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 6_s._ 8_d._ 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 ‘M^r of the children of

the Chappell at Wyndsore’ but ‘M^r 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 6_s._ 8_d._ 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]

[Sidenote: De concessione regardante Iohannem Daniell.]

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices of peace, Mayors,

Sheriffes, Bayliffes, Constables, headboroughes and other our

lovinge subjectes and Officers greetinge. Knowe yee that wee at

the mocion of our most deerelie loved consort the Queene have

licenced and 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 ‘xvi_d._

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 12^m 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 ‘M^r 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 vj_d._’, ‘For a lynke

to bring thapparell from the reuells iiij_d._’, ‘At the playing of

Miles Glor: in M^r. Deanes howse for pinnes half a thousand vj_d._’,

‘Geuen to M^r. Holte yeoman of the reuells x_s._’, ‘To M^r. Taylor

his man’, ‘For one Plautus geven to ye Queenes maiestie and fowre

other vnto the nobilitie xj_s._’ 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

Ma^{tie} 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 ‘M^r. 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 M^r 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 6_s._

8_d._ 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 6_s._ 8_d._ 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 13_s._ 4_d._

Others got £3 6_s._ 8_d._ as before, and others again only two-thirds

of this amount, £2 4_s._ 5_d._ 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 13_s._ 4_d._ 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 4_d._ 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 3_s._ 4_d._ 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 13_s._ 4_d._, in the Chamber Accounts.[242] Each now got £3

6_s._ 8_d._ 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 3_s._ 4_d._ 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 6_s._ 8_d._

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

6_s._ 8_d._ and livery allowances of £1 3_s._ 4_d._ 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]

[Sidenote: pro Iacobo Burbage & aliis de licencia speciali]

Elizabeth by the grace of God quene of England, &c. To all

Iustices, Mayors, Sheriffes, Baylyffes, head Constables, vnder

Constables, and all other our officers and mynisters gretinge.

Knowe ye that we of oure especiall grace, certen knowledge,

and mere mocion haue licenced and 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

x^{th} 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 vij^{en} 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

13_s._, amounting to £3 1_s._ on the first night and £3 10_s._ on each

of the next two, and thereafter fluctuating greatly, from a minimum of

5_s._ to a maximum of £3 8_s._ 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 17_s._ 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 20_s._, 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 M^r. Secreatary dated the x^{th}

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 Ma^{ts} 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 w^{th} theire wonted and ordinary pastimes’.[327]