not improbably prepared for performance, with the aid of the boys of
Windsor Chapel, at the Garter Feast on 23 April, and also As You Like It.
This was a year of some activity among the publishers and, as in 1598, the
company had to take steps to protect their interests. In May John Roberts
was prevented from printing their moral of Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose,
until he could bring proper authority, and in August a note was made in the
Stationers’ Register to stay the printing of As You Like It, Henry V, and
Much Ado about Nothing.[587] The last two of these, but not the first, were
in fact printed during the year, and so were A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,
The Merchant of Venice, 2 Henry IV, Every Man Out of his Humour, and An
Alarum for London, all plays belonging to the company.
The Chamberlain’s men played at Court on 26 December 1600 and on 6
January and 24 February 1601. Shortly before this last performance, they
had been involved in one of the tragedies of history. This was the abortive
coup d’état of 8 February 1601 in which the Earl of Essex, smarting under
the disgrace which his failure in Ireland had brought upon him, attempted to
secure his position and get rid of Sir Walter Raleigh and other enemies by
taking forcible possession of the person of Elizabeth and the palace of
Whitehall. Some of his followers seem to have conceived the idea of
predisposing the mind of the populace to their cause by a dramatic
representation of the dangers of evil counsellors and the possible remedy of
a deposition, as illustrated in the case of Elizabeth’s predecessor Richard II,
in whom for some obscure reason the political thought of the time was fond
of finding an analogue to the Queen. Saturday, 7 February, the day before

the outbreak, was chosen for the performance, and the players applied to
were the Chamberlain’s. A deposition by Augustine Phillips, taken before
Chief Justice Popham and Justice Fenner during the subsequent inquiries,
records the transaction.[588]
‘The Examination of Augustine Phillips, servant unto the L. Chamberlain and one
of his players, taken the xviijth of February, 1600, upon his oath.
‘He saith that on Friday last was sennight or Thursday Sir Charles Percy Sir
Josceline Percy and the Lord Mounteagle with some three more spoke to some of the
players in the presence of this Examinate to have the play of the deposing and killing
of King Richard the Second to be played the Saturday next, promising to get them xls.
more than their ordinary to play it. Where this Examinate and his fellows were
determined to have played some other play, holding that play of King Richard to be so
old and so long out of use that they should have small or no company at it. But at their
request this Examinate and his fellows were content to play it the Saturday and had
their xls. more than their ordinary for it, and so played it accordingly.’

The fact that Phillips speaks of the play as old and long out of use, which
becomes in the narrative of Camden ‘exoleta tragoedia’, hardly justifies the
suggestion that it was something earlier than Shakespeare’s Richard II.
This, if produced in 1596, may well have been off the boards by 1601.
A good deal of misunderstanding has gathered round the connexion of
the Chamberlain’s men with this affair. Mr. Fleay is responsible for the
theory that they fell into disgrace, had to travel, and were excluded from the
Court festivities of the following Christmas.[589] As a matter of fact they
played four times during that winter. This Mr. Fleay did not know, as he
only had before him Cunningham’s incomplete extracts from the accounts
of the Treasurer of the Chamber. But he ought to have noticed that their last
performance for 1600–1 was itself some days later than the examination of
Augustine Phillips. Nor is any evidence that the company travelled in 1601
forthcoming from the provincial archives. Mr. Fleay’s identification of them
with Laurence Fletcher’s Scottish company of that year merely rests upon
the presence of Fletcher’s name in the patent of 1603, and this will not bear
the strain of the argument.[590] Thus remains, however, the possibly
autobiographical passage in Hamlet, ii. 2. 346, which assigns an ‘inhibition
by the means of the late innovation’ as a cause of the travelling of players to
Elsinore. The date of Hamlet may well be 1601, since the same passage
refers to the theatrical competition set up by the establishment of boy
companies at St. Paul’s in 1599 and at the Chapel Royal in 1600. But it

must be borne in mind that this competition is the only reason given for the
travelling in the 1603 edition of the play. In the 1604 edition the only reason
is the inhibition, while in the text of the 1623 Folio both reasons stand
somewhat inconsistently side by side.[591] No doubt the text of 1603 is an
imperfect piratical reprint. On the other hand that of 1604 almost certainly
represents a revised version of the play, and the ‘inhibition’ cited, if it had
an historical existence at all, may be that of 1603, during which certainly
the company travelled. I suppose that ‘innovation’ might mean the
accession of a new sovereign, although it does not seem a very obvious
term. But then it does not seem a very obvious term for a seditious rising
either.[592] On the whole, there is no reason to suppose that any serious
blame was attached to the Chamberlain’s men for lending themselves to Sir
Gilly Meyrick’s intrigue. It is certainly absurd to suggest, as has been
suggested, that the ‘adorned creature’, whose ingratitude instigated the
comparison between Elizabeth and Richard, was not Essex but
Shakespeare.[593] At the same time the company may, of course, have been
told to leave London for a few weeks. At some time, as the 1603 title-page
tells us, they took Hamlet both to Oxford and to Cambridge, and it is at
least tempting to find a reminiscence of the Cambridge visit in the scene
from 2 Return from Parnassus cited below. It is possible that Phillips and
his fellows, and even their relation to the Essex crisis itself, may be glanced
at in the satirical picture of the Roman actors in Jonson’s Poetaster,
produced by the Chapel boys in the course of 1601.[594] Certainly the play
betrays its author’s knowledge of a counter-attack which the Chamberlain’s
men were already preparing for him in Dekker’s Satiromastix. This play, in
which Dekker may have had some help from Marston, was entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 11 November 1601, and had probably been on the
stage not long before. It is noteworthy that it was produced by the Paul’s
boys, as well as by the Chamberlain’s men. It was actually published in
1602. Another play which may reasonably be assigned to 1601 is Twelfth
Night.
In the following winter the company played at Court on 26 and 27
December 1601 and on 1 January and 14 February 1602. They also gave
Twelfth Night at the Middle Temple feast on 2 February;[595] and I have
very little doubt that it was they who furnished the play at which Elizabeth
and her maids of honour were present in the Blackfriars after dining with

Lord Hunsdon on 31 December.[596] The alleged production of Othello
before the Queen when Sir Thomas Egerton entertained her at Harefield
from 31 July to 2 August 1602 rests on a forgery by Collier.[597] It is
possible that, as Professor Wallace conjectures, the play was on the capture
of Stuhl-Weissenburg, seen by the Duke of Stettin on 13 September 1602,
may have been a Globe production.[598] Sir Thomas Cromwell, a play of
unknown authorship belonging to the company, was published in the course
of 1602, with an ascription on the title-page to W. S., and to this year I
assign Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well and Troilus and Cressida. If
so, the portrait of Ajax in the latter play cannot very well have been the
‘purge’ administered by Shakespeare to Jonson, to which reference is made
in 2 Return from Parnassus. This is a Cambridge Christmas piece, probably
of 1601–2, and in it Burbadge and Kempe are introduced as in search of
scholars to write for them. Perhaps the Cambridge author did not know that
Kempe had ceased to be the ‘fellow’ of Burbadge and Shakespeare in 1599,
and was at the time playing with Worcester’s men at the Rose. It is,
however, just possible that after returning from his continental tour and
before throwing in his lot with Worcester’s, he may have rejoined the
Chamberlain’s for a while, and may have accompanied them to Cambridge,
if they did travel in 1601.[599]
The last performances of the company before Elizabeth took place on 26
December 1602 and 2 February 1603, and on the following 24 March the
Queen died. Playing immediately ceased in London. Strictly speaking, the
Chamberlain’s men must have again become Lord Hunsdon’s men for a
month or so, for the Household appointments naturally lapsed with the
death of the sovereign, and Hunsdon, being in failing health, was relieved
of his duties on 6 April. On 9 September he died.[600] The company,
however, had already passed under royal patronage.
A contemporary panegyrist records the graciousness of James in ‘taking
to him the late Lord Chamberlaines servants, now the Kings acters’.[601]
The appointment was by letters patent dated 19 May 1603, of which the text
follows.[602]
Iames by the grace of god &c. To all Iustices, Maiors, Sheriffes,
Constables, hedborowes, and other our Officers and louinge Subiectes Commissio
greetinge. Knowe yee that Wee of our speciall grace, certeine specialis pro
knowledge, & mere motion haue licenced and aucthorized and by Laurencio Fletcher

theise presentes doe licence and aucthorize theise our Servauntes & Willelmo
Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Shackespeare et
Augustyne Phillippes, Iohn Heninges, Henrie Condell, William Sly, aliis
Robert Armyn, Richard Cowly, and the rest of theire Assosiates freely
to vse and exercise the Arte and faculty of playinge Comedies, Tragedies, histories,
Enterludes, moralls, pastoralls, Stage-plaies, and Suche others like as theie haue
alreadie studied or hereafter shall vse or studie, aswell for the recreation of our
lovinge Subjectes, as for our Solace and pleasure when wee shall thincke good to see
them, duringe our pleasure. And the said Commedies, tragedies, histories, Enterludes,
Morralles, Pastoralls, Stageplayes, and suche like to shewe and exercise publiquely to
theire best Commoditie, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, aswell within
theire nowe vsual howse called the Globe within our County of Surrey, as alsoe
within anie towne halls or Moute halls or other conveniente places within the liberties
and freedome of anie other Cittie, vniversitie, towne, or Boroughe whatsoever within
our said Realmes and domynions. Willinge and Commaundinge you and everie of
you, as you tender our pleasure, not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without
anie your lettes hindrances or molestacions during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be
aidinge and assistinge to them, yf anie wronge be to them offered, And to allowe them
such former Curtesies as hath bene given to men of theire place and quallitie, and
alsoe what further favour you shall shewe to theise our Servauntes for our sake wee
shall take kindlie at your handes. In wytnesse whereof &c. witnesse our selfe at
Westminster the nyntenth day of May
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

Of the nine players named, eight are recognizable as the principal members
of the Lord Chamberlain’s company as it stood at the end of Elizabeth’s
reign. Only Thomas Pope is not included. He was near his end. He made his
will on 22 July 1603, and it was proved on 13 February 1604. In it he
names none of his fellows, unless Robert Gough, who has a legacy, was
already of the company; his interest in the house of the Globe passed to
legatees and was thus alienated from the company. Laurence Fletcher, on
the other hand, whose name heads the list in the patent, is not discernible as
a Chamberlain’s man. His inclusion becomes readily intelligible, when it is
recalled that he had headed English actors on tour in Scotland, and had
already been marked by the personal favour of James.[603] Whether he ever
joined the company in the full sense, that is to say, the association of actors
as distinct from the body of royal servants, seems to me very doubtful. His
name is not in the Sejanus list, or in the Folio list of Shakespearian players,
and that he was described as a ‘fellow’ by Phillips in 1605 hardly takes the
matter further. He may have held a relation to the King’s men analogous to
that of Martin Slater to Queen Anne’s men. After 1605 nothing is heard of
him.[604]

The terms of the patent imply that it was issued during a suspension of
playing through plague. Probably this had followed hard upon the
suspension at Elizabeth’s death. The company travelled, being found at
Bath, Coventry, and Shrewsbury in the course of 1602–3. A misplaced
Ipswich entry of 30 May 1602 may belong to 1603. The visits to Oxford
and Cambridge referred to on the title-page of the 1603 edition of Hamlet
must also have taken place in this year, if they did not take place in 1601.
On 2 December 1603 the company were summoned from Mortlake to
perform before the King at Lord Pembroke’s house of Wilton.[605]
During the winter of 1603–4 the company gave eight more plays at
Court, a larger number than Elizabeth had ever called for. They took place
on 26, 27, 28, and 30 December 1603 and on 1 January and 2 and 19
February 1604. On New Year’s Day there were two performances, one
before James, the other before Prince Henry. The plague had not yet
subsided by 8 February, and James gave his men £30 as a ‘free gifte’ for
their ‘mayntenaunce and releife’ till it should ‘please God to settle the cittie
in a more perfecte health’. One of the plays of this winter was The Fair
Maid of Bristow. Another, produced before the end of 1603, was probably
Ben Jonson’s Sejanus. For alleged popery and treason in this play Jonson
was haled before the Privy Council by the Earl of Northampton, but there is
nothing to show that the players were implicated. The principal actors in
Sejanus were Burbadge, Shakespeare, Phillips, Heminges, Sly, Condell,
John Lowin, and Alexander Cooke. This is Shakespeare’s last appearance in
the cast of any play. He may have ceased to act, while remaining a member
of the company and its poet. The names of Lowin and Cooke are new.
Lowin had been with Worcester’s men in 1602–3. Cooke had probably
begun his connexion with the company as an apprentice to Heminges. The
identification of him with the ‘Sander’ of Strange’s men in 1590 is more
than hazardous. The Induction to Marston’s Malcontent, published in 1604,
records the names of Burbadge, who played Malevole, Condell, Sly, Lowin,
Sincler, and a Tire-man. Sincler was probably still only a hired man.
Nothing further is heard of him. This Induction seems to have been written
by John Webster to introduce the presentation by the King’s men of The
Malcontent, which was really a Chapel play. The transaction is thus
explained:[606]
Sly. I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it?

Condell. Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimo-sexto with
them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it One for Another.

The play of Jeronimo, which the Chapel are here accused of taking, cannot
be The Spanish Tragedy, which was an Admiral’s play, and is not very
likely to have been the ‘comedy of Jeronimo’ which Strange’s men had in
1592, and which was evidently related to The Spanish Tragedy and may be
expected to have remained with it. It might be the extant First Part of
Jeronimo, written perhaps for the Chamberlain’s men about 1601–2, when
Jonson was revising The Spanish Tragedy for the Admiral’s. A reference in
T. M.’s Black Book shows that The Merry Devil of Edmonton, which
belonged to the company, was already on the stage by 1604.[607]
The coronation procession of James, deferred on account of the plague,
went through London on 15 March 1604, and the Great Wardrobe furnished
each of the King’s players with four and a half yards of red cloth. The same
nine men are specified in the warrant as in the patent of 1603, and their
names stand next those of various officers of the Chamber. They did not,
however, actually walk in the procession.[608] From 9 to 27 August 1604,
they were called upon in their official capacity as Grooms of the Chamber
to form part of the retinue assigned to attend at Somerset House upon Juan
Fernandez de Velasco, Duke of Frias and Constable of Castile, who was in
England as Ambassador Extraordinary for the negotiation of a peace with
Spain. The descriptions of his visit, which have been preserved, do not
show that any plays were given before him.[609]
The company were at Oxford between 7 May and 16 June 1604. About
18 December they had got into trouble through the production of a tragedy
on Gowry, always a delicate subject with James.[610] But this did not
interfere with a long series of no less than eleven performances which they
gave at Court between 1 November 1604 and 12 February 1605, and of
which the Revels Accounts fortunately preserve the names.[611] The series
included one play, The Spanish Maze, of which nothing is known; two by
Ben Jonson, Every Man In his Humour and Every Man Out of his Humour;
and seven by Shakespeare, Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure
for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, Henry V, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and
The Merchant of Venice, which was given twice. Othello and Measure for
Measure had probably been produced for the first time during 1604, but the
rest of the list suggests that opportunity was being taken to revive a number

of Elizabethan plays unknown to the new sovereigns. This is borne out by
the terms of a letter from Sir Walter Cope to Lord Southampton with regard
to the performance of Love’s Labour ’s Lost.[612]
Between 4 May 1605, when he made his will, and 13 May, when it was
proved, died Augustine Phillips. Unlike Pope, he was full of kindly
remembrances towards the King’s men. He appointed Heminges, Burbadge,
and Sly overseers of the will. He left legacies to his ‘fellows’ Shakespeare,
Condell, Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cooke, and Nicholas Tooley; to the hired
men of the company; to his ‘servant’ Christopher Beeston; to his apprentice
James Sands, and to his late apprentice Samuel Gilburne. We have here
practically a full list of the company. The name of Nicholas Tooley is new,
unless indeed he was the ‘Nick’ of Strange’s men in 1592. He speaks of
Richard Burbadge in his will as his ‘master’ and may have been his
apprentice. The use of the term ‘fellow’ suggests that Tooley and Cooke
were now sharers in the company. On the other hand Lowin, who is not
named among the ‘fellows’, may still have been only a hired man.
Beeston’s legacy is doubtless in memory of former service as hired man or
apprentice; he was in 1605 and for long after with the Queen’s men. Samuel
Gilburne is recorded as a Shakespearian actor in the 1623 Folio, but
practically nothing is known of him or of James Sands. The exact legal
disposal of the interest held by Phillips in the Globe subsequently became
matter of controversy, but in effect it remained from 1605 to 1613 with his
widow and her second husband, and was thus alienated from the company.
On some date before Michaelmas in 1605 the King’s men visited
Barnstaple, and on 9 October they were at Oxford. This year saw the
publication of The Fair Maid of Bristow and of The London Prodigal,
which was assigned on its title-page to Shakespeare. To it I also assign
Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear.
Ten Court plays were given in the winter of 1605–6, but the dates are not
recorded. Three more were given in the summer of 1606 during the visit of
the King of Denmark to James, which lasted from 7 July to 11 August, and
then the company seem to have gone on tour. They were at Oxford between
28 and 31 July, at Leicester in August, at Dover between 6 and 24
September, at Saffron Walden and Maidstone during 1605–6, and at
Marlborough in 1606. To this year I assign Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra and Coriolanus, and to the earlier part of it Ben Jonson’s

Volpone, in which the principal actors were Burbadge, Condell, Sly,
Heminges, Lowin, and Cooke.
Nine Court plays were given during the winter of 1606–7, on 26 and 29
December 1606, and on 4, 6, and 8 January and 2, 5, 15, and 27 February
1607. The entry in the Stationers’ Register for King Lear and the title-page
of Barnes’ The Devil’s Charter, both dated in 1607, show these to have been
the plays selected for 26 December and 2 February respectively. In the same
year were also published Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy and Wilkins’
The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, and to it I assign the production of
Timon of Athens. On 16 July 1607 Heminges lent his boy John Rice to
appear as an angel of gladness with a taper of frankincense, and deliver an
eighteen-verse speech by Ben Jonson as part of the entertainment of James
by the Merchant Taylors at their hall.[613] During the summer the company
travelled to Barnstaple, to Dunwich, to Oxford, where they were on 7
September, and possibly to Cambridge. Volpone had probably been given in
both Universities before its publication about February 1607 or 1608.
During the winter of 1607–8 the company gave thirteen Court plays, on
26, 27, and 28 December 1606, and on 2, 6, 7, 9, 17, and 26 January, and 2
and 7 February 1607. On each of the nights of 6 and 17 January there were
two plays. In 1608 was published A Yorkshire Tragedy, with Shakespeare’s
name on the title-page, and to it I assign the production of Pericles, in
which Shakespeare probably had Wilkins for a collaborator. About May the
company had to find their share of the heavy fine necessary to buy off the
inhibition due to the performance of Chapman’s Duke of Byron by the
Queen’s Revels.[614] The year was in many ways an eventful one for the
King’s men. They had, I suspect, to face a growing detachment of
Shakespeare from London and the theatre; and the loss was perhaps partly
supplied by the establishment of relations with Beaumont and Fletcher,
whose earliest play for the company, Philaster, may be of any date from
1608 to 1610. About 16 August died William Sly, leaving his interest in the
Globe to his son Robert and legacies to Cuthbert Burbadge and James
Sands. Both he and Henry Condell had been admitted to an interest at some
date subsequent to November 1606, the moiety of the lease not retained by
the Burbadges having been redistributed into sixths to allow of this. The
deserts of Pope, Phillips, and Sly are all commemorated in the Apology of
Thomas Heywood, which, though not published until 1612, was probably

written in 1608.[615] Sly’s death complicated an important transaction in
which the King’s men were engaged. This was the acquisition of the
Blackfriars, of which the freehold already belonged to the Burbadges, but
which had been leased since 1600 to Henry Evans and occupied by the
Children of the Revels. About July 1608 Evans was prepared to surrender
his lease, and the Burbadges decided to take the opportunity of providing
the King’s men with a second house on the north side of the Thames,
suitable for a winter head-quarters. As in the case of the Globe, they shared
their interest as housekeepers with some of the leading members of the
company. New leases were executed on 9 August 1608, by which the house
was divided between a syndicate of seven, of whom five were Richard
Burbadge, Shakespeare, Heminges, Condell, and Sly, while the other two,
Cuthbert Burbadge and Thomas Evans, were not King’s men. When Sly’s
death intervened, his executrix surrendered his interest and the number of
the syndicate was reduced to six. Probably, however, the King’s men did not
enter upon the actual occupation of the Blackfriars until the autumn of the
following year.[616] In fact the plague kept the London theatres closed from
July 1608 to December 1609. The King’s men were at Coventry on 29
October 1608 and at Marlborough in the course of 1607–8. The plague did
not prevent them from appearing at Court during the winter of 1608–9, and
they gave twelve plays on unspecified dates. But their difficulties are
testified to by a special reward ‘for their private practise in the time of
infeccion’, which had rendered their Christmas service possible.
The plague led to an early provincial tour. The company were at Ipswich
on 9 May, at Hythe on 16 May, and at New Romney on 17 May 1609. Their
winter season was again interfered with, and a further grant was made in
respect of six weeks of private practice. Amongst the plays so practised
may, I think, have been Cymbeline. They gave thirteen plays at Court on
unspecified dates during the holidays of 1609–10.[617] One of these may
have been Mucedorus, the edition of which with the imprint 1610
represents a revised version performed at Court on the previous Shrove
Sunday. This might be either 18 February 1610 or 3 February 1611. The
epilogue contains an apology for some recent indiscretion of the company
in a play of which no more is known, but which might conceivably be
Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk, since this certainly brought its players
into some disgrace. By April the company were at the Globe, playing

Macbeth on 20 April, Cymbeline probably shortly before, and Othello on 30
April.[618] To this year I assign The Winter’s Tale and Beaumont and
Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy. It also saw the production of Jonson’s
Alchemist, with a cast including Burbadge, Lowin, Condell, Cooke, Armin,
Heminges, William Ostler, John Underwood, Tooley, and William
Ecclestone. This is the last mention of Armin in connexion with the King’s
men, but it is sufficient to show that the production of his Two Maids of
Moreclack by the King’s Revels about 1608 did not involve any breach with
his old company. Of Ecclestone’s origin nothing is known.[619] Ostler and
Underwood came from the Queen’s Revels, probably when the Blackfriars
was taken over in 1609. In fact an account of the transaction given by the
Burbadges in 1635 suggests that the desire to acquire these boys was its
fundamental motive. They say:
‘In processe of time, the boyes growing up to bee men, which were Underwood,
Field, Ostler, and were taken to strengthen the King’s service; and the more to
strengthen the service, the boyes dayly wearing out, it was considered that house
would bee as fitt for ourselves, and soe purchased the lease remaining from Evans
with our money, and placed men players, which were Heminges, Condall, Shakspeare,
&c.’

This narrative seems, however, to have antedated matters as regards
Field. Or, if he did come to the King’s men in 1609, he almost immediately
returned to the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars, joining the King’s again
about 1616.[620]
About 8 May 1610 some superfluous apparel of the company was sold
by Heminges on their behalf to the Duke of York’s men (q.v.). On 31 May
Burbadge and Rice were employed by the City to make speeches on fish-
back at the civic pageant of welcome to Prince Henry.[621] The autumn
travelling took the company to Dover between 6 July and 4 August 1610, to
Oxford in August, and to Shrewsbury and Stafford in 1609–10. During the
following winter they gave fifteen Court plays on unspecified days. They
were playing a piece on the story of Richard II, not now extant, at the Globe
on 30 April 1611, and A Winter’s Tale on 15 May.[622] During 1611 Jonson’s
Catiline was produced, with a cast similar to that of The Alchemist, except
that Armin was replaced by Richard Robinson, whose earlier history is
unknown. Robinson, playing a female part, and Robert Gough also appear
in the stage directions of The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, licensed for the
stage by Sir George Buck on 31 October 1611. Gough was probably one of

Strange’s men in 1592. He appears in the wills of Pope in 1603 and of
Phillips, who was his brother-in-law, in 1605, but with no indication that he
belonged to the King’s men. Beaumont and Fletcher’s A King and No King
was also licensed by Buck in 1611, and to this year I assign Shakespeare’s
Tempest. On 25 August 1611 the interest in the Blackfriars originally
intended for Sly was assigned to Ostler. Ecclestone, on the other hand, later
in the year than the production of Catiline, but before 29 August, left the
company for the Lady Elizabeth’s men.
The only provincial visit by the King’s men recorded in 1610–11 was to
Shrewsbury. They gave twenty-two plays at Court during a rather prolonged
winter season extending from 31 October 1611 to 26 April 1612. Two of
these, on 12 and 13 January, were joint performances with the Queen’s men,
and the plays used, Heywood’s Silver Age and Rape of Lucrece, were from
the repertory of the latter.[623] The King’s men also gave The Tempest and A
Winter’s Tale, A King and No King, Tourneur’s The Nobleman, and The
Twins’ Tragedy. On 20 February 1612 the actors’ moiety of the Globe was
again redistributed, into sevenths, so as to allow of the admission as a
housekeeper of Ostler, who had married a daughter of Heminges. From the
statement of the interests held by the parties to this transaction, it is to be
inferred that Heminges and Condell had between them bought out since
1608 the representatives of Sly. On 21 April 1612 the company was at New
Romney and at some date during 1611–12 at Winchester. Heminges
received a payment for services to the Lord Mayor’s pageant of this year,
which was Dekker’s Troja Nova Triumphans.[624]
The actor-list attached to The Captain in the Beaumont and Fletcher
Folio of 1679 probably belongs to the original production of the play
between 1609 and 1612. It names Burbadge, Condell, Cooke, and Ostler. It
was one of the plays selected for the Court season of 1612–13, during
which, on 14 February, took place the wedding of the Elector Palatine
Frederick and the Princess Elizabeth, and which was therefore singularly
rich in plays, notwithstanding the interruption of the festivities due to the
death of Prince Henry on 7 November 1612. Heminges lent a boy for
Chapman’s mask on 15 February. The twenty plays given this winter by the
King’s men, the exact dates of which are not upon record, were
Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing (performed twice), The Tempest, A
Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, Othello, and 1 and 2 Henry IV, Jonson’s

Alchemist, Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster (also performed twice), The
Maid’s Tragedy, A King and No King, The Captain and the lost play of
Cardenio, Tourneur’s Nobleman, and four plays of unknown authorship,
The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Knot of Fools, The Twins’ Tragedy, and
A Bad Beginning Makes a Good Ending. On 8 June there was a special
performance of Cardenio for the Savoyan ambassador. Some unknown
cause seems to have brought Shakespeare back in 1613 to the assistance of
his fellows, and he collaborated with Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen
and in Henry VIII or All is True, possibly a revision of the Buckingham
which formed part of the repertory of Sussex’s men in 1594. During a
performance of Henry VIII, on 29 June 1613, the Globe was burnt to the
ground. Some contemporary verses mention Burbadge, Heminges, and
Condell as present on this occasion. A levy was called for from the
housekeepers to meet the cost of rebuilding, and owing to the inability of
the representatives of Augustine Phillips to meet the call upon them,
Heminges was enabled to recover one of the alienated interests, which he
divided with Condell.
The company was at Oxford before November in 1613, and also visited
Shrewsbury, Stafford, and Folkestone during 1612–13. They played sixteen
times at Court in the winter of 1613–14, on 1, 4, 5, 15, and 16 November
and 27 December 1613, and on 1, 4, and 10 January, 2, 4, 8, 10, and 18
February and 6 and 8 March 1614. The rebuilding of the Globe was
complete by 30 June 1614, and in the course of 1613–14 the company
visited Coventry. Cooke died in February 1614, being then a sharer. Ostler
died on 16 December, and his interests in the Globe and Blackfriars became
matter of dispute between his widow and her father, John Heminges. The
ascertained dates of Ostler’s career render it possible to assign to 1609–14,
the period of his connexion with the King’s men, three plays in which he
took part. These are Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, at the first production of
which, if the actor-list of the 1623 edition is rightly interpreted, the parts of
Ferdinand, the Cardinal, and Antonio were played respectively by
Burbadge, Condell, and Ostler, Fletcher’s Valentinian, played by Burbadge,
Condell, Lowin, Ostler, and Underwood, and his Bonduca, played by
Burbadge, Condell, Lowin, Ostler, Underwood, Tooley, Ecclestone, and
Robinson. Bonduca must be either earlier than Ecclestone’s departure for
the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1611, or after he quitted that company and
presumably rejoined the King’s in 1613.

The King’s men gave eight plays at Court on unspecified days during the
winter of 1614–15. On 29 March 1615 they were in trouble with other
companies for playing in Lent, and Heminges and Burbadge appeared on
their behalf before the Privy Council. In April 1615 they were at
Nottingham. They gave fourteen plays at Court between 1 November 1615
and 1 April 1616, and again the precise dates are not specified. They also
appeared before Anne at Somerset House on 21 December 1615.
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, and with this event I must close my
detailed chronicle of the fortunes of the company. A new patent was issued
to them on 27 March 1619, probably to secure their right to perform in the
Blackfriars, which was being challenged by the action of the City.[625] Since
1603 Shakespeare, Phillips, Sly, Cowley, Armin, and Fletcher have dropped
out of the list, and are replaced by Lowin, Underwood, Tooley, Ecclestone,
Gough, and Robinson, together with Nathan Field, Robert Benfield, and
John Shank, who now appear for the first time as members of the company.
[626]
Benfield and Field are last traceable with the Lady Elizabeth’s men in
1613 and 1615 respectively, Shank with the Palsgrave’s men in 1613. The
only names common to both patents are those of Burbadge, Heminges, and
Condell. But in fact Burbadge died on 13 March 1619, while the patent was
going through its stages, and his place was almost immediately taken by
Joseph Taylor, from Prince Charles’s men. About the same time Field left
the company.[627] Heminges, described as ‘stuttering’ in 1613, cannot be
shown to have acted since the Catiline of 1611. He had probably devoted
himself to the business management of the company, in which he always
appears prominent. Condell also seems to have given up acting about 1619,
and during the rest of the history of the company up to its extinction in
1642, its mainstays were Lowin and Taylor, who became depositaries of the
tradition of the great Shakespearian parts. John Downes, who was prompter
to the Duke of York’s men after the Restoration, relates how, when
Betterton played Hamlet, ‘Sir William [Davenant] (having seen Mr. Taylor
of the Black-Fryers Company Act it, who being instructed by the Author
Mr. Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every Particle of it’; and how
Davenant was similarly able to act as Betterton’s tutor for Henry the Eighth,
for he ‘had it from Old Mr. Lowen, that had his Instructions from Mr.
Shakespear himself’.[628] When Heminges and Condell came to print
Shakespeare’s plays in 1623, they prefixed ‘the names of the principall

Actors in all these playes’ as follows: ‘William Shakespeare, Richard
Burbadge, John Hemmings, Augustine Phillips, William Kempt, Thomas
Poope, George Bryan, Henry Condell, William Slye, Richard Cowly, John
Lowine, Samuell Crosse, Alexander Cooke, Samuel Gilburne, Robert
Armin, William Ostler, Nathan Field, John Underwood, Nicholas Tooley,
William Ecclestone, Joseph Taylor, Robert Benfield, Robert Goughe,
Richard Robinson, John Shancke, John Rice.’ The order is a little puzzling.
The first ten entries may be those of the original members of the
Chamberlain’s company in 1594; and if so, their order does not matter. But
it is difficult to believe that the other sixteen can represent either the order
in which the men began to play for the company, or the order in which they
became sharers. Of course, there may have been comings and goings known
to Heminges and Condell, but not now traceable. Thus Field and even
Taylor may have come for a short while and gone again before 1611. But it
seems impossible that Tooley, who was ‘fellow’ to Phillips in 1605, could
really have been junior to the recruits from the Queen’s Revels in 1609. On
the whole, one must suppose that, if Heminges and Condell aimed at an
exact chronology, their memory occasionally failed them. The omission
from the Folio of Duke, Beeston, Sincler, and Sands may indicate that the
list is confined to sharers. It is probable that Fletcher, who is also omitted,
was not a sharer and did not act in any Shakespearian play.

xxi. THE EARL OF WORCESTER’S AND QUEEN ANNE’S MEN
William Somerset, nat. 1526; succ. as 3rd Earl of Worcester, 1548; m. Christian, d.
of Edward, 1st Lord North; ob. 22 Feb. 1589.
Edward Somerset, s. of William; nat. 1553; Lord Herbert of Chepstow; succ. as 4th
Earl, 1589; m. Elizabeth, d. of Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon; Deputy Master of the
Horse, Dec. 1597; Master of the Horse, 21 Apr. 1601; Earl Marshal, 1603; Lord Privy
Seal, 2 Jan. 1616; ob. 3 Mar. 1628.
Henry Somerset, s. of Edward; nat. 1577; Lord Herbert of Chepstow from 1589;
m. 16 June 1600, Anne, d. of John, Lord Russell; succ. as 5th Earl, 1628; cr. 1st
Marquis of Worcester, 1642.
Anne, d. of Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway; nat. 12 Dec. 1574; m.
James VI, King of Scotland, 20 Aug. 1589; Queen Consort of England, 24 Mar. 1603;
ob. 2 Mar. 1619.
[Bibliographical Note.—The records of Worcester’s men in 1602–3
are printed and discussed by W. W. Greg in Henslowe’s Diary (1904–8).
The will of Thomas Greene (1612) was printed by J. Greenstreet in the
Athenaeum (29 August 1895), and the Bill, Answer, and Orders in the
Chancery suit of Worth et al. v. Baskerville et al. (1623–6) by the same in

the Athenaeum (11 July and 29 August 1885) and N. S. S. Trans. (1880–
6), 489. Both are reprinted in Fleay, 192, 271. The Court of Requests suit
of Smith v. Beeston et al. (1619–20) is printed by C. W. Wallace in
Nebraska University Studies, ix. 315.]

The first company under the patronage of this house had a long and
wholly provincial career.[629] The earliest record of it is at Barnstaple in
1555. On 10 October 1563 it was at Leicester. On 13 and 14 January 1565 it
was at Sir George Vernon’s, Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, under the leadership
of one Hamond.[630] It is further traceable in December 1565 at Newcastle,
before Michaelmas 1566 at Leicester, in 1567–8 at Gloucester, in 1568–9 at
Ipswich, Stratford-on-Avon, and Bath, on 11 August 1569 at Nottingham, in
1569–70 and 1570–1 at Gloucester and Barnstaple, in 1571 at Leicester and
Beverley, on 9 January 1572 at Nottingham, before Michaelmas at
Leicester, on 31 December 1572 at Wollaton, Notts. (Francis Willoughby’s),
on 6 January 1573 at Nottingham, in 1572–3 at Bath, in 1573–4 at
Abingdon, and in January 1574 at Wollaton again. As the Earl of
Worcester’s eldest son bore the courtesy title of Lord Herbert, it is probably
the same company which appeared at Leicester, after Michaelmas in 1574,
as ‘Lorde Harbards’. But it is named as Worcester’s again in 1574–5 at
Stratford-on-Avon, on 28 April 1575 at Nottingham, and after Michaelmas
in the same year at Leicester, in 1575–6 at Coventry, in 1576–7 at Stratford-
on-Avon and Bath, and on 14 June 1577 at Southampton, where it consisted
of ten men. On 19 January 1578 it was at Nottingham, in 1577–8 at
Coventry, in 1580–1 and 1581–2 at Stratford-on-Avon, in 1581–2 at
Abingdon, on 15 June 1582 at Ipswich, in the same year at Doncaster.
Two incidents in successive years suggest that Worcester’s men were not
always quite so amenable, as vagrants should have been, to municipal
discipline. The first was at Norwich on 7 June 1583. Here there was a fear
of plague, and the company were given 26s. 8d., on a promise not to play.
In spite of this they played in their host’s house. The Corporation ordered
‘that their lord shall be certified of their contempt’, and that they should
never again receive reward in Norwich, and should presently depart the
town on pain of imprisonment. It was afterwards agreed, however, on
submission and earnest entreaty, not to report the misdemeanour to the Earl
of Worcester. The second occasion was in the following March in Leicester,
and the entries in the Corporation archives are so interesting as to deserve
reproduction in full.[631]

Tuesdaie the third daie of Marche, 1583, certen playors whoe said they
were the seruants of the Quenes Maiesties Master of the Revells, who
required lycence to play & for there aucthorytye showed forth an Mr Mayor
Indenture of Lycense from one Mr Edmonde Tylneye esquier Mr of Mr J. Tatam
her Maiesties Revells of the one parte, and George Haysell of Mr Morton.
Wisbiche in the Ile of Elye in the Countie of Cambridge, gentleman on
the other parte.

The which indenture is dated the vjth daie of Februarye in the xxvth yere of her
Maiesties raign &c.
In which Indenture there ys one article that all Justices, Maiores, Sherifs, Bayllyfs,
Constables, and all other her officers, ministers & subiects whatsoeuer to be aydinge
& assistinge vnto the said Edmund Tilneye, his Deputies & Assignes, attendinge &
havinge due regard vnto suche parsons as shall disorderly intrude themselves into any
the doings and actions before mencioned, not beinge reformed, qualifyed & bound to
the orders prescribed by the said Edmund Tyllneye. These shalbee therefore not only
to signifye & geve notice vnto all & euery her said Justices &c. that none of there
owne pretensed aucthoritye intrude themselves & presume to showe forth any suche
playes, enterludes, tragedies, comodies, or shewes in any places within this Realm,
withoute the orderlye allowance thereof vnder the hand of the sayd Edmund.
Nota. No play is to bee played, but suche as is allowed by the sayd Edmund, & his
hand at the latter end of the said booke they doe play.
The forsed Haysell is nowe the chefe playor &c.

Fridaye the 6 of Marche.

Certen players came before Mr Mayor at the Hall there beinge present Mr John
Tatam, Mr George Tatam, Mr Morton & Mr Worship: who sayed they were the Earle
of Wosters men: who sayd the forsyd playors were not lawfully aucthorysed, & that
they had taken from them there commyssion, but it is untrue, for they forgat there box
at the Inne in Leicester, & so these men gat yt & they sed the syd Haysell was not
here hymself and they sent the same to Grantom to the syd Haysell who dwellith
there.
William Earle of Worcester &c. hath by his wrytinge dated the 14 of Januarye
Anno 25o Eliz. Reginae licensed his Seruants viz. Robert Browne, James Tunstall,
Edward Allen, William Harryson, Thomas Cooke, Rychard Johnes, Edward Browne,
Rychard Andrewes to playe & goe abrode, vsinge themselves orderly &c. (in theise
words &c.) These are therefore to require all suche her Highnes offycers to whom
these presents shall come, quietly & frendly within your severall presincts &
corporacions to permytt & suffer them to passe with your furtherance vsinge &
demeanynge themselves honestly & to geve them (the rather for my sake) suche
intertaynement as other noble mens players haue (In Wytnes &c.)

Mr Mayor
Mr Jo. Heyrycke
Mr Noryce

Mr Ja. Clarke
Mr George Tatam
Mr Morton
Mr Robt Heyrycke
Mr Ellys
Mr Newcome.

Memorandum that Mr Mayor did geve the aforesaid playors an angell towards
there dinner & wild them not to playe at this present: being Fryday the vjth of
Marche, for that the tyme was not conveynyent.

The foresaid playors mett Mr Mayor in the strete nere Mr Newcomes housse, after
the angell was geven abowte a ij howers, who then craived lycense ageyne to play at
there inn, & he told them they shold not, then they went away & seyd they wold play,
whether he wold or not, & in dispite of hym, with dyvers other evyll & contemptyous
words: Witness here of Mr Newcome, Mr Wycam, & William Dethicke.

More, these men, contrary to Mr Mayors comandment, went with their drum &
trumppytts thorowe the Towne, in contempt of Mr Mayor, neyther wold come at his
comandment, by his offycer, viz. Worship.
William Pateson my lord Harbards man
these ij
Thomas Powlton my lord of Worcesters man

were they which dyd so much abuse Mr Mayor in the aforesayd words.
Nota. These sayd playors have submytted them selves, & are sorye for there words
past, & craved pardon, desyeringe his worship not to write to there Master agayne
them, & so vpon there submyssyn, they are lycensed to play this night at there inn, &
also they have promysed that vppon the stage, in the begynyng of there play, to shoe
vnto the hearers that they are licensed to playe by Mr Mayor & with his good will &
that they are sory for the words past.

The latter part of this record is intelligible enough; evidently there was a
repetition of the misrule at Norwich. But the earlier part, which refers to a
different matter altogether, is distinctly puzzling. The ‘theys’ in the first
sentence of the Corporation minute of 6 March are complicated, and it has
sometimes been supposed that there was really a company of Master of the
Revels’ men, and that it was Worcester’s men who questioned the licence of
these.[632] On the whole, I think that a different interpretation of the
documents is the more natural one. No doubt Worcester’s men had found it
necessary, as a result of the powers granted to Tilney as Master of the
Revels by the patent of 24 December 1581, to renew the authority under
which they travelled. In addition to a fresh warrant from their lord licensing

them to travel as his household servants, and dated 14 January 1583, they
obtained on the following 6 February a further licence from Tilney, issued
under the clause of his commission which appointed him to ‘order and
reforme, auctorise and put downe’ all players in any part of England,
whether they were ‘belonginge to any noble man’ or otherwise.[633] This
licence, but not the other, they left at their inn in Leicester, while passing
through on some previous occasion; and here it was found by some
unlicensed players, who appropriated it, and either through
misunderstanding or through fraud, imposed it upon the Corporation as an
instrument constituting a Master of the Revels’ company. There are two
difficulties in this theory. One is that George Haysell, to whom Tilney’s
licence was issued, is not one of the actors named in the Earl of Worcester’s
warrant. But there are other cases in which the constitution of a company in
the eyes of its lord was not quite the same as its constitution from the point
of view of business relations, and I should suppose that Haysell, who was
evidently not himself acting at the time, was the financier of the enterprise,
and gave the bonds which Tilney would probably require for the satisfaction
of the covenants of his indenture of licence. The other difficulty is that
Leicester is not the only place in which the presence of a Master of the
Revels’ company is recorded. Such a company was at Ludlow on 7
December 1583 and at Bath in 1583–4.[634] But, after all, this need mean no
more than that the bogus company kept up their fraud for two or three
months before they were exposed. If Tilney had really started a company of
his own, it might have been expected to have a longer life. The
establishment in 1583 of the Queen’s men makes it the less probable that he
did so.
The list of this provincial company, as it stood in January 1583, is
interesting, because at least four of its members, Robert Browne, Richard
Jones, James Tunstall, and above all Edward Alleyn, then only a lad of
sixteen, were destined to take a considerable share in the stage history of
the future. Edward Browne, too, was afterwards one of the Admiral’s men.
Of the rest, William Harrison, Thomas Cooke, Richard Andrewes, as well
as of George Haysell (cf. ch. xv) and of the two players who were not
named in the warrant, Thomas Powlton and William Pateson, Lord
Herbert’s man, nothing or practically nothing further is known.[635] It is
possible that the escapades of the company at Norwich and Leicester came,

after all, to Worcester’s ears and aroused his displeasure. Visits are recorded
to Coventry and Stratford in 1583–4, to Maidstone in 1584–5, to York in
March 1585, and thereafter no more. It is also possible that the company
passed from Worcester’s service into that of Lord Howard, when the latter
became Lord Admiral in 1585. If so, a conveyance by Richard Jones to
Edward Alleyn on 3 January 1589 of his share in a stock of apparel, play-
books, and so forth, held jointly with Edward and John Alleyn and Robert
Browne, must relate, not to a break up of Worcester’s men shortly before
the death of the third earl, but to some internal change in the organization of
the Admiral’s men.[636] In any case Mr. Fleay’s theory that Worcester’s
men, other than Alleyn, became Pembroke’s in 1589 and only joined the
Admiral’s in 1594 is quite gratuitous, as there is no evidence of the
existence of Pembroke’s men before 1592.[637] Whether there was a
Worcester’s company or not from 1585 to 1589, there was certainly one
after the accession of the fourth earl. It is traceable at Coventry in 1589–90,
at Newcastle in October 1590, at Leicester during the last three months of
the same year, at Coventry and Faversham in 1590–1, at Leicester on 26
June 1591 and again in the last three months of the year, at Coventry and
Shrewsbury in 1591–2, at Ipswich in 1592–3, twice at Leicester in 1593,
both before and after Michaelmas, twice at Bath in 1593–4, at Leicester
before Michaelmas in 1595, at Ludlow on 3 December 1595, at Bath in
1595–6, at Leicester on 1 August 1596, at Bristol in August 1598, at York in
April 1599, and at Coventry on 3 January 1600 and in 1600–1 and 1601–2.
[638]

By the end of 1601 the Earl of Worcester was holding the Mastership of
the Horse and other important offices at Court, and may have thought it
consonant with his dignity to have London players under his patronage. On
3 January 1602 his company was at Court. On 31 March the Privy Council,
after attempting for some years to limit the number of London companies to
two, made an order that Oxford’s and Worcester’s men, ‘beinge ioyned by
agrement togeather in on companie’, should be allowed to play at the
Boar’s Head and nowhere else.[639] In the course of 1602 How a Man may
Choose a Good Wife from a Bad was published as played by Worcester’s
men. By 17 August the company were in relations, under the style of ‘my
lorde of Worsters players’, with Henslowe, who opened an account of
advances made for their play-books and apparel, on the same lines as that

which he kept during 1597–1603 with the Admiral’s men.[640] An early
entry is of 9s. for a supper ‘at the Mermayd when we weare at owre a
grement’. The account was continued until the spring of 1603, when
Henslowe’s famous diary was disused. No theatre is named, but it is
probable that, with or without leave from the Privy Council, the company
moved to the Rose, which had been vacated by the Admiral’s men on the
opening of the Fortune in 1600. Certainly this was so by May 1603, when
an acquittance for an advance entered in the account refers to a play to be
written for ‘the Earle of Worcesters players at the Rose’.[641] There is no
complete list of the company in the diary. The names of those members
incidentally mentioned, as authorizing payments or otherwise, are John
Duke, Thomas Blackwood, William Kempe, John Thare, John Lowin,
Thomas Heywood, Christopher Beeston, Robert Pallant, and a Cattanes
whose first name is not preserved. The payees for the performance of 1601–
2 were Kempe and Heywood. One Underell was in receipt of wages from
the company, together with a tireman, who made purchases of stuffs for
them. It is impossible to say which of these men had been with Worcester’s
and which with Oxford’s before the amalgamation. Heywood, who was
playwright as well as actor, had written for the Admiral’s from 1596 to
1599, and had bound himself to play in Henslowe’s house for two years
from 25 March 1598. Pallant had been with Strange’s or the Admiral’s in
1590–1, and Duke, Kempe, and Beeston with the Chamberlain’s in 1598.
Since then Kempe had travelled abroad, returning in September 1601. It is
little more than a guess that some of these men may have played with
Henslowe as Pembroke’s.[642] Several members of the company borrowed
money from Henslowe, in some cases before their connexion with the Rose
began. Duke had a loan as early as 21 September 1600, and Kempe on 10
March 1602.[643] Blackwood and Lowin borrowed on 12 March 1603 to go
into the country with the company.[644] This was, no doubt, when playing in
London was suspended owing to the illness of Elizabeth. A loan for a
similar purpose was made on the same day to Richard Perkins, and suggests
that he too was already one of Worcester’s men. There is, indeed, an earlier
note of 4 September 1602 connecting him with one Dick Syferweste, whose
fellows were then in the country, while Worcester’s were, of course, at the
Rose. But this itself makes it clear that he was interested in a play of
Heywood’s, which can hardly be other than that then in preparation at the

Rose, and perhaps Syferwest was an unfortunate comrade in Oxford’s or
Worcester’s, who had been left out at the reconstruction.[645]
During the seven months of the account Worcester’s men bought twelve
new plays. These were:

A Medicine for a Curst Wife (Dekker).
Albere Galles (Heywood and Smith).
Marshal Osric (Heywood and Smith).
The Three Brothers (Smith).[646]
1 Lady Jane, or, The Overthrow of Rebels[647] (Chettle, Dekker,
Heywood, Smith, and Webster).
Christmas Comes but Once a Year (Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and
Webster).
1 The Black Dog of Newgate (Day, Hathaway, Smith, and another).
The Blind Eats Many a Fly (Heywood).
The Unfortunate General (Day, Hathaway, and Smith).
2 The Black Dog of Newgate (Day, Hathaway, Smith, and another).
A Woman Killed with Kindness (Heywood).
The Italian Tragedy (Smith).

As a rule the price was £6 a play; occasionally £1 or £2 more. Dekker had
10s. ‘over & above his price of’ A Medicine for a Curst Wife. This had
originally been begun for the Admiral’s and was evidently transferred to
Worcester’s by arrangement. After buying 2 Black Dog of Newgate for £7,
the company apparently did not like it, and paid £2 more for ‘adycyones’. It
is possible to verify from the purchase of properties the performance of nine
of the twelve plays. These are Albere Galles (September), The Three
Brothers (October), Marshal Osric (November), 1 Lady Jane (November),
Christmas Comes but Once a Year (December), 1 Black Dog of Newgate
(January), The Unfortunate General (January), 2 Black Dog of Newgate
(February), and A Woman Killed with Kindness (March). The production of
this last may, however, have been interfered with by Elizabeth’s death. Two
plays of the series are extant, A Woman Killed with Kindness, printed in
1607 and described in 1617 as a Queen’s play, and 1 Lady Jane, which may
be reasonably identified with Sir Thomas Wyatt, also printed in 1607 as a
Queen’s play, and by Dekker and Webster. Dr. Greg regards Mr. Fleay’s
identification of Albere Galles with Nobody and Somebody as ‘reasonable’;

but it appears to rest on little, except the fact that the latter was also printed
as a Queen’s play (S. R. 12 March 1606) and the conjecture that the title of
the former might be a corruption of Archigallo. Payments were made in
respect of a few contemplated plays, which apparently remained incomplete
at the end of the season. These were 2 Lady Jane (Dekker), an unnamed
tragedy by Chettle, an unnamed play by Middleton, and another unnamed
play by Chettle and Heywood. The company also produced some plays of
earlier date. Sir John Oldcastle was presumably transferred to them from
the Admiral’s men, for Dekker had £2 10s. in respect of new additions to it
in August and September. Heywood also had £1 in September for additions
to a play called Cutting Dick, as to the origin of which nothing is known;
and properties were bought in October for Byron[648] and for Absalom.
Possibly the latter is identical with The Three Brothers. Worcester’s men did
not perform at Court in 1602–3, but they must have expected a summons, as
on 1 January they bought head-tires of one Mrs. Calle ‘for the corte’.
Amongst their tradesmen were also Goodman Freshwater, who supplied ‘a
canvas sewt and skenes’, apparently for a stage dog, and John Willett,
mercer, on whose arrest John Duke found himself in the Clink at the end of
the season. Their expenditure was at a fairly high rate, amounting to a total
of £234 11s. 6d. for the seven months. Unlike the Admiral’s men, they spent
more on apparel and properties than on play-books. Some of their purchases
were costly enough, ‘a grogren clocke, ij veluet gerkens, ij dubletes and ij
hed tyres’ from Edward Alleyn for £20, ‘a manes gowne of branshed velluet
& a dublett’ from Christopher Beeston for £6, and ‘iiij clothe clockes layd
with coper lace’ from Robert Shaw, formerly of the Admiral’s, for £16. On
this last transaction they had to allow Henslowe £1 as interest on his money.
A ‘flage of sylke’, no doubt for the theatre roof, cost them £1 6s. 8d.[649] In
summing his account, Henslowe made various errors, whereby he robbed
himself of £1 1s. 3d., and presented a claim to the company for £140 1s. It
may be inferred that they had already repaid him £93 12s. 3d., but of this
there is no record in the diary. He prepared an acknowledgement to be
signed by all the members of the company, but the only signature actually
attached is Blackwode’s.
On 9 May 1603 Henslowe notes ‘Begininge to playe agayne by the
Kynges licence & layd out sense for my lord of Worsters men as
folowethe’; but the only entry is one of £2 paid in earnest to Chettle and

Day for a play of Shore’s Wife. If playing was actually resumed, it was not
long before the plague drove the companies out of London again, and there
is nothing more of Worcester’s men in the diary. Two visits from them are
recorded at Leicester in the course of 1603, and two at Coventry and one at
Barnstaple, whence they departed without playing, during 1602–3. Early in
the new reign the company was taken into the patronage of Queen Anne.
[650]
This change was probably effected by Christmas, and certainly by 19
February 1604, when John Duke obtained a warrant on account of plays
performed before Prince Henry by ‘the Queenes Majesties players’ on the
previous 2 and 13 January. The Queen’s men are named in the Privy
Council letter permitting the resumption of playing on 9 April 1604, which
indicates their house as the Curtain. A list of players is found amongst other
‘officers to the Queene’ receiving four and a half yards of red cloth apiece
for the coronation procession of 15 March 1604.[651] The names given are
‘Christopher Beeston, Robert Lee, John Duke, Robert Palante, Richard
Purkins, Thomas Haward, James Houlte, Thomas Swetherton, Thomas
Grene, and Robert Beeston’. Evidently several leading members had left the
company. Kempe was probably dead.[652] Thare and Blackwood were on
tour in Germany; Lowin seems to have joined the King’s men. Of Cattanes
and Underell no more is known. The same ten names are found in a draft
patent for a royal licence to the Queen’s men, of which the text follows:[653]
Iames, by the grace of God kynge of England, Scotland, Fraunce and Irelande,
defender of the faith &c: To all Iustices of peace, Maiors, Sherryfes, vicechancellours
of any our vniversities, Bailiffes [Constables], headboroughes, [and other our officers]
Constables, and to all other our Officers, mynisters and lov[e]inge subiectes to
whome it may appertaine Greeting. Knowe yee that wee of our speciall grace, certaine
knowledge, and mere motion haue lycensed and awthorised, and by these presentes
doe lycence and awthorise Thomas Greene, Christopher Beeston, Thomas Hawood,
Richard Pyrkins, Robert Pallant, Iohn Duke, Thomas Swynerton, I[e]ames Ho[u]lt,
Robert Beeston, & Robert Lee, servauntes vnto our dearest [and welbeloved] wyfe the
Queene Anna, with the rest of there Associates, freely to vse and exercise the art and
faculty of playinge Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morralls, Pastoralls,
Stage plaies, and such other lyke as they haue already studied, or hereafter shall vse or
stud[d]y, as well for the recreacion of our lovinge subiectes as for our solace and
pleasure, when wee shall thinke good to see them, during our pleasure; And the said
Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morralls, Pastoralls, Stage plaies, and
such like, to shew and exercise publikly, when the infeccion of the plague shall
decrease to the nomber of thirty weekly within our Citie of London and the liberties
therof, aswell within there now vsuall Howsen, called the Curtayne, and the Bores
head, within our County of Middlesex, [or] as in any other play howse not vsed by
others, by the said Thomas Greene elected, or by him hereafter to be builte, and also
within any Towne Halls, or Mouthalls, or other convenyent places, within the liberties

and freedomes of any Cittie, vniversitie, Towne, or Boroughe whatsoeuer, within our
said Realmes and domynyons: Willing and Commaundinge yowe and euerie of yowe,
as you tender our pleasure, not only to permytt and suffer them [herein] to vse and
exercise the said art of playinge without any your Lettes hinderaunces or
molestacions, duringe our said pleasure, but also to be aydinge and assistinge vnto
them, yf any wronge be to them offered, and to allow them such [former] curtesies, as
hath heretofore bene given vnto any men of theire qualitie: [And also what further
favour, any of our subiectes shall shew to theise our deare and loveinge wyfes
servauntes, for our sake, wee shall take kyndly at your handes. Yeouen at
the daye of In the yere of our Raygne of England: &c:]
Gyuen &c.
[Endorsed] The Quenes Plaiers.

This draft is undated. But it was prepared during a plague, and located the
Queen’s men at the Boar’s Head; and as they may reasonably be supposed
to have exchanged the Boar’s Head for the Red Bull (q.v.) before the plague
of 1606 began, it may be conjecturally assigned to that of 1603–4. Probably
it never passed the Great Seal, for if it had there would have been no
necessity, so far as one can judge, for a later patent of 15 April 1609, which
is on the rolls, and which closely follows the earlier draft in its terms,
except that it omits the reference to the plague, names the Red Bull instead
of the Boar’s Head as one of the company’s regular houses, and adds a
saving clause for the rights of the Master of the Revels. Here is the text:[654]
Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices, Mayors, Sheriffes,
Baylieffes, Constables, head-borrowes and other our Officers and De concessione
lovinge Subiectes Greetinge. Knowe yee that wee of our especiall licentie Thome
grace certayne knowledge and meere mocion have lycenced and Greene et aliis.
aucthorised and by these presentes doe lycence and aucthorize Thomas
Greene, Christofer Beeston, Thomas Haywood, Richard Pirkyns, Richard Pallant,
Thomas Swinnerton, Iohn Duke, Robert Lee, Iames Haulte, and Roberte Beeston,
Servantes to our moste deerely beloved wiefe Queene Anne, and the reste of theire
Associates, to vse and exercise the arte and faculty of playinge Comedies, Tragedies,
historyes, Enterludes, Moralles, Pastoralles, Stageplayes and suche other like, as they
have already studied or heareafter shall vse or studye, aswell for the recreacion of our
loving Subiectes as for our solace and pleasure when wee shall thinke good to see
them, during our pleasure. And the said Comedies, Tragedies, histories, Enterludes,
Moralles, Pastoralles, Stageplayes and suche like to shewe and exercise publiquely
and openly to theire beste commoditye, aswell within theire nowe vsuall houses called
the Redd Bull in Clarkenwell and the Curtayne in Hallowell, as alsoe within anye
Towne halles, Mouthalles and other convenient places within the libertye and
freedome of any other Citty, vniuersitye, Towne or Boroughe whatsoever within our
Realmes and Domynions. Willing and Commaundinge you and every of you, as you
tender our pleasure, not only to permitt and suffer them herein without any your lettes
hinderances or molestacions during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be aydinge [and]
assistinge vnto them, yf anye wronge be to them offered, and to allowe them suche
former curtesies as hath byn given to men of theire place and qualitye, and alsoe what