Volume 2 / Book 3 — BOOK III THE COMPANIES (continued 6)

The plague led to an early provincial tour. The company were at Ipswich on 9 May, at Hythe on 16 May, and at New Romney on 17 May 1609. Their winter season was again interfered with, and a further grant was made in respect of six weeks of private practice. Amongst the plays so practised may, I think, have been Cymbeline. They gave thirteen plays at Court on unspecified dates during the holidays of 1609–10.[617] One of these may have been Mucedorus, the edition of which with the imprint 1610 represents a revised version performed at Court on the previous Shrove Sunday. This might be either 18 February 1610 or 3 February 1611. The epilogue contains an apology for some recent indiscretion of the company in a play of which no more is known, but which might conceivably be Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk, since this certainly brought its players into some disgrace. By April the company were at the Globe, playing Macbeth on 20 April, Cymbeline probably shortly before, and Othello on 30 April.[618] To this year I assign The Winter’s Tale and Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy. It also saw the production of Jonson’s Alchemist, with a cast including Burbadge, Lowin, Condell, Cooke, Armin, Heminges, William Ostler, John Underwood, Tooley, and William Ecclestone. This is the last mention of Armin in connexion with the King’s men, but it is sufficient to show that the production of his Two Maids of Moreclack by the King’s Revels about 1608 did not involve any breach with his old company. Of Ecclestone’s origin nothing is known.[619] Ostler and Underwood came from the Queen’s Revels, probably when the Blackfriars was taken over in 1609. In fact an account of the transaction given by the Burbadges in 1635 suggests that the desire to acquire these boys was its fundamental motive. They say:

‘In processe of time, the boyes growing up to bee men, which were Underwood, Field, Ostler, and were taken to strengthen the King’s service; and the more to strengthen the service, the boyes dayly wearing out, it was considered that house would bee as fitt for ourselves, and soe purchased the lease remaining from Evans with our money, and placed men players, which were Heminges, Condall, Shakspeare, &c.’

This narrative seems, however, to have antedated matters as regards Field. Or, if he did come to the King’s men in 1609, he almost immediately returned to the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars, joining the King’s again about 1616.[620]

About 8 May 1610 some superfluous apparel of the company was sold by Heminges on their behalf to the Duke of York’s men (q.v.). On 31 May Burbadge and Rice were employed by the City to make speeches on fish-back at the civic pageant of welcome to Prince Henry.[621] The autumn travelling took the company to Dover between 6 July and 4 August 1610, to Oxford in August, and to Shrewsbury and Stafford in 1609–10. During the following winter they gave fifteen Court plays on unspecified days. They were playing a piece on the story of Richard II, not now extant, at the Globe on 30 April 1611, and A Winter’s Tale on 15 May.[622] During 1611 Jonson’s Catiline was produced, with a cast similar to that of The Alchemist, except that Armin was replaced by Richard Robinson, whose earlier history is unknown. Robinson, playing a female part, and Robert Gough also appear in the stage directions of The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, licensed for the stage by Sir George Buck on 31 October 1611. Gough was probably one of Strange’s men in 1592. He appears in the wills of Pope in 1603 and of Phillips, who was his brother-in-law, in 1605, but with no indication that he belonged to the King’s men. Beaumont and Fletcher’s A King and No King was also licensed by Buck in 1611, and to this year I assign Shakespeare’s Tempest. On 25 August 1611 the interest in the Blackfriars originally intended for Sly was assigned to Ostler. Ecclestone, on the other hand, later in the year than the production of Catiline, but before 29 August, left the company for the Lady Elizabeth’s men.

The only provincial visit by the King’s men recorded in 1610–11 was to Shrewsbury. They gave twenty-two plays at Court during a rather prolonged winter season extending from 31 October 1611 to 26 April 1612. Two of these, on 12 and 13 January, were joint performances with the Queen’s men, and the plays used, Heywood’s Silver Age and Rape of Lucrece, were from the repertory of the latter.[623] The King’s men also gave The Tempest and A Winter’s Tale, A King and No King, Tourneur’s The Nobleman, and The Twins’ Tragedy. On 20 February 1612 the actors’ moiety of the Globe was again redistributed, into sevenths, so as to allow of the admission as a housekeeper of Ostler, who had married a daughter of Heminges. From the statement of the interests held by the parties to this transaction, it is to be inferred that Heminges and Condell had between them bought out since 1608 the representatives of Sly. On 21 April 1612 the company was at New Romney and at some date during 1611–12 at Winchester. Heminges received a payment for services to the Lord Mayor’s pageant of this year, which was Dekker’s Troja Nova Triumphans.[624]

The actor-list attached to The Captain in the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1679 probably belongs to the original production of the play between 1609 and 1612. It names Burbadge, Condell, Cooke, and Ostler. It was one of the plays selected for the Court season of 1612–13, during which, on 14 February, took place the wedding of the Elector Palatine Frederick and the Princess Elizabeth, and which was therefore singularly rich in plays, notwithstanding the interruption of the festivities due to the death of Prince Henry on 7 November 1612. Heminges lent a boy for Chapman’s mask on 15 February. The twenty plays given this winter by the King’s men, the exact dates of which are not upon record, were Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing (performed twice), The Tempest, A Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, Othello, and 1 and 2 Henry IV, Jonson’s Alchemist, Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster (also performed twice), The Maid’s Tragedy, A King and No King, The Captain and the lost play of Cardenio, Tourneur’s Nobleman, and four plays of unknown authorship, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Knot of Fools, The Twins’ Tragedy, and A Bad Beginning Makes a Good Ending. On 8 June there was a special performance of Cardenio for the Savoyan ambassador. Some unknown cause seems to have brought Shakespeare back in 1613 to the assistance of his fellows, and he collaborated with Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen and in Henry VIII or All is True, possibly a revision of the Buckingham which formed part of the repertory of Sussex’s men in 1594. During a performance of Henry VIII, on 29 June 1613, the Globe was burnt to the ground. Some contemporary verses mention Burbadge, Heminges, and Condell as present on this occasion. A levy was called for from the housekeepers to meet the cost of rebuilding, and owing to the inability of the representatives of Augustine Phillips to meet the call upon them, Heminges was enabled to recover one of the alienated interests, which he divided with Condell.

The company was at Oxford before November in 1613, and also visited Shrewsbury, Stafford, and Folkestone during 1612–13. They played sixteen times at Court in the winter of 1613–14, on 1, 4, 5, 15, and 16 November and 27 December 1613, and on 1, 4, and 10 January, 2, 4, 8, 10, and 18 February and 6 and 8 March 1614. The rebuilding of the Globe was complete by 30 June 1614, and in the course of 1613–14 the company visited Coventry. Cooke died in February 1614, being then a sharer. Ostler died on 16 December, and his interests in the Globe and Blackfriars became matter of dispute between his widow and her father, John Heminges. The ascertained dates of Ostler’s career render it possible to assign to 1609–14, the period of his connexion with the King’s men, three plays in which he took part. These are Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, at the first production of which, if the actor-list of the 1623 edition is rightly interpreted, the parts of Ferdinand, the Cardinal, and Antonio were played respectively by Burbadge, Condell, and Ostler, Fletcher’s Valentinian, played by Burbadge, Condell, Lowin, Ostler, and Underwood, and his Bonduca, played by Burbadge, Condell, Lowin, Ostler, Underwood, Tooley, Ecclestone, and Robinson. Bonduca must be either earlier than Ecclestone’s departure for the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1611, or after he quitted that company and presumably rejoined the King’s in 1613.

The King’s men gave eight plays at Court on unspecified days during the winter of 1614–15. On 29 March 1615 they were in trouble with other companies for playing in Lent, and Heminges and Burbadge appeared on their behalf before the Privy Council. In April 1615 they were at Nottingham. They gave fourteen plays at Court between 1 November 1615 and 1 April 1616, and again the precise dates are not specified. They also appeared before Anne at Somerset House on 21 December 1615.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, and with this event I must close my detailed chronicle of the fortunes of the company. A new patent was issued to them on 27 March 1619, probably to secure their right to perform in the Blackfriars, which was being challenged by the action of the City.[625] Since 1603 Shakespeare, Phillips, Sly, Cowley, Armin, and Fletcher have dropped out of the list, and are replaced by Lowin, Underwood, Tooley, Ecclestone, Gough, and Robinson, together with Nathan Field, Robert Benfield, and John Shank, who now appear for the first time as members of the company.[626] Benfield and Field are last traceable with the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1613 and 1615 respectively, Shank with the Palsgrave’s men in 1613. The only names common to both patents are those of Burbadge, Heminges, and Condell. But in fact Burbadge died on 13 March 1619, while the patent was going through its stages, and his place was almost immediately taken by Joseph Taylor, from Prince Charles’s men. About the same time Field left the company.[627] Heminges, described as ‘stuttering’ in 1613, cannot be shown to have acted since the Catiline of 1611. He had probably devoted himself to the business management of the company, in which he always appears prominent. Condell also seems to have given up acting about 1619, and during the rest of the history of the company up to its extinction in 1642, its mainstays were Lowin and Taylor, who became depositaries of the tradition of the great Shakespearian parts. John Downes, who was prompter to the Duke of York’s men after the Restoration, relates how, when Betterton played Hamlet, ‘Sir William [Davenant] (having seen Mr. Taylor of the Black-Fryers Company Act it, who being instructed by the Author Mr. Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every Particle of it’; and how Davenant was similarly able to act as Betterton’s tutor for Henry the Eighth, for he ‘had it from Old Mr. Lowen, that had his Instructions from Mr. Shakespear himself’.[628] When Heminges and Condell came to print Shakespeare’s plays in 1623, they prefixed ‘the names of the principall Actors in all these playes’ as follows: ‘William Shakespeare, Richard Burbadge, John Hemmings, Augustine Phillips, William Kempt, Thomas Poope, George Bryan, Henry Condell, William Slye, Richard Cowly, John Lowine, Samuell Crosse, Alexander Cooke, Samuel Gilburne, Robert Armin, William Ostler, Nathan Field, John Underwood, Nicholas Tooley, William Ecclestone, Joseph Taylor, Robert Benfield, Robert Goughe, Richard Robinson, John Shancke, John Rice.’ The order is a little puzzling. The first ten entries may be those of the original members of the Chamberlain’s company in 1594; and if so, their order does not matter. But it is difficult to believe that the other sixteen can represent either the order in which the men began to play for the company, or the order in which they became sharers. Of course, there may have been comings and goings known to Heminges and Condell, but not now traceable. Thus Field and even Taylor may have come for a short while and gone again before 1611. But it seems impossible that Tooley, who was ‘fellow’ to Phillips in 1605, could really have been junior to the recruits from the Queen’s Revels in 1609. On the whole, one must suppose that, if Heminges and Condell aimed at an exact chronology, their memory occasionally failed them. The omission from the Folio of Duke, Beeston, Sincler, and Sands may indicate that the list is confined to sharers. It is probable that Fletcher, who is also omitted, was not a sharer and did not act in any Shakespearian play.

xxi. THE EARL OF WORCESTER’S AND QUEEN ANNE’S MEN

William Somerset, nat. 1526; succ. as 3rd Earl of Worcester, 1548; m. Christian, d. of Edward, 1st Lord North; ob. 22 Feb. 1589.

Edward Somerset, s. of William; nat. 1553; Lord Herbert of Chepstow; succ. as 4th Earl, 1589; m. Elizabeth, d. of Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon; Deputy Master of the Horse, Dec. 1597; Master of the Horse, 21 Apr. 1601; Earl Marshal, 1603; Lord Privy Seal, 2 Jan. 1616; ob. 3 Mar. 1628.

Henry Somerset, s. of Edward; nat. 1577; Lord Herbert of Chepstow from 1589; m. 16 June 1600, Anne, d. of John, Lord Russell; succ. as 5th Earl, 1628; cr. 1st Marquis of Worcester, 1642.

Anne, d. of Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway; nat. 12 Dec. 1574; m. James VI, King of Scotland, 20 Aug. 1589; Queen Consort of England, 24 Mar. 1603; ob. 2 Mar. 1619.

[Bibliographical Note.—The records of Worcester’s men in 1602–3 are printed and discussed by W. W. Greg in Henslowe’s Diary (1904–8). The will of Thomas Greene (1612) was printed by J. Greenstreet in the Athenaeum (29 August 1895), and the Bill, Answer, and Orders in the Chancery suit of Worth et al. v. Baskerville et al. (1623–6) by the same in the Athenaeum (11 July and 29 August 1885) and N. S. S. Trans. (1880–6), 489. Both are reprinted in Fleay, 192, 271. The Court of Requests suit of Smith v. Beeston et al. (1619–20) is printed by C. W. Wallace in Nebraska University Studies, ix. 315.]

The first company under the patronage of this house had a long and wholly provincial career.[629] The earliest record of it is at Barnstaple in 1555. On 10 October 1563 it was at Leicester. On 13 and 14 January 1565 it was at Sir George Vernon’s, Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, under the leadership of one Hamond.[630] It is further traceable in December 1565 at Newcastle, before Michaelmas 1566 at Leicester, in 1567–8 at Gloucester, in 1568–9 at Ipswich, Stratford-on-Avon, and Bath, on 11 August 1569 at Nottingham, in 1569–70 and 1570–1 at Gloucester and Barnstaple, in 1571 at Leicester and Beverley, on 9 January 1572 at Nottingham, before Michaelmas at Leicester, on 31 December 1572 at Wollaton, Notts. (Francis Willoughby’s), on 6 January 1573 at Nottingham, in 1572–3 at Bath, in 1573–4 at Abingdon, and in January 1574 at Wollaton again. As the Earl of Worcester’s eldest son bore the courtesy title of Lord Herbert, it is probably the same company which appeared at Leicester, after Michaelmas in 1574, as ‘Lorde Harbards’. But it is named as Worcester’s again in 1574–5 at Stratford-on-Avon, on 28 April 1575 at Nottingham, and after Michaelmas in the same year at Leicester, in 1575–6 at Coventry, in 1576–7 at Stratford-on-Avon and Bath, and on 14 June 1577 at Southampton, where it consisted of ten men. On 19 January 1578 it was at Nottingham, in 1577–8 at Coventry, in 1580–1 and 1581–2 at Stratford-on-Avon, in 1581–2 at Abingdon, on 15 June 1582 at Ipswich, in the same year at Doncaster.

Two incidents in successive years suggest that Worcester’s men were not always quite so amenable, as vagrants should have been, to municipal discipline. The first was at Norwich on 7 June 1583. Here there was a fear of plague, and the company were given 26s. 8d., on a promise not to play. In spite of this they played in their host’s house. The Corporation ordered ‘that their lord shall be certified of their contempt’, and that they should never again receive reward in Norwich, and should presently depart the town on pain of imprisonment. It was afterwards agreed, however, on submission and earnest entreaty, not to report the misdemeanour to the Earl of Worcester. The second occasion was in the following March in Leicester, and the entries in the Corporation archives are so interesting as to deserve reproduction in full.[631]

M^r Mayor M^r J. Tatam M^r Morton.

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

The which indenture is dated the vj^th daie of Februarye in the xxv^th yere of her Maiesties raign &c.

In which Indenture there ys one article that all Justices, Maiores, Sherifs, Bayllyfs, Constables, and all other her officers, ministers & subiects whatsoeuer to be aydinge & assistinge vnto the said Edmund Tilneye, his Deputies & Assignes, attendinge & havinge due regard vnto suche parsons as shall disorderly intrude themselves into any the doings and actions before mencioned, not beinge reformed, qualifyed & bound to the orders prescribed by the said Edmund Tyllneye. These shalbee therefore not only to signifye & geve notice vnto all & euery her said Justices &c. that none of there owne pretensed aucthoritye intrude themselves & presume to showe forth any suche playes, enterludes, tragedies, comodies, or shewes in any places within this Realm, withoute the orderlye allowance thereof vnder the hand of the sayd Edmund.

Nota. No play is to bee played, but suche as is allowed by the sayd Edmund, & his hand at the latter end of the said booke they doe play.

The forsed Haysell is nowe the chefe playor &c.

Fridaye the 6 of Marche.

Certen players came before M^r Mayor at the Hall there beinge present M^r John Tatam, M^r George Tatam, M^r Morton & M^r Worship: who sayed they were the Earle of Wosters men: who sayd the forsyd playors were not lawfully aucthorysed, & that they had taken from them there commyssion, but it is untrue, for they forgat there box at the Inne in Leicester, & so these men gat yt & they sed the syd Haysell was not here hymself and they sent the same to Grantom to the syd Haysell who dwellith there.

William Earle of Worcester &c. hath by his wrytinge dated the 14 of Januarye Anno 25^o Eliz. Reginae licensed his Seruants viz. Robert Browne, James Tunstall, Edward Allen, William Harryson, Thomas Cooke, Rychard Johnes, Edward Browne, Rychard Andrewes to playe & goe abrode, vsinge themselves orderly &c. (in theise words &c.) These are therefore to require all suche her Highnes offycers to whom these presents shall come, quietly & frendly within your severall presincts & corporacions to permytt & suffer them to passe with your furtherance vsinge & demeanynge themselves honestly & to geve them (the rather for my sake) suche intertaynement as other noble mens players haue (In Wytnes &c.)

M^r Mayor

M^r Jo. Heyrycke

M^r Noryce

M^r Ja. Clarke

M^r George Tatam

M^r Morton

M^r Rob^t Heyrycke

M^r Ellys

M^r Newcome.

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

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

More, these men, contrary to M^r Mayors comandment, went with their drum & trumppytts thorowe the Towne, in contempt of M^r Mayor, neyther wold come at his comandment, by his offycer, viz. Worship.

William Pateson my lord Harbards man these ij

Thomas Powlton my lord of Worcesters man

were they which dyd so much abuse M^r Mayor in the aforesayd words.

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

The latter part of this record is intelligible enough; evidently there was a repetition of the misrule at Norwich. But the earlier part, which refers to a different matter altogether, is distinctly puzzling. The ‘theys’ in the first sentence of the Corporation minute of 6 March are complicated, and it has sometimes been supposed that there was really a company of Master of the Revels’ men, and that it was Worcester’s men who questioned the licence of these.[632] On the whole, I think that a different interpretation of the documents is the more natural one. No doubt Worcester’s men had found it necessary, as a result of the powers granted to Tilney as Master of the Revels by the patent of 24 December 1581, to renew the authority under which they travelled. In addition to a fresh warrant from their lord licensing them to travel as his household servants, and dated 14 January 1583, they obtained on the following 6 February a further licence from Tilney, issued under the clause of his commission which appointed him to ‘order and reforme, auctorise and put downe’ all players in any part of England, whether they were ‘belonginge to any noble man’ or otherwise.[633] This licence, but not the other, they left at their inn in Leicester, while passing through on some previous occasion; and here it was found by some unlicensed players, who appropriated it, and either through misunderstanding or through fraud, imposed it upon the Corporation as an instrument constituting a Master of the Revels’ company. There are two difficulties in this theory. One is that George Haysell, to whom Tilney’s licence was issued, is not one of the actors named in the Earl of Worcester’s warrant. But there are other cases in which the constitution of a company in the eyes of its lord was not quite the same as its constitution from the point of view of business relations, and I should suppose that Haysell, who was evidently not himself acting at the time, was the financier of the enterprise, and gave the bonds which Tilney would probably require for the satisfaction of the covenants of his indenture of licence. The other difficulty is that Leicester is not the only place in which the presence of a Master of the Revels’ company is recorded. Such a company was at Ludlow on 7 December 1583 and at Bath in 1583–4.[634] But, after all, this need mean no more than that the bogus company kept up their fraud for two or three months before they were exposed. If Tilney had really started a company of his own, it might have been expected to have a longer life. The establishment in 1583 of the Queen’s men makes it the less probable that he did so.

The list of this provincial company, as it stood in January 1583, is interesting, because at least four of its members, Robert Browne, Richard Jones, James Tunstall, and above all Edward Alleyn, then only a lad of sixteen, were destined to take a considerable share in the stage history of the future. Edward Browne, too, was afterwards one of the Admiral’s men. Of the rest, William Harrison, Thomas Cooke, Richard Andrewes, as well as of George Haysell (cf. ch. xv) and of the two players who were not named in the warrant, Thomas Powlton and William Pateson, Lord Herbert’s man, nothing or practically nothing further is known.[635] It is possible that the escapades of the company at Norwich and Leicester came, after all, to Worcester’s ears and aroused his displeasure. Visits are recorded to Coventry and Stratford in 1583–4, to Maidstone in 1584–5, to York in March 1585, and thereafter no more. It is also possible that the company passed from Worcester’s service into that of Lord Howard, when the latter became Lord Admiral in 1585. If so, a conveyance by Richard Jones to Edward Alleyn on 3 January 1589 of his share in a stock of apparel, play-books, and so forth, held jointly with Edward and John Alleyn and Robert Browne, must relate, not to a break up of Worcester’s men shortly before the death of the third earl, but to some internal change in the organization of the Admiral’s men.[636] In any case Mr. Fleay’s theory that Worcester’s men, other than Alleyn, became Pembroke’s in 1589 and only joined the Admiral’s in 1594 is quite gratuitous, as there is no evidence of the existence of Pembroke’s men before 1592.[637] Whether there was a Worcester’s company or not from 1585 to 1589, there was certainly one after the accession of the fourth earl. It is traceable at Coventry in 1589–90, at Newcastle in October 1590, at Leicester during the last three months of the same year, at Coventry and Faversham in 1590–1, at Leicester on 26 June 1591 and again in the last three months of the year, at Coventry and Shrewsbury in 1591–2, at Ipswich in 1592–3, twice at Leicester in 1593, both before and after Michaelmas, twice at Bath in 1593–4, at Leicester before Michaelmas in 1595, at Ludlow on 3 December 1595, at Bath in 1595–6, at Leicester on 1 August 1596, at Bristol in August 1598, at York in April 1599, and at Coventry on 3 January 1600 and in 1600–1 and 1601–2.[638]

By the end of 1601 the Earl of Worcester was holding the Mastership of the Horse and other important offices at Court, and may have thought it consonant with his dignity to have London players under his patronage. On 3 January 1602 his company was at Court. On 31 March the Privy Council, after attempting for some years to limit the number of London companies to two, made an order that Oxford’s and Worcester’s men, ‘beinge ioyned by agrement togeather in on companie’, should be allowed to play at the Boar’s Head and nowhere else.[639] In the course of 1602 How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad was published as played by Worcester’s men. By 17 August the company were in relations, under the style of ‘my lorde of Worsters players’, with Henslowe, who opened an account of advances made for their play-books and apparel, on the same lines as that which he kept during 1597–1603 with the Admiral’s men.[640] An early entry is of 9s. for a supper ‘at the Mermayd when we weare at owre a grement’. The account was continued until the spring of 1603, when Henslowe’s famous diary was disused. No theatre is named, but it is probable that, with or without leave from the Privy Council, the company moved to the Rose, which had been vacated by the Admiral’s men on the opening of the Fortune in 1600. Certainly this was so by May 1603, when an acquittance for an advance entered in the account refers to a play to be written for ‘the Earle of Worcesters players at the Rose’.[641] There is no complete list of the company in the diary. The names of those members incidentally mentioned, as authorizing payments or otherwise, are John Duke, Thomas Blackwood, William Kempe, John Thare, John Lowin, Thomas Heywood, Christopher Beeston, Robert Pallant, and a Cattanes whose first name is not preserved. The payees for the performance of 1601–2 were Kempe and Heywood. One Underell was in receipt of wages from the company, together with a tireman, who made purchases of stuffs for them. It is impossible to say which of these men had been with Worcester’s and which with Oxford’s before the amalgamation. Heywood, who was playwright as well as actor, had written for the Admiral’s from 1596 to 1599, and had bound himself to play in Henslowe’s house for two years from 25 March 1598. Pallant had been with Strange’s or the Admiral’s in 1590–1, and Duke, Kempe, and Beeston with the Chamberlain’s in 1598. Since then Kempe had travelled abroad, returning in September 1601. It is little more than a guess that some of these men may have played with Henslowe as Pembroke’s.[642] Several members of the company borrowed money from Henslowe, in some cases before their connexion with the Rose began. Duke had a loan as early as 21 September 1600, and Kempe on 10 March 1602.[643] Blackwood and Lowin borrowed on 12 March 1603 to go into the country with the company.[644] This was, no doubt, when playing in London was suspended owing to the illness of Elizabeth. A loan for a similar purpose was made on the same day to Richard Perkins, and suggests that he too was already one of Worcester’s men. There is, indeed, an earlier note of 4 September 1602 connecting him with one Dick Syferweste, whose fellows were then in the country, while Worcester’s were, of course, at the Rose. But this itself makes it clear that he was interested in a play of Heywood’s, which can hardly be other than that then in preparation at the Rose, and perhaps Syferwest was an unfortunate comrade in Oxford’s or Worcester’s, who had been left out at the reconstruction.[645]

During the seven months of the account Worcester’s men bought twelve new plays. These were:

A Medicine for a Curst Wife (Dekker).

Albere Galles (Heywood and Smith).

Marshal Osric (Heywood and Smith).

The Three Brothers (Smith).[646]

1 Lady Jane, or, The Overthrow of Rebels[647] (Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, Smith, and Webster).

Christmas Comes but Once a Year (Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and Webster).

1 The Black Dog of Newgate (Day, Hathaway, Smith, and another).

The Blind Eats Many a Fly (Heywood).

The Unfortunate General (Day, Hathaway, and Smith).

2 The Black Dog of Newgate (Day, Hathaway, Smith, and another).

A Woman Killed with Kindness (Heywood).

The Italian Tragedy (Smith).

As a rule the price was £6 a play; occasionally £1 or £2 more. Dekker had 10s. ‘over & above his price of’ A Medicine for a Curst Wife. This had originally been begun for the Admiral’s and was evidently transferred to Worcester’s by arrangement. After buying 2 Black Dog of Newgate for £7, the company apparently did not like it, and paid £2 more for ‘adycyones’. It is possible to verify from the purchase of properties the performance of nine of the twelve plays. These are Albere Galles (September), The Three Brothers (October), Marshal Osric (November), 1 Lady Jane (November), Christmas Comes but Once a Year (December), 1 Black Dog of Newgate (January), The Unfortunate General (January), 2 Black Dog of Newgate (February), and A Woman Killed with Kindness (March). The production of this last may, however, have been interfered with by Elizabeth’s death. Two plays of the series are extant, A Woman Killed with Kindness, printed in 1607 and described in 1617 as a Queen’s play, and 1 Lady Jane, which may be reasonably identified with Sir Thomas Wyatt, also printed in 1607 as a Queen’s play, and by Dekker and Webster. Dr. Greg regards Mr. Fleay’s identification of Albere Galles with Nobody and Somebody as ‘reasonable’; but it appears to rest on little, except the fact that the latter was also printed as a Queen’s play (S. R. 12 March 1606) and the conjecture that the title of the former might be a corruption of Archigallo. Payments were made in respect of a few contemplated plays, which apparently remained incomplete at the end of the season. These were 2 Lady Jane (Dekker), an unnamed tragedy by Chettle, an unnamed play by Middleton, and another unnamed play by Chettle and Heywood. The company also produced some plays of earlier date. Sir John Oldcastle was presumably transferred to them from the Admiral’s men, for Dekker had £2 10s. in respect of new additions to it in August and September. Heywood also had £1 in September for additions to a play called Cutting Dick, as to the origin of which nothing is known; and properties were bought in October for Byron[648] and for Absalom. Possibly the latter is identical with The Three Brothers. Worcester’s men did not perform at Court in 1602–3, but they must have expected a summons, as on 1 January they bought head-tires of one Mrs. Calle ‘for the corte’. Amongst their tradesmen were also Goodman Freshwater, who supplied ‘a canvas sewt and skenes’, apparently for a stage dog, and John Willett, mercer, on whose arrest John Duke found himself in the Clink at the end of the season. Their expenditure was at a fairly high rate, amounting to a total of £234 11s. 6d. for the seven months. Unlike the Admiral’s men, they spent more on apparel and properties than on play-books. Some of their purchases were costly enough, ‘a grogren clocke, ij veluet gerkens, ij dubletes and ij hed tyres’ from Edward Alleyn for £20, ‘a manes gowne of branshed velluet & a dublett’ from Christopher Beeston for £6, and ‘iiij clothe clockes layd with coper lace’ from Robert Shaw, formerly of the Admiral’s, for £16. On this last transaction they had to allow Henslowe £1 as interest on his money. A ‘flage of sylke’, no doubt for the theatre roof, cost them £1 6s. 8d.[649] In summing his account, Henslowe made various errors, whereby he robbed himself of £1 1s. 3d., and presented a claim to the company for £140 1s. It may be inferred that they had already repaid him £93 12s. 3d., but of this there is no record in the diary. He prepared an acknowledgement to be signed by all the members of the company, but the only signature actually attached is Blackwode’s.

On 9 May 1603 Henslowe notes ‘Begininge to playe agayne by the Kynges licence & layd out sense for my lord of Worsters men as folowethe’; but the only entry is one of £2 paid in earnest to Chettle and Day for a play of Shore’s Wife. If playing was actually resumed, it was not long before the plague drove the companies out of London again, and there is nothing more of Worcester’s men in the diary. Two visits from them are recorded at Leicester in the course of 1603, and two at Coventry and one at Barnstaple, whence they departed without playing, during 1602–3. Early in the new reign the company was taken into the patronage of Queen Anne.[650] This change was probably effected by Christmas, and certainly by 19 February 1604, when John Duke obtained a warrant on account of plays performed before Prince Henry by ‘the Queenes Majesties players’ on the previous 2 and 13 January. The Queen’s men are named in the Privy Council letter permitting the resumption of playing on 9 April 1604, which indicates their house as the Curtain. A list of players is found amongst other ‘officers to the Queene’ receiving four and a half yards of red cloth apiece for the coronation procession of 15 March 1604.[651] The names given are ‘Christopher Beeston, Robert Lee, John Duke, Robert Palante, Richard Purkins, Thomas Haward, James Houlte, Thomas Swetherton, Thomas Grene, and Robert Beeston’. Evidently several leading members had left the company. Kempe was probably dead.[652] Thare and Blackwood were on tour in Germany; Lowin seems to have joined the King’s men. Of Cattanes and Underell no more is known. The same ten names are found in a draft patent for a royal licence to the Queen’s men, of which the text follows:[653]

Iames, by the grace of God kynge of England, Scotland, Fraunce and Irelande, defender of the faith &c: To all Iustices of peace, Maiors, Sherryfes, vicechancellours of any our vniversities, Bailiffes [Constables], headboroughes, [and other our officers] Constables, and to all other our Officers, mynisters and lov[e]inge subiectes to whome it may appertaine Greeting. Knowe yee that wee of our speciall grace, certaine knowledge, and mere motion haue lycensed and awthorised, and by these presentes doe lycence and awthorise Thomas Greene, Christopher Beeston, Thomas Hawood, Richard Pyrkins, Robert Pallant, Iohn Duke, Thomas Swynerton, I[e]ames Ho[u]lt, Robert Beeston, & Robert Lee, servauntes vnto our dearest [and welbeloved] wyfe the Queene Anna, with the rest of there Associates, freely to vse and exercise the art and faculty of playinge Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morralls, Pastoralls, Stage plaies, and such other lyke as they haue already studied, or hereafter shall vse or stud[d]y, as well for the recreacion of our lovinge subiectes as for our solace and pleasure, when wee shall thinke good to see them, during our pleasure; And the said Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morralls, Pastoralls, Stage plaies, and such like, to shew and exercise publikly, when the infeccion of the plague shall decrease to the nomber of thirty weekly within our Citie of London and the liberties therof, aswell within there now vsuall Howsen, called the Curtayne, and the Bores head, within our County of Middlesex, [or] as in any other play howse not vsed by others, by the said Thomas Greene elected, or by him hereafter to be builte, and also within any Towne Halls, or Mouthalls, or other convenyent places, within the liberties and freedomes of any Cittie, vniversitie, Towne, or Boroughe whatsoeuer, within our said Realmes and domynyons: Willing and Commaundinge yowe and euerie of yowe, as you tender our pleasure, not only to permytt and suffer them [herein] to vse and exercise the said art of playinge without any your Lettes hinderaunces or molestacions, duringe our said pleasure, but also to be aydinge and assistinge vnto them, yf any wronge be to them offered, and to allow them such [former] curtesies, as hath heretofore bene given vnto any men of theire qualitie: [And also what further favour, any of our subiectes shall shew to theise our deare and loveinge wyfes servauntes, for our sake, wee shall take kyndly at your handes. Yeouen at the daye of In the yere of our Raygne of England: &c:]

Gyuen &c.

[Endorsed] The Quenes Plaiers.

This draft is undated. But it was prepared during a plague, and located the Queen’s men at the Boar’s Head; and as they may reasonably be supposed to have exchanged the Boar’s Head for the Red Bull (q.v.) before the plague of 1606 began, it may be conjecturally assigned to that of 1603–4. Probably it never passed the Great Seal, for if it had there would have been no necessity, so far as one can judge, for a later patent of 15 April 1609, which is on the rolls, and which closely follows the earlier draft in its terms, except that it omits the reference to the plague, names the Red Bull instead of the Boar’s Head as one of the company’s regular houses, and adds a saving clause for the rights of the Master of the Revels. Here is the text:[654]

De concessione licentie Thome Greene et aliis.

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices, Mayors, Sheriffes, Baylieffes, Constables, head-borrowes and other our Officers and lovinge Subiectes Greetinge. Knowe yee that wee of our especiall grace certayne knowledge and meere mocion have lycenced and aucthorised and by these presentes doe lycence and aucthorize Thomas Greene, Christofer Beeston, Thomas Haywood, Richard Pirkyns, Richard Pallant, Thomas Swinnerton, Iohn Duke, Robert Lee, Iames Haulte, and Roberte Beeston, Servantes to our moste deerely beloved wiefe Queene Anne, and the reste of theire Associates, to vse and exercise the arte and faculty of playinge Comedies, Tragedies, historyes, Enterludes, Moralles, Pastoralles, Stageplayes and suche other like, as they have already studied or heareafter shall vse or studye, aswell for the recreacion of our loving Subiectes as for our solace and pleasure when wee shall thinke good to see them, during our pleasure. And the said Comedies, Tragedies, histories, Enterludes, Moralles, Pastoralles, Stageplayes and suche like to shewe and exercise publiquely and openly to theire beste commoditye, aswell within theire nowe vsuall houses called the Redd Bull in Clarkenwell and the Curtayne in Hallowell, as alsoe within anye Towne halles, Mouthalles and other convenient places within the libertye and freedome of any other Citty, vniuersitye, Towne or Boroughe whatsoever within our Realmes and Domynions. Willing and Commaundinge you and every of you, as you tender our pleasure, not only to permitt and suffer them herein without any your lettes hinderances or molestacions during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be aydinge [and] assistinge vnto them, yf anye wronge be to them offered, and to allowe them suche former curtesies as hath byn given to men of theire place and qualitye, and alsoe what favoure you shall shewe to them for our sake wee shall take kyndly at your handes. Prouided alwaies and our will and pleasure is that all aucthoritye, power, priuiledges, and profyttes whatsoeuer belonginge and properly appertayninge to Master of Revelles in respecte of his Office and everye Cause, Article or graunte contayned within the lettres Patentes or Commission, which have byn heretofore graunted or directed by the late Queene Elizabeth our deere Sister or by our selues to our welbeloued Servant Edmond Tylney Master of the Office of our said Revelles or to Sir George Bucke knighte or to eyther of them in possession or revercion, shalbe remayne and abyde entyer and full in effecte, force, estate and vertue as ample sorte as if this our Commission had never byn made. In witnes wherof &c. Witnes our selfe at Westminster the fifteenth daye of Aprill.

per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

It will be observed that the documents quoted disclose no change in the composition of the Queen’s official servants between 1604 and 1609. But the question of personnel is not really quite so simple as this, since the members of a company under a trade agreement were not always the same as those named in the authority under which it performed. Before discussing this complication, it will be simplest first to set out separately the notices of the Queen’s men, which have been preserved in London and in provincial records respectively.

Queen’s men played at Court on 30 December 1605, in Heywood’s How to Learn of a Woman to Woo, which is not extant. They played also on 27 December 1606. For both years their payee was, as in 1604, John Duke. During 1607 Dekker and Webster’s Sir Thomas Wyatt and Day, Wilkins, and Rowley’s Travels of Three English Brothers were printed with their name on the title-pages. The latter play, according to the entry of 29 June 1607 in the Stationers’ Register, was acted at the Curtain. But it is shown by a passage in The Knight of the Burning Pestle to have been also on the stage of the Red Bull. In this house Thomas Swinnerton, one of the men named in the patents, acquired an interest between 24 March 1605 and 23 March 1606, and all the evidence is in favour of a continuous sojourn of Queen’s men there until 1617. The first quarto of Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness, also printed in 1607, does not bear their name, but it is on that of the ‘third edition’ of 1617. They are not named as playing at Court during the winter of 1607–8, but in the course of 1608 Heywood’s Rape of Lucrece was printed, as played by them at the Red Bull. They gave five plays at Court in the winter of 1608–9, one on 27 December 1609, three on 10 and one on 27 December 1610. Heywood’s Golden Age was printed, as played by them at the Red Bull, in 1611. The Court records of 1611–12 are a little confused.[655] But they appear to have played Cooke’s City Gallant on 27 December, his Tu Quoque, which is in fact the same play, on 2 February, to have joined with the King’s men in performances of Heywood’s Silver Age and Rape of Lucrece on 12 and 13 January, and to have played unnamed pieces on 21 and 23 January. From 1609 to 1612 their payee was Thomas Greene. Webster’s White Devil and Dekker’s If It be not Good, the Devil is in It, were printed as theirs in 1612, the former with a laudation of the acting of ‘my freind Maister Perkins’, the latter as played at the Red Bull. They did not play at Court during the winter of 1612–13, but did on 24 December 1613 and 5 January 1614. Tu Quoque was printed as theirs in 1614. In the winter of 1614–15 they gave three plays at Court. Heywood’s Four Prentices of London was printed in 1615 as played by them at the Red Bull, and their name is also on The Honest Lawyer, registered on 14 August 1615 and printed in 1616. They gave four plays at Court during the winter of 1615–16. For all their Court plays from 1613–16 Robert Lee was payee, but Ellis Worth replaces him for a Somerset House performance before Queen Anne on 17 December 1615. When they were called with other companies before the Privy Council on 29 March 1615 to answer for playing in Lent, they were represented by Lee and Christopher Beeston. The records of the Middlesex justices contain a note of 4 October 1616 that Beeston and the rest of the players at the Red Bull were in arrears to the extent of £5 on an annual rate of £2 agreed to by them for the repair of the highways.

Provincial visits of Queen’s men are recorded in November 1605 at Dover; in 1605 at Leicester; in 1605–6 at Bath, Coventry, Saffron Walden, and Weymouth; on 25 July 1606 at Ipswich; on 4 September 1606 at Ludlow; in 1606 at York; in 1606–7 at Bath (twice), Coventry, Exeter, and Ipswich; on 14 August 1607 at Oxford; on 12 September 1607 at Belvoir (Earl of Rutland’s);[656] in 1607 at Barnstaple, Leicester, and Reading; in 1607–8 at Coventry, Oxford, Reading, and Shrewsbury; on 6 June and 26 September 1608 at Leicester;[657] in 1608–9 at Coventry,[658] Marlborough, and Shrewsbury; between 8 July and 9 August 1609 at Dover; on 15 October 1609 at Norwich; in 1609 at Canterbury; in 1609–10 at Shrewsbury and Stafford; about 23 March 1610 at Maidstone; on 2 November 1610 at Ipswich; on 31 December 1610 at Leicester; in 1610–11 at Shrewsbury and Southampton; on 27 February 1611 (for a week) at Norwich; between 11 April and 9 May and between 29 August and 29 September 1612 at Dover; on 14 June and 26 October 1612 at Leicester; in 1611–12 at Saffron Walden; in 1612–13 at Barnstaple, Coventry (perhaps twice), and Ipswich; on 18 February 1613 at Marlborough; on 16 March 1613 at Leicester; between 13 April and 15 May 1613 at Dover; on 2 November 1613 at Marlborough; on 22 December 1613 at Leicester; in 1613–14 at Saffron Walden, Marlborough, Oxford, and Shrewsbury; on 27 April 1614 (for three days) at Norwich;[659] between 3 and 29 September 1614 at Dover; in 1614–15 at Barnstaple and Doncaster (perhaps twice); on 15 April 1615 at Coventry; in April or May 1615 at Leicester; on 6 May 1615 at Norwich;[660] on 16 October 1615 and again later in 1615 and on 22 February 1616 at Leicester;[661] on 7 November 1615 at Marlborough; in 1615–16 at Barnstaple, Dunwich (thrice), Southampton, and Weymouth; in January 1616 at Nottingham; between 20 January and 17 February 1616 and between 11 May and 8 June at Dover; on 17 February 1616 at Coventry; on 22 February 1616 at Leicester; between 1 and 6 April (four days) and on 29 May 1616 at Norwich;[662] on 26 October 1616 at Marlborough; and on 6 February 1617 and again later in 1617 at Leicester.[663]

There were thus tours in each year, which sometimes extended over periods during which the London theatres must have been open. The Leicester notices of 1608, 1615, and 1617 suggest that more than one company was at work, and the explanation certainly is that some of the players named in the patent, instead of joining the London organization, had recourse to making up companies of their own for provincial purposes. Of this there is further evidence. The Southampton archives contain a copy of the following warrant from Queen Anne herself, dated on 7 March 1606:[664]

‘Warrant from the Queenes Majestie of her Players. Anna Regina. Anne by the grace of God Queene of England, Scottland, Fraunce, and Ireland. To all Justices of the Peace, Maiors, Sheriffs, Bayliffes, and all other his Majestes Officers and loving subiectes to whom yt shall or may appertaine greetinge, Know yee that of our speciall grace and favour, Wee are well pleased to authorize under our hand and signett the bearers hereof our sworne servauntes Robert Lee, Martin Statier and Roger Barfield with theyr fellowes and associates being our Commedians vppon theyr humble Suite unto us for theyr better mainetenaunce, Yf att annie time they should have occasion to travell into anie parte of his Majestes Dominions to playe Tragedyes, historyes, commedies and pastoralls as well in anie about the Cittye of London, and in all other cittyes vniversities and townes at all time anie times (the time of divine seruice onlye excepted) Theise are therefore to will and requier you uppon the sight hereofe quiettlye and favourably with your best favours, to permitt and suffer them, to use theyr sayd qualitye within your Jurisdiccions without anie of your molestacions or troubles, and also to affourd them your Townehalls and all other such places as att anie time have been used by men of theyr qualitye, That they maye be in the better readiness for our seruise when they shalbe thereunto commaunded, Nott doubtinge butt that our sayd servauntes shall find the more favour for our sake in your best assistaunce, Wherein you shall doe unto us acceptable pleasure. Given att the Court of Whitehall, the seaventh daye of Marche 1605.’

Of these three men, Lee, and Lee alone, appears in the London lists of 1603, 1604, and 1609. Of Barfield’s career nothing more is known. Martin Slater, whose name can be divined under that of Statier, had left the Admiral’s in 1597. He was probably in Scotland during 1599, and if so his patronage by Anne may be analogous to the patronage by James, which brought Laurence Fletcher’s name into the King’s men’s patent. In 1603 he was payee for Hertford’s men. Presumably the enterprise of 1606 did not last long, for in the spring of 1608 Slater became manager for the King’s Revels. His place in the provinces may have been taken by Thomas Swinnerton, who was leading a company of Queen’s men at Coventry in 1608–9, and whose departure from the London company is perhaps indicated by the fact that at about the same time he sold a share, which he had held in the house of the Red Bull. Swinnerton was travelling again in 1614–16 and using an exemplification of the patent of 1609. In 1616 he was accompanied by Robert Lee, who for two years before had been acting as payee for the London company. Lee came again with the exemplification to Norwich on 31 May 1617, and it was then noted to have been taken out on 7 January 1612. A few days later, on 4 June 1617, a copy was entered in the Norwich court books of a warrant by the Lord Chamberlain of 16 July 1616, condemning the use of such exemplifications, and specifying amongst others two taken out by Thomas Swinnerton and Martin Slater, ‘beinge two of the Queens Maiesties company of Playors hauing separated themselves from their said Company’.[665] Slater had, therefore, returned to the provincial field, and there were now two travelling companies of Queen’s men. I take it that in 1617 the Lord Chamberlain succeeded in suppressing them, and that the Queen’s men who continued to appear in the provinces up to Anne’s death on 2 March 1619 were the London company.[666] Lee joined the Queen’s Revels as reorganized under a licence of 31 October 1617. Slater, about the same time, joined the Children of Bristol, for whom, with John Edmonds and Nathaniel Clay, he got letters of assistance in April 1618. In these all three are described as her Majesty’s servants. Swinnerton apparently succeeded in keeping on foot a company of his own, which visited Leicester in 1619.[667] The Bristol company was in fact under Anne’s patronage, but Lee and Swinnerton, no less than Slater and Edmonds, remained technically the Queen’s servants, and are included with the London men in a list of the players who received mourning at her funeral on 13 May 1619.[668] These were Robert Lee, Richard Perkins, Christopher Beeston, Robert Pallant, Thomas Heywood, James Holt, Thomas Swinnerton, Martin Slater, Ellis Wroth, John Comber, Thomas Basse, John Blaney, William Robinson, John Edmonds, Thomas Drewe, Gregory Sanderson, and John Garret.

The list of seventeen names includes seven of the ten patentees of 1609. I do not know what had become of John Duke and Robert Beeston. Thomas Greene had died in August 1612, having made on 25 July a will, amongst the witnesses to which were Christopher Beeston, Heywood, and Perkins. The disposal of his property led many years afterwards to a lawsuit, which gives valuable information as to both the personnel and the organization of the London company. After providing for his family and making some small legacies, including one to John Cumber, and 40s. to ‘my fellowes of the house of the Redd Bull, to buy gloves for them’, he left the residue to his widow and executrix, Susanna Greene, formerly wife of one Browne.[669] In June 1613 she took a third husband, James Baskervile. The following is her account in 1623 of certain transactions with the company. Shortly before Greene’s death had died George Pulham, a ‘half sharer’ in the company, which is described as being in 1612 ‘the companie of the actors or players of the late queenes majestie Queene Anne, then vsuallie frequentinge and playinge att the signe of the Redd Bull in St. Johns Street, in Clerkenwell parishe, in the county of Middlesex’. His representatives received £40 from the company in respect of his half-share. This was under an agreement formerly made amongst the company ‘concerninge the part and share of euerie one of the sharers and half sharers of the said companie according to the rate and proporcion of their shares or half shares in that behalfe’. Under the same agreement Susanna Greene, whose husband was ‘one of the principall and cheif persons of the said companie, and a full adventurer, storer and sharer of in and amongst them’, claimed £80, together with £37 laid out by him before his death in ‘diuers necessarie prouisions’ for the company. In order to get satisfaction she had to appeal to Viscount Lisle, Chamberlain of the Queen’s Household, ‘who hadd a kind of gouernment and suruey ouer the said players’. It was arranged that Mrs. Greene should receive a half-share in the profits until the debt was paid. By the time, however, of her marriage with Baskervile, she had only received £6. In June 1615 negotiations took place between the Baskerviles and the company, who then included Worth, Perkins, and Christopher Hutchinson, alias Beeston, by which the Baskerviles agreed to invest £57 10s. in the enterprise and to accept in discharge of their claims a pension for their joint lives of 1s. 8d. a day ‘for euerye of sixe daies in the weeke wherin they should play’. The company defaulted, and in June 1616 a second settlement was made, whereby the Baskerviles invested another £38, a further pension of 2s. a day was established, and the life of Susan’s son, Francis Browne (or Baskervile), was substituted for her husband’s. The players were Christopher Beeston, Thomas Heywood, Ellis Worth, John Cumber, John Blaney, Francis Walpole, Robert Reynolds, William Robins, Thomas Drewe, and Emanuel Read.[670] Again they defaulted, and moreover fell into arrear for the wages of another of Susan Baskervile’s sons, William Browne, who played with them as a hired man. A third settlement, reassuring the pensions, and substituting William Browne for Francis, who was now dead, was made on 3 June 1617, when the company were ‘now comme, or shortlie to comme from the said Playhowse called the Redd Bull to the Playhowse in Drurie Lane called the Cockpitt’; and to this the parties, so far as the company were concerned, were Beeston, Heywood, Worth, Cumber, Walpole, Blaney, Robins, and Drewe. Apparently Reynolds and Read, and also Perkins and Thomas Basse, although their names were recited in the deed, refused to seal. Some further light is thrown on this by allegations of Worth, Cumber, and Blaney, in opposition to those of Mrs. Baskervile in 1623. The company of 1617 contained some members ‘new come into’ it, ‘which were of other companyes at the tyme of graunting the first annuity’. The terms of the agreement were carefully looked into, and were found to bind the company to procure the subscription of any future new members to its terms. This was inconsistent with a proviso of 1616 that the pensions should only last so long as four of those then signing should play together; and therefore, while some of the company signed and gave bonds by way of security on an oral promise by Mrs. Baskervile that this proviso should in fact hold good, others refused to do so. These were the wiser, for in 1623, when Worth, Cumber, and Blaney were the only three of the 1617 signatories who still held together, Mrs. Baskervile sued them on their bonds, and although they applied to Chancery for equitable enforcement of the alleged oral promise, Chancery held that the agreement, being made between players, was ‘vnfitt to be releeued or countenaunced in a courte of equitie’. In some other respects the players’ account of the transactions differs from Mrs. Baskervile’s, and in particular they alleged that the Baskerviles had secured their interest by bribing Beeston, to whom ‘your oratours and the rest of thier fellowes at that tyme and long before and since did put the managing of thier whole businesses and affaires belonging vnto them ioyntly as they were players in trust’, so that she knew well that whatever he promised the rest ‘would allowe of the same’. This Mrs. Baskervile repudiates as regards the bribe, and does not wholly accept as regards Beeston’s position in the company, although she admits that both before and after her husband’s death they ‘did putt much affiance in the said Huttchinson alias Beeston, concerninge the managing of their affaires’.

I am afraid that Beeston’s character does not come altogether unstained out of another suit brought by one John Smith in the Court of Requests during 1619 for a sum of £46 5s. 8d. in respect of ‘tinsell stuffes and other stuffe’ delivered on Beeston’s order to Worth, Perkins, Cumber, and others at the Red Bull between 27 June 1612 and 23 February 1617, since when they had ‘fallen at variance and strife amongst themselves and separated and devided themselves into other companies.’ He accuses these four men of conspiring to keep him out of payment. Worth, Perkins, and Cumber asserted that the liability was Beeston’s. The company had ‘required divers officers and that every of the said actors should take vpon them some place & charge’. Beeston was charged with the provision of furniture and apparel, which needed ‘a thriueing man & one that was of abilitie & meanes’. He was to ‘defaulke outt of the colleccions and gatheringes which were made continually when-soeuer any playe was acted a certen some of money as a comon stock.’ to pay for purchases out of this, and to account to the company for the balance. No one else was privy to his transactions. The arrangement lasted for seven or eight years, and they believe that he ‘much enritched himself and rendered a false account for expenditure of £400. He is now conspiring with Smith and hoping for a chance to ‘exclayme on’ them. If he incurred debt, he had certainly taken funds to meet it. From the beginning he had ‘a greater care for his owne privatt gaine’. Now he has ‘of late given over his coate & condicion & separated and devided himself’ from the company, carrying away all the furniture and apparel. Beeston says that he has long been ill. On Queen Anne’s death he left the company and joined Prince Charles’s men. The Queen’s had ten sharers, and sometimes one, sometimes another, provided the clothes. He denies liability. Several witnesses, including William Freshwater, merchant tailor and ‘a workman to the said company’, spoke to Beeston’s liability.[671] One John King says that the company allowed Beeston ‘one half of the profitt that came of the gallyryes’, and that they began to break up about three years ago. At a hearing on 16 June 1620 Beeston got the case deferred on the ground that Emanuel Read, a material witness, was in Ireland until Michaelmas. Elizabeth, the wife of Richard Perkins, said that Read had been there for two or three years, was over at Easter, and was not expected again. Smith got in a blow at Beeston’s credit with an affidavit that he had said ‘it was nothing for him to put in a false answere into the Court of Requestes, for that it was not punishable’. The result of the suit is unknown.

We may perhaps reach the following conclusions as to the composition of the London company after the deaths in 1612 of Pulham, presumably a recent comer since 1609, and Greene. Their nucleus consisted of two of the patented men, Christopher Beeston and Heywood, who probably remained with them throughout. Of the other patentees, Swinnerton kept to the provinces. Lee had rejoined them from the provinces by 1613 or 1614, and went back to the provinces about May 1616. Perkins was apparently not of their number in June 1616, but was in June 1617. Holt is not traceable; perhaps he also went to the provinces. Pallant joined the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1614 and had passed to Prince Charles’s by 1616. All these five men, however, appear with Beeston and Heywood as Anne’s servants at her funeral. Here too are Slater and Edmonds, then of the Bristol, and apparently never of the London company; also Worth, Cumber, Blaney, Drewe, and Robinson, presumably identical with Robins, all of whom had joined the London company by June 1616, Basse, formerly of the Lady Elizabeth’s, who joined it between June 1616 and June 1617, and Gregory Sanderson and John Garret, who, if they belonged to the London company at all, must have joined it after June 1617.[672] The list does not contain the names of two men who belonged to the company in 1616 and 1617. One was Emanuel Read, who joined it from the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1613 or later; the other, Robert Reynolds, whose attachment to the company must have been rather loose, as he was travelling in Germany in July 1616 and again in 1618. Evidently, as the lawsuits suggest, the organization of the Queen’s men during its later years was rather unstable. Into its attempts to hold together after Anne’s death and the after-careers of its members, it is not necessary to go.

In June 1617 the Queen’s were come, or shortly to come, from the Red Bull to the Cockpit. In fact they were at the Cockpit, then a new house, on 4 March 1617, when it was sacked by prentices in a Shrovetide riot.[673] But they may have returned to the Red Bull for a time, while the Cockpit was being repaired, as they did again after they lost it on the separation from Christopher Beeston, who seems to have been its owner, in 1619.

xxii. THE DUKE OF LENNOX’S MEN

Ludovic Stuart, s. of Esmé, 1st Duke of Lennox; cousin and until 1594 heir presumptive of James; nat. 29 Sept. 1574; succ. as 2nd Duke, 26 May 1583; Gentleman of Bedchamber, 1603; Earl of Richmond, 6 Oct. 1613; Lord Steward, Nov. 1615; Duke of Richmond, 17 Aug. 1623; o.s.p. 16 Feb. 1624.

The first notice of Lennox’s men is on 13 October 1604, when he gave an open warrant of assistance in their behalf addressed to mayors, justices, and other local officers, some of whom had apparently refused the company permission to play (App. D, no. cxxxvii). On 16 March 1605 Francis Henslowe gave his uncle Philip a bond of £60 to observe articles of an agreement he had entered into with John Garland and Abraham Savere ‘his ffellowes, servantes to the most noble Prince the duke of Lennox’; and on 1 March 1605 Savere had given Francis Henslowe a power of attorney to recover £40 on a forfeited bond from John Garland of ‘the ould forde’, securing delivery of a warrant made to Savere by Lennox (Henslowe Papers, 62). Some other traces point to a connexion between Savere and Francis Henslowe, which was ended by the latter’s death in the middle of 1606 (Henslowe, ii. 277), and an undated loan of £7 by Philip Henslowe to his nephew ‘to goyne with owld Garlland and Symcockes and Saverey when they played in the duckes nam at ther laste goinge owt’ (Henslowe, i. 160) makes it possible to add one more to the list of the company. It does not seem to have played in London, but is traceable at Canterbury in 1603–4, Barnstaple, Coventry, and Norwich in 1604–5, and Coventry again in 1607–8. Both Garland and Henslowe had been Queen Elizabeth’s men, and it is possible that, when these men were left stranded by her death in 1603, they found a new patron in Lennox. John Garland had joined the Duke of York’s men by 1610, and it has been suggested that this company may have been a continuation of Lennox’s.

xxiii. THE DUKE OF YORK’S (PRINCE CHARLES’S) MEN The Duke of York’s Men (1608–12); The Prince’s Men (1612–16)

Charles, 2nd s. of James I; nat. 19 Nov. 1600; Duke of Albany, 23 Dec. 1600; Duke of York, 16 Jan. 1605; Prince of Wales, 3 Nov. 1616; afterwards (27 Mar. 1625) Charles I.

[Bibliographical Note.—The documents bearing on the relations of the Duke of York’s men with Alleyn are printed by W. W. Greg in Henslowe Papers (1907); the Bill and Answers in the equity suit of Taylor v. Hemynges (1612) by C. W. Wallace in Globe Theatre Apparel (p.p., 1909).]

A company under the patronage of Prince Charles, then Duke of York, first makes its appearance during 1608, and in the provinces. A visit of ‘the younger princes’ men to Ipswich is recorded on 20 October. During 1608–9 the company was also at Bath, and it is at least possible that it was ‘the Princes players of the White Chapple London’ rewarded at Leicester in 1608. The Boar’s Head (q.v.) may have been roughly spoken of as in Whitechapel, and although there is no proof that the Duke of York’s men occupied it after the Queen’s moved to the Red Bull, there is nothing to connect them during the earlier years of their career with any of the better-known London houses. On 30 March 1610 they received, like other London companies, a patent, of which the following are the terms:[674]

De licentia agendi Tragedias &c. pro Johanne Garland & aliis.

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices, Mayors, Sheriffes, Baylies, Constables, hedboroughes and other our loveing subiectes and officers greetinge. Knowe ye that wee of our especyall grace, certen knowledge, and meere mocion haue lycensed and aucthorized, and by theis presentes doe lycence and authorise Iohn Garland, Willyam Rowley, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Dawes, Ioseph Taylor, Iohn Newton, and Gilbert Reason, alreadye sworne servauntes to our deere sonne the Duke of York and Rothesay, with the rest of their company, to vse and exercise the arte and quality of playing Comedyes, Tragedies, histories, Enterludes, Moralles, Pastoralles, Stagplayes, and such other like as they haue already studdied or hereafter shall studye or vse, aswell for the recreacion of our loveing subiectes, as for our solace and pleasure when wee shall thinke good to see them, and the said Enterludes or other to shewe and execise publiquely to their best aduantage and commoditie, aswell in and about our Cittye of London in such vsuall howses as themselues shall provide, as alsoe within anye Townehalles, Mootehalles, Guildhalles, Schoolehowses, or other convenient places within the lybertye and freedome of any other Cittye, vniversity, Towne, or Boroughe whatsoever within our Realmes and Domynions, willing and comaundinge you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure, not onlye to permitt and suffer them herein without any your lettes, hindraunces, molestacions or disturbances during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be ayding and assisting vnto them, if any wronge be vnto them offered, and to allowe them such former curtesies as hath byne given to men of their place and quality, And alsoe what further favor you shall shewe them for our sake wee shall take yt kyndlye at your handes. Prouided alwaies and our will and pleasure is that all authority, power, priviledg, and proffitt whatsoever belonging and properly apperteyninge to the Master of our Revelles in respect of his Office and everie article and graunt contayned within the lettres patentes or Commission, which haue byne heretofore graunted or directed by the late Queene Elizabeth our deere sister or by our selfe to our welbeloved servantes Edmond Tillney Master of the said Office of the said Revelles, or to Sir George Bucke knight, or to eyther of them, in possession or Revercion, shall remayne and abyde entire and in full force, estate and vertue and in as ample sort as if this our commission had never bene made. Witnes our selfe att Westminster the thirtith daye March.

per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

The only member of the Duke of York’s men, of whose previous history anything is known, is John Garland. He was of the Duke of Lennox’s men in 1605. Perhaps the whole company was taken over from the Duke of Lennox. Mr. Fleay says that the Duke of York’s men arose ‘immediately after the disappearance of the King’s Revels Children’,[675] and appears to suggest a continuity between the two companies; but he must have overlooked the fact that the Duke of York’s were already performing in the provinces, while the King’s Revels were in all probability still at Whitefriars.[676]

Some reconstruction doubtless took place about the date of the issue of the patent, for the pleadings in the equity suit of Taylor v. Hemynges in 1612 recites an agreement of 15 March 1610, which provided for the continuance of fellowship during three years and the forfeiture of the interest in a common stock of ‘apparrell goodes money and other thinges’ of any member, who left without the consent of the rest. It was made between Garland on the one side and Taylor, Rowley, Dawes, and Hobbes on the other, and these four gave Garland a bond of £200 as security. On 8 May the five bought some ‘olde clothes or apparrell which formerly weare players clothes or apparrell’ from John Heminges of the King’s men for £11, and gave a bond of £20 for payment. Apparently payment had not been made by Easter 1611, when Taylor ‘by the licence and leave of his said Master the Duke vpon some speciall reason ... did give over and leave to play in the company’. Under the agreement the apparel passed to his fellows, and according to Taylor they paid Heminges the £11 or otherwise satisfied him, and then ‘havinge conceaued some vndeserued displeasure’ against Taylor for leaving them, conspired with Heminges to defraud him of £20 on the bond. According to Heminges no payment was made, and he sued Taylor as ‘the best able to paye and discharge the same’. Taylor was arrested and in February 1612 brought his suit in equity to stay the common law proceedings. The result is unknown.

The company frequently played at Court, but, as it would seem, only before the younger members of the royal family. Their first appearance was before Charles and Elizabeth on 9 February 1610. In 1610–11 they were at Saffron Walden. They came before Charles and Elizabeth on 12 and 20 December 1610 and 15 January 1611, and before Henry, Charles, and Elizabeth on 12 and 28 January and 13 and 24 February 1612. On this last occasion they played William Rowley’s Hymen’s Holiday, or Cupid’s Vagaries. After Henry’s death, on 7 November 1612, they became entitled to the designation of the Prince’s players. In 1612–13 they were at Barnstaple and Ipswich. On 2 and 10 March 1613 they gave the two parts of The Knaves, perhaps by Rowley, before Charles, Elizabeth, and the Palsgrave. In 1613–14 they were at Barnstaple, Dover, Saffron Walden, and Coventry. They were not at Court for the winter of 1613–14. In November 1614 they were at Oxford, Leicester, and Nottingham. At the Christmas of 1614–15 they gave six plays before Charles, and on 11 February they were at Youghal in Ireland. Ten days later R. A.’s The Valiant Welshman was entered and in the course of the year published as theirs. Their leader seems to have been Rowley. He both wrote plays for them and acted as payee for all their court rewards from 1610 to 1614. In 1611 they lost Taylor and in 1614 Dawes to the Lady Elizabeth’s men; and these transferences seem to have led to a temporary amalgamation of the two companies, which Mr. Fleay and Dr. Greg place in 1614, but for which their distinct appearances at Court in the following winter suggest 1615 as the more likely date.[677] On 29 March 1615 William Rowley and John Newton were called with representatives of other companies before the Privy Council to answer for playing in Lent. No separate representation of the Lady Elizabeth’s is indicated by the list. In 1614–15 the Prince’s were at Norwich, Coventry, Winchester, and Barnstaple. In the winter of 1615–16 they gave four plays before Prince Charles, and the payee was not Rowley, but Alexander Foster, formerly of the Lady Elizabeth’s. Rosseter’s patent of 3 June 1615 for a second Blackfriars theatre contemplates its use by the Prince’s men and the Lady Elizabeth’s, as well as by the Queen’s Revels, and Field’s Amends for Ladies was actually played in the Blackfriars, probably in this house before it was suppressed, by the two first-named companies. After Henslowe’s death on 6 January 1616, the combination, whatever its nature, was probably broken up, and separate companies of Prince’s men and Lady Elizabeth’s men were again formed. But both of the original companies continued to be represented in one which remained at the Hope. This is shown by an agreement entered into with Alleyn and Meade on 20 March 1616, and signed in the presence of Robert Daborne and others by William Rowley, Robert Pallant, Joseph Taylor, Robert Hamlen, John Newton, William Barksted, Thomas Hobbes, Antony Smith, William Penn, and Hugh Attwell.[678] This recites that the signatories and others had given bonds to Henslowe and Meade for the repayment of sums lent them by Henslowe, for a stock of apparel worth £400, and for the fulfilment of certain Articles of Agreement; and that at their entreaty Alleyn had agreed to accept £200 in discharge of their full liabilities. They covenant to pay the £200 by making over to Alleyn one-fourth of the daily takings of the whole galleries at the Hope or any house in which they may play, and to carry out the Articles with Alleyn and Meade by so playing. Alleyn and Meade agree to cancel the bonds when the £200 is paid, except any which may relate to private debts of any of the men to Henslowe, and also to make over to them any apparel which they had received from Henslowe, Alleyn, or Meade. The rights of Alleyn and Meade against any bondsmen not taking part in the new agreement are to remain unaffected. That the signatories to this document used the name of Prince Charles’s men seems pretty clear from the reappearance of several of their names in two later lists of the Prince’s men, one in Rowley and Middleton’s Mask of Heroes (1619), the other in the records of King James’s funeral on 20 May 1625.[679] This last contains also the name of Gilbert Reason, who is not one of the signatories of 1616, but was in that year travelling the provinces with an irregularly obtained exemplification of the 1610 patent.[680] An undated letter from Pallant, Rowley, Taylor, Newton, Hamlen, Attwell, and Smith to Alleyn, which may belong to some time in 1616 or 1617, shows that, in spite of the easy terms which the company seem to have received by the agreement, the subsequent relations were not altogether smooth. They write to excuse their removal from the Bankside, where they had stood the intemperate weather, until ‘more intemperate Mr. Meade thrust vs over, taking the day from vs w^ch by course was ours’. They ask Alleyn to find them a house and in the meantime to lend them £40, on the security that ‘we haue to receiue from the court (w^ch after Shrouetide wee meane to pursue w^th best speede) a great summe of monie’, amounting to more than twice the loan desired.[681] It is to be presumed that the ‘course’ to which they refer was some distribution of days between playing and bear-baiting. In 1619 the company was joined by Christopher Beeston, formerly of the Queen’s, and his house of the Cockpit became available for their use.

xxiv. THE LADY ELIZABETH’S MEN

Elizabeth, e. d. of James I; nat. c. 19 Aug. 1596; m. Frederick V, Elector Palatine (Palsgrave), 14 Feb. 1613; Queen of Bohemia, 7 Nov. 1619; known as Queen of Hearts; ob. 13 Feb. 1662.

[Bibliographical Note.—Nearly all the material is to be found among the extracts from the Dulwich MSS. printed by W. W. Greg in Henslowe Papers (1907) and summarized in Henslowe, ii. 137.]

This company seems to have come into existence in 1611 under the following patent of 27 March:[682]

De licencia speciali pro Iohanne Townsend & Iosepho Moore & aliis.

Iames by the grace of god &c. To all Iustices, Maiors, Sheriffes, Bailiffes, Constables hedborroughes, and other our lovinge Subiectes and officers greetinge. Knowe ye that wee of our especiall grace, certayne knowledge, and meere mocon have licenced and authorised, and by these presente do licence and authorize Iohn Townsend and Joseph Moore, sworne servantes to our deere daughter the ladie Elizabeth, with the rest of theire Companie, to vse and exercise the Arte and qualitie of playinge Comedies, histories, Enterludes, Morralls, pastoralls, stage playes, and such other like as they haue alreadie studied or hereafter shall studie or vse, aswell for the recreacion of our lovinge Subiectes, as for our solace and pleasure when wee shall thinke good to see them, And the said enterludes or other to shewe and exercise publiquelie to their best commoditie in and about our Cittie of London in such vsuall howses as themselues shall prouide, And alsoe within anie Towne halles, mootehalles, Guyld-halles, Schoolehowses or other convenient places within the libertye and freedome of anie other Cittie, vniuersitie, Towne or Burroughe whatsoeuer within our Realmes and Domynions, willinge and comaundinge you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure, not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without any your lettes, hinderances, molestacions or disturbances during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be ayding and assistinge vnto them, if anie wronge be vnto them offred, And to allowe them such former curtesies as hath byne given to men of their place and qualitie, And alsoe what further fauour you shall shewe them for our sake wee shall take yt kindelie at your handes. Prouided alwayes and our will and pleasure is that all authoritie, power, priveledge, and profitt whatsoever belonginge or properlie apperteyning to the maister of the Revelles in respecte of his office and euerie Article and graunte conteyned within the letters Pattentes or Comission, which haue byne heretofore graunted or directed by the late queene Elizabeth our deere sister or by our selfe to our welbeloued Servantes Edwarde Tylney Maister of the saide Revells, or to Sir George Bucke knighte, or to eyther of them, in possession or reuercon, shall remayne and abide entire and in full force, effecte and vertue, and in as ample sorte as if this our Comission had neuer byne made In witnesse wherof &c. Witnesse our selfe at Westminster the seaven and Twentith daye of Aprill.

per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

The company is first traceable in the country, at Bath during 1610–11 and at Ipswich on 28 May 1611. The names of Moore and Townsend render possible its identification with an unnamed company, which on 29 August 1611 gave duplicate bonds of £500 to Henslowe for the observance of certain articles of agreement of the same date. Unfortunately the articles themselves are not preserved, but it is likely that they contained an arrangement for the housing and financing of the company by Henslowe.[683] The signatories to both bonds include John Townsend, Joseph Taylor, William Ecclestone, Thomas Hunt, John Rice, Robert Hamlen, Joseph Moore, William Carpenter, Thomas Basse, and Alexander Foster. To these one adds Giles Gary and William Barksted and the other Francis Waymus. The names recited in the bodies of the documents agree with the signatures, except that Gary appears in both. Several of these men now come into London theatrical history for the first time, but Gary is probably the Giles Cary who with Barksted played in Epicoene for the Queen’s Revels in 1609, Taylor came from the Duke of York’s, and Rice from the King’s. One Hunt, whose Christian name is unknown, was with the Admiral’s in 1601. Alexander Foster received payment on behalf of the Lady Elizabeth’s men for three plays given at Court during the Christmas of 1611–12. The first was on 19 January 1612 before Elizabeth and Henry; the second was The Proud Maid’s Tragedy, on 25 February before James; and the third was on 11 March, again before Elizabeth and Henry. In 1611–12 the company were at Dover and Coventry, and on 30 July 1612 at Leicester. On 20 October they played before Elizabeth and the Palsgrave, shortly after the latter’s arrival in England, in the Cockpit. This was perhaps the play paid for out of the private funds of Elizabeth, as the result of a wager with Mr. Edward Sackville.[684] During Christmas they played twice before Charles, Elizabeth, and the Palsgrave, showing Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan on 25 February and Raymond Duke of Lyons on 1 March. For 1612–13 Joseph Taylor was payee.

The names of Taylor and Ecclestone are found in another document in the Dulwich collection, which pretty clearly belongs to the Lady Elizabeth’s men, and which shows that about the spring of 1613 their business relations with Henslowe entered upon a somewhat troubled phase. This is shown by internal evidence to have been written in the course of 1615. It is here reproduced:[685]

Articles of [ ]uaunce against M[ ] Hinchlowe

Imprimis in March 1612 vppon M^r. Hynchlowes Joyninge Companes with M^r. Rosseter the Companie borrowed 80^[ll] of one M^r. Griffin and the same was put into M^r. Hinchlowes debt which made itt sixteene score poundes; whoe [a]fter the receipt of the same or most parte thereof in March 1613 hee broke the saide Comp[any a]gaine and Ceazed all the stocke, vnder Culler to satisfie what remayned due to [him]; yet perswaded M^r. Griffyne afterwardes to arest the Companie for his 80^ll, whoe are still in daunger for the same; Soe nowe there was in equitie due to the Companie 80^ll:

Item M^r. Hinchlowe having lent one Taylor 30^ll and 20^ll to one Baxter fellowes of the Companie Cunninglie put theire said privat debts into the generall accompt by which meanes hee is in Conscience to allowe them 50^ll:

Item havinge the stock of Apparell in his handes to secure his debt he sould tenn poundes worth of ould apparrell out of the same without accomptinge or abatinge for the same; heare growes due to the Companie 10^ll:

Also vppon the departure of one Eglestone a ffellowe of the Companie hee recovered of him 14^ll towardes his debt which is in Conscience likewise to bee allowed to the Companie 14^ll:

In March 1613 hee makes vpp a Companie and buies apparrell of one Rosseter to the value of 63^ll, and valued the ould stocke that remayned in his handes at 63^ll, likewise they vppon his word acceptinge the same at that rate, which being prized by M^r. Daborne iustlie, betweene his partner Meade and him, Came but to 40^ll: soe heare growes due to the Companie 23^ll:

Item hee agrees with the said Companie that they should enter bond to plaie with him for three yeares att such house and houses as hee shall appointe and to allowe him halfe galleries for the said house and houses, and the other halfe galleries towardes his debt of 126^ll, and other such moneys as hee should laie out for playe apparrell duringe the space of the said 3 yeares, agreeinge with them in Consideration theareof to seale each of them a bond of 200^ll to find them a Convenient house and houses, and to laie out such moneies as fower of the sharers should think fitt for theire vse in apparrell, which att the 3 yeares, being paid for, to be deliuered to the sharers; whoe accordinglie entered the said bondes; but M^r. Henchlowe and M^r. Mead deferred the same, an[d] in Conclusion vtterly denied to seale att all.

Item M^r. Hinchlowe havinge promised in Consideracion of the Companies lying still one daie in forteene for his baytinge to give them 50^s, hee havinge denied to bee bound as aforesaid gave them onlie 40^s, and for that M^r. Feild would not Consent therevnto hee gave him soe much as his share out of 50^ll would have Come vnto; by which meanes hee is dulie indebted to the Companie x^ll:

In June followinge the said agreement, hee brought in M^r. Pallant and short[l]ie after M^r. Dawes into the said Companie, promisinge one 12^s a weeke out of his part of the galleries, and the other 6^s a weeke out of his parte of the galleries; and because M^r. Feild was thought not to bee drawne therevnto, hee promissed him six shillinges weekelie alsoe; which in one moneth after vnwilling to beare soe greate a Charge, he Called the Companie together, and told them that this 24^s was to bee Charged vppon them, threatninge those which would not Consent therevnto to breake the Companie and make vpp a newe without the[m]. Whearevppon knowinge hee was not bound, the three-quarters sharers advauncinge them selves to whole shares Consented therevnto, by which meanes they are out of purse 30^ll, and his parte of the galleries bettred twise as much 30^ll:

Item havinge 9 gatherers more then his due itt Comes to this yeare from the Companie 10^ll:

Item the Companie paid for [Arra]s and other properties 40^ll, which Mr. Henchlow deteyneth 40^ll:

In Februarie last 1614 perceav[ing]e the Companie drewe out of his debt and Called vppon him for his accompts hee brooke the Companie againe, by withdrawinge the hired men from them, and selles theire stocke (in his hands) for 400^ll, givinge vnder his owne hand that hee had receaved towardes his debt 300^ll:

Which with the iuste and Conscionable allowances before named made to the Companie, which Comes to ... 267^ll, makes 567^ll:

Articles of oppression against M^r. Hinchlowe.

Hee Chargeth the stocke with ... 600^ll: and odd, towardes which hee hath receaved as aforesaid ... 567^ll of vs; yet selles the stocke to strangers for fower hundred poundes, and makes vs no satisfacion.

Hee hath taken all boundes of our hired men in his owne name, whose wages though wee have truly paid yet att his pleasure hee hath taken them a waye, and turned them over to others to the breaking of our Companie.

For lendinge of vj^ll to p[ay] them theire wages, hee made vs enter bond to give him the profitt of a warraunt of tenn poundes due to vs att Court.

Alsoe hee hath taken right gould and silver lace of divers garmentes to his owne vse without accompt to vs or abatement.

Vppon everie breach of the Companie hee takes newe bondes for his stocke and our securitie for playinge with him; Soe that hee hath in his handes bondes of ours to the value of 5000^ll and his stocke to; which hee denies to deliuer and threatens to oppresse us with.

Alsoe havinge apointed a man to the seeinge of his accomptes in byinge of Clothes (hee beinge to have vi^s a weeke) hee takes the meanes away and turnes the man out.

The reason of his often breakinge with vs hee gave in these wordes ‘Should these fellowes Come out of my debt, I should have noe rule with them’.

Alsoe wee have paid him for plaie bookes 200^ll or thereaboutes and yet hee denies to give vs the Coppies of any one of them.

Also within 3 yeares hee hath broken and dissmembred five Companies.

It is not quite possible to trace all the five breakings of companies referred to in the closing sentence; but the statement is sufficient to give a fairly clear outline of the history of the Lady Elizabeth’s men during the years which it covers, and, as it happens, there is a good deal of other evidence from which to supplement it. It appears that in March 1613 Henslowe joined companies with Rosseter; that is to say, that an amalgamation took place between the Lady Elizabeth’s men and the Children of the Queen’s Revels, who had been acting at the Whitefriars under the patent to Rosseter and others of 4 January 1610. One of these children was Robert Baxter, if he is the Baxter named in the Articles of Grievance as a fellow of the company with Taylor between March 1613 and March 1614.[686] During the same period it appears that William Ecclestone left the company. He afterwards joined the King’s men. But, before he went, he took a part in The Honest Man’s Fortune, which is stated in the Dyce MS. to have been played in 1613, while its ‘principal actors’ are named in the 1679 folio of Beaumont and Fletcher as ‘Nathan Field, Robert Benfield, Emanuel Read, Joseph Taylor, Will. Eglestone and Thomas Basse’. This particular combination seems to point clearly to the Lady Elizabeth’s men as the original producers of the play. A very similar cast is assigned in the same folio to The Coxcomb, namely, ‘Nathan Field, Joseph Taylor, Giles Gary, Emanuel Read, Richard Allen, Hugh Atawell, Robert Benfeild, and William Barcksted’; and I think that this also must belong to a performance by the Lady Elizabeth’s men about 1613. The Coxcomb had certainly been played at Court by the Queen’s Revels in 1612, but it seems impossible that Taylor can then have been a member of that company.[687] The new blood brought in from Rosseter’s company will, then, have included Field, Attwell, Richard Allen, Benfield, Reade, and perhaps Robert Baxter, of whom the first three had played in Jonson’s Epicoene for the Revels in 1609. When it is remembered that Cary and Barksted had been in the same cast, it will be realized that the Lady Elizabeth’s men, as constituted in 1613, were very much the Queen’s Revels over again.

I think there can be no doubt that the Lady Elizabeth’s men was the company principally referred to in the long series of letters from Robert Daborne to Henslowe, which runs from 17 April 1613 to 31 July 1614.[688] Daborne had been one of the patentees for the Queen’s Revels in 1609, and some letters apparently belonging to the same series show Field as interested, either as writer or actor, in some of the plays which Henslowe was purchasing from Daborne, with a view to reselling them to this company. Further confirmation is to be obtained for this view from the signature of Hugh Attwell as witness to one of Henslowe’s advances to Daborne,[689] and from the mention of Benfield,[690] of Pallant who, as will be seen, joined the company in 1614,[691] and of Eastward Ho! which their repertory had inherited from that of the Queen’s Revels.[692] That ‘Mr. Allin’ was hearing Daborne’s plays with Henslowe in May 1613 need cause no difficulty.[693] It is true that Edward Alleyn is not known to have had any relations with the Lady Elizabeth’s men, but John Alleyn, a nephew of Edward, is amongst Henslowe’s witnesses about this time,[694] and Richard Allen, who may not have belonged to the same family, was himself one of the Lady Elizabeth’s men, and perhaps served as their literary adviser. The correspondence makes it possible to recover the names of a series of plays on which Daborne was engaged, either alone or in collaboration with others, during the period over which it extends, and all of which seem to have been primarily meant for the Lady Elizabeth’s men, although he occasionally professes, as an aid to his chaffering, to have an alternative market with the King’s men.[695] From April to June 1613 he was writing a tragedy of Machiavel and the Devil, and this is probably the ‘new play’, of which he suggests the performance on Wednesday in August, to follow one of Eastward Ho! on the Monday.[696] For this Henslowe covenanted to pay him £20. In June he was also completing The Arraignment of London, of which he had given an act to Cyril Tourneur to write; and to this The Bellman of London, for which he and a colleague, perhaps again Tourneur, asked no more than £12 and ‘the overplus of the second day’ in August, was probably a sequel.[697] This may be the play which he had delivered to Henslowe about the beginning of December. About July he seems also to have been occupied upon a play in collaboration with Field, Fletcher, and Massinger. This is not named, and Mr. Fleay’s identification of it with The Honest Man’s Fortune is rather hazardous.[698] In December he began The Owl, for which his price fell to £10; and on 11 March 1614 he had finished this, and was beginning The She Saint and asking ‘but 12^l a play till they be playd.’ The correspondence has a gap between the middle of August and the middle of October 1613. Probably the company were on tour; they are found at Coventry, Shrewsbury, and Marlborough in 1612–13, Canterbury on 4 July 1613, Dover between 12 July and 7 August, and Leicester on 13 October. In the spring they had been at Bristol and Norwich. On 12 December they repeated one of their plays of the preceding winter, Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan, before Charles, and on 25 January 1614 gave Eastward Ho! which they had been playing in public during the summer, before James. Taylor was again their payee for this Christmas.