Chapter X: Introduction: The Boy Companies (8)

There is evidence of the actual performance of _Mother Redcap_, _Phaethon_ (January), _1 and 2 Robin Hood_ (March), _1 Earl Godwin_ (April), _King Arthur_ (May), _2 Earl Godwin_ (June), _1 Black Bateman_ (June). Properties were bought for _The Madman’s Morris_ in July, and the next season probably opened with it. To the new plays must be added _Friar Spendleton_, produced as ‘ne’ on 31 October, and _Dido and Aeneas_. A loan of 30_s._ on 8 January ‘when they fyrst played Dido at nyght’ suggests a supper, not a night performance. Either play may have been purchased at the end of 1596–7, or may have come from Pembroke’s stock. The same applies to _Branholt_ and _Alice Pierce_, which were probably new when properties were purchased for them in November and December. The company also bought on 12 December two jigs from two young men, for which they paid 6_s._ 8_d._ Hardly any of the 1597–8 new plays are extant. The two parts of _Robin Hood_ are _The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon_, and _The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon_, printed without Munday’s name as Admiral’s plays in 1601. Haughton’s _A Woman will have her Will_ was entered on the Stationers’ Register on 3 August 1601, and printed with the alternative title of _Englishmen for my Money_ in 1616. _Phaethon_ probably underlies Dekker and Ford’s _The Sun’s Darling_, and it is a plausible conjecture of Mr. Fleay’s that _Love Prevented_ may be _1 The Two Angry Women of Abingdon_, printed as an Admiral’s play in 1599, and not to be traced elsewhere in the diary. The payments for four plays during the year, besides the puzzling _A Woman will have her Will_, were incomplete. I take it that the £2 paid to Chettle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson for _Pierce of Exton_ was transferred to the account for _2 Earl Godwin_, which otherwise lacks just that amount of the full £6; that Chettle failed to deliver _A Woman’s Tragedy_; that Chapman’s _Isle of a Woman_ was held over until 1598–9; and that a projected tragedy of Ben Jonson’s was similarly held over, and then indefinitely postponed owing to the tragedy in real life of Spencer’s death. There are two entries with regard to this. On 3 December 1597, Henslowe lent Jonson 20_s._ ‘vpon a boocke which he showed the plotte vnto the company which he promysed to deliver vnto the company at Cryssmas next’. On 23 October 1598, a month after the duel, not Jonson, but Chapman, received £3 ‘one his playe boocke & ij ectes of a tragedie of Bengemenes plotte’. I think that Chapman’s own play was _The Four Kings_ and that he finished it in 1599; but I see no sign that he ever did anything with ‘Bengemenes plotte’.

Of older plays the Admiral’s revived at the beginning of the year Chapman’s success of the previous spring, _The Comedy of Humours_; also the perennial _Dr. Faustus_, and two pieces which, as they formed no part of the 1594–7 repertory, may have been brought in by Pembroke’s men, _Hardicanute_ and _Bourbon_. They bought for £8 from Martin Slater _1 and 2 Hercules_, _Phocas_, _Pythagoras_, and _Alexander and Lodowick_, all of which had been produced between May 1595 and January 1597, and had evidently been retained by Slater when he left the company. These books presumably do not include that which became the subject of the lawsuit between Slater and the Admiral’s men, and as they had afterwards to buy back some of their old books in a precisely similar way from Alleyn, it is probable that a retiring member of the company had a right to claim a partition of the repertory. They also bought _The Cobler of Queenhithe_,[446] and from Robert Lee, formerly of the Admiral’s men and afterwards of Queen Anne’s, _The Miller_. But of these seven purchased plays, the only one that they can be proved to have revived is one of the _Hercules_ plays, for which they bought properties in July. The book-inventory shows that they had plays called _Black Joan_ and _Sturgflattery_,[447] also possibly from Pembroke’s stock; and the property-inventories that they had properties and clothes, if not in all cases books,[448] for _The Battle of Alcazar_[449] and for a number of pieces staged during 1594–7, including _Mahomet_,[450] _Tamburlaine_,[451] _The Jew of Malta_,[452] _1 Fortunatus_,[453] _The Siege of London_,[454] _Belin Dun_,[455] _Tasso’s Melancholy_,[456] _1 Caesar and Pompey_,[457] _The Wise Man of West Chester_,[458] _The Set at Maw_,[459] _Olympo_,[460] _Henry V_,[461] _Longshanks_,[462] _Troy_,[463] _Vortigern_,[464] _Guido_,[465] _Uther Pendragon_.[466] To these must be added _Pontius Pilate_,[467] revived in 1601 and perhaps from the Pembroke’s stock, and others now unidentifiable.[468] As the company revived _The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ in 1601 they probably had this also.[469]

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

_Pierce of Winchester_ (Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson).
_Hot Anger Soon Cold_ (Chettle, Jonson, and Porter).
_Chance Medley_ (Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and
Wilson).[470]
_Worse Afeared than Hurt_ (Dekker and Drayton).[471]
_1 Civil Wars of France_ (Dekker and Drayton).
_The Fount of New Fashions_ (Chapman).[472]
_2 The Conquest of Brute_, or, _Brute Greenshield_
(Chettle).[473]
_Connan, Prince of Cornwall_ (Dekker and Drayton).
_2 Civil Wars of France_ (Dekker and Drayton).
_3 Civil Wars of France_ (Dekker and Drayton).
_The Four Kings_ (Chapman).[474]
_War without Blows and Love without Suit_ (Heywood).[475]
_First Introduction of the Civil Wars of France_ (Dekker).
_2 Two Angry Women of Abingdon_ (Porter).
_Joan as Good as my Lady_ (Heywood)
_Friar Fox and Gillian of Brentford_ (Anon.).
_The Spencers_ (Chettle and Porter).
_Troy’s Revenge and the Tragedy of Polyphemus_ (Chettle).
_Troilus and Cressida_ (Chettle and Dekker).
_Agamemnon_, or, _Orestes Furious_ (Chettle and Dekker).[476]
_The World Runs on Wheels_, or, _All Fools but the Fool_
(Chapman).[477]

The property and licence entries only make it possible to trace the actual performance during the year of _Pierce of Winchester_ (October), _1 and 2 Civil Wars of France_ (October and November), _The Fount of New Fashions_ (November), _2 Angry Women of Abingdon_ (February), _2 Conquest of Brute_ (March), _The Four Kings_ (March), _The Spencers_ (April), and _Agamemnon_ (June). Probably, in view of the extant fragment of a ‘plot’ _Troilus and Cressida_ should be added. The production of _Troy’s Revenge_ was deferred until the following October. No one of this year’s new plays is extant, unless, as is possible, _All Fools but the Fool_ was an early form of Chapman’s _All Fools_.[478] Earnests were paid in the course of 1598–9 for _Catiline’s Conspiracy_ (Chettle), _Tis no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver_ (Chettle), _William Longsword_[479] (Drayton), _Two Merry Women of Abingdon_ (Porter), and an unnamed pastoral tragedy by Chapman, but there is no reason to suppose that any one of these was ever finished. On 9 August 1598 Munday had 10s. in earnest of an unnamed comedy ‘for the corte’ and Drayton gave his word for the book to be done in a fortnight, but the project must have been dropped, as the entry was cancelled. Of old plays the company revived in August _Vayvode_, in November _The Massacre at Paris_, in which Bird played the Guise,[480] in December _1 The Conquest of Brute_, bought from John Day, and in March _Alexander and Lodowick_, bought from Martin Slater in the preceding year. As to _Vayvode_, the entries are rather puzzling. In August Chettle received £1 ‘for his playe of Vayvode’, and the purchase of properties show that the production took place. But in the following January there was a payment of £2 to Alleyn ‘for the playe of Vayvod for the company’. Possibly Alleyn had some rights in the manuscript, which were at first overlooked. On 25 November Chettle had 10_s._ ‘for mendinge of Roben Hood for the corte’. Either _1_ or _2_ _Robin Hood_ was therefore probably the play given on 6 January 1599. At the beginning of the year the company bought _Mulmutius Dunwallow_ from William Rankins and another old play called _Tristram of Lyons_, but it must be uncertain whether they played them. A reference in Guilpin’s _Skialetheia_ suggests that _The Spanish Tragedy_ may have been on the boards of the Rose not long before September 1598.[481]

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

_The Gentle Craft_ (Dekker).[482]
_Bear a Brain_ (Dekker).[483]
_Page of Plymouth_ (Dekker and Jonson).
_Robert II_, or, _The Scot’s Tragedy_ (Chettle, Dekker, Jonson,
and Marston).[484]
_The Stepmother’s Tragedy_ (Chettle and Dekker).
_1 Sir John Oldcastle_ (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).
_Cox of Collumpton_ (Day and Haughton).
_2 Henry Richmond_ (Wilson).
_2 Sir John Oldcastle_ (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson).
_Patient Grissell_ (Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton).
_The Whole History of Fortunatus_ (Dekker).
_Thomas Merry_, or, _Beech’s Tragedy_ (Day and Haughton).
_Jugurtha_ (Boyle).[485]
_The Seven Wise Masters_ (Chettle, Day, Dekker, and Haughton).
_Ferrex and Porrex_ (Haughton).
_Cupid and Psyche_, or, _The Golden Ass_ (Chettle, Day, and
Dekker).
_Damon and Pythias_ (Chettle).
_Strange News out of Poland_ (Haughton and Pett).
_1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ (Chettle and Day).
_1 Fair Constance of Rome_ (Dekker, Drayton, Hathway, Munday,
and Wilson).

It is possible to verify the actual performance of _Page of Plymouth_ (September), _1 Sir John Oldcastle_ (November),[486] Fortunatus (December), _The Gentle Craft_ (January), _Thomas Merry_ (January), _Patient Grissell_ (January), _2 Sir John Oldcastle_ (March), _The Seven Wise Masters_ (March), _Ferrex and Porrex_ (May), _Damon and Pythias_ (May), _Strange News out of Poland_ (May), _Cupid and Psyche_ (June). _Sir John Oldcastle_ must of course be regarded as a counterblast to the _Henry IV_ plays of the Chamberlain’s men, in which the character of Falstaff originally bore the name of the Lollard hero. One infers that it had a considerable success, for the company gave 10s. for ‘Mr. Mundaye and the reste of the poets at the playnge of Sr John Oldcastell the ferste tyme’, and Henslowe notes in the margin that this was ‘as a gefte’. It is with some hesitation that I have included _Fortunatus_ in the list of new plays, because it is impossible to suppose that it was not based upon the earlier _Fortunatus_, already an old play in 1596, of the properties of which the Admiral’s men certainly retained possession. But Dekker was paid on the scale of a new play, for he got a full £6 in the course of November for the book, together with an additional £1 ‘for the altrenge of the boocke’ and £2 a fortnight later ‘for the eande of Fortewnatus for the corte’. I take it that this was the Court play of 27 December. That of 1 January was another of Dekker’s, _The Gentle Craft_, also called _The Shoemaker’s Holiday_, which was published in the year ‘1600’ as played before the Queen ‘on New Year’s Day at night last’ by the Admiral’s men. _Fortunatus_, _1 Sir John Oldcastle_,[486] _Patient Grissell_, and _1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ have also been preserved, while the publication, also in the course of the twelve months ending on 24 March 1601, of _Look About You_ as an Admiral’s play must surely render plausible the hypothesis, rejected by Dr. Greg, of its identity with _Bear a Brain_. It would seem that _Thomas Merry_ furnishes one of the two parallel plots of Robert Yarington’s _Two Lamentable Tragedies_, and a notice by Simon Forman suggests that _Cox of Collumpton_ was ultimately finished.[487] An outline of the opening scenes of _2 Henry Richmond_ is among the Dulwich papers.[488] Publication was a form of popularity which the actors were apt to resent. The Admiral’s men spent £2 on 18 March 1600 ‘to geue vnto the printer to staye the printing of Patient Gresell’. This did not prevent the play being entered on the Stationers’ Register on 28 March, but does perhaps explain why the earliest known edition is dated 1603. The unfinished plays of 1599–1600 were _The Poor Man’s Paradise_ (Haughton), _The Orphans’ Tragedy_ (Chettle),[489] an unnamed Italian tragedy by Day, _The Arcadian Virgin_ (Chettle and Haughton), _Owen Tudor_ (Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson), _Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight_ (Dekker),[490] _The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy_ (Day, Dekker, and Haughton),[491] _The English Fugitives_ (Haughton), _The Devil and his Dame_ (Haughton),[492] _The Wooing of Death_ (Chettle), _Judas_ (Haughton),[493] _2 Fair Constance of Rome_ (Hathway), and an unnamed play by Chettle and Day.[494] Except in so far as _Fortunatus_ was an old play, I find no trace of a revival during 1599–1600, but it may be assumed that some of the productions of the last two years still held the boards.

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

Some such change in the financial arrangements may also account for the fact that, while Henslowe’s record of advances continues on the same lines as that for 1597–1600, the notes of weekly repayments are now discontinued. As a result it is no longer possible to determine with any exactness the length of the theatrical seasons, since, naturally enough, the outgoings did not altogether stop while the house was closed. Their course, however, suggests intervals in February and March 1601, February to April 1602, August 1602 and January and February 1603. It is possible, although not very likely, that there was no cessation of playing during the summer of 1601. I find no evidence of further provincial travels before the end of the reign. These were, I think, years of prosperity. The players still required small personal advances from time to time, and Thomas Towne was reduced to pawning a pair of stockings on 13 March 1602.[496] But it is noticeable that about the previous June Henslowe opened an account under the heading, ‘Begininge to receue of thes meane ther privet deates which they owe vnto me’, and was able to enter in it a series of repayments by Jones, Downton, Bird, and Shaw.[497] Bird, however, still owed £10 10_s._ on 12 March 1602, and Henslowe noted, ‘He is cleere of all debtes & demaundes except theis debtes and such stocke & covenentes as I maie clayme & challendge of him by reason of his coniunction with the companie’.[498] Whether the playwrights reaped any benefit may be doubted. The tendency to a rise of prices which showed itself in 1599 was hardly maintained. Some of them were still impecunious enough. The company had, on more than one occasion to redeem a play which the unfortunate Chettle had pawned with one Bromfield, a mercer; and in March 1602 he seems to have followed Porter’s example and put his hand, for a consideration of £3, to an instrument binding him to write for them alone.[499] There were some legal troubles in the course of 1601. A sum of £21 10_s._ had to be paid on a bond to a Mr. Treheren during March, and in August there were fees to a jury and a clerk of assizes. The company had also to find 10_s._ in May ‘to geatte the boye into the ospetalle which was hurt at the Fortewne’.[500] Information as to the composition of the company at some time between Alleyn’s return and February 1602 is given by the ‘plot’ of _The Battle of Alcazar_, although, as this is mutilated, it must not be treated as negative evidence, and in particular the names of W. Borne and John Singer are missing.[501] All the other sharers, however, are found in it--‘Mr. Ed. Allen, Mr. Doughton, Mr. Juby, Mr. Shaa, Mr. Jones, Mr. Towne, Antony Jeffes, H. Jeffes, Mr. Charles [Massey], and Mr. Sam [Rowley]’. There are also Mr. Rich. Allen and Mr. Hunt, who were not sharers, but whose long service had apparently earned them the dignity of the ‘Mr.’, W. Kendall, Jeames, who was possibly Henslowe’s apprentice James Bristow and possibly Jones’s boy of the same name, and Dob, who was probably the Dobe of the 1598 inventory. The remaining names, all of which are new, are those of W. Cartwright, who, however, had witnessed a loan for Henslowe as far back as 21 April 1598,[502] Dick Jubie, Ro. Tailor, George Somerset, Tho. Drum, [Thomas] Parsons, Harry, and the ‘boys’ of Mr. Allen and Mr. Towne. The only important woman’s part, that of Callipolis, is assigned by the ‘plot’ to Pisano, which does not look like an actor’s name and may be a mistake. The services of Bristow were evidently leased out by Henslowe to the company or some one of its members, at a rate of 3_s._ a week. Antony Jeffes paid two weeks’ arrears ‘for my boyes Jeames wages’ in August 1600, and Henslowe charged the company £6 10_s._ on the same account in the following February.[503] Another boy attached to the company about the same time must have been ‘Nick’, for whom hose ‘to tumbell in be fore the quen’ were bought on 25 December 1601. Hugh Davis, for the mending of whose tawny coat ‘which was eatten with the rattes’ 6_s._ 7_d._ was paid in November 1601, was perhaps a hired man. A list of the responsible members of the company is attached by Henslowe to a reckoning cast between 7 and 23 February 1602. They were then ‘John Singer, Thomas Downton, William Byrd, Edward Juby, Thomas Towne, Humphrey Jeffs, Anthony Jeffs, Samuel Rowley, and Charles Massy’.[504] A note is added that £50 had been advanced ‘to geve vnto Mr. Jonnes & Mr. Shaw at ther goinge a waye’. This departure must have been quite recent. Shaw had been agent for the company on the previous 21 January, and the list of continuing members is in fact in his handwriting. The last instalment of Jones’s private debt had been paid off on 1 November. His three years’ agreement with Henslowe had expired at Michaelmas 1600. Richard Alleyn must have died in September 1602, for on the 19th of that month his widow borrowed £5 10_s._ to take her mantle and sheet and face-cloth out of pawn.[505] Neither Shaw nor Jones nor Richard Alleyn is in the plot of _1 Tamar Cham_, which may reasonably be assigned to a date in the vicinity of the purchase of the book from Alleyn on 2 October 1602. This is of interest, partly because it is complete, and partly because there was a procession in the play, and the number of supernumeraries required must have tried the resources of the establishment to their utmost. All the principal members of the company appeared--‘Mr. Allen, Mr. Denygten, Mr. Boorne, Mr. Towne, Mr. Singer, Mr. Jubie, H. Jeffs, A. Jeffs, Mr. Charles [Massey], and Mr. Sam [Rowley]’; and in addition Dick Jubie, W. Cart[wright], George [Somerset], Tho. Parsons, and Jeames [Bristow], who were in _The Battle of Alcazar_, and W. Parr, Tho. Marbeck, Jack Grigorie, Gedion, Gibbs, Tho. Rowley, Rester, ‘old Browne’, Ned Browne, ‘the red fast fellow’ and several boys, described, perhaps in some cases twice over, as Jack Jones, ‘little Will’, ‘little Will Barne’, who do not seem to be identical, ‘Gils his boy’, ‘Mr. Denyghtens little boy’, perhaps the same already recorded in 1600, and ‘the other little boy’. ‘Old Browne’ can hardly be Robert Browne, who seems to have been in Germany; but Ned Browne may be the Edward Browne who, like Robert, was a member of Worcester’s company in 1583. Little is added by the only other extant ‘plot’, the fragmentary one of _2 Fortune’s Tennis_. This is difficult to date, but it must be later than Dekker’s _1 Fortune’s Tennis_ of September 1600, and may not improbably be Munday’s _Set at Tennis_ of December 1602. The few names which it contains--Mr. Singer, Sam, Charles, Geo[rge Somerset], R. Tailor, W. Cartwright, Pavy--suggest proximity to _The Battle of Alcazar_ and _1 Tamar Cham_. The only fresh one is that of Pavy, who may or may not be connected with the Salathiel Pavy of Ben Jonson’s epitaph. Both _1 Tamar Cham_ and _2 Fortune’s Tennis_ must be earlier than January 1603, a month which saw the retirement of the old Queen’s man, John Singer. So at least may be inferred from the fact that he makes no further appearance in the diary after 13 January, when he received £5 ‘for his play called Syngers Vallentarey’. I take ‘vallentarey’ to mean ‘valediction’. His name is absent from the next list of the company, which belongs to 1604. He probably left to become an ordinary Groom of the Chamber in the royal household, a post which he is found occupying at the time of Elizabeth’s funeral.[506]

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

_1 Fortune’s Tennis_ (Dekker).
_Hannibal and Scipio_ (Hathway and Rankins).
_Scogan and Skelton_ (Hathway and Rankins).
_All is not Gold that Glisters_ (Chettle).
_2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ (Day and Haughton).
_The Six Yeomen of the West_ (Day and Haughton).
_King Sebastian of Portugal_ (Chettle and Dekker).

None of these plays is extant, but the purchase of properties testifies to the performance of _2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ in April and _The Six Yeomen of the West_ in July. Moreover, Day received a bonus of 10_s._ between 27 April and 2 May ‘after the playinge of’ the former piece. Only £1 was paid for _1 Fortune’s Tennis_, but the existence of a ‘plot’ for _2 Fortune’s Tennis_ suggests that it must have been completed. Probably it was a short topical overture designed to celebrate the opening of the Fortune.[507] Unfinished plays were _Robin Hood’s Pennyworths_ (Haughton)[508] and _The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt_ (Hathway and Rankins). The revivals included _Phaethon_ (January), _The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ (May), and _The Jew of Malta_ (May). Dekker had £2 for ‘alterynge of’ _Phaethon_ for the Court, and this was therefore the Admiral’s play of 6 January 1601. They also appeared on 28 December and 2 February. _Dr. Faustus_ was entered on 7 January; the earliest print (1604) bears their name. The new books of 1601–2 were fourteen in number, as follows:[509]

_The Conquest of the West Indies_ (Day, Haughton, and Smith).
_3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ (Day and Haughton).
_The Life of Cardinal Wolsey_ (Chettle).[510]
_1 The Six Clothiers_ (Hathway, Haughton, and Smith).
_The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey_ (Chettle, Drayton, Munday, and
Smith).
_Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp_ (Chettle, Day, and
Haughton).
_Judas_ (Bird and Rowley).[511]
_Too Good to be True_ (Chettle, Hathway, and Smith).
_Malcolm King of Scots_ (Massey).
_Love Parts Friendship_ (Chettle and Smith).
_Jephthah_ (Dekker and Munday).
_Tobias_ (Chettle).
_The Bristol Tragedy_ (Day).
_Caesar’s Fall_, or, _The Two Shapes_ (Dekker, Drayton,
Middleton, Munday, and Webster).

At least ten of these appear to have been played: _2 Cardinal Wolsey_ (August), _3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ (September), _Judas_ (January), _The Conquest of the West Indies_ (January), _Malcolm King of Scots_ (April), _Love Parts Friendship_ (May), _1 Cardinal Wolsey_ (June), _Jephthah_ (July), and at uncertain dates, _Tobias_ and probably _The Bristol Tragedy_.[512] None is now extant. The unfinished plays were _The Humorous Earl of Gloucester with his Conquest of Portugal_ (Wadeson), _2 Tom Dough_[513] (Day and Haughton), _The Orphan’s Tragedy_ (Chettle),[514] _2 The Six Clothiers_ (Hathway, Haughton, and Smith),[515] _The Spanish Fig_ (Anon.),[516] _Richard Crookback_ (Jonson),[517] _A Danish Tragedy_ (Chettle),[518] and _A Medicine for a Curst Wife_ (Dekker).[519] There was considerable activity of revival during the year. Six old plays belonging to the 1594–7 repertory, for some of which the company already held the properties,[520] were bought from Alleyn at £2 each, _Mahomet_ in August, _The Wise Man of West Chester_ in September, _Vortigern_ in November, and _The French Doctor_, _The Massacre at Paris_, and _Crack Me this Nut_ in January. The first and the last three of these certainly were played, and the revival of _The Massacre at Paris_ appears to have caused annoyance to Henri IV.[521] In addition, properties were bought for one of the _Hercules_ plays in December, Dekker got 10_s._ for a prologue and epilogue to _Pontius Pilate_[522] in January, and Jonson wrote additions to _The Spanish Tragedy_, possibly those now extant, in September, although it may be doubted whether the further additions contemplated in the following June were ever made. There is nothing to show what was selected, other than Nick’s tumbling, for the Admiral’s only Court play of 1601–2, which took place on 27 December.

The season of 1602–3 was, of course, shortened by the death of Elizabeth and the outbreak of plague. The new plays numbered nine. They were:

_Samson_ (Anon.).
_Felmelanco_ (Chettle and Robinson).
_Joshua_ (Rowley).
_Randal Earl of Chester_ (Middleton).
_Merry as May Be_ (Day, Hathway, and Smith).
_The Set at Tennis_ (Munday).
_1 The London Florentine_ (Chettle and Heywood).
_Singer’s Voluntary_ (Singer).
_The Boss of Billingsgate_ (Day, Hathway, and another).[523]

It must be added that in September properties were bought for a ‘new playe’ called _The Earl of Hertford_, which it seems impossible to identify with any of the pieces bought. This looks like one of the rare cases in which payment did not pass through Henslowe’s hands. This and _Samson_ are the only new plays of the year, the actual performance of which can be verified; and none of these plays is extant.[524] I suspect, however, that Munday’s _Set at Tennis_ is the _2 Fortune’s Tennis_ of which a ‘plot’ survives. The payment, of only £3, was ‘in full’, and it may, like _1 Fortune’s Tennis_, have been a short piece of some exceptional character, motived by the name of the theatre in which it was presented. Unfinished plays at the end of the season were _The Widow’s Charm_ (Munday or Wadeson),[525] _William Cartwright_ (Haughton), _Hoffman_ (Chettle),[526] _2 London Florentine_ (Chettle and Heywood), _The Siege of Dunkirk and Alleyn the Pirate_ (Massey). The revival of old plays continued. Costumes for _Vortigern_, one of those bought from Alleyn in the previous year, were in preparation during September, and Alleyn’s stock yielded three more, _Philip of Spain_ and _Longshanks_ in August and _Tamar Cham_, probably the second part, as the extant ‘plot’ testifies, in October. The last two of these belonged to the Admiral’s repertory of 1594–7, but the origin of _Philip of Spain_ is unknown. A book of _The Four Sons of Aymon_, for which £2 was paid to Robert Shaw, was probably also old, and was bought on condition that Shaw should repay the £2, unless the play was used by the Admiral’s or some other company with his consent by Christmas 1604. Bird and Rowley had £4 in September for additions to _Dr. Faustus_. Dekker completed some alterations of _Tasso’s Melancholy_, another 1594–7 play, in December, and in the same month Middleton wrote ‘for the corte’ a prologue and epilogue to Greene’s _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, which I should suppose to have been Henslowe’s property, as it was played by Strange’s men in 1592–3 and the Queen’s and Sussex’s in 1594. This probably served for the first of the three appearances made by the Admiral’s at Court, on 27 December. The other two were on 6 March and on a date unspecified. For one of these occasions Chettle was writing a prologue and epilogue at the end of December, but the play is not named.[527] One of the new plays, _Merry as May Be_, was intended for Court, when the first payment on account of it was made on 9 November.

On 12 March 1603 Henslowe practically closes the detailed record which he had kept continuously in his diary since October 1597 of his financial transactions, otherwise than by way of rent, with the Admiral’s men. A brief review of these is not without interest.[528] His advances from 21 October 1597 to 8 March 1598 amounted to £46 7_s._ 3_d._, and to this he took the signatures of the company, with the note, ‘Thes men dothe aknowlege this deat to be dewe by them by seatynge of ther handes to yette’. By 28 July a further amount of £120 15_s._ 4_d._ had been incurred, making a total of £166 17_s._ 7_d._ for 1597–8.[529] During the same period he entered weekly receipts from the company to a total of £125. These must have gone to an old debt, for he did not balance them with the payments for the year, but carried on the whole debit of £166 17_s._ 7_d._ to 1598–9. Apparently, however, he was not satisfied with the way in which expenditure was outstripping income, for he headed a new receipts account, ‘Here I begyne to receue the wholle gallereys frome this daye beinge the 29 of July 1598’, and the weekly entries become about double what they were during 1597–8. On the other hand, there is also a considerable increase in the rate of expenditure. It is an ingenious and, I think, sound conjecture of Dr. Greg’s, that throughout 1594–1603 Henslowe was taking half the gallery money for rent, and that, at different times, he also took either the other half, or another quarter only, to recoup himself for his advances.[530] The outgoings entered during 1598–9 reach £435 7_s._ 4_d._, but some items for March and April 1599 are probably missing, owing to a mutilation of the manuscript.[531] The receipts for the same period were £358 3_s._ On 13 October 1599, about a fortnight after the beginning of the 1599–1600 season, a balance was struck. Henslowe credited the company with the £358 received from the gallery money, and debited them with £632 advanced by him. This includes £166 17_s._ 7_d._ for 1597–8, £435 7_s._ 4_d._ for 1598–9, and £29 15_s._ 1_d._, which may reasonably be taken as the sum of the missing entries for March and April 1599. The balance of £274 remained as a debt from the company. They did not, however, set their hands to a reckoning until the end of the next year, on 10 July 1600. During 1599–1600 a fresh account had been running, on which Henslowe’s receipts were £202 10_s._ and his payments £222 5_s._ 6_d._ At the reckoning the company’s indebtedness is calculated at £300, and is admitted by the formula, ‘which some of three hundred powndes we whose names are here vnder written doe acknowledge our dewe debt & doe promyse payment’. To this their signatures are appended. There is, however, an unexplained discrepancy of £6 4_s._ 6_d._, as the old debt of £274 and the 1599–1600 debit balance of £19 15_s._ 6_d._ only make up £293 15_s._ 6_d._

From 1600 onwards there are no records of receipts. A continuous account of payments is kept up to 7 February 1602. The total amounts to £304 10_s._ 4_d._, but Henslowe sums it in error as £308 6_s._ 4_d._, and notes, ‘Frome ther handes to this place is 308^{ll}-06^s-04^d dewe vnto me & with the three hundred of owld is £608-06-04^d’. He then adds the £50 paid to Jones and Shaw on retirement, ‘which is not in this recknynge’. Above this summary comes a list of names, said by Dr. Greg to be in Shaw’s hand, of those sharers who were continuing in the company, headed by the figures ‘211. 9. 0.’ I think the interpretation is that £386 17_s._ 4_d._ of the £608 6_s._ 4_d._ was paid out of gallery money or other sources, leaving £211 9_s._, together with the £50 for Jones and Shaw, chargeable on the company. This is borne out by the remnant of the accounts, which is headed, ‘Begininge with a new recknyng with my lord of Notingames men the 23 daye of Febreary 1601 as foloweth’. The expenditure on this new reckoning up to 12 March 1603 was, as calculated by Henslowe, £188 11_s._ 6_d._, and he adds to this total a sum of £211 9_s._ ‘vpon band’, being evidently the residue of the debt as it stood at the close of the old reckoning, and makes a total of £400 0_s._ 6_d._ This, with the £50 for Jones and Shaw, was no doubt what the company owed when the detailed account in the diary closed. There was, however, an unstated amount of gallery receipts during 1602–3 to set against it; and in fact a retrospect of the whole series of figures shows that there would have been a pretty fair equivalence of gallery money and advances throughout, but for the exceptionally heavy expenditure of 1598–9, £465 2_s._ 5_d._ in all, which left the company saddled with an obligation which they never quite overtook. This expenditure was more than half the total expenditure of £854 5_s._ 6_d._ for the _triennium_ 1597–1600, and nearly as much as the whole expenditure of £493 1_s._ 10_d._ for the _triennium_ 1600–3, during which it may be suspected that the business capacities of Alleyn brought about considerable economies.

The accounts may be looked at from another point of view. If the unanalysable sum of £29 15_s._ 1_d._ for the missing items of March and April 1599 be neglected, there was a total expenditure for the six years of £1,317 11_s._ 3_d._ Of this £652 13_s._ 8_d._, being about half, went in payments in respect of play-books; £561 1_s._ 1_d._ for properties and apparel; and £103 16_s._ 6_d._ in miscellaneous outgoings, such as licensing fees, legal charges, musical instruments, travelling expenses, merry-makings and the like. Thus, if the company supped together at Mr. Mason’s of the Queen’s Head, or met to read a ‘book’ at the Sun in New Fish Street, Henslowe would put his hand into his pocket to pay the score, and would not forget afterwards to debit the company with the amount in his diary.[532] It must, of course, be borne in mind that only part of this miscellaneous expenditure was incurred through Henslowe. He certainly did not, for example, pay all the fees for the licensing of new plays by the Master of the Revels. And of course there were many matters, in particular the wages of hired actors and servitors, for which the company had regularly to find funds in other ways. It is probable that only play-books, properties, and apparel were normally charged to his account, although the convenience of an occasional extension of his functions can readily be understood. Dr. Greg may be right in thinking that his position as agent for the company in its purchases was a natural development of his pawnbroking business.[533] But during the period under review he did not, as a rule, supply them with goods himself. A sale of ‘A shorte velluett clocke wraght with bugell & a gearcken of velluet layd with brade coper sylver lace’ for £4 on 28 November 1598 was exceptional. Usually the payments are to tradesmen, to the mercers Stone, Richard Heath, and Robert Bromfield, to ‘him at the Eagell and Chylld’ for armour, to Mrs. Gosson for head-tires, and for wigs to one Father Ogle, who is mentioned also in the Revels Accounts and in the play of _Sir Thomas More_. Sometimes ready-made garments, new or second-hand, were bought. A doublet and hose of sea-water green satin cost £3 and a doublet and ‘venesyons’ of cloth of silver wrought with red silk £4 10_s._ But often stuffs were obtained in piece and made up by tailors, of whom the company employed two, Dover and Radford, the latter known, for the sake of distinction, as ‘the little tailor’. These and William White, who made the crowns, probably worked at the theatre, in the tiring-house. The company gave 6_s._ a yard for russet broadcloth and the same for murrey satin, 12_s._ for other satins, 12_s._ 6_d._ for taffeties, and no less than £1 for ‘ij pylle velluet of carnardyn’. Laces cost 1_d._ each; copper lace anything from 4_s._ a pound to 1_s._ 2_d._ an ounce. Of this they used quantities, and in the summer of 1601 they had run up a considerable ‘old debt’ to the copper lace-man, as well as another to Heath the mercer, which had to be paid off by degrees. The more expensive garments, such as a rich cloak bought of Langley for £19, were, of course, an investment on the part of the company, and were worn in their time by many sharers and hired men in different parts. But the principal actors had also, as Alleyn’s inventory shows, their private wardrobes. Henslowe was prepared to furnish these on the instalment system. Thus Richard Jones bought in 1594 ‘a manes gowne of pechecoler in grayne’ for £3 payable in weekly sums of 5_s._, and Thomas Towne in 1598 ‘a blacke clothe clocke layd with sylke lace’ for 26_s._ 8_d._ at 1_s._ weekly. It was as hard to keep these glories as to procure them. On one occasion the company came to the rescue and lent Thomas Downton £12 10_s._, to fetch out of pawn two cloaks, ‘which they exsepted into the stock’. The one was ‘ashecolerd velluet embradered with gowld’, the other ‘a longe black velluet clocke layd with sylke lace’.[534]

The termination of the record of advances after 12 March 1603 indicates an interruption of performances, probably due to the increasing illness of Elizabeth, who died on the following 24 March. Thereafter there are only a few winding-up entries in the diary. The company must have immediately begun to travel under the leadership of Thomas Downton, who in the course of 1602–3 received a gift for them from the Corporation of Canterbury, ‘because it was thought fitt they should not play at all, in regard that our late Queene was then very sicke or dead as they supposed’. London playing, if resumed at all, must have very soon been stopped again by the plague. There was some further small expenditure, of which the details are not given, before Henslowe noted that, in addition to the bond for £211 9_s._, ‘Ther reasteth dew vnto me to this daye beinge the v daye of Maye 1603 when we leafte of playe now at the Kynges cominge all recknynges abated the some of a hundred fowerscore & sevntenepowndes & thirteneshellynges & fowerpence I saye dew--£197 13_s._ 4_d._ the fyftye powndes which Jonnes & Shawe had at ther goinge a way not reconed’. The company travelled again during the plague, being traceable as the Admiral’s men in 1602–3 at Bath and York and on 18 August 1603 at Leicester, and as the Earl of Nottingham’s in 1602–3 at Coventry. The tour was over by 21 October, on which date Joan Alleyn wrote to her husband at the house of Mr. Chaloner in Sussex, telling him amongst other things that ‘all of your owne company ar well at theyr owne houses’, that all the other companies had returned, that ‘Nicke and Jeames be well’, and that ‘Browne of the Boares head’ had not gone into the country at all, and was now dead, ‘& dyed very pore’. This might be either Edward Browne, or the ‘old Browne’ who appeared with him in _1 Tamar Cham_ in the previous autumn. In any case, it is clear from the reference to him that he was not a regular member of Alleyn’s company. ‘Jeames’ is no doubt James Bristow, who, as Henslowe’s apprentice, would be likely to form part of his household; and ‘Nicke’, who seems to have been in the same position, may be supposed to be the Nick who tumbled before the Queen at Christmas 1601.

The Jacobean records of the company seem meagre in the absence of Henslowe’s detailed register of proceedings. About Christmas 1603 they were taken into the service of Prince Henry, and are hereafter known as the Prince’s players.[535] They are entered amongst other ‘Officers to the Prince’ as receiving four and a half yards of red cloth apiece as liveries for the coronation procession on 15 March 1604, and their names are given as ‘Edward Allen, William Bird, Thomas Towne, Thomas Dowton, Samuell Rowley, Edward Jubie, Humfry Jeffes, Charles Massey, and Anthony Jeffes’.[536] Alleyn, even if not a ‘sharer’, was therefore a member of the company in its official capacity. He is also named as the Prince’s servant, both in the printed account of the entertainment at which, dressed as a Genius, he delivered a speech, and in Stowe’s description of a bear-baiting which formed part of the festivities.[537] It may, however, be inferred that he took an early opportunity of leaving a profession to which he had only been recalled by the personal whim of the late Queen.[538] He was joint payee with Juby in the warrant of 19 February, but Juby’s name stands alone in another of 17 April and in those of all subsequent years up to 1615. And when the company received a formal licence by patent on 30 April 1606, Alleyn’s name was omitted, and does not appear in any further list of its members. It is true that as late as 11 May 1611 he is still described in a formal document as the Prince’s servant, but he may have held some other appointment, actual or honorific, in the household.[539] A note of his resources about 1605, however, includes ‘my share of aparell, £100’.[540] And he certainly remained interested in the company. They were his tenants at the Fortune, although an unexecuted draft of a lease to Thomas Downton dated in 1608 suggests that he may have taken steps to transfer the whole or a share of his direct interest to them. Under this lease Downton was to receive during thirteen years a thirty-second part of the daily profits accruing to Henslowe and Alleyn, and in return to pay £27 10_s._, a rent of 10_s._ annually and his proportionate share of repairs, and to bind himself to play in the house and not elsewhere without consent.[541] On 11 April 1612 Robert Browne is found writing to Alleyn on behalf of one Mr. Rose, lately ‘entertayned amongst the princes men’, to request his interest as one ‘who he knowes can strike a greter stroke amongst them then this’ to procure him a ‘gathering place’ for his wife.[542] Another letter from Bird to Alleyn, also about a gatherer, is amusing enough to quote in full. It is undated.

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

With the exception of Alleyn, all the players of the 1604 list and no others appear in the patent of 1606, the text of which follows:[544]

[Sidenote: De concessione licenciae pro Thoma Downton et aliis.]

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices, Maiors,
Sheriffes, bailiffes, Constables, headboroughes and other our
officers and loving subiectes greeting. Knowe ye that wee of
our especiall grace, certaine knowledge, and meere mocion haue
licenced and auctorized, and by theis presentes doe licence
and auctorize Thomas Downton, Thomas Towne, William Byrde,
Edwarde Iuby, Samuell Rowle, Humfrey Ieffes, Charles Massey, and
Anthonie Ieffes, Servauntes to our dearest sonne the Prince, and
the rest of theire Associates to vse and exercise the arte and
facultie of playing Commedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes,
Moralls, Pastoralls, Stageplayes, and such other like as they
haue alreadie studied or hereafter shall vse or studie, aswell
for the recreacion of our loving subiectes, as for our solace
and pleasure when wee shall thincke good to see them, during
our pleasure, And the said Commedies, Tragedies, histories,
Enterludes, Moralls, pastoralls, stageplaies, and suche like
to shewe and exercise publiquelie to their best Commoditie,
aswell within theire nowe vsuall house called the Fortune within
our Countie of Middlesex, as alsoe within anie Towne halls or
Moutehalls or other convenient places within the libertie and
ffredome of anie other Cittie, vniversitie, Towne, or Boroughe
whatsoever, within our Realmes and Domynions, willing and
Commaunding you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure,
not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without anie your
lettes, hindraunces, or molestacions during our saide pleasure,
but alsoe to be aiding and assisting vnto them yf anie wrong be
to them offered, And to allowe them such former curtesies as
hath been given to men of theire place and quallitie, And alsoe
what further favour you shall shewe vnto them for our sake wee
shall take kindelie at your handes. Prouided alwaies, and our
will and pleasure ys, that all auctoritie, power, priuiledges,
and profittes whatsoever belonging and properlie appertaining
to the Maister of our Revells in respecte of his office, and
everie Clause, article, or graunte conteined within the letteres
patentes or Commission, which haue heretofore been graunted
or directed by the late Queene Elizabeth our deere Sister, or
by our selves, to our welbeloued servantes Edmonde Tilney,
Maister of the office of our said Revells, or to Sir George
Bucke knighte, or to either of them in possession or reversion,
shall be remayne and abide entire, and in full force estate and
vertue, and in as ample sorte as yf this our Commission had
never been made. In witnesse whereof etc. Witnesse our selfe at
Westminster the Thirtith daie of Aprill.
per breve de priuato sigillo.

Between 1606 and 1610 it seems to have been thought desirable to strengthen the composition of the company by the introduction of new blood. A list of ‘Comedyanes and Playores’, included in the establishment book drawn up when Henry formed his own Household as Prince of Wales in 1610, contains six names in addition to the eight of the patent.[545] They are ‘Edward Colbrande, Wm. Parre, Rychard Pryore, William Stratford, Frauncys Grace, and John Shanke’. Of these William Parr, who is in the plot of _1 Tamar Cham_ in 1602, is alone traceable in the earlier records of the company. Shank had been of Pembroke’s and Queen Elizabeth’s men.

Henslowe entered two more advances in his diary, one for ‘facynge of a blacke grogren clocke with taffytye’, the other to Dekker and Middleton in earnest of _The Patient Man and the Honest Whore_. This was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 9 November 1604, and printed as _The Honest Whore_ during the year. The name of Towne is in a stage-direction. On 14 March ‘1604’, which may have been either 1604 or 1605, Henslowe had a final reckoning with the company and noted ‘Caste vp all the acowntes frome the begininge of the world vntell this daye beinge the 14 daye of Marche 1604 by Thomas Dowghton & Edward Jube for the company of the prynces men & I Phillipe Henslow so ther reasteth dew vnto me P Henslow the some of xxiiij^{li} all reconynges consernynge the company in stocke generall descarged & my sealfe descarged to them of al deates’.[546] With this, so far as the extant book goes, the record of his transactions with the company practically ceases. The only exception is a note of receipts at the Fortune during the three days next after Christmas in 1608, which amounted to 25_s._, 45_s._, and 44_s._ 9_d._ respectively.[547] Something of the career of the Prince’s men may be gleaned from other sources. They played at Court before James on 21 January and 20 February 1604, and before Henry on 4, 15, and 22 January; and during the following Christmas before Anne on 23 November 1604 and before Henry on 24 November, 14 and 19 December, and on 15 and 22 January and 5 and 19 February 1605. On 8 February 1605 their play of _Richard Whittington_, of which nothing further is known, was entered on the Stationers’ Register.[548] In the same year Samuel Rowley’s _When You See Me, You Know Me_, was printed as played by them. During the Christmas of 1605–6 they gave three plays before James and three before Henry.[549] In 1604–5 they were at Maidstone and Winchester, in 1605–6 at Bath, on 17 July 1606 at Oxford, and on 17 October at Ipswich. During the Christmas of 1606–7 they gave six plays before James. Dekker’s _Whore of Babylon_ was entered on the Stationers’ Register on 20 April 1607 and printed as theirs in the same year. In 1606–7 they were at Bath. During the Christmas of 1607–8 they gave four plays before James and Henry. In 1607–8 they were at Maidstone and Saffron Walden, and on 1 October 1608 they were at Leicester; but a visit of the same year from ‘the Princes players of the White Chapple, London’ is rather to be assigned to the Duke of York’s men (q.v.). They gave three plays before James and Henry during the Christmas of 1608–9, four before James during that of 1609–10, and four before James during that of 1610–11. Middleton and Dekker’s _The Roaring Girl_ was printed in 1611 as lately played by them at the Fortune, and Field’s _Amends for Ladies_ (_c._ 1610–11) names ‘Long Meg and the Ship’ as in their repertory. Presumably their _Long Meg of Westminster_ of 1595 still held the boards.[550] In 1608–9 they were at Shrewsbury and Saffron Walden, in 1609–10 at Shrewsbury and Hereford, in 1610–11 at Shrewsbury and Winchester.

They played at Court before James on 28 and 29 December 1611, giving on the second night _The Almanac_, and before Henry in February and Elizabeth in April 1612. On 1 October 1612 the lewd jigs, songs, and dances at the Fortune are recited in an order of the Middlesex justices as tending to promote breaches of the peace. One of these may have been the occasion on which an obscure actor, Garlick by name, made himself offensive to the more refined part of his audience.[551] On the following 7 November Henry died and on 7 December his players figured in his funeral procession.[552]