Volume 2 / Book 3 — BOOK III THE COMPANIES (continued 4)

The names of the two or three members of the company to whom Langley gave back their bonds are not stated in the pleadings. Perhaps one was Jonson, and the other two might conceivably have been Humphrey and Anthony Jeffes, since the name of ‘Humfrey’ stands with that of ‘Gabriel’ in stage-directions to 3 Henry VI, and Henslowe’s list of the reconstituted Admiral’s company as it stood in October 1597–January 1598 contains ‘the ij Geffes’, who are not traceable in the 1594–7 company and may well have come in with the five Pembroke’s men. Langley tells us that certain ‘fellows’ of his opponents had taken a more reasonable line than theirs and returned to the Swan. How long these men remained there we do not know, but probably they secured Pembroke’s patronage after the five had been definitely merged in the Admiral’s, for by the end of 1597 there was clearly a distinct Pembroke’s company again. Provincial records yield the name, not only at Bath in 1596–7 and at Bristol in September 1597, which may point to a tour of the undivided Swan company during the period of restraint, but also at Bath in 1598–9, at Bristol in July 1598, at Leicester between October and December, at Dover on 7 October, at Coventry on 12 December, and at Bewdley on 22 December. They were at Norwich in April 1599, at Coventry on 4 July, and at Bristol in July. They were at York on 21 January 1600, Bristol in April, Marlborough in May, and Leicester before Michaelmas. In October they were in relationship with Henslowe, who notes ‘my Lordes of Penbrockes men begane to playe at the Rosse’, and records performances of Like Unto Like and Roderick on 28 and 29 October respectively.[358] The former brought him 11s. 6d. and the latter 5s., and there apparently the experiment ended, and with it, so far as is known, the career of Pembroke’s men. It is just possible that they were merged in Worcester’s company, which arose shortly afterwards. Mr. Fleay expands this possibility into a definite theory that Kempe, Beeston, Duke, and Pallant left the Chamberlain’s men for Pembroke’s in 1599, and ultimately passed from these to Worcester’s. This is improbable as regards Kempe, and unproved as regards the rest.[359]

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

Charles Howard, s. of William, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, g.s. of Thomas, 2nd Duke of Norfolk; nat. 1536; m. (1) Catherine Carey, d. of Henry Lord Hunsdon, Lady of the Privy Chamber, (2) Margaret Stuart, d. of James Earl of Murray, c. 1604; succ. as 2nd Baron, 29 Jan. 1573; Deputy Lord Chamberlain, 1574–5; Vice-Admiral, Feb. 1582; Lord Chamberlain, c. Dec. 1583; Lord High Admiral, 8 July 1585–1619; Earl of Nottingham, 22 Oct. 1596; Lord Steward, 1597; ob. 14 Dec. 1624.

Henry Frederick, s. of James VI of Scotland and I of England; nat. 19 Feb. 1594; cr. Duke of Rothesay, 30 Aug. 1594; succ. as Duke of Cornwall, 24 Mar. 1603; cr. Earl of Chester and Prince of Wales, 4 June 1610; ob. 6 Nov. 1612.

Frederick, s. of Frederick IV, Count Palatine of the Rhine; nat. 19 Aug. 1596; succ. as Frederick V, 1610; m. Princess Elizabeth of England, 14 Feb. 1613; elected King of Bohemia, 1619; ob. 1632.

[Bibliographical Note.—The material preserved amongst the papers of Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn at Dulwich has been fully collected and studied by W. W. Greg in Henslowe’s Diary (1904–8) and Henslowe Papers (1907), which replace the earlier publications of Malone, Collier, and others from the same source. I have added a little from Professor Wallace’s researches and elsewhere, and have attempted to give my own reading of the evidence, which differs in a few minor points from Dr. Greg’s.]

It was perhaps his employment as deputy to the Earl of Sussex in the office of Lord Chamberlain which led Lord Howard to encourage players. A company, under the name of Lord Howard’s men, appeared at Court for the first time at the Christmas of 1576–7. On 27 December they played Tooley, and on 17 February The Solitary Knight.[360] They came again for the last time in the following winter, and performed on 5 January 1578. They were also at Kirtling on 3 December 1577, Saffron Walden in 1577–8, Ipswich on 24 October 1577, in 1578–9, and perhaps on 8 October 1581, Bristol, where they gave The Queen of Ethiopia, between 31 August and 6 September 1578, Nottingham on 19 December 1578, and Bath and Coventry in 1578–9.

Howard again had players at Court, after he became Admiral in 1585. The first record of them is at Dover in June 1585. Later in the year they were playing in conjunction with the Lord Chamberlain’s (Lord Hunsdon’s). ‘The Lorde Chamberlens and the Lord Admirall’s players’ were rewarded at Leicester in October-December 1585, and ‘the servants of the lo: admirall and the lo: Chamberlaine’ for a play at Court on 6 January 1586.[361] During the same Christmas, however, the Admiral’s played alone on 27 December 1585, and as Hunsdon’s survived in the provinces, the two organizations may have been amalgamated for one performance only. The Admiral’s were at Coventry, Faversham, Ipswich, and Leicester in 1585–6. They were reported to Walsingham amongst other London companies on 25 January 1587 (App. D, No. lxxviii), although they did not appear at Court during this winter. In 1586–7 they were at Cambridge, Coventry, Bath, York, Norwich, Ipswich, Exeter, Southampton, and Leicester. By November they were back in London, and on the 16th an accident at their theatre is thus related by Philip Gawdy to his father:[362]

‘Yow shall vnderstande of some accydentall newes heare in this towne thoughe my self no wyttnesse thereof, yet I may be bold to veryfye it for an assured troth. My L. Admyrall his men and players having a devyse in ther playe to tye one of their fellowes to a poste and so to shoote him to deathe, having borrowed their callyvers one of the players handes swerved his peece being charged with bullett missed the fellowe he aymed at and killed a chyld, and a woman great with chyld forthwith, and hurt an other man in the head very soore. How they will answere it I do not study vnlesse their profession were better, but in chrystyanity I am very sorry for the chaunce but God his iudgementes ar not to be searched nor enquired of at mannes handes. And yet I fynde by this an old proverbe veryfyed ther never comes more hurte than commes of fooling.’

Possibly the company went into retirement as a result of this disaster; at any rate nothing more is heard of them until the Christmas of 1588–9. They then came to Court, and were rewarded for two interludes and ‘for showinge other feates of activitye and tumblinge’ on 29 December 1588 and 11 February 1589.[363] On 6 November 1589 they were playing in the City, and were suppressed by the Lord Mayor, because Tilney, the Master of the Revels, misliked their plays. Probably they had been concerning themselves with the Marprelate controversy. Strange’s men, who were evidently performing as a separate company, shared their fate. It may have been this misadventure which led the Admiral’s to seek house-room with James Burbadge at the Theatre (q.v.), where some evidence by John Alleyn, who, with James Tunstall, was of their number, locates them in November 1590 and May 1591. A relic of this period may be presumed to exist in the ‘plot’ of Dead Man’s Fortune, preserved with other plots belonging to the company at Dulwich, in which Burbadge, doubtless Richard Burbadge, then still a boy, appeared. Certainly there is nothing to connect Burbadge with the company at any other date. Other actors in the piece were one Darlowe, ‘b[oy?] Samme’, and Robert Lee, later of Anne’s men. The Admiral’s again showed ‘feats of activitie’ at Court on 28 December 1589, and a play on 3 March 1590. In 1589–90 they were at Coventry, Ipswich, Maidstone, Marlborough, Winchester, and Gloucester, and in 1590–1 at Winchester and Gloucester. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine was published in 1590 as ‘shewed upon stages in the City of London’ by the Admiral’s men. The Court records for the following winter present what looks at first sight like a curious discrepancy. The accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber include payments for plays and activities on 27 December 1590 and 16 February 1591 to Lord Strange’s men. The corresponding warrants, however, were made out, according to the Privy Council Register, for the Admiral’s. Probably there is no error here, and the entries are evidence of an amalgamation between the two companies, which possibly dated from as far back as the winter of 1589, and which seems to have endured until the summer of 1594. Technically, it would seem that it was the Admiral’s who were merged in Strange’s men. It is the latter and not the former who generally appear in official documents during this period. I have therefore dealt with its details for both companies, with the question of the precise date of the amalgamation, and with the possibility that the plot of The Seven Deadly Sins and its list of actors also belong to a Theatre performance of about 1590, in my account of Strange’s men, and need only remark here that the name of the Admiral’s does not altogether fall into disuse, especially in provincial records, and that the leading actor, Edward Alleyn, in particular, is shown by an official document to have retained his personal status as an Admiral’s servant.

It is a question of some interest how early Alleyn’s connexion with the Admiral’s may be supposed to have begun. Was he, for example, the original Tamburlaine of 1587, and was it as an Admiral’s man that Nashe referred to him, if it was he to whom Nashe referred, as the Roscius of the contemporary players in his Menaphon epistle of 1589? He is known to have been a member of Worcester’s company in 1583. Dr. Greg is disposed to think that he remained with them until the death of the third Earl of Worcester on 22 February 1589, and then joined the Admiral’s.[364] It is, however, to be observed that there is no trace of Worcester’s men between 1584 and 1590, and that it is in 1585 that the Admiral’s men begin to appear at Court. On the whole, it commends itself to me as the more probable conjecture that the first Earl of Worcester’s company passed into Howard’s service, when he became Admiral in 1585, and that the players of the fourth Earl of Worcester between 1590 and 1596 were distinct from those of his father. The issue concerns others besides Edward Alleyn himself. Amongst the members of Worcester’s company in 1583 were Robert Browne, James Tunstall, and Richard Jones; and all three of these are found concerned with Alleyn in matters of theatrical business during 1589–91. The most important document is a deed of sale by ‘Richarde Jones of London yoman’ to ‘Edwarde Allen of London gent’ for £37 10s. of ‘all and singuler suche share parte and porcion of playinge apparrelles, playe bookes, instrumentes, and other comodities whatsoeuer belonginge to the same, as I the said Richarde Jones nowe haue or of right ought to haue joyntlye with the same Edwarde Allen, John Allen citizen and inholder of London and Roberte Browne yoman’.[365] This is dated 3 January 1589. There are also three deeds of sale to Edward and John Alleyn of theatrical apparel between 1589 and 1591, and to two of these James Tunstall was a witness.[366] On Dr. Greg’s theory as to the date at which Alleyn took service with the Lord Admiral, the organization in whose properties Richard Jones had an interest would naturally be Worcester’s men; on mine it would be the Admiral’s, and it would follow that Jones and Browne, as well as Alleyn, had joined that company. We have seen that James Tunstall had done so by 1590–1. John Alleyn was an elder brother of Edward. There is nothing to connect him with Worcester’s men. He was a servant of Lord Sheffield in November 1580 and of the Lord Admiral in 1589.[367] A letter of one Elizabeth Socklen to Edward Alleyn refers to a time ‘when your brother, my lovinge cozen John Allen, dwelt with my very good lord, Charles Heawarde’, and this rather suggests that his service was in some household capacity, and not merely as player.[368] If so, it may have been through him that Edward Alleyn and his fellows became Admiral’s men. The first period of their activity seems to have lasted from 1585 to 1589, and it was no doubt Edward Alleyn’s genius, and perhaps also his business capacity, which enabled them to offer a serious rivalry to the Queen’s company. I suspect that in 1589 or 1590 they were practically dissolved, and this view is confirmed by the fact that their most important play was allowed to get to the hands of the printers. Alleyn, with the help of his brother, bought up the properties, and allied himself with Lord Strange’s men, and so far as the Admiral’s continued to exist at all for the next few years, it was almost entirely in and through him that it did so. After a financial quarrel with James Burbadge in May 1591, the combined companies moved to the Rose. There is nothing to show whether the Alleyns bought up Robert Browne’s interest as well as that of Richard Jones. At any rate Browne began in 1590 that series of continental tours which occupied most of the rest of his career (cf. ch. xiv). Jones joined him in one of these adventures in 1592, and it is possible that John Bradstreet and Thomas Sackville, who went with them, were also old Admiral’s men. But I do not think that it is accurate to regard this company, as Dr. Greg seems to be inclined to do, as being itself under the Admiral’s patronage. It is true that they obtained a passport from him, but this was probably given rather in his capacity as warden of the seas than in that of their lord. His name is not mentioned in any of the foreign records of their peregrinations. It is not possible to say which, other than Alleyn, of the members of the 1592–3 Strange’s and Admiral’s company, whose names have been preserved, came from each of the two contributing sources. They do not include either John Alleyn or James Tunstall, or Edward Browne, a Worcester’s man of 1583, who reappears with Tunstall among the Admiral’s after 1594. Nor is it possible to say how far the repertory of Strange’s men, as disclosed by the 1592–3 entries in Henslowe’s diary, included plays drawn from the Admiral’s stock. This may have been the case with The Battle of Alcazar, which was printed as an Admiral’s play in 1594, and with Orlando Furioso, which contemporary gossip represents Greene as selling first to the Queen’s and then to the Admiral’s. And it may have been the case with 1 Tamar Cham, which passed to the later Admiral’s. Neither Tamburlaine nor The Wounds of Civil War, printed like The Battle of Alcazar as an Admiral’s play in 1594, is recorded to have been played by Strange’s.

When the companies settled down again to a London life after the conclusion of the long plague in 1594, the Admiral’s men reconstituted themselves as an independent company with Alleyn at its head, leaving the greater number of their recent comrades of the road to pass, as the Lord Chamberlain’s men, under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon. The personal alliance between Alleyn and Henslowe, whose step-daughter, Joan Woodward, he had married on 22 October 1592, led to the institution of close business relations between the company and the pawnbroker, and the record of these in the famous diary enables us to follow with a singular minuteness the almost daily fortunes of the Admiral’s men during the course of some nine or ten years, broken into two periods by a reconstruction of the company in 1597 and finally closing about the time of their conversion into Prince Henry’s men in 1604. The precise nature of the position occupied by Henslowe has been carefully investigated by Dr. Greg,[369] and has already been briefly considered in these pages (ch. xi). He was not a member of the company, but its landlord, and, probably to an increasing extent, its financier. In the former capacity he received, after every day’s performance, a fluctuating sum, which seems to have represented half the amount received for admission to the galleries of the house; the other half, with the payments for entrance to the standing room in the yard, being divided amongst such of the players as had a share in the profits. Out of this, of course, they had to meet all expenditure other than by way of rent, such as the wages of hired men, payments for apparel and play-books, fees to the Master of the Revels for the licensing of plays, and the like. In practice it became convenient for Henslowe, who was a capitalist, while many of the players lived from hand to mouth, to advance sums to meet such expenditure as it fell due, and to recoup himself from time to time out of the company’s profits. It seems likely that, when the system was in full working, the moiety of the gallery money, which remained after the deduction of the rent, was assigned for the purpose of these repayments. During the period 1597–1604 Henslowe’s entries in his diary are mainly in the nature of a running account of these advances and of the receipts set off against them; for 1594–7 similar entries occur irregularly, but the principal record is a daily list, such as Henslowe had already kept during his shorter associations with Strange’s, the Queen’s, and Sussex’s companies in the course of 1592–4, of each performance given, with the name of the play and of the amount accruing to Henslowe himself in the form of rent. This list renders possible a very interesting analysis, both of the repertory of the company and of some at least of the financial conditions of their enterprise.

The entries start with the heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge the 14 of Maye 1594 by my lord Admeralls men’. After three days, during which The Jew of Malta, Cutlack, and The Ranger’s Comedy, all of which are found in the later repertory of the company, were given, they stop abruptly.[370] To about the same date may be assigned a fragmentary account, headed ‘Layd owt for my Lorde Admeralle seruantes as ffoloweth 1594’, and recording expenditure for coming and going to Court and to Somerset House, the residence of the Lord Chamberlain, ‘for mackinge of our leater twise’, and ‘for drinckinge with the jentellmen’, all evidently concerned with the initial business of forming and licensing the company.[371] On 5 June the account of performances is resumed with a fresh heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge at Newington my Lord Admeralle men and my Lorde Chamberlen men as ffolowethe 1594’.[372] Henslowe’s takings only averaged 9s. for the first ten days, probably on account of the distance of Newington Butts from London.[373] The takings for the three days in May averaged 41s., and it may perhaps be inferred that these May performances were at the Rose, and that some fear of renewed plague on the part of the authorities led to their being relegated to a safer quarter. The tentative character of these early performances is shown by the fact that the Admiral’s were still sharing a theatre with the Chamberlain’s. To the repertory of the latter it seems safe to assign three of the seven plays produced, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, and The Taming of A Shrew, and probably also a fourth, Hester and Ahasuerus, as there is no later sign of this amongst the Admiral’s plays. This leaves three others to be regarded as the Admiral’s contribution, The Jew of Malta and Cutlack, which they had played in May and were often to play again, and Belin Dun, to which are attached the letters ‘ne’, Henslowe’s normal indication of a new play.[374] There is nothing in the order in which the plays were taken to indicate an alternation of the two companies, and it is likely enough that neither was yet fully constituted, and that they actually joined forces in the same performances.

After the tenth play on 15 June, Henslowe drew a line across the page, and although the entries continue without any indication of a change in the conditions under which the performances were given, I can only concur in the conjecture of Mr. Fleay and Dr. Greg that at this point the Admiral’s plays were transferred to the Rose, and the combination with the Chamberlain’s ceased.[375] A sudden rise in the amount of Henslowe’s takings, and the absence from the rest of the list of the four plays named above and of any other attributable to the Chamberlain’s repertory, are alike strongly in favour of this view, which may be treated as a practical certainty. Henceforward the fortunes of the company seem to have followed a smooth course for the space of three years. Their proceedings may be briefly summed up as follows. They played for thirty-nine consecutive weeks from 15 June 1594 to 14 March 1595, appearing at Court during this season on 28 December, 1 January, and 6 January. After a break of thirty-seven days during Lent, opportunity of which was taken to repair the Rose, they played again for ten weeks from Easter Monday, 21 April, to 26 June 1595. Then came a vacation of fifty-nine days, with visits to Bath and Maidstone. They began again in London on 25 August 1595 and played for twenty-seven weeks to 28 February 1596, giving Court performances on 1 January, 4 January, and 22 and 24 February. This took them to the end of the first week in Lent. After forty-three days’ interval, they played for fifteen weeks, from Easter Monday, 12 April, to 23 July 1596. Their summer vacation lasted for ninety-five days, and they are noted during 1595–6 at Coventry, Bath, Gloucester, and Dunwich. In the autumn they started playing on 27 October, but the receipts were low, and if the record is complete, they suspended performances between 15 and 25 November, and then went on to 12 February 1597, making up a season of about fourteen weeks in all. They do not seem to have played at Court at all this winter. This year they rather disregarded Lent, stopping for eighteen days only, during a reconstruction of the company, and then playing three days a week until Easter, and then regularly until the end of July, in all twenty-one weeks. To certain irregularities at the close of this season it will be necessary to refer later. During the three years, then, there were three winter and three summer seasons of London playing, covering about a hundred and twenty-six weeks. Except in Lent or at the beginning or end of a season, or occasionally, probably for climatic reasons, at other times, especially in December, plays were given upon every week-day. It emerges from Dr. Greg’s re-ordering of Henslowe’s very inaccurate dates that there were no plays on Sundays.[376] On the other hand, a summons to play at Court in the evening did not necessarily entail a blank day in the afternoon. The total number of performances during the three years was seven hundred and twenty-eight. It is reasonable to assume that Henslowe’s takings varied roughly with those of the company, although the reserve must be made that different plays might prove the most attractive to the galleries and to the yard respectively. The amounts entered range from a minimum of 3s. to a maximum of 73s. Dr. Greg calculates the average over ‘certain typical periods of 1595’ as 30s.;[377] during the first half of 1597 it was 24s. The fluctuations are determined, partly by the popularity or novelty of the plays presented, partly by the season of the year, and doubtless the weather and the competition of other amusements. There were generally some high receipts during Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun weeks. Unfortunately there is no means of estimating the proportion which Henslowe’s share bore to that which fell for division among the players. Some light is thrown upon the expenses by the subsidiary accounts of advances, which Henslowe began to keep from time to time in 1596. In May of that year he lent Alleyn ‘for the company’ a total amount of £39 in several instalments, and recovered it by small sums of £1 to £3 at a time during the next three months.[378] A longer account extending from October 1596 to March 1597 reaches, with the aid of a miscalculation, a total of £52. Of this £22 was repaid during the same period, chiefly by deductions from the profits of first nights, and an acknowledgement given for the balance of £30.[379] The advances were made through various members of the company, and the purposes specified include apparel for three new plays, travelling expenses, and fees to playwrights. A third account, if I am right in the interpretation of some very disputable figures, shows an expenditure at the average rate of 31s. a day during the six months from 24 January to 28 July 1597, of which, however, nearly half was in fact incurred during the first twenty-four days of the period. In this case only the sums and not the purposes for which they were advanced are entered.[380]

During the three years the Admiral’s men produced new plays to the total number of fifty-five, and at the average rate of one a fortnight. The productions were not at regular intervals, and often followed each other in successive weeks. There is, however, no example of two new productions in the same week.[381] These are the names and dates of the new plays:

Belin Dun (10 June 1594).

Galiaso (28 June 1594).

Philipo and Hippolito (9 July 1594).

2 Godfrey of Bulloigne (19 July 1594).

The Merchant of Emden (30 July 1594).

Tasso’s Melancholy (13 Aug. 1594).

The Venetian Comedy (27 Aug. 1594).

Palamon and Arcite (18 Sept. 1594).

The Love of an English Lady (26 Sept. 1594).

A Knack to Know an Honest Man (23 Oct. 1594).

1 Caesar and Pompey (8 Nov. 1594).

Diocletian (16 Nov. 1594).

The Wise Man of West Chester (3 Dec. 1594).

The Set at Maw (15 Dec. 1594).

The French Comedy (11 Feb. 1595).

The Mack (21 Feb. 1595).

Olympo (5 Mar. 1595).[382]

1 Hercules (7 May 1595).

2 Hercules (23 May 1595).

1 The Seven Days of the Week (3 June 1595).

2 Caesar and Pompey (18 June 1595).

Longshanks (29 Aug. 1595).

Crack me this Nut (5 Sept. 1595).

The New World’s Tragedy (17 Sept. 1595).

The Disguises (2 Oct. 1595).

The Wonder of a Woman (16 Oct. 1595).

Barnardo and Fiammetta (30 Oct. 1595).

A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies (14 Nov. 1595).

Henry V (28 Nov. 1595).

Chinon of England (3 Jan. 1596).

Pythagoras (16 Jan. 1596).

2 The Seven Days of the Week (23 Jan. 1596).

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (12 Feb. 1596).

Julian the Apostate (29 Apr. 1596).

1 Tamar Cham (7 May 1596).

Phocas (20 May 1596).

2 Tamar Cham (11 June 1596).

Troy (25 June 1596).

The Paradox (1 July 1596).

The Tinker of Totnes (23 July 1596).

Vortigern, Valteger, or Hengist (4 Dec. 1596).

Stukeley (10 Dec. 1596).

Nebuchadnezzar (18 Dec. 1596).

That Will Be Shall Be (30 Dec. 1596).

Jeronimo (7 Jan. 1597).

Alexander and Lodowick (14 Jan. 1597).[383]

Woman Hard to Please (27 Jan. 1597).

Guido (21 Mar. 1597).

Five Plays in One (7 Apr. 1597).

A French Comedy (18 Apr. 1597).

Uther Pendragon (29 Apr. 1597).

The Comedy of Humours (11 May 1597).

The Life and Death of Henry I (26 May 1597).

Frederick and Basilea (3 June 1597).

The Life and Death of Martin Swart (30 June 1597).

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

It is evident that some of the plays marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe cannot have been new in the fullest sense. This applies to Jeronimo, which had been played by Strange’s men as an old play during 1592–3, and to 2 Tamar Cham, which had been produced by the same company on 28 April 1592, and on that occasion also marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe. It applies also to Longshanks and Henry V, if these are really the same as Edward I and The Famous Victories. And it may, of course, apply also in other cases, which cannot now be distinguished. Two explanations are possible. One is that plays were treated as new, for the purpose of Henslowe’s entries, which were only new to the repertory of the particular company concerned, having been purchased by them or by Henslowe from the stock of some other company. There is, however, no indication that Henslowe received any special financial advantage from the production of a new play, such as would give point to such an arrangement. The other, and perhaps the most plausible, is that an old play was marked ‘ne’ if it had undergone any substantial process of revision before revival. But it must be admitted that the problem set is one that we have hardly the means to solve.

In addition to their new and revised plays, the Admiral’s had a considerable stock of old ones. Some of these they were playing, when they began their first season in June 1594. Several others were revived in the course of that season, and a few at later dates. The only new play of the repertory which reached the stage of revival during the three years was Belin Dun, which was originally produced on 10 June 1594, played to the end of the year, then dropped, and afterwards revived for a single performance on 11 July 1596, and for a series in the spring of 1597. But it is not likely that many new plays were written during the plague years, and probably most of the revived plays of 1594–5 were a good deal more than two or three years old. A list of the plays not marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe, nineteen in number, follows. It is, however, possible that some of them are only plays in the list already given, masquerading under different names.

Cutlack.

The Ranger’s Comedy.

The Guise, or, The Massacre of Paris.

The Jew of Malta.

Mahomet.

1 Tamburlaine.

Dr. Faustus.

The Love of a Grecian Lady, or, The Grecian Comedy.[386]

The French Doctor.

Warlamchester.

2 Tamburlaine.

The Siege of London.

Antony and Valia.[387]

1 Long Meg of Westminster.[388]

The Welshman.[389]

1 Fortunatus.

Osric.

Time’s Triumph and Fortune’s.

The Witch of Islington.

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

The Rose was what is now known as a ‘repertory’ house. A very successful play might be repeated on the night after its first production or revival, or in the course of the same week. But as a rule one performance a week was the limit, and after a play had been on the boards a few weeks, the intervals between its appearances rapidly became greater. The Wise Man of West Chester, which was presented thirty-two times between December 1594 and July 1597, had a longer life than any other new play during the three years. Next came A Knack to Know an Honest Man, with twenty-one performances in two years, 1 Seven Days of the Week, with twenty-one performances in fifteen months, and The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, with twenty-two performances in fourteen months. Belin Dun, although not continuously upon the stage for long together, achieved with the aid of its revival a total of twenty-four performances. The only other new plays, that outlived a year, were 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne and A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies. Even such highly successful plays as 1 and 2 Hercules ceased to be heard of after six months. The usual run of a play was anything from six to seventeen nights, but sixteen plays failed to obtain even such a run, and several plays, which apparently did well enough on the first night, were not repeated at all. As a rule the first night of a play brought Henslowe the highest returns; but this was by no means invariably the case, and the success of any play, which held the boards for as many as six nights, can perhaps best be measured by its average returns. By far the most fortunate was The Comedy of Humours which averaged 53s. for the eleven nights available before the summer season of 1597 closed. Next came 1 and 2 Hercules with 42s. and 43s. respectively, 1 Seven Days of the Week with 35s., and The Wise Man of West Chester with 34s. On the other hand the average of Henry I was no more than 19s. and that of the second French Comedy no more than 16s. The highest individual returns were those from the first nights of 1 and 2 Hercules, 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, and 1 Seven Days of the Week, which yielded 73s., 70s., 71s., and 70s. respectively, and that from the sixth night of the Comedy of Humours, which was also 70s. The booking for this play shows a curious progress, being 43s., 55s., 58s., 64s., 66s., 70s., for the first six nights. Similarly The Wise Man of West Chester, which began with a bad first night of 33s., rose to a good average, while 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, for all its start of 70s., ended with an average of only 28s. The worst first night taking was the 22s. of Nebuchadnezzar, and this affords another curious example of box-office fluctuations, for, though it achieved no higher average than 22s., it rose on its third night to 68s. The worst takings, on other than first nights, were 3s. for Chinon of England,[391] 4s. for Vortigern, and for Olympo, and 5s. twice over for A Woman Hard to Please. Probably these were due to weather or other accidents, as each play averaged enough to justify a reasonable run. The success of the old plays followed much the same lines as that of the new ones. They ran for anything from one night to twenty-four, this total being reached by Dr. Faustus. The best average returns were the 32s. and 38s. of 1 and 2 Tamburlaine, the 30s. of Mahomet, the 29s. of 1 Long Meg of Westminster, the 27s. of The Guise, and the 26s. of The Jew of Malta; the best individual returns the 72s. and 71s. yielded by the respective first nights of Dr. Faustus and 1 Tamburlaine. The persistent popularity of Marlowe’s work comes out quite clearly from the statistics; and the success of Chapman’s first attempts is also not to be overlooked.

The personnel of the Admiral’s men during 1594–7 can be determined with some approach to certainty. They were Edward Alleyn, John Singer, Richard Jones, Thomas Towne, Martin Slater, Edward Juby, Thomas Downton, and James Donstone. Their names are found in a list written in the diary, without any explanation of its object, amongst memoranda of 1594–6.[392] There can be little doubt that it represents the principal members of the company, and in most cases corroborative evidence is available. The books of the Treasurer of the Chamber indicate Alleyn, Jones, and Singer as payees for the Court money of 1594–5, and Alleyn and Slater for that of 1595–6. Alleyn, Slater, Donstone, and Juby are noted in Henslowe’s subsidiary accounts for 1596 as responsible for advances made by him on behalf of the company.[393] Another advance was made to Stephen the tireman, and he is doubtless the Stephen Magett who also appears in personal financial relations with Henslowe during 1596.[394] Transactions by way of loan, sale, or pawn are also noted by Henslowe during 1594–7 with Slater, Jones, Donstone, Singer, and Towne, and also with Edward Dutton and Richard Alleyn.[395] These latter were probably not sharers in the company, but can be traced with others amongst its subordinate members by means of the ‘plot’ of Frederick and Basilea, which it is reasonable to connect with the performances of the play in June and July 1597, since it was a new play on 3 June, and it is recorded in the diary that Martin Slater, who figures in the ‘plot’, left the company on 18 July. It is to be inferred from the plot that the principal parts in Frederick and Basilea were taken by Mr. Alleyn, Mr. Thomas Towne, Mr. Martin [Slater], Mr. Juby, Mr. Donstone, and R. Alleyn; that minor male parts were taken by Edward Dutton, Thomas Hunt, Robert Ledbetter, Black Dick, Pigge, Sam, Charles, and the ‘gatherers’ or money-takers and other ‘attendants’; and that female parts were taken by Edward Dutton’s boy Dick and two other boys known as Will and Griffen. Apparently the play, although not employing all the principal actors, made considerable demands on the minor staff. Dr. Greg may be right in identifying Sam and Charles with the Samuel Rowley and Charles Massey who became members of the company at a later date.[396] It will be seen that the only name in Henslowe’s undated list which cannot be verified as that of a member of the company during 1594–7 is that of Thomas Downton; but it may safely be accepted. Downton had accompanied Alleyn on the provincial tour with Strange’s men in 1593. So had Pigge or Pyk. Jones and Donstone, who is the same as Tunstall, had belonged to Worcester’s men in 1583, and probably to the Admiral’s men before 1590; Jones had been abroad, as we have seen, during the plague years. John Singer had been a member of the Queen’s men in 1588. The other names now come into the story for the first time. Henslowe’s advances for 1596 included sums ‘to feache Fletcher’ and ‘to feache Browne’.[397] It can only be matter of conjecture whether there is evidence here of negotiations for the incorporation in the company of Robert Browne and of Laurence Fletcher, at a later date a colleague of Slater’s, and if so, whether they led to any fruitful result.

The departure of Martin Slater on 18 July 1597 was only one of several changes which profoundly modified the composition of the company in the course of that year.[398] In February Richard Jones and Thomas Downton went to the Swan as Pembroke’s men, and the disturbance thereby caused probably accounts for the three weeks’ cessation of playing during Lent. The Swan enterprise was brought to a disastrous conclusion after five months by the production of The Isle of Dogs, which not only brought personal trouble on the chief offenders, but also led to a restraint of plays at all the theatres. This event synchronizes with the first appearance in the diary of Nashe’s collaborator in The Isle of Dogs, Ben Jonson. On 28 July Henslowe lent him no less a sum than £4, and took Alleyn and Singer as witnesses. On the same day he opened an account headed ‘℞ of Bengemenes Johnsones share as ffoloweth’ with a first instalment of 3s. 9d.[399] On this very day of 28 July the Privy Council’s inhibition fell, and Jonson went to prison and paid no more instalments. It is impossible to say whether his ‘share’ was in the Admiral’s company or in Pembroke’s. In any event, although he continued to write for the Admiral’s men after 1597, there is no further sign that he was either a ‘sharer’, or indeed an actor in any capacity.

One result of the restraint was that Jones and Downton not merely returned to the Rose, but brought at least three other of Pembroke’s men, Robert Shaw, Gabriel Spencer, and William Bird, known also by the alias of Borne, with them. Henslowe was thus enabled, almost immediately after playing stopped, to set about the reconstitution of his company, and the memoranda of agreement which he noted in his diary during the next fourteen months are so interesting for the light which they throw upon his relations with the actors, that I think it well, before discussing them, to transcribe them in full. There are in all eleven of them, as follows:[400]

i. (Thomas Hearne)

Memorandom that the 27 of Jeuley 1597 I heayred Thomas Hearne with ij pence for to searve me ij yeares in the qualetie of playenge for fyve shellynges a weacke for one yeare & 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 2d. or 3d., which the actors were to receive. Wages are, in fact, provided for only in the agreements with Hearne and Kendall, and it is quite possible that, if we had the full terms before us, we should find that, while some of the others were also to receive wages, some were to find their recompense in a share of such profits as the company might make. It is probable that, even where Henslowe undertook to pay wages, the general agreement between him and the company provided for the shifting of that liability to them. They certainly had to pay him, at the rate of 3s. a week, for the services of his boy Bristow.[402] To a slightly later date belongs an agreement with an unnamed actor, in which the hirer is not Henslowe but Thomas Downton, and this I add in order to complete the series.[403]

xii.

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

The appearance of Jones as guarantee for Shaw is due to the fact that, as a result of The Isle of Dogs, the latter was languishing with Gabriel Spencer and Ben Jonson in the Marshalsea. Meanwhile some at least of the company travelled. Henslowe lent Alleyn 40s. for John Singer and Thomas Towne ‘when they went into the contrey’ and noted that this was ‘at ther last cominge’. There is another entry of a small loan to Singer on 9 August, so they cannot have started before that; and they must have been back by 6 October, when Singer witnessed the agreement with Thomas Downton. Possibly Edward Dutton and Richard Alleyn, who also borrowed money from Henslowe, went with them.[404] The Privy Council warrants for the release of the prisoners in the Marshalsea were signed on 3 October,[405] and a few days later Henslowe, more successful than Langley of the Swan in getting the licence for his house renewed, even before the formal expiration of the restraint on 1 November, was in a position to resume his play list with the heading, ‘The xj of Octobe begane my lord Admerals & my lorde of Penbrockes men to play at my howsse 1597’.[406] The entries of plays are few and irregular up to 5 November, and then stop. A note is appended that on 26 November the Master of the Revels was paid for four weeks. The performances included one new play, Friar Spendleton, and five old ones, Jeronimo, The Comedy of Humours, Dr. Faustus, Hardicanute, and Bourbon, of which the last two do not belong to the 1594–7 repertory, and may have been contributed by Pembroke’s men. The diary also contains an account of weekly receipts running from 21 October 1597 to 4 March 1598, under the heading, ‘A juste a cownte of all suche monye as I haue receyed of my lord Admeralles & my lord of Penbrocke men as foloweth be gynynge the 21 of October 1597’, and some notes of individual advances and repayments, mainly through Robert Shaw and Thomas Downton, on behalf of the company, from 23 October to 12 December.[407] In the course of these the company is again described on 23 October and 5 November as ‘the company of my lord Admeralles men & my lord Penbrockes’, but on 1 December as ‘the companey of my lord Admeralles men’; and the substance of the whole of these advances is set out again, without any reference to Pembroke’s men, at the beginning of a continuous account from 21 October onwards, which is headed, ‘A juste a cownt of all suche money as I haue layd owt for my lord Admeralles players begynyng the xj of October whose names ar as foloweth Borne Gabrell Shaw Jonnes Dowten Jube Towne Synger & the ij Geffes’.[408] Nothing very certain is known of the previous career of Humphrey and Anthony Jeffes, but if the former is the ‘Humfrey’ who appears with ‘Gabriel’ [Spencer] in the stage-directions to 3 Henry VI it is most likely that these men also came from Pembroke’s.[409]

The responsible members of the Admiral’s company at the beginning of the third period of their existence were, then, so far as their relations to Henslowe were concerned, Thomas Downton, Richard Jones, Edward Juby, Thomas Towne, John Singer, Robert Shaw, William Borne, who seems to have had the regular alias of William Bird, Gabriel Spencer, Humphrey Jeffes, and Anthony Jeffes. To these must probably be added a number of hired men, including Thomas Hearne, John Helle, William Kendall, Richard Alleyn, Thomas Heywood, and probably Charles Massey, Samuel Rowley, Thomas Hunt, and Stephen Maget the tireman, and of apprentices, including James Bristow and Pigge. Of the sharers Downton, Jones, Juby, Towne, and Singer had alone belonged to the earlier Admiral’s men. Slater’s departure involved the company in a lawsuit, the nature of which is not stated in the diary. Professor Wallace, however, has found an independent record of a Queen’s Bench action by Thomas Downton to recover £13 6s. 8d., the value of a playbook which Downton had lost in the parish of St. Mary le Bow on 1 December 1597, and Slater had ‘found’, refused to surrender, and was alleged to have disposed of for his own profit. Damages of £10 10s. were awarded on 3 November 1598.[410] Donstone also seems to have dropped out or may have been dead; he witnessed Helle’s agreement on 3 August 1597, and thereafter no more is heard of him. But incomparably the greatest loss was that of Edward Alleyn, who now retired from the stage and did not return to it for a period of three years.[411] From 29 December 1597 to 8 November 1598 Henslowe made notes of playing goods bought ‘sence my sonne Edward Allen leafte [p]laynge’, and it would appear that the company acknowledged a debt of £50 in respect of his interest on retirement.[412] In place of Alleyn, it would seem that the lead was taken by Robert Shaw and Thomas Downton, perhaps as representing the two elements of which the company was made up. These two were joint payees for the Court money of both 1597–8 and 1598–9. For 1599–1600 Shaw was sole payee. It was, moreover, most often, although by no means always, to one or other of these men that Henslowe’s advances on behalf of the company were made. It must be added that some of the new-comers appear to have sought private assistance from Henslowe in order to enable them to take up their shares. On 14 January 1598, he opened an account of sums received ‘of Humfreye Jeaffes hallfe share’, entered seven instalments up to 4 March, amounting to a total of 60s. 6d., and then noted, ‘This some was payd backe agayne vnto the companey of my lord Admeralles players the 8 of Marche 1598, & they shared yt amonste them’. There is a later account, running from 29 April to 21 July 1598, and amounting by small instalments to 35s., of ‘all such money as I dooe receue for Umfrey Jeaffes and Antoney Jeaffes ... of the companey’.[413] Possibly the brothers only held a single share between them. A similar transaction took place with Gabriel Spencer. On 20 April 1598 this actor gave an acknowledgement for £4 and between 6 April and 24 June Henslowe carried to an account headed ‘℞ of Gabrell Spencer at severall tymes of his share in the gallereyes’ a total of 25s. 6d., of which 5s. 6d. was paid over to Downton.[414] In addition, personal loans were negotiated from time to time by various members of the company, and the reasons given for these indicate that in the course of 1598, besides the dispute of the ex-Pembroke’s men with Langley, Bird and perhaps the company as a whole were engaged in litigation with Thomas Pope, presumably the actor in the Chamberlain’s company.[415]

There does not seem to have been much further change in the composition of the Admiral’s men during 1597–1600. An acknowledgement of the state of their account with Henslowe between 8 and 13 March 1598 bears the signatures of ‘J. Singer, Thomas Downton, William Birde, Robt Shaa, Richard Jones, Gabriell Spenser, Thomas Towne, Humfry Jeffes, Charles Massye, and Samuell Rowlye’.[416] The last two had evidently become sharers in the course of the year. Juby and Anthony Jeffes do not sign, but this is probably due to an accident, as they were certainly sharers both in 1597 and in 1600.[417] Gabriel Spencer was killed by Ben Jonson (cf. ch. xxiii) on 22 September 1598. On 26 September Henslowe wrote to Alleyn at the Brill in Sussex, ‘Now to leat you vnderstand newes I will teall you some but yt is for me harde & heavey. Sence you weare with me I haue loste one of my company which hurteth me greatley; that is Gabrell, for he is slayen in Hogesden fylldes by the handes of Bengemen Jonson bricklayer’.[418] No doubt Henslowe wrote from the heart. Probably Spencer’s share was not yet paid for, and in addition small personal loans to the amount of 66s. stand undischarged against him in the diary, of which the last was on 19 May ‘to bye a plume of feathers which his mane Bradshawe feched of me’. Richard Bradshaw was an actor and may have played as a hired man with the company. A fragmentary ‘plot’ of Troilus and Cressida, probably to be dated in April 1599, yields the names of ‘Mr. Jones’ and his ‘boy’, Thomas Hunt, Stephen, Proctor, and Pigge. Mr. Jones’s boy is shown by a note of 17 November 1599 in the diary to have been called James.[419] Of Proctor no more is known. Stephen is probably Stephen Magett, the tireman, and Pigge was with Alleyn on the tour of Strange’s men in 1593. He is also mentioned, with Dobe, Whittcombe, and Anderson, who may have been actors, in some inventories of properties belonging to Alleyn or to the company in March 1598.[420] Thomas Downton also had in June 1600 a ‘boye’ who played in Cupid and Psyche.[421] Another acknowledgement of account, dated on 10 July 1600, only differs from the former one by the omission of Spencer’s name and the inclusion of those of Juby and Anthony Jeffes.[422] The alleged manuscript notes to a copy of Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday (q.v.), produced in January 1600, which are discredited by Dr. Greg, give the cast as composed of ‘Jones, H. Jeffes, Rowley, Shawe, Massy, Dowton, Singer, Jewby, Towne, A. Jeffes, Birde, Wilson, Flower, Price, Day, Dowton’s boy Ned and Alleine’; the last for a female part. Certainly nothing is known of Day or Wilson as actors for the Admiral’s, or of Price at any such early date, or of Flower at all. But if the document is a forgery, it is a very pointless, and at the same time a very cautious one. And how did the forger, unless he were Collier or Cunningham, know that Day was an actor at all?

The records kept by Henslowe for the period 1597–1600 differ considerably in character from those for 1594–7. The diurnal list of plays performed and of rent-takings disappears altogether. On the other hand, the records of advances made, for the books and licensing of plays, for costumes and properties, and for certain miscellaneous items of expenditure, become full and systematic. A per contra account is also kept of weekly sums received by Henslowe in repayment of such advances, and from time to time a balance is struck, and the hands of the company taken to a settlement or acknowledgement of debt. Henslowe’s book-keeping, however, if not exactly faulty, is not always sufficiently lucid to make the whole of the financial transactions perfectly clear. In the absence of the daily entries of performances, the weekly records of repayments make it possible to determine roughly the periods covered by the theatrical seasons.[423] The company played for twenty continuous weeks from 11 October 1597 to about 4 March 1598, apparently with some irregularity at the beginning and again about Christmas time. Their Court plays were on 27 December and 28 February. In Lent they had a three weeks’ interval, during the course of which they met to read a book in New Fish Street, and ‘played in Fleatstreet pryuat’.[424] Playing was resumed about 25 March and lasted for some fifteen weeks, until about 8 July, making thirty-five weeks in all for the year 1597–8. The company only took two weeks’ vacation in the summer and are not likely to have travelled, although on 27 September, after the new season had begun, Borne is found riding to the Lord Admiral at Croydon at the time of the Queen’s visit there.[425] They played for thirty-one weeks from about 22 July to 24 February 1599, with performances at Court on 27 December, 6 January and 18 February, and stopped for three weeks in Lent. The summer season lasted for eleven weeks from about 19 March to 3 June, making forty-four weeks playing for 1598–9. On Easter Eve Towne and Richard Alleyn went to Court for some unspecified purpose. About the same time Anthony Jeffes was making purchases against St. George’s Day.[426] The interval of this summer was seventeen weeks, but I have no evidence of any travelling. The next season was one of nineteen weeks from about 29 September 1599 to 10 February 1600, with Court performances on 27 December and 1 January, and was followed by a Lenten interval of about four weeks. At the beginning of February they bought a drum and trumpets ‘when to go into the contry’.[427] Whether these were for use during the short break in Lent or not until the following summer must remain uncertain; at any rate the purchase confirms the view that there had been no provincial tour since 1596.[428] Finally they played for nineteen weeks from about 2 March to 13 July, thus completing thirty-six weeks for 1599–1600. Apparently the summer season was diversified by a visit to Windsor for the Garter installation of Henri IV of France on 27 April.[429] In all they seem to have played for about 115 weeks or something under 690 days in 1597–1600, as compared with 728 days in 1594–7.

The entries of sums paid for plays usually give the names of the authors as well as those of the plays, and therefore furnish a good deal of material for reconstituting the literary side of the company’s activity. Henslowe’s terminology is neither precise nor uniform, but it is clear that, while the payments were always entered as loans to the company, they were often made direct by him to the playwrights, on the ‘appointment’ of one or more of its members. Sometimes they are expressed as being ‘to bye a boocke of’ a play; that is to say, for the purchase outright of an old or even a new manuscript. But a new play was generally commissioned, upon the strength of a sample or of an outline of the plot, and in such cases payment was made by instalments, of which the earlier ones were ‘lent upon’ or ‘in earneste of’ or ‘in parte paymente of’, and the last ‘in full paymente of’ the book. Portions of the manuscript were handed over as security for the earlier payments. Production was very rapid, and a play put together in two or three weeks often represented the collaboration of as many as four or even five or six authors. The procedure, which prevailed during the whole of the period covered by the diary, is illustrated by a small group of letters preserved amongst the miscellaneous papers found at Dulwich. Thus on 8 November 1599 Shaw writes with regard to 2 Henry Richmond, ‘Mr. Henshlowe, we haue heard their booke and lyke yt. Their pryce is eight poundes, which I pray pay now to Mr. Wilson, according to our promysse’; and accordingly Henslowe includes in his account, by an entry written and signed by Wilson, a sum of £8 ‘by a note vnder the hand of Mr. Rob: Shaw’.[430] On 14 June 1600 Shaw writes again, ‘I pray you, Mr. Henshlowe, deliuer vnto the bringer hereof the some of fyue & fifty shillinges to make the 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 44s.[431] Similarly Samuel Rowley writes on 4 April 1601, ‘Mr. Hinchloe, I haue harde fyue shetes of a playe of the Conqueste of the Indes & I dow not doute but it wyll be a verye good playe; tharefore I praye ye delyuer them fortye shyllynges in earneste of it & take the papers into your one hands & on Easter eue thaye promyse to make an ende of all the reste’. The earnest and several supplementary earnests were paid to Day, Haughton, and Smith, but the completion of the play lagged until the following September.[432] An undated letter of Rowley’s relates to the withdrawal of a play, ‘Mr. Hynchlo, I praye ye let Mr. Hathwaye haue his papars agayne of the playe of John a Gante & for the repayement of the monye back agayne he is contente to gyue ye a byll of his hande to be payde at some cartayne tyme as in your dyscressyon yow shall thinke good; which done ye may crose it oute of your boouke & keepe the byll; or else wele stande so much indetted to you & kepe the byll our selues’. Henslowe appears to have thought it safer to adopt the second alternative, as incomplete payments to the amount of £1 19s. 0d. for The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt still stand in his ‘boouke’.[433] Other letters of the same kind concern Six Yeomen of the West, and Too Good to be True.[434] The normal price for a new play during 1597–1601 seems to have been £6, but sometimes it fell to £5 or possibly even £4, and sometimes the playwrights succeeded in squeezing out a few shillings more. One or two of them, notably Chapman, were able to secure a higher rate from the beginning; and about 1599 a general tendency towards a higher scale of prices becomes discernible. The ‘book’ of an old play could generally be purchased for about £2.

In attempting to estimate the actual ‘output’ of the company, one is faced by the difficulty that some of the plays commissioned are not shown by the diary to have reached the stage of payment in full, and that it must, therefore, remain doubtful whether they were ever completed. It is possible that, as Dr. Greg thinks,[435] some of the payments were made direct by the company, instead of through Henslowe. But the correspondence just quoted rather suggests that any such arrangement would be exceptional; and it would not be inconsistent with human nature, if the extremely out-at-elbows men of letters who hung about the Rose occasionally found it profitable to take their ‘earnest’ for a play, and then to find plausible reasons for indefinitely delaying its completion. Probably in the long run they had to account for the advance, but the example of The Conquest of Spain shows that such a repayment would not necessarily find its way into Henslowe’s account. This view is borne out by an examination of the affairs of one of the most impecunious of them all, Henry Chettle, during 1598–9. During the first six months of the year, he had a hand in half a dozen plays, all of which were completed and paid for in full. But on one of these, 1 Black Bateman of the North, Henslowe appears, perhaps by an oversight, to have paid him £1 too much. At the beginning of May £1 was lent to Chettle upon this play, and the loan does not appear to have been considered when, on 22 May, a further sum of £6 was laid out upon ‘a boocke called Blacke Battmane of the North ... which coste sixe powndes’. On 24 June Chettle borrowed 10s., not apparently on any particular play, and Henslowe seems then to have recalled the overpayment, and noted against Chettle’s name in the diary, ‘All his parte of boockes to this place are payde which weare dew unto hime & he reastes be syddes in my deatte the some of 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 5s. in earnest upon Catiline’s Conspiracy; and he had £1 14s. 0d. in earnest upon Brute, probably a continuation of an older 1 Brute bought by the company. When the last payment on Brute was made on 16 September Henslowe noted, ‘Hary Cheattell vntell this place owes vs viij^li ix^s dew al his boockes & recknynges payd’. This amount is precisely made up of the 30s. due on 24 June and the sums paid on account of these three plays. By 22 October Chettle had completed 2 Brute and managed somehow to get £6 for it in full. On the same day he gave Henslowe an acknowledgement of a debt, not of £8 9s. 0d., but of £9 9s. 0d. In November he got an earnest of £1 for Tis no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver, and £1 for ‘mending’ Robin Hood, and in January 1599 30s. ‘to paye his charges in the Marshallsey’. Small loans of a shilling or two are also noted in the margin of the book, and appear to be quite distinct from the company’s account with him, and to indicate private generosities of Henslowe. In February 1599 Chettle had finished Polyphemus, and it is recorded that in full payment of £6 he got £2 10s. down, ‘& strocken of his deatte which he owes vnto the companey fyftye shelenges more’. A separate entry in the diary indicates that he paid off yet another 10s. out of his fee for The Spencers in March.[436] Material is not available for the further tracing of this particular chain of transactions, but the inference that credit obtained for an unfinished play had sometimes to be redeemed out of the profits of a finished one is irresistible. Chettle, at least, does not seem to have been hardly treated, but obviously the unbusinesslike methods of the playwrights kept down the price of plays, and a familiar device of the modern Barabbas was anticipated when Henry Porter was obliged, on the receipt of an earnest, to give Henslowe ‘his faythfulle promysse that I shold haue alle the boockes which he writte ether him sellfe or with any other’.[437] Whatever Henslowe’s precise financial relations with the company may have been, by the way, he seems to have been in a position to pose as paymaster, so far as the poets were concerned.

On the whole, I think it must be concluded that, if the diary fails to record payments to the amount of at least £5 for a new play, there is prima facie evidence that that play never got itself finished. Occasionally, of course, apparently incomplete payments may be explained by the fact that the same play is entered under more than one name. Occasionally, also, a particular play may have been tacitly debited with payments not specifically expressed in the diary to have been made in respect of that play. Thus a sum of £2 paid on 4 February 1598 ‘to dise charge Mr. Dicker owt of the cownter in the Powltrey’ was probably treated as an instalment of the price of Phaethon on which Dekker was then working, and for which otherwise only £4 is entered. Another sum of £3 10s. paid on 30 January 1599 ‘to descarge Thomas Dickers frome the a reaste of my lord Chamberlens men’ seems similarly to have gone towards The First Introduction of the Civil Wars of France. And Haughton probably got 10s. less than he would otherwise have done for Ferrex and Porrex, because he had required a loan of that amount on 10 March 1600, ‘to releace him owt of the Clyncke’.[438] The record, again, for a few plays is most likely rendered imperfect by the loss of a leaf or two from the manuscript, which once contained entries for the end of April and beginning of May 1599.[439] When these factors have been taken into consideration, the resultant total of possibly unfinished plays is not a very large one, amounting for 1597–1600 on my calculation to not more than twenty as against fifty-six new plays duly completed and paid for in full. Of these twenty it is very likely that some were in fact finished, either for other companies, or for the Admiral’s men themselves, later than the period covered by the diary. It is, however, consonant with the literary temperament to suppose that some at least remained within the category of unrealized projects. The most puzzling problem is that of Haughton’s A Woman will have her Will. For this it is impossible to trace payments beyond £2 10s., and these are not stated to be in full. Yet the play is not only now extant but was certainly extant in 1598. In this case I see no alternative to Dr. Greg’s theory of direct payments by the company.

Henslowe’s notes of advances to authors are not the sole material which is available for drawing up an account of the repertory of the Admiral’s men. There are also entries of the purchase of costumes and properties for certain plays, and of fees for the licensing of plays by the Master of the Revels. And there is a valuable series of inventories, formerly preserved at Dulwich, and dating from 1598, which record respectively the stock of apparel and properties in the hands of the Admiral’s men during the second week of March, their play-books at the same date, and the additions made out of Henslowe’s purchases up to about the following August.[440] The theory that some of the plays recorded in the diary were never finished receives confirmation from the absence of any corroborative proof of their existence in these subsidiary entries and documents, whereas such evidence exists in the case of a very large proportion of the plays for which the diary records payment in full. It must not, however, be assumed, either that every play completed necessarily got produced, although it is not likely that many were withheld, or that a play was necessarily not produced, because no special apparel or properties were bought for it, since it may have been quite possible to mount some plays out of the company’s existing stock. The number of fees paid for licensing is so small in proportion to the number of plays certainly produced, that these fees cannot all be supposed to have passed through Henslowe’s hands.

Subject to the difficulties discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, I think that the following is a fairly accurate account of the repertory of the company for the three years now in question.[441] During 1597–8 they purchased seventeen new plays. These, with the names of their authors, were:

Mother Redcap (Drayton and Munday).

Phaethon (Dekker).

1 Robin Hood (Munday).

2 Robin Hood (Chettle and Munday).

The Triangle of Cuckolds (Dekker).[442]

The Welshman’s Prize, or, The Famous Wars of Henry I and the Prince of Wales (Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton).[443]

1 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons (Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).

2 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons (Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).

King Arthur (Hathway).

Love Prevented (Porter).[444]

A Woman will have her Will (Haughton).

1 Black Bateman of the North (Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).

2 Black Bateman of the North (Chettle and Wilson).

The Madman’s Morris (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).

The Funeral of Richard Cœur de Lion (Chettle, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson).

Hannibal and Hermes (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).[445]

Valentine and Orson (Hathway and Munday).

There is evidence of the actual performance of Mother Redcap, Phaethon (January), 1 and 2 Robin Hood (March), 1 Earl Godwin (April), King Arthur (May), 2 Earl Godwin (June), 1 Black Bateman (June). Properties were bought for The Madman’s Morris in July, and the next season probably opened with it. To the new plays must be added Friar Spendleton, produced as ‘ne’ on 31 October, and Dido and Aeneas. A loan of 30s. on 8 January ‘when they fyrst played Dido at nyght’ suggests a supper, not a night performance. Either play may have been purchased at the end of 1596–7, or may have come from Pembroke’s stock. The same applies to Branholt and Alice Pierce, which were probably new when properties were purchased for them in November and December. The company also bought on 12 December two jigs from two young men, for which they paid 6s. 8d. Hardly any of the 1597–8 new plays are extant. The two parts of Robin Hood are The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, printed without Munday’s name as Admiral’s plays in 1601. Haughton’s A Woman will have her Will was entered on the Stationers’ Register on 3 August 1601, and printed with the alternative title of Englishmen for my Money in 1616. Phaethon probably underlies Dekker and Ford’s The Sun’s Darling, and it is a plausible conjecture of Mr. Fleay’s that Love Prevented may be 1 The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, printed as an Admiral’s play in 1599, and not to be traced elsewhere in the diary. The payments for four plays during the year, besides the puzzling A Woman will have her Will, were incomplete. I take it that the £2 paid to Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson for Pierce of Exton was transferred to the account for 2 Earl Godwin, which otherwise lacks just that amount of the full £6; that Chettle failed to deliver A Woman’s Tragedy; that Chapman’s Isle of a Woman was held over until 1598–9; and that a projected tragedy of Ben Jonson’s was similarly held over, and then indefinitely postponed owing to the tragedy in real life of Spencer’s death. There are two entries with regard to this. On 3 December 1597, Henslowe lent Jonson 20s. ‘vpon a boocke which he showed the plotte vnto the company which he promysed to deliver vnto the company at Cryssmas next’. On 23 October 1598, a month after the duel, not Jonson, but Chapman, received £3 ‘one his playe boocke & ij ectes of a tragedie of Bengemenes plotte’. I think that Chapman’s own play was The Four Kings and that he finished it in 1599; but I see no sign that he ever did anything with ‘Bengemenes plotte’.

Of older plays the Admiral’s revived at the beginning of the year Chapman’s success of the previous spring, The Comedy of Humours; also the perennial Dr. Faustus, and two pieces which, as they formed no part of the 1594–7 repertory, may have been brought in by Pembroke’s men, Hardicanute and Bourbon. They bought for £8 from Martin Slater 1 and 2 Hercules, Phocas, Pythagoras, and Alexander and Lodowick, all of which had been produced between May 1595 and January 1597, and had evidently been retained by Slater when he left the company. These books presumably do not include that which became the subject of the lawsuit between Slater and the Admiral’s men, and as they had afterwards to buy back some of their old books in a precisely similar way from Alleyn, it is probable that a retiring member of the company had a right to claim a partition of the repertory. They also bought The Cobler of Queenhithe,[446] and from Robert Lee, formerly of the Admiral’s men and afterwards of Queen Anne’s, The Miller. But of these seven purchased plays, the only one that they can be proved to have revived is one of the Hercules plays, for which they bought properties in July. The book-inventory shows that they had plays called Black Joan and Sturgflattery,[447] also possibly from Pembroke’s stock; and the property-inventories that they had properties and clothes, if not in all cases books,[448] for The Battle of Alcazar[449] and for a number of pieces staged during 1594–7, including Mahomet,[450] Tamburlaine,[451] The Jew of Malta,[452] 1 Fortunatus,[453] The Siege of London,[454] Belin Dun,[455] Tasso’s Melancholy,[456] 1 Caesar and Pompey,[457] The Wise Man of West Chester,[458] The Set at Maw,[459] Olympo,[460] Henry V,[461] Longshanks,[462] Troy,[463] Vortigern,[464] Guido,[465] Uther Pendragon.[466] To these must be added Pontius Pilate,[467] revived in 1601 and perhaps from the Pembroke’s stock, and others now unidentifiable.[468] As the company revived The Blind Beggar of Alexandria in 1601 they probably had this also.[469]

The new plays purchased in 1598–9 were twenty-one in number:

Pierce of Winchester (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).

Hot Anger Soon Cold (Chettle, Jonson, and Porter).

Chance Medley (Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson).[470]

Worse Afeared than Hurt (Dekker and Drayton).[471]

1 Civil Wars of France (Dekker and Drayton).

The Fount of New Fashions (Chapman).[472]

2 The Conquest of Brute, or, Brute Greenshield (Chettle).[473]

Connan, Prince of Cornwall (Dekker and Drayton).

2 Civil Wars of France (Dekker and Drayton).

3 Civil Wars of France (Dekker and Drayton).

The Four Kings (Chapman).[474]

War without Blows and Love without Suit (Heywood).[475]

First Introduction of the Civil Wars of France (Dekker).

2 Two Angry Women of Abingdon (Porter).

Joan as Good as my Lady (Heywood)

Friar Fox and Gillian of Brentford (Anon.).

The Spencers (Chettle and Porter).

Troy’s Revenge and the Tragedy of Polyphemus (Chettle).

Troilus and Cressida (Chettle and Dekker).

Agamemnon, or, Orestes Furious (Chettle and Dekker).[476]

The World Runs on Wheels, or, All Fools but the Fool (Chapman).[477]

The property and licence entries only make it possible to trace the actual performance during the year of Pierce of Winchester (October), 1 and 2 Civil Wars of France (October and November), The Fount of New Fashions (November), 2 Angry Women of Abingdon (February), 2 Conquest of Brute (March), The Four Kings (March), The Spencers (April), and Agamemnon (June). Probably, in view of the extant fragment of a ‘plot’ Troilus and Cressida should be added. The production of Troy’s Revenge was deferred until the following October. No one of this year’s new plays is extant, unless, as is possible, All Fools but the Fool was an early form of Chapman’s All Fools.[478] Earnests were paid in the course of 1598–9 for Catiline’s Conspiracy (Chettle), Tis no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver (Chettle), William Longsword[479] (Drayton), Two Merry Women of Abingdon (Porter), and an unnamed pastoral tragedy by Chapman, but there is no reason to suppose that any one of these was ever finished. On 9 August 1598 Munday had 10s. in earnest of an unnamed comedy ‘for the corte’ and Drayton gave his word for the book to be done in a fortnight, but the project must have been dropped, as the entry was cancelled. Of old plays the company revived in August Vayvode, in November The Massacre at Paris, in which Bird played the Guise,[480] in December 1 The Conquest of Brute, bought from John Day, and in March Alexander and Lodowick, bought from Martin Slater in the preceding year. As to Vayvode, the entries are rather puzzling. In August Chettle received £1 ‘for his playe of Vayvode’, and the purchase of properties show that the production took place. But in the following January there was a payment of £2 to Alleyn ‘for the playe of Vayvod for the company’. Possibly Alleyn had some rights in the manuscript, which were at first overlooked. On 25 November Chettle had 10s. ‘for mendinge of Roben Hood for the corte’. Either 1 or 2 Robin Hood was therefore probably the play given on 6 January 1599. At the beginning of the year the company bought Mulmutius Dunwallow from William Rankins and another old play called Tristram of Lyons, but it must be uncertain whether they played them. A reference in Guilpin’s Skialetheia suggests that The Spanish Tragedy may have been on the boards of the Rose not long before September 1598.[481]

The new plays completed during 1599–1600, twenty in all, were:

The Gentle Craft (Dekker).[482]

Bear a Brain (Dekker).[483]

Page of Plymouth (Dekker and Jonson).

Robert II, or, The Scot’s Tragedy (Chettle, Dekker, Jonson, and Marston).[484]

The Stepmother’s Tragedy (Chettle and Dekker).

1 Sir John Oldcastle (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).

Cox of Collumpton (Day and Haughton).

2 Henry Richmond (Wilson).

2 Sir John Oldcastle (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).

Patient Grissell (Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton).

The Whole History of Fortunatus (Dekker).

Thomas Merry, or, Beech’s Tragedy (Day and Haughton).

Jugurtha (Boyle).[485]

The Seven Wise Masters (Chettle, Day, Dekker, and Haughton).

Ferrex and Porrex (Haughton).

Cupid and Psyche, or, The Golden Ass (Chettle, Day, and Dekker).

Damon and Pythias (Chettle).

Strange News out of Poland (Haughton and Pett).

1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Chettle and Day).

1 Fair Constance of Rome (Dekker, Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).

It is possible to verify the actual performance of Page of Plymouth (September), 1 Sir John Oldcastle (November),[486] Fortunatus (December), The Gentle Craft (January), Thomas Merry (January), Patient Grissell (January), 2 Sir John Oldcastle (March), The Seven Wise Masters (March), Ferrex and Porrex (May), Damon and Pythias (May), Strange News out of Poland (May), Cupid and Psyche (June). Sir John Oldcastle must of course be regarded as a counterblast to the Henry IV plays of the Chamberlain’s men, in which the character of Falstaff originally bore the name of the Lollard hero. One infers that it had a considerable success, for the company gave 10s. for ‘Mr. Mundaye and the reste of the poets at the playnge of Sr John Oldcastell the ferste tyme’, and Henslowe notes in the margin that this was ‘as a gefte’. It is with some hesitation that I have included Fortunatus in the list of new plays, because it is impossible to suppose that it was not based upon the earlier Fortunatus, already an old play in 1596, of the properties of which the Admiral’s men certainly retained possession. But Dekker was paid on the scale of a new play, for he got a full £6 in the course of November for the book, together with an additional £1 ‘for the altrenge of the boocke’ and £2 a fortnight later ‘for the eande of Fortewnatus for the corte’. I take it that this was the Court play of 27 December. That of 1 January was another of Dekker’s, The Gentle Craft, also called The Shoemaker’s Holiday, which was published in the year ‘1600’ as played before the Queen ‘on New Year’s Day at night last’ by the Admiral’s men. Fortunatus, 1 Sir John Oldcastle,[486] Patient Grissell, and 1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green have also been preserved, while the publication, also in the course of the twelve months ending on 24 March 1601, of Look About You as an Admiral’s play must surely render plausible the hypothesis, rejected by Dr. Greg, of its identity with Bear a Brain. It would seem that Thomas Merry furnishes one of the two parallel plots of Robert Yarington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies, and a notice by Simon Forman suggests that Cox of Collumpton was ultimately finished.[487] An outline of the opening scenes of 2 Henry Richmond is among the Dulwich papers.[488] Publication was a form of popularity which the actors were apt to resent. The Admiral’s men spent £2 on 18 March 1600 ‘to geue vnto the printer to staye the printing of Patient Gresell’. This did not prevent the play being entered on the Stationers’ Register on 28 March, but does perhaps explain why the earliest known edition is dated 1603. The unfinished plays of 1599–1600 were The Poor Man’s Paradise (Haughton), The Orphans’ Tragedy (Chettle),[489] an unnamed Italian tragedy by Day, The Arcadian Virgin (Chettle and Haughton), Owen Tudor (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson), Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight (Dekker),[490] The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy (Day, Dekker, and Haughton),[491] The English Fugitives (Haughton), The Devil and his Dame (Haughton),[492] The Wooing of Death (Chettle), Judas (Haughton),[493] 2 Fair Constance of Rome (Hathway), and an unnamed play by Chettle and Day.[494] Except in so far as Fortunatus was an old play, I find no trace of a revival during 1599–1600, but it may be assumed that some of the productions of the last two years still held the boards.

The year 1600 was another turning-point in the history of the company. Probably at some date between 14 August, when the first entry in a fresh account was made, and 28 October, when Pembroke’s men were in occupation of the Rose, they crossed the river, and took up their quarters at Alleyn’s recently built Fortune, on the north-west boundary of the City. A more important event still was the return of Alleyn himself to the stage, from which he had been absent for three years. It is suggested in the Privy Council letter of 8 April 1600 to the Middlesex justices in favour of the Fortune project, that this step was determined by the personal wish of the Queen to see the great actor at Court with his fellows again.[495] It is not quite clear on what terms he rejoined the company. There was a ‘composicion’ or agreement, in connexion with which a payment of £4 was made to him on 11 November. The next entry, which is undated, runs, ‘P^d vnto my sonne Alleyn for the firste weckes playe the xj parte of xvij^ll ix^s which came to therti & ij shellinges’. There are no further entries of the same kind until the date of a reckoning in February 1602, when Henslowe paid Alleyn 27s. 6d. ‘dew to my sone out of the gallery money’. Probably this was a share of some small residue, the origin of which cannot now be traced. The earlier payment suggests that Alleyn received one full share of the actors’ takings, for, if I am right in supposing that the brothers Jeffes only held half a share each, there would have been just ten sharers besides himself. Or possibly his share may have been limited to the actors’ moiety of the gallery takings, and the outgoings may all have been charged to the receipts from the yard. Certainly Alleyn does not seem to have had any responsibility for these outgoings. His name is never put with those of other sharers to Henslowe’s periodical reckonings, and if his play-books were used, they were bought from him. On the other hand, he sometimes, although not so often as some of his fellows, ‘appointed’ payments, and he received the Court money for the company, alike in 1601, 1602, and 1603. That his share did not pass through Henslowe’s hands after the date of the first instalment is perhaps explained by the assumption that, as the owner and joint occupier with Henslowe of the Fortune, the appointment of a ‘gatherer’ for the gallery money may naturally have fallen to him.