On 11 October 1592 the Queen’s men were at Aldeburgh, on the same day

as, and conceivably in association with, Lord Morley’s men, although

the payments are distinct. They did not in fact appear at Court during

the Christmas of 1592–3, although both Lord Pembroke’s and Lord

Strange’s did. They were at Coventry and Stratford-on-Avon in the

course of 1592–3, at Leicester in June 1593 and again after Michaelmas,

at Bath on 22 August, and at York in September. On 6 January 1594 they

returned to Court and gave what proved to be their last performance

there. On 1 April they began to play at one of Henslowe’s theatres ‘to

geather’--that is to say, either alternately or in combination--with

Sussex’s men, who had already performed there for the six weeks

between Christmas and Lent. Possibly this was a renewal of an earlier

alliance of 1591. Only eight performances are recorded, and of the five

plays given only _King Leire_ can very reasonably be assigned to the

repertory of the Queen’s men. The others were _The Jew of Malta_ and

_The Fair Maid of Italy_, which Sussex’s men had been playing in the

winter, Greene’s _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, which was played for

Henslowe by other companies both before and after, and was probably

his property, and _The Ranger’s Comedy_, the performances of which

were being continued by the Admiral’s men in the following autumn,

but which it is possible that they or Henslowe may have acquired from

the Queen’s. For there can be no doubt that the Queen’s men, whether

because they had ceased to be modish, or because their finances had

proved unable to stand the strain of the plague years, were now at the

end of their London career. On 8 May 1594 the significant entry occurs

in Henslowe’s diary of a loan of £15 to his nephew Francis Henslowe ‘to

lay downe for his share to the Quenes players when they broke & went

into the contrey to playe’.[328] This by itself would not perhaps be

conclusive, as there are other years in which the company began its

provincial wanderings as early as May. But from the present journey

there is nothing to show that they ever returned, and it may fairly be

reckoned as another sign of defeat that while _The Troublesome Reign of

King John_ (1591) was the only play certainly theirs which was printed

before 1594, no less than nine found their way into the publishers’

hands during that and the following year. These were, besides _Friar

Bacon and Friar Bungay_ (1594, S. R. 14 May 1594), with which they

probably had only a recent connexion, _A Looking Glass for London and,

England_ (1594, S. R. 5 March 1594), _King Leire_ (1594, S. R. 14 May

1594), _James IV_ and _The Famous Victories of Henry V_ (1598, S. R.

14 May 1594), _The True Tragedy of Richard III_ (1594, S. R. 19 June

1594), _Selimus_ (1594), Peele’s _Old Wive’s Tale_ (1595, S. R. 16

April 1595), and _Valentine and Orson_ (S. R. 23 May 1595), of which

no copy is known to be extant. Somewhat later came _Sir Clyomon and

Clamydes_ (1599).

The Queen’s men were at Coventry on 4 July 1594, at Bristol in August,

and at Bath and Barnstaple, where they were unlucky enough to break

down the ceiling in the Guildhall, during 1593–4, and thereafter they

are traceable right up to the end of the reign, at Coventry, Oxford,

and Bath in 1594–5, at Leicester both before and after Michaelmas

1595, twice at Coventry and at Ludlow in 1595–6, at Stratford-on-Avon

on 16 and 17 July 1596, at Bristol in August, at Leicester between

October and December 1596, and at Faversham and Bridgnorth in the

same year, at Coventry, at Dunwich, and twice at Bath in 1596–7, at

Bristol again about Christmas 1597, at Nottingham on 8 July 1597, at

Bristol about 25 July, at Bath in 1597–8, at Leicester on 9 January

1598, at Maldon in 1598, at Ipswich and Reading in 1598–9, at Maldon

in 1599, at Dunwich in 1599–1600, at Ipswich on 2 June 1600, and at

Leicester before 29 September in the same year, at Coventry and Bath

in 1600–1, at York in July 1602, at Leicester on 30 September 1602, at

Belvoir in August or September of the same year, and at Coventry in

1602–3. But little, naturally enough, is known of the _personnel_ of

the company during this period of its decay. On 1 June 1595 Francis

Henslowe borrowed another £9 from his uncle ‘to laye downe for his

hallfe share w^{th} the company w^{ch} he dothe playe w^{th} all’,[329]

and I see no particular reason to suppose that this was another company

than the Queen’s. The loan is witnessed by William Smyght, George

Attewell, and Robert Nycowlles, each of whom is described as ‘player’.

It is likely enough that these were now fellows of Francis Henslowe.

Attewell had been payee for Lord Strange’s men in 1591. The earlier

loan was witnessed by John Towne, Hugh Davis, and Richard Alleyn. Davis

and Alleyn appear elsewhere in connexion with Henslowe, but Towne was

certainly a Queen’s man. He is in the 1588 list and is described as

‘one of her Majesties plears’ when on 8 July 1597 he obtained a release

of debts due to Roger Clarke of Nottingham.[330] The other men of 1588

had nearly all vanished. John Singer had joined the Admiral’s by the

autumn of 1594. I should not be surprised, however, to find that John

Garland was still with the Queen’s. He was an associate of Francis

Henslowe in the Duke of Lennox’s men in 1604, and was then ‘owld’

Garland. Indeed, it seems probable that, when the Queen’s men lost

their last shred of claim to a livery on Elizabeth’s death, they made

an attempt still to hold together under the patronage of Lennox. John

Shank was once a Queen’s man.

xiv. THE EARL OF ARUNDEL’S MEN

Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel; _nat. c._ 1511; m. (1)

Katherine, d. of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, before 1532,

(2) Mary, Countess of Sussex, d. of Sir John Arundel, after

1542; succ. Jan. 1544; Lord Chamberlain, 1544; Lord Steward,

1553, and again 1558–64; _ob._ 24 Feb. 1580.

Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel, s. of Thomas Howard, 4th

Duke of Norfolk, attainted 1572, and Mary, d. and h. of 12th

Earl; _nat._ 28 June 1557; m. Anne, d. of Thomas, Lord Dacre,

1571; succ. Feb. 1580; sent to Tower, 25 Apr. 1585, and _ob._

there, 19 Oct. 1595.

The Earls of Arundel had players as far back as the fifteenth

century.[331] The 12th Earl entertained Elizabeth with a mask at

Nonsuch on 5 August 1559. He had players, who were rewarded by the

Duchess of Suffolk, apparently during a London visit, in December

1561. The 13th Earl had a company in 1584. It was in London when plays

were suppressed in June, and obediently submitted. It seems to have

been located at the Curtain. It can be traced at Ipswich on 1 July, at

Leicester before 29 September, at Aldeburgh in 1583–4, at Norwich in

1585–6, and thereafter no more.

xv. THE EARL OF HERTFORD’S MEN

Edward Seymour, s. of Edward, Protector and 1st and attainted

Duke of Somerset; _nat._ 25 May 1539; cr. Earl of Hertford, 13

Jan. 1559; m. (1) Lady Catherine Grey, d. of Henry, Duke of

Suffolk, _c._ Nov. 1560, (2) Frances, d. of William, 1st Lord

Howard of Effingham, before 1582, (3) Frances, d. of Thomas,

Lord Howard of Bindon and widow of Henry Pranell, Dec. 1600;

_ob._ 6 Apr. 1621.

These are among the most obscure of the companies. They appeared at

Canterbury in 1582, Faversham in 1586, Newcastle in October 1590,

Leicester on 22 November 1590, and Bath, Marlborough, and Southampton

in 1591–2. During the progress of 1591 Elizabeth was entertained from

20 to 24 September by the Earl at Elvetham in Hampshire ‘beeing none

of the Earles chiefe mansion houses’ (cf. ch. xxiv). This was really

a visit of reconciliation, for much of Hertford’s life had been spent

in disgrace, owing to his first marriage with the heiress, under

Henry VIII’s will, to Elizabeth’s throne. The entertainment was very

elaborate, and at its close Elizabeth protested to the Earl that it was

so honourable ‘as hereafter he should find the rewarde thereof in her

especiall favour’. No doubt Hertford’s players took a part, and shared

the ‘largesse’ which she bestowed upon the ‘actors’ of the pastimes

before she departed. I think it must have also been their success on

this occasion which earned them their only appearance at Court, on the

following 6 January 1592. I have elsewhere tried to show that there

is a special connexion between this Elvetham entertainment and _A

Midsummer-Night’s Dream_,[332] and if any special company is satirized

in Bottom and his fellows, I feel sure that it must have been the Earl

of Hertford’s and not, as Mr. Fleay thinks, the Earl of Sussex’s.[333]

Probably the company went under in the plague of 1592–4, and in 1595

Hertford was again in disgrace for presuming so far upon his favour

as to claim a declaration of the validity of his first marriage. But

there were players under his name at Coventry in 1596–7, at Ipswich in

1600–1, and on 8 May 1602, at Norwich in 1601, and at Bath in 1601–2,

and this company appeared at Court on 6 January 1603. Their payee was

Martin Slater, formerly of the Admiral’s, and since then, possibly, an

associate of Laurence Fletcher in his Scottish tours. In 1604–5 they

were at Norwich. In 1606 they visited Leicester, on 9 July Oxford,

and on 2 December the Earl of Derby wrote to the Mayor of Chester to

bespeak for them the use of the town-hall. In 1606–7 they were at

Coventry.

xvi. MR. EVELYN’S MEN (1588)

George Evelyn, of Wotton, Surrey; _nat._ 1530; _ob._ 1603.

Collier gives no authority for the following rather puzzling

statement:[334]

‘In Feb. 1587, the Earl of Warwick obtained a warrant for the

payment of the claim of George Evelyn of Wotton, for provisions

supplied to the Tower, and for the reward of actors on Shrove

Tuesday for a Play, the title of which is not given nor the name

of the company by which it was performed: the whole sum amounted

to only 12_s._’

The date intended must be 1588, as in 1587 Shrovetide fell in March.

But there is probably some misunderstanding, as no such payment occurs

in the Treasurer of the Chamber’s accounts, and the sum named is too

small for a reward. Moreover, private gentlemen do not seem to have

entertained Court companies at so late a date. The Revels Account for

1587–8 only records seven plays. Of these the Treasurer of the Chamber

paid for six, and the seventh was presented by Gray’s Inn.

xvii. THE EARL OF DERBY’S (LORD STRANGE’S) MEN

Henry Stanley, s. of Edward, 3rd Earl of Derby; _nat._ 1531;

known as Lord Strange; m. Margaret, d. of Henry, 2nd Earl of

Cumberland, 7 Feb. 1555; succ. as 4th Earl, 24 Oct. 1572; Lord

Steward, 1588; _ob._ 25 Sept. 1593.

Ferdinando Stanley, 2nd s. of Henry, 4th Earl of Derby; _nat.

c._ 1559; m. Alice, d. of Sir John Spencer of Althorp, 1579;

summoned to Parliament as Lord Strange, 28 Jan. 1589; succ. as

5th Earl of Derby, 25 Sept. 1593; _ob._ 16 Apr. 1594.

William Stanley, s. of Henry, 4th Earl of Derby; _nat._ 1561;

succ. as 6th Earl of Derby, 16 Apr. 1594; m. Elizabeth, d. of

Edward, 17th Earl of Oxford, 26 Jan. 1595; _ob._ 29 Sept. 1642.

The companies connected with the great northern house of Stanley

present a history perhaps more complicated than that of any other

group, partly because it seems to have been not unusual for the heir

of the house to entertain players during his father’s lifetime. The

3rd Earl had a company in Henry the Eighth’s reign. His successor

had one as Lord Strange, which is only recorded in the provinces, in

1563–70.[335] Four years later he had again a company as Earl of Derby.

The earliest mention of it is at Coventry in 1573–4. It was at Dover

and Coventry in 1577–8, at Ipswich on 28 May 1578, at Nottingham on 31

August 1578, at Bristol in the same year, and at Bath in 1578–9. In the

last three months of 1579 it was at Leicester; and during the following

Christmas it made its first appearance at Court with a performance of

_The Soldan and the Duke of ---- _ on 14 February 1580. In 1579–80

it was at Stratford-on-Avon, Exeter, and Coventry, on 1 January 1581

at Court, in 1580–1 at Bath, Leicester, Nottingham, Exeter, and

Winchester, in 1581–2 at Nottingham, Winchester, and Abingdon, in

October to December 1582 at Leicester, and in 1582–3 at Bath, Norwich,

and Southampton. Its last appearance at Court was in _Love and Fortune_

on 30 December 1582.

I think that the Earl of Derby’s players must be taken to be distinct

from another company, which was performing during much the same period

of years under the name of Lord Strange. These men are found in 1576–7

at Exeter, in 1578–9 at Bath, Ipswich, Rochester, Nottingham, Coventry,

and Stratford-on-Avon. They also made their first appearance at Court

in the winter of 1579–80. Their performance was on 15 January 1580,

and they are spoken of, not as players, but as tumblers. On the other

hand they appear as players at Bath, side by side with Derby’s men,

in 1580–1 and 1582–3, and as players also at Bristol, Canterbury, and

Gloucester in 1580–1, Plymouth in 1581–2, and Barnstaple in 1582–3 and

1583–4. With the tumbling at Court in 1580 begins a rather puzzling

series of records. There are further Court entries of feats of activity

by Lord Strange’s men on 28 December 1581, and of feats of activity and

tumbling on 1 January 1583. For this last occasion the payee of the

company was John Symons. Two years later Symons and his ‘fellows’ were

again at Court with feats of activity and vaulting, but they were then

under the patronage, not of Lord Strange, but of the Earl of Oxford.

There would be nothing extraordinary about such a transference of

service, were it not that during the following Christmas, on 9 January

1586, tumbling and feats of activity are ascribed to John Symons and

‘Mr. Standleyes boyes’, and that by ‘Mr. Standley’ one can hardly help

assuming either Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, or some other member

of his family to be intended. This inference is confirmed by a mention

of Lord Strange’s men at Faversham in 1585–6, and it becomes necessary

to assume that, after attaching himself for a year to the Earl of

Oxford, Symons thought better of it, and returned to his original

master. Symons and his company again showed feats of activity on 28

December 1587. No patron is named on this occasion, but as Strange’s

men are traceable at Coventry during 1587–8, it is natural to assume

that they were still holding together. Now a new complication comes

in. There were activities again at Court in the winter of 1588–9, and

Symons certainly took part in them.[336] But the only men companies

to whom payments were made were the Queen’s and the Admiral’s, who

now reappear at Court after absence during two winters, and it is

only in the case of the Admiral’s that the payment is specified to be

for activities. If the restless Symons had joined the Admiral’s men,

it cannot have been for long, since in the course of 1588–9 he was

leading one section of the Queen’s men to Nottingham. Nor had Strange’s

yet entirely broken up, for on 5 November 1589, both they and the

Admiral’s, evidently playing as distinct companies, were suppressed by

the Lord Mayor in the City.[337] Strange’s, who were then at the Cross

Keys, played contemptuously, and some of them were imprisoned. A year

later, the Admiral’s were with Burbadge at the Theatre, and there I

conceive that the residue of Strange’s, deserted by Symons, had joined

them. If they were too many for the house, we know that the Curtain

was available as an ‘easer’. After the quarrel with Burbadge in May

1591, the two companies probably went together to the Rose. The main

evidence for such a theory is that, while the Privy Council record of

play-warrants include two for the Admiral’s men in respect of plays

and feats of activity on 27 December 1590 and 16 February 1591, the

corresponding Chamber payments are to George Ottewell on behalf of

Strange’s men.

This amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s, tentative perhaps

in 1588–9, and conclusive, if not in 1589–90, at any rate in 1590–1,

lasted until 1594. So far as Court records are concerned, the company

seems to have been regarded as Strange’s. But the leading actor, Edward

Alleyn, kept his personal status as the Lord Admiral’s servant, and

it is to be observed that, for whatever reason, both the Admiral’s

and Strange’s continue to appear, not only in combination, but also

separately in provincial documents.[338] Of this various explanations

are conceivable. One is that the municipal officials were not very

precise in their methods, and when an amalgamated company came before

them, sometimes entered the name of one lord, sometimes of the other,

sometimes of both. Another is that a few of the Admiral’s men may have

been left out of the amalgamation and have travelled separately under

that name. We know, of course, that Richard Jones and others went

abroad in 1592, but they may have spent some time in the provinces

first. And thirdly, it is possible that, while the combined company

performed as a whole in London, they found it more economical to

take their authorities from both lords with them, when they went to

the country in the summer, and to unite or divide their forces as

convenience prompted. I am the more inclined to this third conjecture,

in that the ‘intollerable’ charge of travelling with a great company

and the danger of ‘division and separacion’ involved were explicitly

put forward by Lord Strange’s men in a petition to the Privy Council

for leave to quit Newington Butts, where they had been commanded to

play during a long vacation, and return to their normal quarters,

doubtless at the Rose, on the Bankside. They particularly wanted to

avoid going to the country, but Newington Butts did not pay, and they

were backed by the Thames watermen, who lost custom when the Rose

was not open. It is not clear whether this petition belongs to 1591

or 1592.[339] The provincial records show that the company probably

travelled during 1592, but not 1591. If the petition belongs to 1592,

it is obvious that the plague intervened, and I strongly suspect that

the company’s fears proved justified, and that the reorganization for

provincial work did in fact lead to a ‘division and separacion’, by the

splitting off of some members of the combine as Pembroke’s men (q.v.).

This, however, anticipates a little. To Alleyn’s talent must be

attributed the remarkable success of the company in the winter of

1591–2, during which they were called upon to give six performances at

Court, on 27 and 28 December, 1 and 9 January, and 6 and 8 February,

as against one each allotted to the Queen’s, Sussex’s, and Hertford’s

men. On 19 February 1592 the company began a season with Philip

Henslowe, probably at the Rose, and played six days a week for a period

of eighteen weeks, during which they only missed Good Friday and two

other days. Henslowe records in his diary the name of the play staged

at each of the hundred and five performances, together with a sum of

money which probably represents his share of the takings.[340] If so,

his average receipts were £1 14_s._ 0_d._; but the daily amounts

fluctuated considerably, sometimes falling to a few shillings and again

rising to twice the average on the production of a new or popular

play or during the Easter or Whitsun holiday. Twenty-three plays in

all were given, for any number of days from one to fifteen; the same

play was rarely repeated in any one week. Five of the plays are marked

in the diary with the letters _ne_, which are reasonably taken to

indicate the production of a new piece. These were ‘Harey the vj’,

probably Shakespeare’s _1 Henry VI_, _Titus and Vespasian_, probably

the play on which was based Shakespeare’s _Titus Andronicus_, the

_Second Part_ of _Tamar Cham_, _The Tanner of Denmark_, and _A Knack

to Know a Knave_. The eighteen old plays included Marlowe’s _Jew of

Malta_, Greene’s _Orlando Furioso_ and _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_,

Greene and Lodge’s _A Looking Glass for London_; also _Muly Mollocco_

which might be Peele’s _Battle of Alcazar_, _Four Plays in One_, which

is conjectured to be a part of Tarlton’s _Seven Deadly Sins_, and

_Jeronimo_, which is almost certainly Kyd’s _Spanish Tragedy_. There

was also a play, sometimes given on the day before this last, under

the varying titles of _Don Horatio_, the _Comedy of Jeronimo_, or _The

Spanish Comedy_, which does not appear to have been preserved.[341] The

same fate has befallen the other ten plays, of which the names were

_Sir John Mandeville_, _Henry of Cornwall_, _Clorys and Orgasto_, _Pope

Joan_, _Machiavel_, _Bindo and Richardo_, _Zenobia_, _Constantine_,

_Jerusalem_, and _Brandimer_. From the financial point of view, the

greatest successes were _Titus and Vespasian_, _The Jew of Malta_, _2

Tamar Cham_, _1 Henry VI_, and _The Spanish Tragedy_. These averaged

respectively for Henslowe £2 8_s._ 6_d._ for seven days, £2 3_s._ 6_d._

for ten days, £2 1_s._ 6_d._ for five days, £2 0_s._ 6_d._ for fifteen

days, and £1 17_s._ 0_d._ for thirteen days. The _Seven Deadly Sins_

and perhaps also the _Looking Glass_ must have passed in some way into

the hands of Strange’s or the Admiral’s, or into Henslowe’s, from the

Queen’s.

The performances came to an end on 23 June, for on that day the Privy

Council inhibited all plays until Michaelmas. Whether the Newington

Butts episode and the watermen’s petition followed or not, at any rate

plague intervened in the course of the summer, and the company had to

face the disadvantages of travelling. They were afoot by 13 July and

still on 19 December. Ten days later, Henslowe resumed his account,

and the resemblance of the list of plays to that of the previous spring

renders it reasonable to suppose that the actors were the same.[342]

The season lasted to the end of January 1593, and a play was given

on each of the twenty-six week-days of this period. _Muly Mollocco_,

_The Spanish Tragedy_, _A Knack to Know a Knave_, _The Jew of Malta_,

_Sir John Mandeville_, _Titus and Vespasian_, _Friar Bacon and Friar

Bungay_, _1 Henry VI_, and _2 Tamar Cham_ all made their appearance

again. In addition, there were a comedy called _Cosmo_, and two new

plays, _The Jealous Comedy_, which may, I think, be _The Comedy of

Errors_, and _The Tragedy of the Guise_, which is usually accepted as

Marlowe’s _Massacre of Paris_. The first representation of the former

yielded Henslowe £2 4_s._ 0_d._, that of the latter £3 14_s._ 0_d._; as

in the spring, his daily takings averaged £1 14_s._ 0_d._ Besides their

public performances, Strange’s men were called upon for three plays at

Court, on the evenings of 27 and 31 December 1592 and 1 January 1593.

The plague made a new inhibition of plays necessary on 28 January, but

it does not seem to have been for some months that Strange’s men made

up their minds to travel. A special licence issued in their favour by

the Privy Council on 6 May is registered in the following terms:

‘Whereas it was thought meet that during the time of the

infection and continewaunce of the sicknes in the citie of

London there shold no plaies or enterludes be usd, for th’

avoiding of th’ assemblies and concourse of people in anie usual

place apointed nere the said cittie, and though the bearers

hereof, Edward Allen, servaunt to the right honorable the

Lord Highe Admiral, William Kemp, Thomas Pope, John Heminges,

Augustine Phillipes and Georg Brian, being al one companie,

servauntes to our verie good the Lord the Lord Strainge, ar

restrained their exercize of playing within the said citie and

liberties thereof, yet it is not therby ment but that they

shal and maie in regard of the service by them don and to be

don at the Court exercize their quallitie of playing comodies,

tragedies and such like in anie other cities, townes and

corporacions where the infection is not, so it be not within

seaven miles of London or of the Coort, that they maie be in the

better readines hereafter for her Majesty’s service whensoever

they shalbe therunto called. Theis therfore shalbe to wil and

require you that they maie without their lett or contradiccion

use their said exercize at their most convenient times and

places (the accustomed times of Devine praiers excepted).’[343]

The importance of this document is in the information which it gives

as to the composition of the company. Presumably only the leaders

are named, and of these Alleyn alone is specially designated as an

Admiral’s man. Kempe, at any rate, and probably also Pope and Bryan,

were in Leicester’s service in the Low Countries during 1586, and all

three were together during the same year in Denmark. Whether they had

belonged, as has sometimes been supposed, to Leicester’s long-enduring

company of Court players is less certain. Pope and Bryan passed from

Denmark to Germany, and may have joined the Admiral’s or Strange’s on

their return. They also were acrobats as well as players.[344] Kempe,

however, seems to have parted company from the others in Denmark, and

may have joined Strange’s independently, presumably before 10 June

1592, when _A Knack to Know a Knave_, in which he played ‘merrimentes’,

was produced. Heminges may possibly have been a Queen’s man.

Some details of the 1593 tour and the names of two or three more

members of the company are found in the familiar correspondence of

Alleyn with his wife, whom he had married on 22 October 1592, and with

Philip Henslowe, who was her step-father.[345] On 2 May he writes from

Chelmsford, and on 1 August from Bristol. Here he had received a letter

by Richard Cowley and he sends his reply by a kinsman of Thomas Pope.

At the moment of writing he is ready to play _Harry of Cornwall_.

He asks that further letters may be sent to him by the carriers to

Shrewsbury, West Chester, or York, ‘to be keptt till my Lord Stranges

players com’. He does not expect to be home until All Saints’ Day. A

reply from Henslowe and Mrs. Alleyn on 14 August is in fact addressed

to ‘Mr. Edwarde Allen on of my lorde Stranges players’. This mentions

an illness of Alleyn at Bath during which one of his fellows had had

to play his part. With these letters is one written to Mrs. Allen on

behalf of a ‘servant’ of Alleyn’s, whose name was Pige or Pyk, by the

hand of Mr. Doutone, possibly Edward Dutton, but perhaps more probably

Thomas Dowten or Downton, who was later a sharer among the Admiral’s

men. The provincial records, subject to the confusion of company

nomenclature already noted, appear to confirm the visits to Bath,

Shrewsbury, and York, to indicate others to Southampton, Leicester,

Coventry, Ipswich, and Newcastle, and to show that some temporary

alliance had been entered into with the purely provincial company of

Lord Morley.[346] After 25 September 1593 Strange’s men of course

became Derby’s men.

I now come to a difficult point. There exists amongst the Dulwich

papers a ‘plott’ or prompter’s abstract of a play called _The Second

Part of the Seven Deadly Sins_, which an ingenious conjecture of Mr.

Fleay has identified on internal evidence with the _Four Plays in One_

included in the Strange’s repertory of 1592.[347] In this leading parts

were taken, not only by ‘Mr. Pope’, ‘Mr. Phillipps’, and ‘Mr. Brian’,

but also by ‘Richard Burbadge’; lesser ones by Richard Cowley, John

Duke, Robert Pallant, John Sincler, Thomas Goodale, William Sly, J.

Holland, and three others described only as Harry, Kitt, and Vincent;

and female parts by Saunder, Nick, Robert, Ned, Will, and T. Belt, who

may be presumed to have been boys.[348] Alleyn, Kempe, and Heminges are

not named, but there are several parts to which no actors are assigned.

What, however, is the date of the ‘plott’? Not necessarily 1592, for

the performance of _Four Plays in One_ in that year was only a revival.

The authorship of the _Seven Deadly Sins_ is ascribed to Tarlton, and

therefore the original owners were probably the Queen’s men. They are

not very likely to have parted with it before Tarlton’s death in 1588

brought the first shock to their fortunes, but clearly it may have

come into the possession of Strange’s or the Admiral’s or the combined

company before ever they reached the Rose. And surely the appearance

of Richard Burbadge suggests that the ‘plott’ was brought from the

Theatre, and represents a performance there. He is very unlikely to

have joined at the Rose the company which had just been driven there

by a quarrel with his father. It is true that in the ‘plott’ of _Dead

Man’s Fortune_, which also probably dates from the sojourn of the

Admiral’s (q.v.) at the Theatre, he was apparently not playing leading

parts but only a messenger. But the wording is obscure, and after all

the absence of the prefix ‘Mr.’ from his name in the ‘plott’ of the

_Sins_ may indicate, in accordance with the ordinary usage of the

Dulwich documents, that he was not yet a sharer when it was drawn up.

Apparently, then, at least four of Strange’s men, as we find them in

1593, besides Alleyn, had been playing at the Theatre about 1590–1.

These were Pope, Phillips, Bryan, and Cowley. Obviously we cannot say

whether it was to the original Admiral’s or the original Strange’s that

they belonged. One other point of _personnel_ must not be overlooked.

Shakespeare contributed to the repertory of Strange’s in 1592 and

perhaps also in 1593. Greene calls him a Shake-scene, but neither the

‘plott’ of 1590, nor the licence of 1593, nor the Alleyn correspondence

of the same year, yields his name.[349]

Derby’s men did not appear at Court during the winter of 1593–4. On 16

April 1594 Lord Derby died. On 16 May the company used the Countess’s

name at Winchester. It seems clear that during the summer there was

some reshuffling of the companies, that Alleyn took the leadership of

a new body of Admiral’s men, that several other members of the old

combination, including Pope, Heminges, Kempe, and Phillips, joined

with Burbadge, Shakespeare, and Sly, under the patronage of the Lord

Chamberlain, Henry Lord Hunsdon, and that, after a short period of

co-operation with each other and Henslowe, the two companies definitely

parted. In the course of 1594 the name of Derby’s men appeared upon

the title-page of _Titus Andronicus_, probably because they had

played it in its earlier form of _Titus and Vespasian_ in 1592–3,

before it passed to Pembroke’s and from them to Sussex’s. In the same

year was published _A Knack to Know a Knave_ (S. R. 7 January 1594)

as played ‘by Ed. Allen and his companie’ and with ‘merrimentes’ by

Kemp. This also belongs to the 1592–3 repertory, of the other plays

in which _1 Henry VI_, like _Titus Andronicus_, passed ultimately to

the Chamberlain’s men, and a considerable number, either as their own

property or that of Henslowe, to the Admiral’s. These included _Tamar

Cham_, _The Battle of Alcazar_, _The Spanish Tragedy_, _The Jew of

Malta_, _The Massacre of Paris_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, and

probably _Orlando Furioso_, of Orlando’s part in which a transcript,

with alterations in Alleyn’s hand, is preserved at Dulwich.[350] The

only play not named in Henslowe’s diary which can be traced to the

company is _Fair Em_, which bears the name of Lord Strange’s men on its

title-page, but of which the first edition is undated.

It is possible that those of the fifth Earl of Derby’s men who did not

take service with the Lord Chamberlain, passed into a provincial period

of existence under his successor, the sixth Earl. A company bearing

his name was at Norwich on 15 September 1594, at Dunwich in 1594–5

and 1595–6, at Coventry, Bath, and Stratford in 1595–6, at Leicester

between October and December 1596, at Bath in 1596–7, at Maldon in

1597, at Coventry twice in 1597–8, at Leicester in 1597–8, and between

October and December 1598, at Wollaton (Percival Willoughby’s) on 7

October 1599, and at Leicester again on 16 October 1599. Letters of 30

June 1599 relate that the Earl of Derby was then ‘busy penning comedies

for the common players’, and it is perhaps natural to suppose that his

own company were chosen as the exponents of his art.[351] This perhaps

explains its appearance at Court during the winters of 1599–1600 and

1600–1. Four performances were given, on 3 and 5 February 1600 and 1

and 6 January 1601, and for these Robert Browne, who had been both

with Worcester’s men and the Admiral’s, but much of whose dramatic

career had been spent in Germany, was the payee. In an undated letter

to Sir Robert Cecil, Lady Derby writes, ‘Being importuned by my Lord

to intreat your favor that his man Browne, with his companye, may not

be bared from ther accoustomed plaing, in maintenance wherof they have

consumde the better part of ther substance, if so vaine a matter shall

not seame troublesum to you, I could desier that your furderance might

be a meane to uphold them, for that my Lord taking delite in them, it

will kepe him from moer prodigall courses’.[352] To this company are

doubtless to be assigned _Edward IV_, perhaps by Heywood (1600, S. R.

28 August 1599), and the anonymous _Trial of Chivalry_ (1605, S. R.

4 December 1604), both of which are credited to Derby’s men on their

title-pages. It again becomes provincial and is traceable at Norwich on

27 February and 9 June 1602, at Ipswich on 4 June 1602, and thereafter

up to 1618, chiefly at Coventry and at Gawthorpe Hall, the house of

Derby’s neighbours, the Shuttleworths.[353]

John Taylor, the water-poet, returned from his journey to Scotland in

1618 at the Maidenhead Inn, Islington, and here after supper on 14

October ‘we had a play of the Life and Death of Guy of Warwick, played

by the Right Honourable the Earl of Derby his men’. Presumably this

was Day and Dekker’s play entered on the Stationers’ Register in 1619,

which Mr. Bullen declines to identify with the _Guy of Warwick_

published as ‘by B. J.’ in 1661.[354]

xviii. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE’S MEN

Henry Herbert, s. of William, 1st Earl of Pembroke; _nat. c._

1534; succ. as 2nd Earl, 17 Mar. 1570; m. (1) Catherine, d. of

Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, 21 May 1553, (2) Catherine, d. of

George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 17 Feb. 1563, (3) Mary, d.

of Sir Henry Sidney, _c._ Apr. 1577; President of Wales, 1586;

residences, Baynard’s Castle, London, Wilton House, Wilts.,

Ludlow Castle, &c.; _ob._ 9 Jan. 1601.

[_Bibliographical Note._--Halliwell-Phillipps collected

provincial records and other notes on Pembroke’s men in _A

Budget of Notes and Memoranda_ (1880). The Bill, Answer, and

Replication in Shaw _et al._ v. Langley (1597–8, Court of

Requests) are in C. W. Wallace, _The Swan Theatre and the Earl

of Pembroke’s Servants_ (1911, _E. S._ xliii. 340).]

There is an isolated record of a Pembroke’s company at Canterbury

in 1575–6, hardly to be regarded as continuous with that which

makes its appearance in the last decade of the century. Fleay, 87,

puts the origin of the latter in 1589, and supposes it to be a

continuation of Worcester’s men after the death of their original

patron in 1589, and to be the company ridiculed by Nashe (iii. 324)

for playing _Delphrigus_ and _The King of the Fairies_, in his preface

to Greene’s _Menaphon_ (1589). But this Worcester’s company is not

in fact traceable during 1585–9, and Fleay’s theory is only based

on the allusion to _Hamlet_ in the same preface (iii. 315), and the

assumption that the _Ur-Hamlet_, like some other plays, passed to

the Chamberlain’s from Pembroke’s, whereas it may just as well have

passed to them from Strange’s. As a matter of fact, there is no mention

of Pembroke’s before 1592 and no reason to suppose that it had an

earlier existence. It will be well to detail the few facts of its

history before attempting anything in the nature of conjecture. It

was at Leicester in the last three months of 1592 and made its only

appearances at Court on 26 December 1592 and 6 January 1593. In the

following summer it travelled, and is found at York in June, at Rye in

July, and in 1592–3 at Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Coventry, Bath, and Ipswich.

But it had little success. Henslowe wrote to Alleyn on 28 September,

‘As for my lorde a Penbrockes w^{ch} you desier to knowe wheare they be

they ar all at home and hausse ben this v or sixe weackes for they cane

not saue ther carges w^{th} trauell as I heare & weare fayne to pane

ther parell for ther carge’.[355] About the same time three of their

plays came to the booksellers’ hands. These were Marlowe’s _Edward the

Second_ (1594, S. R. 6 July 1593), _The Taming of A Shrew_ (1594,

S. R. 2 May 1594), and _The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York_

(1595). Probably the play to which this last is a sequel, _1 Contention

of York and Lancaster_ (1594, S. R. 12 March 1594) was also theirs,

although the name of the company is not on the title-page. It is on the

title-page of _Titus Andronicus_ (1594), and its position suggests that

the play passed to them from Strange’s and from them before publication

to Sussex’s. All these plays, with the exception of _Edward II_, seem

to have been worked upon by Shakespeare, and probably they ultimately

became part of the stock of the Chamberlain’s men. These men were

playing _Titus Andronicus_ and _The Taming of The Shrew_ in June 1594,

and that they also owned _The Contention_ in its revised form of _2,

3 Henry VI_ is suggested both by its inclusion in the First Folio and

by the reference in the Epilogue to _Henry V_ not only to the loss of

France but also to the bleeding of England ‘which oft our stage hath

shown’.

I now enter a region of conjecture. It seems to me, on the whole,

likely that the origin of Pembroke’s men is to be explained by the

special conditions of the plague-years 1592–3, and was due to a

division for travelling purposes of the large London company formed

by the amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s. Such a division

had been foreshadowed as likely to be necessary in the petition sent

by Strange’s men to the Privy Council during the summer of 1592 or

earlier, and may actually have become necessary when, after all, the

plague rendered travelling imperative. If this suggestion is well

founded, it becomes not difficult to explain some of the transferences

of acting rights in certain plays which seem to have taken place. Thus

Strange’s may have handed over _Titus Andronicus_ in its earlier form

of _Titus and Vespasian_ to Pembroke’s for the travels of 1593, and may

also have handed over _The Contention of York and Lancaster_, if that

was originally theirs, as is suggested by their production of _1 Henry

VI_, which belongs to the same closely related series. This opens up a

more important line of speculation. It is usual to assume that one of

the members of Strange’s from 1592 or earlier until its reconstitution

as the Chamberlain’s in 1594 was William Shakespeare, and there is no

reason to doubt his authorship at any rate of the Talbot scenes, which

we know from Nashe to have been staged as part of _1 Henry VI_ in 1592.

At the same time, the names of at least seventeen of Strange’s and

the Admiral’s men in 1590–3 are otherwise known, and his is not one

of them, and in particular his prominence amongst the Chamberlain’s

men from the very beginning renders it extremely unlikely that, if

he had been a member of the company in 1593, he would not have been

mentioned in the Privy Council warrant of 6 May. Further, it seems

to me impossible to resist the inference that the attribution to him

of _Titus Andronicus_ both by Francis Meres in 1598 and in the First

Folio of 1623 can only be explained by his revision under that name of

_Titus and Vespasian_, and that this was for the second production of

the play as ‘ne’ for Henslowe by Sussex’s men on 24 January 1594. There

is, therefore, really some basis for the suggestion made long ago by

Halliwell-Phillipps that he is to be looked for during these years in

Pembroke’s company until its collapse and then in Sussex’s, and that

it was from this rather than directly from Strange’s that he went to

the Chamberlain’s.[356] On the other hand, it may be that for a time he

was not attached as an actor to any company at all. It is possible that

he took advantage of the plague-interval to travel in Italy and only

resumed the regular exercise of his profession when the Chamberlain’s

company was formed. In any event, it must have been he who revised

_The Contention_ as _2, 3 Henry VI_, and the close stylistic relation

of these plays to _1 Henry VI_ makes it probable that the work on all

three belongs to about the same date. The limitations of conjecture on

so intricate a question are obvious, but I can conceive the order of

events as being somewhat as follows. Shakespeare’s first dramatic job,

which earned him the ill will of Greene, was the writing or re-writing

of _1 Henry VI_ for Strange’s, in the early spring of 1592. During

the winter of 1592–3 he revised _The Contention_ for Pembroke’s and

completed the series of his early histories with _Richard III_, and, as

I am inclined to suspect, also an _Ur-Henry VIII_. He also wrote _The

Jealous Comedy_ or _Comedy of Errors_ for Strange’s. In the summer of

1593 Sussex’s took over the plays of the bankrupt Pembroke’s, including

the Shakespearian histories _Titus and Vespasian_ and _The Taming of

A Shrew_. Some at least of these Pembroke’s had themselves derived

in 1592 or 1593 from Strange’s. During the winter of 1593–4 Sussex’s

played either _Richard III_ or _Henry VIII_ as _Buckingham_, and

also _Titus and Vespasian_ revised for them by Shakespeare as _Titus

Andronicus_. Alarmed at the further inhibition of plays in February,

they allowed the revised _Titus_ and unrevised texts of _The Taming of

A Shrew_ and _The Contention_ to get into the hands of the booksellers.

Whether Shakespeare had already revised _A Shrew_ or did so later for

the Chamberlain’s (q.v.) I am uncertain. Finally, by the transfer of

their plays to the Chamberlain’s men, who at once revived _A Shrew_

and _Titus Andronicus_, and by the incorporation of Strange’s men in

the same company, the original stock of Strange’s plays, as distinct

from the Admiral’s, came together in the same hands once more. On the

assumption that Shakespeare never left Strange’s, it is difficult to

explain either the fortunes of _Titus Andronicus_, or the absence from

the lists of Strange’s plays in Henslowe’s diary of _Richard III_,

which must have been written about 1592–4. The silence as regards

Strange’s both of the Court records and of Henslowe’s diary during the

winter of 1593–4 makes it unlikely that they were in London, and they

would surely not produce a new play in the country.

Nothing further is heard of a Pembroke’s company for three or four

years.[357] But in 1597 one appeared in London about which we have

rather full information, recently increased by Mr. Wallace’s discovery

of a Court of Requests suit in which they were concerned. Towards

the end of February in that year Robert Shaw, Richard Jones, Gabriel

Spencer, William Bird _alias_ Borne, and Thomas Downton, who describe

themselves in a suit of the following November as Pembroke’s servants,

together with others their ‘accomplices and associates’, entered into

an agreement with Francis Langley to play for twelve months ending on

20 February 1598 at the Swan. Each man gave a bond of £100, which was

apparently to safeguard Langley against any failure by the company as

a whole or of Robert Shaw or a sufficient substitute in particular

to perform during this period, or against any performance elsewhere,

otherwise than ‘in private places’, within five miles of London.

Langley found £300 for apparel and, as he claimed, making ready of

the play-house, and was to receive a moiety of the takings of the

galleries and to be repaid for the apparel out of the other moiety.

Of the men concerned, Jones and Downton had been Admiral’s men during

1594–7, and their transference coincides with a three weeks’ break in

the performances of the Admiral’s at the Rose from 12 February onwards.

Mr. Wallace (_E. S._ xliii. 357) says that Shaw, Spencer, and Bird were

also of the Admiral’s, but of this there is no evidence. If Pembroke’s

had any continued life during 1594–7, they may have shared it. But this

seems improbable, and on the whole I am inclined to think that they

came from the Chamberlain’s (q.v.). Plays were given at the Swan for

some months, and Langley took £100 from the galleries, and £100 more

for apparel. Then came an inhibition of plays near London on 28 July

1597, caused by the production of _The Isle of Dogs_, as a result of

which one of the authors, Nashe, fled, and the other, Jonson, together

with Shaw and Spencer, was committed to the Marshalsea. The definite

evidence that Shaw and Spencer were Pembroke’s men at the Swan, now

produced by Mr. Wallace, confirms my conjecture (_M. L. R._ iv. 411,

511) that _The Isle of Dogs_ was an adventure of that house and not,

as has sometimes been thought, of the Rose. Either in anticipation of

a prolonged closing of the house or for some other reason, the company

now desired to shake off their relations with Langley. Early in August

Jones returned to Henslowe and made a new covenant with him. His

example was followed by Shaw, Spencer, and Bird, and early in October

by Downton. Their prescience was justified, for when in the course of

October the chief offenders were released, and the inhibition, which

was nominally terminable on 1 November, was in practice relaxed, it

proved that, while Henslowe was able to get a new licence for the

Rose, Langley could get none for the Swan. He urged them to try their

fortunes without a licence, as others of their company were willing to

do, but they not unnaturally refused, and Henslowe (i. 54) records,

‘The xj of October begane my lord Admerals and my lord of Penbrockes

men to playe at my howsse 1597’. He describes the company under the

double name again on 21 and 23 October and 5 November, but on 1

December and thereafter as the Lord Admiral’s (i. 68–70). A study

of the Admiral’s repertory for 1597–8 suggests that some or all of

the plays _Black Joan_, _Hardicanute_, _Bourbon_, _Sturgflattery_,

_Branholt_, _Friar Spendleton_, _Alice Pierce_, and _Dido and Aeneas_

may have been brought in by Pembroke’s men.

The five seceders had not heard the last of Langley. He sued them

at common law on the bonds given not to play in a rival house. They

successfully applied to have the case transferred to the Court of

Requests, and in the course of the pleadings maintained, firstly, that

they were prevented from playing at the Swan by the restraint and

Langley’s failure to get a licence; secondly, that Langley had orally

assented to their transfer to Henslowe; thirdly, that they could not

appear at the Swan as a company, since Langley had ‘procured from

them’ two (or, as they afterwards said, three) of their associates,

to whom he had returned their obligations; and fourthly, that Langley

had suffered no damage, since other men were occupying his house.

They also complained that Langley had never handed over the apparel

for which they had recouped him out of their gallery takings. The

negotiations with Langley which they describe seem to have taken place

during October. About the covenants entered into with Henslowe as far

back as the beginning of August they said nothing, and whether either

Langley or the court ever found out about these, and what the ultimate

decision of the court on the main issue was, must remain uncertain. But

certain loans entered in Henslowe’s diary suggest that in March 1598

Langley was in a position to arrest Bird, and that in September of the

same year some kind of agreement was arrived at, under which Langley

received £35, as well as £19 or more for a rich cloak (i. 63, 72, 73,

95, 96). It is possible that a ‘sewt agenste Thomas Poope’ of the

Chamberlain’s, for which Henslowe (i. 72) made a personal advance of

10_s._ to William Bird on 30 August 1598, may also have been connected

with the shiftings of companies in 1597.

The names of the two or three members of the company to whom Langley

gave back their bonds are not stated in the pleadings. Perhaps one

was Jonson, and the other two might conceivably have been Humphrey

and Anthony Jeffes, since the name of ‘Humfrey’ stands with that of

‘Gabriel’ in stage-directions to _3 Henry VI_, and Henslowe’s list of

the reconstituted Admiral’s company as it stood in October 1597–January

1598 contains ‘the ij Geffes’, who are not traceable in the 1594–7

company and may well have come in with the five Pembroke’s men. Langley

tells us that certain ‘fellows’ of his opponents had taken a more

reasonable line than theirs and returned to the Swan. How long these

men remained there we do not know, but probably they secured Pembroke’s

patronage after the five had been definitely merged in the Admiral’s,

for by the end of 1597 there was clearly a distinct Pembroke’s company

again. Provincial records yield the name, not only at Bath in 1596–7

and at Bristol in September 1597, which may point to a tour of the

undivided Swan company during the period of restraint, but also at Bath

in 1598–9, at Bristol in July 1598, at Leicester between October and

December, at Dover on 7 October, at Coventry on 12 December, and at

Bewdley on 22 December. They were at Norwich in April 1599, at Coventry

on 4 July, and at Bristol in July. They were at York on 21 January

1600, Bristol in April, Marlborough in May, and Leicester before

Michaelmas. In October they were in relationship with Henslowe, who

notes ‘my Lordes of Penbrockes men begane to playe at the Rosse’, and

records performances of _Like Unto Like_ and _Roderick_ on 28 and 29

October respectively.[358] The former brought him 11_s._ 6_d._ and the

latter 5_s._, and there apparently the experiment ended, and with it,

so far as is known, the career of Pembroke’s men. It is just possible

that they were merged in Worcester’s company, which arose shortly

afterwards. Mr. Fleay expands this possibility into a definite theory

that Kempe, Beeston, Duke, and Pallant left the Chamberlain’s men for

Pembroke’s in 1599, and ultimately passed from these to Worcester’s.

This is improbable as regards Kempe, and unproved as regards the

rest.[359]

xix. THE LORD ADMIRAL’S (LORD HOWARD’S, EARL OF NOTTINGHAM’S),

PRINCE HENRY’S, AND ELECTOR PALATINE’S MEN

Charles Howard, s. of William, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham,

g.s. of Thomas, 2nd Duke of Norfolk; _nat._ 1536; m. (1)

Catherine Carey, d. of Henry Lord Hunsdon, Lady of the Privy

Chamber, (2) Margaret Stuart, d. of James Earl of Murray, _c._

1604; succ. as 2nd Baron, 29 Jan. 1573; Deputy Lord Chamberlain,

1574–5; Vice-Admiral, Feb. 1582; Lord Chamberlain, _c._ Dec.

1583; Lord High Admiral, 8 July 1585–1619; Earl of Nottingham,

22 Oct. 1596; Lord Steward, 1597; _ob._ 14 Dec. 1624.

Henry Frederick, s. of James VI of Scotland and I of England;

_nat._ 19 Feb. 1594; cr. Duke of Rothesay, 30 Aug. 1594; succ.

as Duke of Cornwall, 24 Mar. 1603; cr. Earl of Chester and

Prince of Wales, 4 June 1610; _ob._ 6 Nov. 1612.

Frederick, s. of Frederick IV, Count Palatine of the Rhine;

_nat._ 19 Aug. 1596; succ. as Frederick V, 1610; m. Princess

Elizabeth of England, 14 Feb. 1613; elected King of Bohemia,

1619; _ob._ 1632.

[_Bibliographical Note._--The material preserved amongst the

papers of Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn at Dulwich has

been fully collected and studied by W. W. Greg in _Henslowe’s

Diary_ (1904–8) and _Henslowe Papers_ (1907), which replace the

earlier publications of Malone, Collier, and others from the

same source. I have added a little from Professor Wallace’s

researches and elsewhere, and have attempted to give my own

reading of the evidence, which differs in a few minor points

from Dr. Greg’s.]

It was perhaps his employment as deputy to the Earl of Sussex in the

office of Lord Chamberlain which led Lord Howard to encourage players.

A company, under the name of Lord Howard’s men, appeared at Court for

the first time at the Christmas of 1576–7. On 27 December they played

_Tooley_, and on 17 February _The Solitary Knight_.[360] They came

again for the last time in the following winter, and performed on 5

January 1578. They were also at Kirtling on 3 December 1577, Saffron

Walden in 1577–8, Ipswich on 24 October 1577, in 1578–9, and perhaps

on 8 October 1581, Bristol, where they gave _The Queen of Ethiopia_,

between 31 August and 6 September 1578, Nottingham on 19 December 1578,

and Bath and Coventry in 1578–9.

Howard again had players at Court, after he became Admiral in 1585.

The first record of them is at Dover in June 1585. Later in the year

they were playing in conjunction with the Lord Chamberlain’s (Lord

Hunsdon’s). ‘The Lorde Chamberlens and the Lord Admirall’s players’

were rewarded at Leicester in October-December 1585, and ‘the servants

of the lo: admirall and the lo: Chamberlaine’ for a play at Court on 6

January 1586.[361] During the same Christmas, however, the Admiral’s

played alone on 27 December 1585, and as Hunsdon’s survived in the

provinces, the two organizations may have been amalgamated for one

performance only. The Admiral’s were at Coventry, Faversham, Ipswich,

and Leicester in 1585–6. They were reported to Walsingham amongst other

London companies on 25 January 1587 (App. D, No. lxxviii), although

they did not appear at Court during this winter. In 1586–7 they were at

Cambridge, Coventry, Bath, York, Norwich, Ipswich, Exeter, Southampton,

and Leicester. By November they were back in London, and on the 16th

an accident at their theatre is thus related by Philip Gawdy to his

father:[362]

‘Yow shall vnderstande of some accydentall newes heare in this

towne thoughe my self no wyttnesse thereof, yet I may be bold

to veryfye it for an assured troth. My L. Admyrall his men

and players having a devyse in ther playe to tye one of their

fellowes to a poste and so to shoote him to deathe, having

borrowed their callyvers one of the players handes swerved his

peece being charged with bullett missed the fellowe he aymed

at and killed a chyld, and a woman great with chyld forthwith,

and hurt an other man in the head very soore. How they will

answere it I do not study vnlesse their profession were better,

but in chrystyanity I am very sorry for the chaunce but God his

iudgementes ar not to be searched nor enquired of at mannes

handes. And yet I fynde by this an old proverbe veryfyed ther

never comes more hurte than commes of fooling.’

Possibly the company went into retirement as a result of this disaster;

at any rate nothing more is heard of them until the Christmas of

1588–9. They then came to Court, and were rewarded for two interludes

and ‘for showinge other feates of activitye and tumblinge’ on 29

December 1588 and 11 February 1589.[363] On 6 November 1589 they were

playing in the City, and were suppressed by the Lord Mayor, because

Tilney, the Master of the Revels, misliked their plays. Probably

they had been concerning themselves with the Marprelate controversy.

Strange’s men, who were evidently performing as a separate company,

shared their fate. It may have been this misadventure which led the

Admiral’s to seek house-room with James Burbadge at the Theatre (q.v.),

where some evidence by John Alleyn, who, with James Tunstall, was of

their number, locates them in November 1590 and May 1591. A relic of

this period may be presumed to exist in the ‘plot’ of _Dead Man’s

Fortune_, preserved with other plots belonging to the company at

Dulwich, in which Burbadge, doubtless Richard Burbadge, then still a

boy, appeared. Certainly there is nothing to connect Burbadge with the

company at any other date. Other actors in the piece were one Darlowe,

‘b[oy?] Samme’, and Robert Lee, later of Anne’s men. The Admiral’s

again showed ‘feats of activitie’ at Court on 28 December 1589, and

a play on 3 March 1590. In 1589–90 they were at Coventry, Ipswich,

Maidstone, Marlborough, Winchester, and Gloucester, and in 1590–1 at

Winchester and Gloucester. Marlowe’s _Tamburlaine_ was published in

1590 as ‘shewed upon stages in the City of London’ by the Admiral’s

men. The Court records for the following winter present what looks at

first sight like a curious discrepancy. The accounts of the Treasurer

of the Chamber include payments for plays and activities on 27 December

1590 and 16 February 1591 to Lord Strange’s men. The corresponding

warrants, however, were made out, according to the Privy Council

Register, for the Admiral’s. Probably there is no error here, and the

entries are evidence of an amalgamation between the two companies,

which possibly dated from as far back as the winter of 1589, and

which seems to have endured until the summer of 1594. Technically,

it would seem that it was the Admiral’s who were merged in Strange’s

men. It is the latter and not the former who generally appear in

official documents during this period. I have therefore dealt with

its details for both companies, with the question of the precise date

of the amalgamation, and with the possibility that the plot of _The

Seven Deadly Sins_ and its list of actors also belong to a Theatre

performance of about 1590, in my account of Strange’s men, and need

only remark here that the name of the Admiral’s does not altogether

fall into disuse, especially in provincial records, and that the

leading actor, Edward Alleyn, in particular, is shown by an official

document to have retained his personal status as an Admiral’s servant.

It is a question of some interest how early Alleyn’s connexion with

the Admiral’s may be supposed to have begun. Was he, for example,

the original Tamburlaine of 1587, and was it as an Admiral’s man

that Nashe referred to him, if it was he to whom Nashe referred, as

the Roscius of the contemporary players in his _Menaphon_ epistle of

1589? He is known to have been a member of Worcester’s company in

1583. Dr. Greg is disposed to think that he remained with them until

the death of the third Earl of Worcester on 22 February 1589, and

then joined the Admiral’s.[364] It is, however, to be observed that

there is no trace of Worcester’s men between 1584 and 1590, and that

it is in 1585 that the Admiral’s men begin to appear at Court. On the

whole, it commends itself to me as the more probable conjecture that

the first Earl of Worcester’s company passed into Howard’s service,

when he became Admiral in 1585, and that the players of the fourth

Earl of Worcester between 1590 and 1596 were distinct from those of

his father. The issue concerns others besides Edward Alleyn himself.

Amongst the members of Worcester’s company in 1583 were Robert Browne,

James Tunstall, and Richard Jones; and all three of these are found

concerned with Alleyn in matters of theatrical business during 1589–91.

The most important document is a deed of sale by ‘Richarde Jones of

London yoman’ to ‘Edwarde Allen of London gent’ for £37 10s. of ‘all

and singuler suche share parte and porcion of playinge apparrelles,

playe bookes, instrumentes, and other comodities whatsoeuer belonginge

to the same, as I the said Richarde Jones nowe haue or of right ought

to haue joyntlye with the same Edwarde Allen, John Allen citizen and

inholder of London and Roberte Browne yoman’.[365] This is dated 3

January 1589. There are also three deeds of sale to Edward and John

Alleyn of theatrical apparel between 1589 and 1591, and to two of these

James Tunstall was a witness.[366] On Dr. Greg’s theory as to the date

at which Alleyn took service with the Lord Admiral, the organization

in whose properties Richard Jones had an interest would naturally be

Worcester’s men; on mine it would be the Admiral’s, and it would follow

that Jones and Browne, as well as Alleyn, had joined that company.

We have seen that James Tunstall had done so by 1590–1. John Alleyn

was an elder brother of Edward. There is nothing to connect him with

Worcester’s men. He was a servant of Lord Sheffield in November 1580

and of the Lord Admiral in 1589.[367] A letter of one Elizabeth Socklen

to Edward Alleyn refers to a time ‘when your brother, my lovinge cozen

John Allen, dwelt with my very good lord, Charles Heawarde’, and this

rather suggests that his service was in some household capacity, and

not merely as player.[368] If so, it may have been through him that

Edward Alleyn and his fellows became Admiral’s men. The first period of

their activity seems to have lasted from 1585 to 1589, and it was no

doubt Edward Alleyn’s genius, and perhaps also his business capacity,

which enabled them to offer a serious rivalry to the Queen’s company.

I suspect that in 1589 or 1590 they were practically dissolved, and

this view is confirmed by the fact that their most important play was

allowed to get to the hands of the printers. Alleyn, with the help of

his brother, bought up the properties, and allied himself with Lord

Strange’s men, and so far as the Admiral’s continued to exist at all

for the next few years, it was almost entirely in and through him

that it did so. After a financial quarrel with James Burbadge in May

1591, the combined companies moved to the Rose. There is nothing to

show whether the Alleyns bought up Robert Browne’s interest as well as

that of Richard Jones. At any rate Browne began in 1590 that series

of continental tours which occupied most of the rest of his career

(cf. ch. xiv). Jones joined him in one of these adventures in 1592,

and it is possible that John Bradstreet and Thomas Sackville, who went

with them, were also old Admiral’s men. But I do not think that it is

accurate to regard this company, as Dr. Greg seems to be inclined to

do, as being itself under the Admiral’s patronage. It is true that they

obtained a passport from him, but this was probably given rather in his

capacity as warden of the seas than in that of their lord. His name is

not mentioned in any of the foreign records of their peregrinations.

It is not possible to say which, other than Alleyn, of the members

of the 1592–3 Strange’s and Admiral’s company, whose names have been

preserved, came from each of the two contributing sources. They do

not include either John Alleyn or James Tunstall, or Edward Browne,

a Worcester’s man of 1583, who reappears with Tunstall among the

Admiral’s after 1594. Nor is it possible to say how far the repertory

of Strange’s men, as disclosed by the 1592–3 entries in Henslowe’s

diary, included plays drawn from the Admiral’s stock. This may have

been the case with _The Battle of Alcazar_, which was printed as an

Admiral’s play in 1594, and with _Orlando Furioso_, which contemporary

gossip represents Greene as selling first to the Queen’s and then to

the Admiral’s. And it may have been the case with _1 Tamar Cham_, which

passed to the later Admiral’s. Neither _Tamburlaine_ nor _The Wounds of

Civil War_, printed like _The Battle of Alcazar_ as an Admiral’s play

in 1594, is recorded to have been played by Strange’s.

When the companies settled down again to a London life after the

conclusion of the long plague in 1594, the Admiral’s men reconstituted

themselves as an independent company with Alleyn at its head, leaving

the greater number of their recent comrades of the road to pass, as

the Lord Chamberlain’s men, under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon. The

personal alliance between Alleyn and Henslowe, whose step-daughter,

Joan Woodward, he had married on 22 October 1592, led to the

institution of close business relations between the company and the

pawnbroker, and the record of these in the famous diary enables us to

follow with a singular minuteness the almost daily fortunes of the

Admiral’s men during the course of some nine or ten years, broken into

two periods by a reconstruction of the company in 1597 and finally

closing about the time of their conversion into Prince Henry’s men in

1604. The precise nature of the position occupied by Henslowe has been

carefully investigated by Dr. Greg,[369] and has already been briefly

considered in these pages (ch. xi). He was not a member of the company,

but its landlord, and, probably to an increasing extent, its financier.

In the former capacity he received, after every day’s performance,

a fluctuating sum, which seems to have represented half the amount

received for admission to the galleries of the house; the other half,

with the payments for entrance to the standing room in the yard, being

divided amongst such of the players as had a share in the profits.

Out of this, of course, they had to meet all expenditure other than

by way of rent, such as the wages of hired men, payments for apparel

and play-books, fees to the Master of the Revels for the licensing of

plays, and the like. In practice it became convenient for Henslowe, who

was a capitalist, while many of the players lived from hand to mouth,

to advance sums to meet such expenditure as it fell due, and to recoup

himself from time to time out of the company’s profits. It seems likely

that, when the system was in full working, the moiety of the gallery

money, which remained after the deduction of the rent, was assigned for

the purpose of these repayments. During the period 1597–1604 Henslowe’s

entries in his diary are mainly in the nature of a running account of

these advances and of the receipts set off against them; for 1594–7

similar entries occur irregularly, but the principal record is a daily

list, such as Henslowe had already kept during his shorter associations

with Strange’s, the Queen’s, and Sussex’s companies in the course of

1592–4, of each performance given, with the name of the play and of

the amount accruing to Henslowe himself in the form of rent. This list

renders possible a very interesting analysis, both of the repertory of

the company and of some at least of the financial conditions of their

enterprise.

The entries start with the heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge

the 14 of Maye 1594 by my lord Admeralls men’. After three days, during

which _The Jew of Malta_, _Cutlack_, and _The Ranger’s Comedy_, all

of which are found in the later repertory of the company, were given,

they stop abruptly.[370] To about the same date may be assigned a

fragmentary account, headed ‘Layd owt for my Lorde Admeralle seruantes

as ffoloweth 1594’, and recording expenditure for coming and going to

Court and to Somerset House, the residence of the Lord Chamberlain,

‘for mackinge of our leater twise’, and ‘for drinckinge with the

jentellmen’, all evidently concerned with the initial business of

forming and licensing the company.[371] On 5 June the account of

performances is resumed with a fresh heading, ‘In the name of God Amen

begininge at Newington my Lord Admeralle men and my Lorde Chamberlen

men as ffolowethe 1594’.[372] Henslowe’s takings only averaged 9_s._

for the first ten days, probably on account of the distance of

Newington Butts from London.[373] The takings for the three days in

May averaged 41_s._, and it may perhaps be inferred that these May

performances were at the Rose, and that some fear of renewed plague

on the part of the authorities led to their being relegated to a

safer quarter. The tentative character of these early performances

is shown by the fact that the Admiral’s were still sharing a theatre

with the Chamberlain’s. To the repertory of the latter it seems safe

to assign three of the seven plays produced, _Titus Andronicus_,

_Hamlet_, and _The Taming of A Shrew_, and probably also a fourth,

_Hester and Ahasuerus_, as there is no later sign of this amongst

the Admiral’s plays. This leaves three others to be regarded as the

Admiral’s contribution, _The Jew of Malta_ and _Cutlack_, which they

had played in May and were often to play again, and _Belin Dun_, to

which are attached the letters ‘ne’, Henslowe’s normal indication of a

new play.[374] There is nothing in the order in which the plays were

taken to indicate an alternation of the two companies, and it is likely

enough that neither was yet fully constituted, and that they actually

joined forces in the same performances.

After the tenth play on 15 June, Henslowe drew a line across the

page, and although the entries continue without any indication of a

change in the conditions under which the performances were given, I

can only concur in the conjecture of Mr. Fleay and Dr. Greg that at

this point the Admiral’s plays were transferred to the Rose, and the

combination with the Chamberlain’s ceased.[375] A sudden rise in the

amount of Henslowe’s takings, and the absence from the rest of the

list of the four plays named above and of any other attributable to

the Chamberlain’s repertory, are alike strongly in favour of this

view, which may be treated as a practical certainty. Henceforward the

fortunes of the company seem to have followed a smooth course for the

space of three years. Their proceedings may be briefly summed up as

follows. They played for thirty-nine consecutive weeks from 15 June

1594 to 14 March 1595, appearing at Court during this season on 28

December, 1 January, and 6 January. After a break of thirty-seven days

during Lent, opportunity of which was taken to repair the Rose, they

played again for ten weeks from Easter Monday, 21 April, to 26 June

1595. Then came a vacation of fifty-nine days, with visits to Bath and

Maidstone. They began again in London on 25 August 1595 and played for

twenty-seven weeks to 28 February 1596, giving Court performances on

1 January, 4 January, and 22 and 24 February. This took them to the

end of the first week in Lent. After forty-three days’ interval, they

played for fifteen weeks, from Easter Monday, 12 April, to 23 July

1596. Their summer vacation lasted for ninety-five days, and they are

noted during 1595–6 at Coventry, Bath, Gloucester, and Dunwich. In the

autumn they started playing on 27 October, but the receipts were low,

and if the record is complete, they suspended performances between

15 and 25 November, and then went on to 12 February 1597, making up

a season of about fourteen weeks in all. They do not seem to have

played at Court at all this winter. This year they rather disregarded

Lent, stopping for eighteen days only, during a reconstruction of the

company, and then playing three days a week until Easter, and then

regularly until the end of July, in all twenty-one weeks. To certain

irregularities at the close of this season it will be necessary to

refer later. During the three years, then, there were three winter

and three summer seasons of London playing, covering about a hundred

and twenty-six weeks. Except in Lent or at the beginning or end of

a season, or occasionally, probably for climatic reasons, at other

times, especially in December, plays were given upon every week-day.

It emerges from Dr. Greg’s re-ordering of Henslowe’s very inaccurate

dates that there were no plays on Sundays.[376] On the other hand, a

summons to play at Court in the evening did not necessarily entail a

blank day in the afternoon. The total number of performances during

the three years was seven hundred and twenty-eight. It is reasonable

to assume that Henslowe’s takings varied roughly with those of the

company, although the reserve must be made that different plays

might prove the most attractive to the galleries and to the yard

respectively. The amounts entered range from a minimum of 3_s._ to a

maximum of 73_s._ Dr. Greg calculates the average over ‘certain typical

periods of 1595’ as 30_s._;[377] during the first half of 1597 it was

24_s._ The fluctuations are determined, partly by the popularity or

novelty of the plays presented, partly by the season of the year, and

doubtless the weather and the competition of other amusements. There

were generally some high receipts during Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun

weeks. Unfortunately there is no means of estimating the proportion

which Henslowe’s share bore to that which fell for division among the

players. Some light is thrown upon the expenses by the subsidiary

accounts of advances, which Henslowe began to keep from time to time

in 1596. In May of that year he lent Alleyn ‘for the company’ a total

amount of £39 in several instalments, and recovered it by small sums of

£1 to £3 at a time during the next three months.[378] A longer account

extending from October 1596 to March 1597 reaches, with the aid of a

miscalculation, a total of £52. Of this £22 was repaid during the same

period, chiefly by deductions from the profits of first nights, and an

acknowledgement given for the balance of £30.[379] The advances were

made through various members of the company, and the purposes specified

include apparel for three new plays, travelling expenses, and fees to

playwrights. A third account, if I am right in the interpretation of

some very disputable figures, shows an expenditure at the average rate

of 31_s._ a day during the six months from 24 January to 28 July 1597,

of which, however, nearly half was in fact incurred during the first

twenty-four days of the period. In this case only the sums and not the

purposes for which they were advanced are entered.[380]

During the three years the Admiral’s men produced new plays to the

total number of fifty-five, and at the average rate of one a fortnight.

The productions were not at regular intervals, and often followed each

other in successive weeks. There is, however, no example of two new

productions in the same week.[381] These are the names and dates of the

new plays:

_Belin Dun_ (10 June 1594).

_Galiaso_ (28 June 1594).

_Philipo and Hippolito_ (9 July 1594).

_2 Godfrey of Bulloigne_ (19 July 1594).

_The Merchant of Emden_ (30 July 1594).

_Tasso’s Melancholy_ (13 Aug. 1594).

_The Venetian Comedy_ (27 Aug. 1594).

_Palamon and Arcite_ (18 Sept. 1594).

_The Love of an English Lady_ (26 Sept. 1594).

_A Knack to Know an Honest Man_ (23 Oct. 1594).

_1 Caesar and Pompey_ (8 Nov. 1594).

_Diocletian_ (16 Nov. 1594).

_The Wise Man of West Chester_ (3 Dec. 1594).

_The Set at Maw_ (15 Dec. 1594).

_The French Comedy_ (11 Feb. 1595).

_The Mack_ (21 Feb. 1595).

_Olympo_ (5 Mar. 1595).[382]

_1 Hercules_ (7 May 1595).

_2 Hercules_ (23 May 1595).

_1 The Seven Days of the Week_ (3 June 1595).

_2 Caesar and Pompey_ (18 June 1595).

_Longshanks_ (29 Aug. 1595).

_Crack me this Nut_ (5 Sept. 1595).

_The New World’s Tragedy_ (17 Sept. 1595).

_The Disguises_ (2 Oct. 1595).

_The Wonder of a Woman_ (16 Oct. 1595).

_Barnardo and Fiammetta_ (30 Oct. 1595).

_A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies_ (14 Nov. 1595).

_Henry V_ (28 Nov. 1595).

_Chinon of England_ (3 Jan. 1596).

_Pythagoras_ (16 Jan. 1596).

_2 The Seven Days of the Week_ (23 Jan. 1596).

_The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ (12 Feb. 1596).

_Julian the Apostate_ (29 Apr. 1596).

_1 Tamar Cham_ (7 May 1596).

_Phocas_ (20 May 1596).

_2 Tamar Cham_ (11 June 1596).

_Troy_ (25 June 1596).

_The Paradox_ (1 July 1596).

_The Tinker of Totnes_ (23 July 1596).

_Vortigern_, _Valteger_, or _Hengist_ (4 Dec. 1596).

_Stukeley_ (10 Dec. 1596).

_Nebuchadnezzar_ (18 Dec. 1596).

_That Will Be Shall Be_ (30 Dec. 1596).

_Jeronimo_ (7 Jan. 1597).

_Alexander and Lodowick_ (14 Jan. 1597).[383]

_Woman Hard to Please_ (27 Jan. 1597).

_Guido_ (21 Mar. 1597).

_Five Plays in One_ (7 Apr. 1597).

_A French Comedy_ (18 Apr. 1597).

_Uther Pendragon_ (29 Apr. 1597).

_The Comedy of Humours_ (11 May 1597).

_The Life and Death of Henry I_ (26 May 1597).

_Frederick and Basilea_ (3 June 1597).

_The Life and Death of Martin Swart_ (30 June 1597).

Oblivion has overtaken the great majority of these plays. _Longshanks_

is possibly Peele’s _Edward I_, and _Jeronimo_ certainly Kyd’s _Spanish

Tragedy_. The title of _The Wise Man of West Chester_ agrees with the

subject of Munday’s _John a Kent_ and _John a Cumber_, the manuscript

of which is dated December 1595. One would be more willing to identify

_Henry V_ with _The Famous Victories_, if the latter had not been

printed in 1598 with the name of the Queen’s men on its title-page. _A

Knack to Know an Honest Man_ was printed, as acted ‘about the Citie

of London’, but without any company name, in 1596 (S. R. 26 November

1595). _Stukeley_ was also printed without a name, as _The Famous

History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley_, in 1605 (S.

R. 11 August 1600). _1 Tamar Cham_ and _Frederick and Basilea_ are

extant in ‘plots’ alone, and _Belin Dun_, or _Bellendon_, as Henslowe

writes it, was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 24 November 1595

as _The true tragicall historie of Kinge Rufus the first with the

life and deathe of Belyn Dun the first thief that ever was hanged in

England_, but is not known to be extant. The list also contains two of

the early works of George Chapman, _The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_

(1598, Admiral’s, S. R. 15 August 1598), and _The Comedy of Humours_,

which can be safely identified with _A Humorous Day’s Mirth_ (1599,

Admiral’s). Ingenious attempts have been made to trace in some of the

remaining titles other plays by Chapman, or by Heywood, Dekker, and

the like, or presumed early drafts of these, or the English originals

of plays or titles preserved in German versions; but in most cases

the material available is so scanty as to render the game a hazardous

one.[384] It appears, however, from Henslowe’s notes of advances during

1596–7 that payment was made to Heywood for a book, from which it

may be inferred that his activity as a dramatist for the company had

already began. Payments to ‘marcum’ and ‘Mr. porter’ perhaps indicate

the same of Gervase Markham and Henry Porter.[385]

It is evident that some of the plays marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe cannot

have been new in the fullest sense. This applies to _Jeronimo_, which

had been played by Strange’s men as an old play during 1592–3, and

to _2 Tamar Cham_, which had been produced by the same company on 28

April 1592, and on that occasion also marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe. It

applies also to _Longshanks_ and _Henry V_, if these are really the

same as _Edward I_ and _The Famous Victories_. And it may, of course,

apply also in other cases, which cannot now be distinguished. Two

explanations are possible. One is that plays were treated as new, for

the purpose of Henslowe’s entries, which were only new to the repertory

of the particular company concerned, having been purchased by them or

by Henslowe from the stock of some other company. There is, however,

no indication that Henslowe received any special financial advantage

from the production of a new play, such as would give point to such an

arrangement. The other, and perhaps the most plausible, is that an old

play was marked ‘ne’ if it had undergone any substantial process of

revision before revival. But it must be admitted that the problem set

is one that we have hardly the means to solve.

In addition to their new and revised plays, the Admiral’s had a

considerable stock of old ones. Some of these they were playing, when

they began their first season in June 1594. Several others were revived

in the course of that season, and a few at later dates. The only new

play of the repertory which reached the stage of revival during the

three years was _Belin Dun_, which was originally produced on 10 June

1594, played to the end of the year, then dropped, and afterwards

revived for a single performance on 11 July 1596, and for a series

in the spring of 1597. But it is not likely that many new plays were

written during the plague years, and probably most of the revived plays

of 1594–5 were a good deal more than two or three years old. A list of

the plays not marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe, nineteen in number, follows.

It is, however, possible that some of them are only plays in the list

already given, masquerading under different names.

_Cutlack._

_The Ranger’s Comedy._

_The Guise_, or, _The Massacre of Paris._

_The Jew of Malta._

_Mahomet._

_1 Tamburlaine._

_Dr. Faustus._

_The Love of a Grecian Lady_, or, _The Grecian Comedy_.[386]

_The French Doctor._

_Warlamchester._

_2 Tamburlaine._

_The Siege of London._

_Antony and Valia._[387]

_1 Long Meg of Westminster._[388]

_The Welshman._[389]

_1 Fortunatus._

_Osric._

_Time’s Triumph and Fortune’s._

_The Witch of Islington._

Five plays of Marlowe’s are conspicuous in the list. _Mahomet_ might

be either Greene’s _Alphonsus_, _King of Arragon_ or Peele’s lost

_Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek_. _Fortunatus_, as revised

by Dekker in 1599, is extant, but it is doubtful whether Dekker was

writing early enough to have been the author of the original play.

Conjectural identifications of some of the other titles have been

attempted.[390] There is, perhaps, a natural inclination to eke out

our meagre knowledge of the repertory of the earlier Admiral’s men,

as it was constituted before 1590, by the assumption that the old and

the revised new plays of 1594–7 belong to that stock. But this can

only be proved to be so in the case of _1 and 2 Tamburlaine_, where

the title-page of the 1590 edition comes to our assistance. There is

no trace between 1594 and 1597 of any of the other three plays, _The

Battle of Alcazar_, _The Wounds of Civil War_, and _Orlando Furioso_,

which there is independent evidence for connecting with the Admiral’s.

And it must be borne in mind that there were several other sources from

which a supply of old plays might be drawn. Alleyn seems to have bought

up the books and properties of the pre-1590 men, and we do not know

how far he also retained rights in some or all of the plays produced

during his alliance with Strange’s. Moreover, there were plenty of

opportunities for either Alleyn, Henslowe, or the Admiral’s men as a

whole, to acquire copies from one or more of the companies, Pembroke’s,

the Queen’s, Sussex’s, which went under in the plague years. _Henry

V_, if identical with _The Famous Victories_, had certainly been a

Queen’s play; _The Ranger’s Comedy_ had been played for Henslowe by the

Queen’s and Sussex’s in April 1594; _Jeronimo_ and _The Guise_ had been

similarly played by Strange’s in 1592–3; and the fact that Strange’s,

the Queen’s, Sussex’s, and the Admiral’s, all in turn played _The Jew

of Malta_ leads to a strong suspicion that it was Henslowe’s property

and placed by him at the disposal of any company that might from time

to time be occupying his theatre.

The Rose was what is now known as a ‘repertory’ house. A very

successful play might be repeated on the night after its first

production or revival, or in the course of the same week. But as a

rule one performance a week was the limit, and after a play had been

on the boards a few weeks, the intervals between its appearances

rapidly became greater. _The Wise Man of West Chester_, which was

presented thirty-two times between December 1594 and July 1597, had a

longer life than any other new play during the three years. Next came

_A Knack to Know an Honest Man_, with twenty-one performances in two

years, _1 Seven Days of the Week_, with twenty-one performances in

fifteen months, and _The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, with twenty-two

performances in fourteen months. _Belin Dun_, although not continuously

upon the stage for long together, achieved with the aid of its revival

a total of twenty-four performances. The only other new plays, that

outlived a year, were _2 Godfrey of Bulloigne_ and _A Toy to Please

Chaste Ladies_. Even such highly successful plays as _1 and 2 Hercules_

ceased to be heard of after six months. The usual run of a play was

anything from six to seventeen nights, but sixteen plays failed to

obtain even such a run, and several plays, which apparently did well

enough on the first night, were not repeated at all. As a rule the

first night of a play brought Henslowe the highest returns; but this

was by no means invariably the case, and the success of any play, which

held the boards for as many as six nights, can perhaps best be measured

by its average returns. By far the most fortunate was _The Comedy of

Humours_ which averaged 53_s._ for the eleven nights available before

the summer season of 1597 closed. Next came _1 and 2 Hercules_ with

42_s._ and 43_s._ respectively, _1 Seven Days of the Week_ with 35_s._,

and _The Wise Man of West Chester_ with 34_s._ On the other hand the

average of _Henry I_ was no more than 19_s._ and that of the second

_French Comedy_ no more than 16_s._ The highest individual returns

were those from the first nights of _1 and 2 Hercules_, _2 Godfrey

of Bulloigne_, and _1 Seven Days of the Week_, which yielded 73_s._,

70_s._, 71_s._, and 70_s._ respectively, and that from the sixth night

of the _Comedy of Humours_, which was also 70_s._ The booking for this

play shows a curious progress, being 43_s._, 55_s._, 58_s._, 64_s._,

66_s._, 70_s._, for the first six nights. Similarly _The Wise Man of

West Chester_, which began with a bad first night of 33_s._, rose to

a good average, while _2 Godfrey of Bulloigne_, for all its start of

70_s._, ended with an average of only 28_s._ The worst first night

taking was the 22_s._ of _Nebuchadnezzar_, and this affords another

curious example of box-office fluctuations, for, though it achieved

no higher average than 22_s._, it rose on its third night to 68_s._

The worst takings, on other than first nights, were 3_s._ for _Chinon

of England_,[391] 4_s._ for _Vortigern_, and for _Olympo_, and 5_s._

twice over for _A Woman Hard to Please_. Probably these were due to

weather or other accidents, as each play averaged enough to justify a

reasonable run. The success of the old plays followed much the same

lines as that of the new ones. They ran for anything from one night

to twenty-four, this total being reached by _Dr. Faustus_. The best

average returns were the 32_s._ and 38_s._ of _1 and 2 Tamburlaine_,

the 30_s._ of _Mahomet_, the 29_s._ of _1 Long Meg of Westminster_,

the 27_s._ of _The Guise_, and the 26_s._ of _The Jew of Malta_;

the best individual returns the 72_s._ and 71_s._ yielded by the

respective first nights of _Dr. Faustus_ and _1 Tamburlaine_. The

persistent popularity of Marlowe’s work comes out quite clearly from

the statistics; and the success of Chapman’s first attempts is also not

to be overlooked.

The _personnel_ of the Admiral’s men during 1594–7 can be determined

with some approach to certainty. They were Edward Alleyn, John Singer,

Richard Jones, Thomas Towne, Martin Slater, Edward Juby, Thomas

Downton, and James Donstone. Their names are found in a list written in

the diary, without any explanation of its object, amongst memoranda of

1594–6.[392] There can be little doubt that it represents the principal

members of the company, and in most cases corroborative evidence is

available. The books of the Treasurer of the Chamber indicate Alleyn,

Jones, and Singer as payees for the Court money of 1594–5, and Alleyn

and Slater for that of 1595–6. Alleyn, Slater, Donstone, and Juby are

noted in Henslowe’s subsidiary accounts for 1596 as responsible for

advances made by him on behalf of the company.[393] Another advance was

made to Stephen the tireman, and he is doubtless the Stephen Magett

who also appears in personal financial relations with Henslowe during

1596.[394] Transactions by way of loan, sale, or pawn are also noted by

Henslowe during 1594–7 with Slater, Jones, Donstone, Singer, and Towne,

and also with Edward Dutton and Richard Alleyn.[395] These latter were

probably not sharers in the company, but can be traced with others

amongst its subordinate members by means of the ‘plot’ of _Frederick

and Basilea_, which it is reasonable to connect with the performances

of the play in June and July 1597, since it was a new play on 3 June,

and it is recorded in the diary that Martin Slater, who figures in the

‘plot’, left the company on 18 July. It is to be inferred from the

plot that the principal parts in _Frederick and Basilea_ were taken

by Mr. Alleyn, Mr. Thomas Towne, Mr. Martin [Slater], Mr. Juby, Mr.

Donstone, and R. Alleyn; that minor male parts were taken by Edward

Dutton, Thomas Hunt, Robert Ledbetter, Black Dick, Pigge, Sam, Charles,

and the ‘gatherers’ or money-takers and other ‘attendants’; and that

female parts were taken by Edward Dutton’s boy Dick and two other boys

known as Will and Griffen. Apparently the play, although not employing

all the principal actors, made considerable demands on the minor staff.

Dr. Greg may be right in identifying Sam and Charles with the Samuel

Rowley and Charles Massey who became members of the company at a later

date.[396] It will be seen that the only name in Henslowe’s undated

list which cannot be verified as that of a member of the company during

1594–7 is that of Thomas Downton; but it may safely be accepted.

Downton had accompanied Alleyn on the provincial tour with Strange’s

men in 1593. So had Pigge or Pyk. Jones and Donstone, who is the same

as Tunstall, had belonged to Worcester’s men in 1583, and probably to

the Admiral’s men before 1590; Jones had been abroad, as we have seen,

during the plague years. John Singer had been a member of the Queen’s

men in 1588. The other names now come into the story for the first

time. Henslowe’s advances for 1596 included sums ‘to feache Fletcher’

and ‘to feache Browne’.[397] It can only be matter of conjecture

whether there is evidence here of negotiations for the incorporation in

the company of Robert Browne and of Laurence Fletcher, at a later date

a colleague of Slater’s, and if so, whether they led to any fruitful

result.

The departure of Martin Slater on 18 July 1597 was only one of several

changes which profoundly modified the composition of the company in

the course of that year.[398] In February Richard Jones and Thomas

Downton went to the Swan as Pembroke’s men, and the disturbance thereby

caused probably accounts for the three weeks’ cessation of playing

during Lent. The Swan enterprise was brought to a disastrous conclusion

after five months by the production of _The Isle of Dogs_, which not

only brought personal trouble on the chief offenders, but also led to

a restraint of plays at all the theatres. This event synchronizes with

the first appearance in the diary of Nashe’s collaborator in _The Isle

of Dogs_, Ben Jonson. On 28 July Henslowe lent him no less a sum than

£4, and took Alleyn and Singer as witnesses. On the same day he opened

an account headed ‘℞ of Bengemenes Johnsones share as ffoloweth’ with

a first instalment of 3_s._ 9_d._[399] On this very day of 28 July

the Privy Council’s inhibition fell, and Jonson went to prison and

paid no more instalments. It is impossible to say whether his ‘share’

was in the Admiral’s company or in Pembroke’s. In any event, although

he continued to write for the Admiral’s men after 1597, there is no

further sign that he was either a ‘sharer’, or indeed an actor in any

capacity.

One result of the restraint was that Jones and Downton not merely

returned to the Rose, but brought at least three other of Pembroke’s

men, Robert Shaw, Gabriel Spencer, and William Bird, known also by

the _alias_ of Borne, with them. Henslowe was thus enabled, almost

immediately after playing stopped, to set about the reconstitution of

his company, and the memoranda of agreement which he noted in his diary

during the next fourteen months are so interesting for the light which

they throw upon his relations with the actors, that I think it well,

before discussing them, to transcribe them in full. There are in all

eleven of them, as follows:[400]

i. (_Thomas Hearne_)

Memorandom that the 27 of Jeuley 1597 I heayred Thomas Hearne

with ij pence for to searve me ij yeares in the qualetie of

playenge for fyve shellynges a weacke for one yeare & vj^s

viij^d for the other yeare which he hath covenanted hime seallfe

to searue me & not to departe frome my companey tyll this ij

yeares be eanded wittnes to this

John Synger.

Jeames Donston.

Thomas Towne.

ii. (_John Helle_)

Lent John Helle the clowne the 3 of Aguste 1597 in redy money

the some of x^s. At that tyme I bownd hime by ane a sumsett of

ij^d to contenew with me at my howsse in playinge tylle Srafte

tid next after the date a boue written yf not to forfytte vnto

me fortipowndes wittneses to the same

E Alleyn

John Synger

Jeames Donstall.

Edward Jubey

Samewell Rowley.

iii. (_Richard Jones_)

Memorandom that the 6 of Aguste 1597 I bownd Richard Jones by &

a sumsett of ij^d to contenew & playe with the companye of my

lord Admeralles players frome Mihelmase next after the daye a

bowe written vntell the eand & tearme of iij yeares emediatly

followinge & to playe in my howsse only known by the name of the

Rosse & in no other howse a bowt London publicke & yf restraynte

be granted then to go for the tyme into the contrey & after to

retorne agayne to London yf he breacke this a sumsett then to

forfett vnto me for the same a hundreth markes of lafull money

of Ingland wittnes to this E Alleyn & John Midelton.

iv. (_Robert Shaw_)

More over Richard Jones at that tyme [6 Aug. 1597] hath tacken

one other ij^d of me vpon & asumset to forfet vnto me one

hundrethe markes yf one Robart Shaee do not playe with my lordes

Admeralles men as he hath covenanted be fore in euery thinge &

time to the oter moste wittnes E Alleyn John Midellton.

v. (_William Borne_)

Memorandom that the 10 of Aguste 1597 William Borne came &

ofered hime sealfe to come and playe with my lord Admeralles

mean at my howsse called by the name of the Rosse setewate

one the back after this order folowinge he hath receued of me

iij^d vpon & a sumsette to forfette vnto me a hundrethe marckes

of lafull money of Ingland yf he do not performe thes thinges

folowinge that is presentley after libertie being granted for

playinge to come & to playe with my lordes Admeralles men at

my howsse aforsayd & not in any other howsse publicke a bowt

London for the space of iij yeares beginynge imediatly after

this restraynt is recaled by the lordes of the cownsell which

restraynt is by the meanes of playinge the Jeylle of Dooges

yf he do not then he forfettes this asumset afore or ells not

wittnes to this E Alleyn & Robsone.

vi. (_Thomas Downton_)

Memorandom that the 6 of October 1597 Thomas Dowton came & bownd

him seallfe vnto me in xxxx^{ll} in & a somesett by the receuing

of iij^d of me before wittnes the covenant is this that he

shold frome the daye a bove written vntell Sraftid next come

ij yeares to playe in my howsse & in no other a bowte London

publickely yf he do with owt my consent to forfet vnto me this

some of money a bove written wittnes to this

E Alleyn

W^m Borne

Dicke Jonnes

Robarte Shawe

John Synger

vii. (_William Kendall_)

Memorandum that this 8^{th} of December 1597 my father Philyp

Hinshlow hierd as a covenauant servant Willyam Kendall for ij

years after the statute of Winchester with ij single penc a to

geue hym for his sayd servis everi week of his playng in London

x^s & in the cuntrie v^s for the which he covenaunteth for the

space of those ij years to be redye att all tymes to play in the

howse of the sayd Philyp & in no other during the said terme.

Wittnes my self the writer of this E Alleyn.

viii. (_James Bristow_)

Bought my boye Jeames Brystow of William Agusten player the 18

of Desember 1597 for viij^{li}.

ix. (_Richard Alleyn_)

Memorandom that this 25 of Marche 1598 Richard Alleyne came &

bownde hime seallfe vnto me for ij yeares in & asumsette as a

hiered servante with ij syngell pence & to contenew frome the

daye aboue written vnto the eand & tearme of ij yeares yf he do

not performe this covenant then he to forfette for the breache

of yt fortye powndes & wittnes to this

W^m Borne.

Thomas Dowton.

Gabrell Spencer.

Robart Shawe.

Richard Jonnes.

x. (_Thomas Heywood_)

Memorandom that this 25 of Marche 1598 Thomas Hawoode came and

hiered hime seallfe with me as a covenante searvante for ij

yeares by the receuenge of ij syngell pence acordinge to the

statute of Winshester & to begine at the daye a boue written &

not to playe any wher publicke a bowt London not whille these ij

yeares be expired but in my howsse yf he do then he doth forfett

vnto me by the receuinge of these ij^d fortie powndes & wittnes

to this

Antony Monday

Gabrell Spencer

Robart Shawe

Richard Alleyn.

W^m Borne

Thomas Dowton

Richard Jonnes.

xi. (_Charles Massey and Samuel Rowley_)

Memorandom that this 16 of November 1598 I hired as my covenant

servantes Charles Massey & Samewell Rowley for a yeare & as

mvche as to Sraftide begenynge at the daye a bove written after

the statute of Winchester with ij syngell pence & for them they

haue covenanted with me to playe in my howes & in no other

howsse dewringe the thime publeck but in mine yf they dooe with

owt my consent yf they dooe to forfett vnto me xxxx^{li} a pece

wittnes

Thomas Dowton

Robart Shawe

W^m Borne

Jubey

Richard Jonnes.

Evidently the position of James Bristow is distinct from that of the

other players. He was a ‘boy’ or apprentice, whose indentures had been

transferred to Henslowe for a consideration by his former master. In

the rest of the cases, the essence of the agreement appears to be the

undertaking by the player under bond to play only with the Admiral’s

men at Henslowe’s house. It is interesting to notice that in the

agreement with Hearne Henslowe calls the company ‘my company’; and the

fact that its members were constituted Henslowe’s covenant servants

seems to argue a closer personal relation between the organization

and its financier, than might on other grounds have been inferred.

Dr. Greg, indeed, draws a distinction between the agreements with

Jones, Shaw, Borne, and Downton, whom he regards as merely ‘binding

themselves to play at Henslowe’s house like other sharers’, and those

with the rest, whom he regards as ‘placing themselves in the position

of covenant servants to him, which would seem to imply that they

were merely hired men’.[401] But I do not think that there is any

justification for this theory in the terms of the documents, and it

immediately gets Dr. Greg into difficulties about Massey and Rowley,

who, as we shall see, were in fact on the footing of full members of

the company even before the date of their agreement. I do not mean

that I deny the distinction between sharers and hired men, which is of

course important, but that I do not think that it is relevant to the

contractual relations set up by the agreements. I am not quite clear

whether Henslowe’s memoranda, which are written throughout, including

the names of the witnesses, in his own hand or Alleyn’s, constitute

the formal instruments under which the agreements were effected, or

are merely notes for his own information. But in either event their

terminology is loose. They are not always expressed as being agreements

of hiring, or for service, even in the cases of those men whom Dr.

Greg does not suppose to have been sharers, and they are not careful

to specify the considerations, other than the formal 2_d._ or 3_d._,

which the actors were to receive. Wages are, in fact, provided for only

in the agreements with Hearne and Kendall, and it is quite possible

that, if we had the full terms before us, we should find that, while

some of the others were also to receive wages, some were to find their

recompense in a share of such profits as the company might make. It is

probable that, even where Henslowe undertook to pay wages, the general

agreement between him and the company provided for the shifting of that

liability to them. They certainly had to pay him, at the rate of 3_s._

a week, for the services of his boy Bristow.[402] To a slightly later

date belongs an agreement with an unnamed actor, in which the hirer is

not Henslowe but Thomas Downton, and this I add in order to complete

the series.[403]

xii.

Thomas Downton the 25 of Janewary 1599 ded hire as his couenante

servante ---- for ij yers to begyne at Shrofe Tewesday next & he

to geue hime viij^s a wecke as longe as they playe & after they

lye stylle one fortnyght then to geue hime hallfe wages [ extra

spaces ]wittnes P H & Edward Browne & Charlles Masey.

The appearance of Jones as guarantee for Shaw is due to the fact

that, as a result of _The Isle of Dogs_, the latter was languishing

with Gabriel Spencer and Ben Jonson in the Marshalsea. Meanwhile some

at least of the company travelled. Henslowe lent Alleyn 40_s._ for

John Singer and Thomas Towne ‘when they went into the contrey’ and

noted that this was ‘at ther last cominge’. There is another entry

of a small loan to Singer on 9 August, so they cannot have started

before that; and they must have been back by 6 October, when Singer

witnessed the agreement with Thomas Downton. Possibly Edward Dutton

and Richard Alleyn, who also borrowed money from Henslowe, went with

them.[404] The Privy Council warrants for the release of the prisoners

in the Marshalsea were signed on 3 October,[405] and a few days later

Henslowe, more successful than Langley of the Swan in getting the

licence for his house renewed, even before the formal expiration of

the restraint on 1 November, was in a position to resume his play list

with the heading, ‘The xj of Octobe begane my lord Admerals & my lorde

of Penbrockes men to play at my howsse 1597’.[406] The entries of

plays are few and irregular up to 5 November, and then stop. A note

is appended that on 26 November the Master of the Revels was paid for

four weeks. The performances included one new play, _Friar Spendleton_,

and five old ones, _Jeronimo_, _The Comedy of Humours_, _Dr. Faustus_,

_Hardicanute_, and _Bourbon_, of which the last two do not belong to

the 1594–7 repertory, and may have been contributed by Pembroke’s men.

The diary also contains an account of weekly receipts running from 21

October 1597 to 4 March 1598, under the heading, ‘A juste a cownte of

all suche monye as I haue receyed of my lord Admeralles & my lord of

Penbrocke men as foloweth be gynynge the 21 of October 1597’, and some

notes of individual advances and repayments, mainly through Robert Shaw

and Thomas Downton, on behalf of the company, from 23 October to 12

December.[407] In the course of these the company is again described

on 23 October and 5 November as ‘the company of my lord Admeralles

men & my lord Penbrockes’, but on 1 December as ‘the companey of my

lord Admeralles men’; and the substance of the whole of these advances

is set out again, without any reference to Pembroke’s men, at the

beginning of a continuous account from 21 October onwards, which is

headed, ‘A juste a cownt of all suche money as I haue layd owt for my

lord Admeralles players begynyng the xj of October whose names ar as

foloweth Borne Gabrell Shaw Jonnes Dowten Jube Towne Synger & the ij

Geffes’.[408] Nothing very certain is known of the previous career of

Humphrey and Anthony Jeffes, but if the former is the ‘Humfrey’ who

appears with ‘Gabriel’ [Spencer] in the stage-directions to _3 Henry

VI_ it is most likely that these men also came from Pembroke’s.[409]

The responsible members of the Admiral’s company at the beginning

of the third period of their existence were, then, so far as their

relations to Henslowe were concerned, Thomas Downton, Richard Jones,

Edward Juby, Thomas Towne, John Singer, Robert Shaw, William Borne, who

seems to have had the regular _alias_ of William Bird, Gabriel Spencer,

Humphrey Jeffes, and Anthony Jeffes. To these must probably be added

a number of hired men, including Thomas Hearne, John Helle, William

Kendall, Richard Alleyn, Thomas Heywood, and probably Charles Massey,

Samuel Rowley, Thomas Hunt, and Stephen Maget the tireman, and of

apprentices, including James Bristow and Pigge. Of the sharers Downton,

Jones, Juby, Towne, and Singer had alone belonged to the earlier

Admiral’s men. Slater’s departure involved the company in a lawsuit,

the nature of which is not stated in the diary. Professor Wallace,

however, has found an independent record of a Queen’s Bench action by

Thomas Downton to recover £13 6_s._ 8_d._, the value of a playbook

which Downton had lost in the parish of St. Mary le Bow on 1 December

1597, and Slater had ‘found’, refused to surrender, and was alleged to

have disposed of for his own profit. Damages of £10 10_s._ were awarded

on 3 November 1598.[410] Donstone also seems to have dropped out or

may have been dead; he witnessed Helle’s agreement on 3 August 1597,

and thereafter no more is heard of him. But incomparably the greatest

loss was that of Edward Alleyn, who now retired from the stage and did

not return to it for a period of three years.[411] From 29 December

1597 to 8 November 1598 Henslowe made notes of playing goods bought

‘sence my sonne Edward Allen leafte [p]laynge’, and it would appear

that the company acknowledged a debt of £50 in respect of his interest

on retirement.[412] In place of Alleyn, it would seem that the lead was

taken by Robert Shaw and Thomas Downton, perhaps as representing the

two elements of which the company was made up. These two were joint

payees for the Court money of both 1597–8 and 1598–9. For 1599–1600

Shaw was sole payee. It was, moreover, most often, although by no means

always, to one or other of these men that Henslowe’s advances on behalf

of the company were made. It must be added that some of the new-comers

appear to have sought private assistance from Henslowe in order to

enable them to take up their shares. On 14 January 1598, he opened an

account of sums received ‘of Humfreye Jeaffes hallfe share’, entered

seven instalments up to 4 March, amounting to a total of 60_s._ 6_d._,

and then noted, ‘This some was payd backe agayne vnto the companey

of my lord Admeralles players the 8 of Marche 1598, & they shared yt

amonste them’. There is a later account, running from 29 April to 21

July 1598, and amounting by small instalments to 35_s._, of ‘all such

money as I dooe receue for Umfrey Jeaffes and Antoney Jeaffes ... of

the companey’.[413] Possibly the brothers only held a single share

between them. A similar transaction took place with Gabriel Spencer. On

20 April 1598 this actor gave an acknowledgement for £4 and between 6

April and 24 June Henslowe carried to an account headed ‘℞ of Gabrell

Spencer at severall tymes of his share in the gallereyes’ a total of

25_s._ 6_d._, of which 5_s._ 6_d._ was paid over to Downton.[414] In

addition, personal loans were negotiated from time to time by various

members of the company, and the reasons given for these indicate that

in the course of 1598, besides the dispute of the ex-Pembroke’s men

with Langley, Bird and perhaps the company as a whole were engaged in

litigation with Thomas Pope, presumably the actor in the Chamberlain’s

company.[415]

There does not seem to have been much further change in the composition

of the Admiral’s men during 1597–1600. An acknowledgement of the state

of their account with Henslowe between 8 and 13 March 1598 bears the

signatures of ‘J. Singer, Thomas Downton, William Birde, Robt Shaa,

Richard Jones, Gabriell Spenser, Thomas Towne, Humfry Jeffes, Charles

Massye, and Samuell Rowlye’.[416] The last two had evidently become

sharers in the course of the year. Juby and Anthony Jeffes do not sign,

but this is probably due to an accident, as they were certainly sharers

both in 1597 and in 1600.[417] Gabriel Spencer was killed by Ben Jonson

(cf. ch. xxiii) on 22 September 1598. On 26 September Henslowe wrote

to Alleyn at the Brill in Sussex, ‘Now to leat you vnderstand newes I

will teall you some but yt is for me harde & heavey. Sence you weare

with me I haue loste one of my company which hurteth me greatley;

that is Gabrell, for he is slayen in Hogesden fylldes by the handes

of Bengemen Jonson bricklayer’.[418] No doubt Henslowe wrote from the

heart. Probably Spencer’s share was not yet paid for, and in addition

small personal loans to the amount of 66_s._ stand undischarged against

him in the diary, of which the last was on 19 May ‘to bye a plume of

feathers which his mane Bradshawe feched of me’. Richard Bradshaw

was an actor and may have played as a hired man with the company. A

fragmentary ‘plot’ of _Troilus and Cressida_, probably to be dated

in April 1599, yields the names of ‘Mr. Jones’ and his ‘boy’, Thomas

Hunt, Stephen, Proctor, and Pigge. Mr. Jones’s boy is shown by a note

of 17 November 1599 in the diary to have been called James.[419] Of

Proctor no more is known. Stephen is probably Stephen Magett, the

tireman, and Pigge was with Alleyn on the tour of Strange’s men in

1593. He is also mentioned, with Dobe, Whittcombe, and Anderson, who

may have been actors, in some inventories of properties belonging to

Alleyn or to the company in March 1598.[420] Thomas Downton also had

in June 1600 a ‘boye’ who played in _Cupid and Psyche_.[421] Another

acknowledgement of account, dated on 10 July 1600, only differs from

the former one by the omission of Spencer’s name and the inclusion of

those of Juby and Anthony Jeffes.[422] The alleged manuscript notes to

a copy of Dekker’s _Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (q.v.), produced in January

1600, which are discredited by Dr. Greg, give the cast as composed of

‘Jones, H. Jeffes, Rowley, Shawe, Massy, Dowton, Singer, Jewby, Towne,

A. Jeffes, Birde, Wilson, Flower, Price, Day, Dowton’s boy Ned and

Alleine’; the last for a female part. Certainly nothing is known of Day

or Wilson as actors for the Admiral’s, or of Price at any such early

date, or of Flower at all. But if the document is a forgery, it is a

very pointless, and at the same time a very cautious one. And how did

the forger, unless he were Collier or Cunningham, know that Day was an

actor at all?

The records kept by Henslowe for the period 1597–1600 differ

considerably in character from those for 1594–7. The diurnal list of

plays performed and of rent-takings disappears altogether. On the

other hand, the records of advances made, for the books and licensing

of plays, for costumes and properties, and for certain miscellaneous

items of expenditure, become full and systematic. A _per contra_

account is also kept of weekly sums received by Henslowe in repayment

of such advances, and from time to time a balance is struck, and the

hands of the company taken to a settlement or acknowledgement of debt.

Henslowe’s book-keeping, however, if not exactly faulty, is not always

sufficiently lucid to make the whole of the financial transactions

perfectly clear. In the absence of the daily entries of performances,

the weekly records of repayments make it possible to determine roughly

the periods covered by the theatrical seasons.[423] The company played

for twenty continuous weeks from 11 October 1597 to about 4 March 1598,

apparently with some irregularity at the beginning and again about

Christmas time. Their Court plays were on 27 December and 28 February.

In Lent they had a three weeks’ interval, during the course of which

they met to read a book in New Fish Street, and ‘played in Fleatstreet

pryuat’.[424] Playing was resumed about 25 March and lasted for some

fifteen weeks, until about 8 July, making thirty-five weeks in all

for the year 1597–8. The company only took two weeks’ vacation in the

summer and are not likely to have travelled, although on 27 September,

after the new season had begun, Borne is found riding to the Lord

Admiral at Croydon at the time of the Queen’s visit there.[425] They

played for thirty-one weeks from about 22 July to 24 February 1599,

with performances at Court on 27 December, 6 January and 18 February,

and stopped for three weeks in Lent. The summer season lasted for

eleven weeks from about 19 March to 3 June, making forty-four weeks

playing for 1598–9. On Easter Eve Towne and Richard Alleyn went to

Court for some unspecified purpose. About the same time Anthony Jeffes

was making purchases against St. George’s Day.[426] The interval

of this summer was seventeen weeks, but I have no evidence of any

travelling. The next season was one of nineteen weeks from about 29

September 1599 to 10 February 1600, with Court performances on 27

December and 1 January, and was followed by a Lenten interval of

about four weeks. At the beginning of February they bought a drum and

trumpets ‘when to go into the contry’.[427] Whether these were for

use during the short break in Lent or not until the following summer

must remain uncertain; at any rate the purchase confirms the view that

there had been no provincial tour since 1596.[428] Finally they played

for nineteen weeks from about 2 March to 13 July, thus completing

thirty-six weeks for 1599–1600. Apparently the summer season was

diversified by a visit to Windsor for the Garter installation of Henri

IV of France on 27 April.[429] In all they seem to have played for

about 115 weeks or something under 690 days in 1597–1600, as compared

with 728 days in 1594–7.

The entries of sums paid for plays usually give the names of the

authors as well as those of the plays, and therefore furnish a good

deal of material for reconstituting the literary side of the company’s

activity. Henslowe’s terminology is neither precise nor uniform, but

it is clear that, while the payments were always entered as loans to

the company, they were often made direct by him to the playwrights, on

the ‘appointment’ of one or more of its members. Sometimes they are

expressed as being ‘to bye a boocke of’ a play; that is to say, for

the purchase outright of an old or even a new manuscript. But a new

play was generally commissioned, upon the strength of a sample or of an

outline of the plot, and in such cases payment was made by instalments,

of which the earlier ones were ‘lent upon’ or ‘in earneste of’ or

‘in parte paymente of’, and the last ‘in full paymente of’ the book.

Portions of the manuscript were handed over as security for the earlier

payments. Production was very rapid, and a play put together in two or

three weeks often represented the collaboration of as many as four or

even five or six authors. The procedure, which prevailed during the

whole of the period covered by the diary, is illustrated by a small

group of letters preserved amongst the miscellaneous papers found at

Dulwich. Thus on 8 November 1599 Shaw writes with regard to _2 Henry

Richmond_, ‘Mr. Henshlowe, we haue heard their booke and lyke yt. Their

pryce is eight poundes, which I pray pay now to Mr. Wilson, according

to our promysse’; and accordingly Henslowe includes in his account, by

an entry written and signed by Wilson, a sum of £8 ‘by a note vnder the

hand of Mr. Rob: Shaw’.[430] On 14 June 1600 Shaw writes again, ‘I pray

you, Mr. Henshlowe, deliuer vnto the bringer hereof the some of fyue &

fifty shillinges to make the 3^{ll} fyue shillinges which they receaued

before full six poundes in full payment of their booke called the fayre

Constance of Roome, whereof I pray you reserue for me Mr. Willsons

whole share which is xj^s. which I to supply his neede deliuered him

yesternight.’ The diary duly records the payment to Drayton, Hathway,

Munday, and Dekker ‘at the a poyntment of Roberte Shawe’ of 44_s._[431]

Similarly Samuel Rowley writes on 4 April 1601, ‘Mr. Hinchloe, I haue

harde fyue shetes of a playe of the Conqueste of the Indes & I dow

not doute but it wyll be a verye good playe; tharefore I praye ye

delyuer them fortye shyllynges in earneste of it & take the papers into

your one hands & on Easter eue thaye promyse to make an ende of all

the reste’. The earnest and several supplementary earnests were paid

to Day, Haughton, and Smith, but the completion of the play lagged

until the following September.[432] An undated letter of Rowley’s

relates to the withdrawal of a play, ‘Mr. Hynchlo, I praye ye let Mr.

Hathwaye haue his papars agayne of the playe of John a Gante & for the

repayement of the monye back agayne he is contente to gyue ye a byll

of his hande to be payde at some cartayne tyme as in your dyscressyon

yow shall thinke good; which done ye may crose it oute of your boouke

& keepe the byll; or else wele stande so much indetted to you & kepe

the byll our selues’. Henslowe appears to have thought it safer to

adopt the second alternative, as incomplete payments to the amount of

£1 19_s._ 0_d._ for _The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt_ still

stand in his ‘boouke’.[433] Other letters of the same kind concern _Six

Yeomen of the West_, and _Too Good to be True_.[434] The normal price

for a new play during 1597–1601 seems to have been £6, but sometimes it

fell to £5 or possibly even £4, and sometimes the playwrights succeeded

in squeezing out a few shillings more. One or two of them, notably

Chapman, were able to secure a higher rate from the beginning; and

about 1599 a general tendency towards a higher scale of prices becomes

discernible. The ‘book’ of an old play could generally be purchased for

about £2.

In attempting to estimate the actual ‘output’ of the company, one

is faced by the difficulty that some of the plays commissioned are

not shown by the diary to have reached the stage of payment in full,

and that it must, therefore, remain doubtful whether they were ever

completed. It is possible that, as Dr. Greg thinks,[435] some of the

payments were made direct by the company, instead of through Henslowe.

But the correspondence just quoted rather suggests that any such

arrangement would be exceptional; and it would not be inconsistent with

human nature, if the extremely out-at-elbows men of letters who hung

about the Rose occasionally found it profitable to take their ‘earnest’

for a play, and then to find plausible reasons for indefinitely

delaying its completion. Probably in the long run they had to account

for the advance, but the example of _The Conquest of Spain_ shows that

such a repayment would not necessarily find its way into Henslowe’s

account. This view is borne out by an examination of the affairs of

one of the most impecunious of them all, Henry Chettle, during 1598–9.

During the first six months of the year, he had a hand in half a dozen

plays, all of which were completed and paid for in full. But on one of

these, _1 Black Bateman of the North_, Henslowe appears, perhaps by

an oversight, to have paid him £1 too much. At the beginning of May

£1 was lent to Chettle upon this play, and the loan does not appear

to have been considered when, on 22 May, a further sum of £6 was laid

out upon ‘a boocke called Blacke Battmane of the North ... which coste

sixe powndes’. On 24 June Chettle borrowed 10_s._, not apparently on

any particular play, and Henslowe seems then to have recalled the

overpayment, and noted against Chettle’s name in the diary, ‘All his

parte of boockes to this place are payde which weare dew unto hime & he

reastes be syddes in my deatte the some of xxx^s.’ Chettle collaborated

in several other plays, which got completed during the year, but no

deduction seems to have been made from his share of the fees in respect

of this debt. In addition he had £5 upon _A Woman’s Tragedy_, upon

condition ‘eather to deliver the playe or els to paye the mony with in

one forthnyght’; he had 5_s._ in earnest upon _Catiline’s Conspiracy_;

and he had £1 14_s._ 0_d._ in earnest upon _Brute_, probably a

continuation of an older _1 Brute_ bought by the company. When the

last payment on _Brute_ was made on 16 September Henslowe noted, ‘Hary

Cheattell vntell this place owes vs viij^{li} ix^s dew al his boockes

& recknynges payd’. This amount is precisely made up of the 30_s._ due

on 24 June and the sums paid on account of these three plays. By 22

October Chettle had completed _2 Brute_ and managed somehow to get £6

for it in full. On the same day he gave Henslowe an acknowledgement of

a debt, not of £8 9_s._ 0_d._, but of £9 9_s._ 0_d._ In November he

got an earnest of £1 for _Tis no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver_, and

£1 for ‘mending’ _Robin Hood_, and in January 1599 30_s._ ‘to paye his

charges in the Marshallsey’. Small loans of a shilling or two are also

noted in the margin of the book, and appear to be quite distinct from

the company’s account with him, and to indicate private generosities of

Henslowe. In February 1599 Chettle had finished _Polyphemus_, and it is

recorded that in full payment of £6 he got £2 10_s._ down, ‘& strocken

of his deatte which he owes vnto the companey fyftye shelenges more’.

A separate entry in the diary indicates that he paid off yet another

10_s._ out of his fee for _The Spencers_ in March.[436] Material is

not available for the further tracing of this particular chain of

transactions, but the inference that credit obtained for an unfinished

play had sometimes to be redeemed out of the profits of a finished one

is irresistible. Chettle, at least, does not seem to have been hardly

treated, but obviously the unbusinesslike methods of the playwrights

kept down the price of plays, and a familiar device of the modern

Barabbas was anticipated when Henry Porter was obliged, on the receipt

of an earnest, to give Henslowe ‘his faythfulle promysse that I shold

haue alle the boockes which he writte ether him sellfe or with any

other’.[437] Whatever Henslowe’s precise financial relations with the

company may have been, by the way, he seems to have been in a position

to pose as paymaster, so far as the poets were concerned.