Chapter XIV: Introduction: The Boy Companies (12)

Imprimis. The said Robert Dawes for him, his executors, and
administrators doth covenante, promise, and graunt to and with
the said Phillipp Henslowe and Jacob Meade, their executors,
administrators, and assynes, in manner and formme followinge,
that is to saie, that he the said Robert Dawes shall and will
plaie with such company, as the said Phillipp Henslowe and
Jacob Meade shall appoynte, for and during the tyme and space
of three yeares from the date hereof for and at the rate of one
whole share, accordinge to the custome of players; and that he
the said Robert Dawes shall and will at all tymes during the
said terme duly attend all suche rehearsall, which shall the
night before the rehearsall be given publickly out; and if that
he the saide Robert Dawes shall at any tyme faile to come at
the hower appoynted, then he shall and will pay to the said
Phillipp Henslowe and Jacob Meade, their executors or assignes,
Twelve pence; and if he come not before the saide rehearsall
is ended, then the said Robert Dawes is contented to pay Twoe
shillings; and further that if the said Robert Dawes shall not
every daie, whereon any play is or ought to be played, be ready
apparrelled and ---- to begyn the play at the hower of three of
the clock in the afternoone, unles by sixe of the same company
he shall be lycenced to the contrary, that then he, the saide
Robert Dawes, shall and will pay unto the said Phillipp and
Jacob or their assignes Three [shillings]; and if that he, the
saide Robert Dawes, happen to be overcome with drinck at the
tyme when he [ought to] play, by the judgment of ffower of the
said company, he shall and will pay Tenne shillings; and if he,
[the said Robert Dawes], shall [faile to come] during any plaie,
having noe lycence or just excuse of sicknes, he is contented
to pay Twenty shillings; and further the said Robert Dawes,
for him, his executors, and administrators, doth covenant and
graunt to and with the said Phillipp Henslowe and Jacob Meade,
their executors, administrators, and asignes, by these presents,
that it shall and may be lawfull unto and for the said Phillipp
Henslowe and Jacob Meade, their executors or assignes, during
the terme aforesaid, to receave and take back to their own
proper use the part of him, the said Robert Dawes, of and in one
moyetie or halfe part of all suche moneyes, as shal be receaved
at the Galleries & tyring howse of such house or howses wherein
he the saide Robert Dawes shall play, for and in consideration
of the use of the same howse and howses; and likewis shall
and may take and receave his other moyetie ...[ extra spaces
] the moneys receaved at the galleries and tiring howse dues,
towards the pa[ying] to them, the saide Phillip Henslowe and
Jacob Meade, of the some of one hundred twenty and fower pounds,
being the value of the stock of apparell furnished by the saide
company by the saide Phillip Henslowe and Jacob Meade ...[ extra
spaces ] the one part of him the saide Robert Dawes or any other
somes ...[ extra spaces ] to them for any apparell hereafter
newly to be bought by the [said Phillip Henslowe and Jacob
Meade, until the saide Phillip Henslowe and Jacob Meade] shall
therby be fully satisfied, contented, and paid. And further
the said Robert Dawes doth covenant, [promise, and graunt to
and with the said Phillip Henslowe and Jacob Meade, that if
he, the said Robert Dawes], shall at any time after the play
is ended depart or goe out of the [howse] with any [of their]
apparell on his body, or if the said Robert Dawes [shall carry
away any propertie] belonging to the said company, or shal be
consentinge [or privy to any other of the said company going
out of the howse with any of their apparell on his or their
bodies, he, the said] Robert Dawes, shall and will forfeit and
pay unto the said Phillip and Jacob, or their administrators
or assignes, the some of ffortie pounds of lawfull [money of
England] ...[ extra spaces ] and the said Robert Dawes, for
him, his executors, and administrators doth [covenant promise
and graunt to with the said] Phillip Henslowe and Jacob Meade,
their executors, and administrators [and assigns] [ extra spaces
] that it shall and may be lawfull to and for the said Phillip
Henslowe and Jacob Meade, their executors, and assignes, to have
and use the playhows so appoynted [for the said company [ extra
spaces ] one day of] every fower daies, the said daie to be
chosen by the said Phillip and [Jacob] [ extra spaces ] Monday
in any week, on which day it shalbe lawful for the said Phillip
[and Jacob, their administrators], and assignes, to bait their
bears and bulls ther, and to use their accustomed sport and
[games] [ extra spaces ] and take to their owne use all suche
somes of money, as thereby shall arise and be receaved

And the saide Robert Dawes, his executors, administrators, and
assignes, [do hereby covenant, promise, and graunt to and with
the saide Phillip and Jacob,] allowing to the saide company
daye the some of ffortie shillings money of England ... [In
testimony] for every such whereof, I the saide Robert Dawes haue
hereunto sett my hand and seal this [sev]enth daie of April 1614
in the twelfth yeare [of the reign of our sovereign lord &c.]
Robert Dawes.

It must be mainly matter of conjecture at what theatres the Lady Elizabeth’s had played from 1611 to 1614. Possibly they may have begun at the Swan. Middleton’s _A Chaste Maid in Cheapside_ was published as ‘often acted at the Swan on the Bankeside by the Lady Elizabeth her Seruants’, and although this publication was not until 1630, it is rather tempting to identify the play with _The Proud Maid_ of 1611–12. Probably the association of the company with Henslowe led to a transfer to the Rose; and after the joining of forces with Rosseter in March 1613, the Whitefriars must have been available for the combination. That there were alternatives open in 1613 is shown by two passages in Daborne’s letters.[704] On 5 June he says that the company were expecting Henslowe to conclude ‘about thear comming over or goinge to Oxford’, and by ‘comming over’ may most naturally be understood crossing the Thames. On 9 December he claims that a book he is upon will ‘make as good a play for your publique howse as ever was playd’, and the inference is that at the time Henslowe was interested in a ‘private’ as well as in a ‘public’ house. Certainly the Watermen’s complaint in the spring of 1614 indicates that there were then no plays on Bankside, and both the Swan and the Rose must therefore have been deserted. But by the autumn the Lady Elizabeth’s men were in the Clink, occupying the newly built Hope on the site of the old Bear-garden; and that the use of this theatre was contemplated in the agreements of the previous spring is shown both by the presence of Meade, who is not known to have been interested in any other house, as a party, and by the reservation of one day in fourteen for the purpose of baiting.[705] It was at the Hope that William Fennor failed to appear to try his challenge with John Taylor on 7 October, and the Lady Elizabeth’s men were presumably the players--

And such a company (I’ll boldly say)
That better (nor the like) ne’er played a play--

who came to the rescue and saved the occasion from fiasco. And it was at the Hope and by the Lady Elizabeth’s men, as the Induction and the title-page show, that Jonson’s _Bartholomew Fair_ was produced on 31 October. There is a reference in the text of the play to Taylor’s adventure,[706] and a compliment to Field, which puts him on a level with Burbadge of the King’s men.[707] _Bartholomew Fair_ was presented on the very next day before James at Court. This performance, for which Field was payee on 11 June, was the only one by the company during the winter festivities of 1614–15. In February 1615 there was a breach between Henslowe and the company, as a result of which the Articles of Grievance were drawn up. According to the Articles Henslowe ‘brooke the companie’; but it is not quite clear what exactly took place. In some form the Lady Elizabeth’s men certainly continued to exist. They visited Nottingham in March 1615, and a letter from Lord Coke to the Mayor of Coventry shows that they also contemplated a visit to that town in the same month.[708] My impression is that they subsequently patched up another reconstruction with Henslowe, and that on this occasion the process did entail some kind of amalgamation with Prince Charles’s men. Field, however, probably now joined the King’s men. The Lady Elizabeth’s do not appear to have been separately represented when the Privy Council called the London companies before them for a breach of Lent on 29 March 1615. It is true that they may have been alone in not offending, but it is more probable that William Rowley and John Newton, who were summoned, answered for the amalgamation. The Prince’s men are recorded as playing at Court during the Christmas of 1615–16 and the Lady Elizabeth’s men are not. Yet the payee for their four plays, of which the dates are not specified, was Alexander Foster, who had been a Lady Elizabeth’s man and not a Prince’s man. But it is probable that both this amalgamation and the earlier one between the Lady Elizabeth’s and the Queen’s Revels, although effective as a business operation from Henslowe’s point of view, did not amount to a complete merging of identities, such as would entail a surrender of one or other of the official patents. Certainly the Lady Elizabeth’s, the Prince’s and the Revels were in some sense distinct, and yet in the closest relationship in 1615. So much is clear from Rosseter’s patent of 3 June to build in the Blackfriars, which contemplated that all three companies would share in the use of the new house. That the joint user extended also to plays is suggested by the title-page of Field’s _Amends for Ladies_ (1618) which declares it to have been ‘acted at the Blacke-Fryers, both by the Princes Seruants and the Lady Elizabeths’. Perhaps this indicates alternative rather than combined playing. Whatever the arrangement, it was probably altered again on or before Henslowe’s death on 6 January 1616.[709] A company containing many of the former Lady Elizabeth’s men remained at the Hope. But they went under Prince Charles’s patronage, and it is not until 1622, when we find them at Christopher Beeston’s house of the Cockpit or Phoenix, that we can be sure of the presence of Lady Elizabeth’s men in London once more.[710] But they had held together in the provinces. Possibly the nucleus of the provincial company had been formed of men left out by the Henslowe-Rosseter negotiations of 1613–14. They first appear at Norwich on 2 March 1614 under Nicholas Long, who in 1612 had been travelling with Queen’s Revels boys. They came again on 27 May 1615 with an exemplification of the 1611 patent dated 31 May 1613, and again on 5 June 1616 under John Townsend, and again on 7 June 1617 under Henry Sebeck. In the same year Joseph Moore was acting as an agent of the Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Revels in clearing the provinces of irregularly licensed players, not improbably in the interests of the Lady Elizabeth’s themselves, whose original patent was now set free, through changes in London, for provincial use in place of a mere exemplification.[711] The company is also traceable at Leicester, Coventry, Nottingham, Marlborough, and elsewhere from 1614,[712] and on 11 July 1617 Townsend and Moore received a warrant for £30 in respect of three plays given before James during his journey to Scotland.[713] On 20 March 1618 Townsend and Moore, with Alexander Foster and Francis Waymus, obtained a new licence under the royal signet.[714] This authorized them to play in London, and their actual return there may have been earlier than 1622.

XIV

INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES

i. ITALIAN PLAYERS IN ENGLAND

[_Bibliographical Note._--The wanderings of the Italian
companies in Italy itself and in France are recounted in A.
D’Ancona, _Origini del Teatro Italiano_ (ed. 2, 1891), and A.
Baschet, _Les Comédiens italiens à la Cour de France_ (1882),
but without much knowledge of the few English records. W.
Smith, _Italian and Elizabethan Comedy_ (_M. P._ v. 555) and
_The Commedia dell’ Arte_ (1912), deals more fully with these.
The literary influence of Italian comedy is discussed by L. L.
Schücking, _Die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komödie
zur italienischen bis Lilly_ (1901), and R. W. Bond, _Early
Plays from the Italian_ (1911).]

The England of Elizabeth and James was a lender rather than a borrower of players. No records have been disinterred of French actors in this country between 1495 and 1629;[715] and although there are a few of Italian actors, their visits seem to have been confined to a single brief period.[716] The head-quarters of Italian comedy during the middle of the sixteenth century was at the Court of Mantua, and when Lord Buckhurst went as ambassador to congratulate Charles IX of France on his wedding, it was by Louis Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers and brother of the Duke of Mantua, that he was entertained on 4 March 1571 ‘with a comedie of Italians that for the good mirth and handling thereof deserved singular comendacion’.[717] In the following year the Earl of Lincoln was at Paris from 8 to 22 June in order to conclude a treaty, and letters relate how he saw at the Louvre ‘an Italian playe, and dyvers vauters and leapers of dyvers sortes verie excellent’, and how later, when he visited the King at the Chateau de Madrid, ‘he had some pastyme showed him by Italian players, which I was at with hym’.[718] It may perhaps have been encouragement from one or both of these nobles, which led an Italian company not long afterwards to make its way across the Channel. The first notice of it is at Nottingham in September 1573, when a reward was ‘gevin to the Italyans for serteyne pastymes that they shewed before Maister Meare and his brethren’.[719] In 1574 the Revels Accounts include expenditure ‘for the Italyan players that ffollowed the progresse and made pastyme fyrst at Wynsor and afterwardes at Reading’. Elizabeth was at Windsor on 11 and 12 July; on 15 July she removed to Reading and remained there to 22 July. At Windsor the Italians used ‘iij devells cotes and heades & one olde mannes fries cote’; at Reading, where they performed on 15 July, the provisions included staves, hooks, and lambskins for shepherds, arrows for nymphs, a scythe for Saturn, and ‘horstayles for the wylde mannes garment’. Professor Feuillerat appears to suggest that they may have been playing Tasso’s _Aminta_, produced at Ferrara on 31 July 1573. But there were other pastorals.[720] The Italians are probably the comedians commended to the Lord Mayor on 22 July, and in November Thomas Norton calls special attention to ‘the unchaste, shamelesse and unnaturall tomblinge of the Italian weomen’. How long this company remained in England is unknown. There was an Italian acrobat at the Kenilworth festivities on 14 July 1575, but the description suggests that he was a solitary performer.[721] The Treasurer of the Chamber paid ‘Alfruso Ferrabolle and the rest of the Italian players’ for a play at Court on 27 February 1576, to the consideration of which I shall return. In April 1577 there was an Italian play before the Council at Durham Place.[722] Finally, on 13 January 1578, the Privy Council addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor, requiring him to permit ‘one Drousiano, an Italian, a commediante and his companye’, to play until the first week of the coming Lent. I take it that the company was also at Court, since the Chamber Accounts for 1577–8 include an item ‘for a mattres hoopes and boardes with tressells for the Italian Tumblers’. The company to which the visit of 1573–4 was due cannot be identified with any certainty. Presumably it came through France, and ought to have left signs there. There seem to have been three Italian companies in France during 1571. The first, in February, was that of Giovanni Tabarin. The second, that seen by Lord Buckhurst in Paris, was the famous Compagnia de’ Gelosi, of which one Signora Vittoria, of Ferrara, known on the stage as Fioretta, was the prima donna. This, however, had returned to Milan by the spring of 1572 and its subsequent movements hardly render a visit to England in 1573 plausible. A third company, that of Alberto Ganassa, a Zanni or clown from Bergamo, reached Paris in the autumn of 1571.[723] It was sent away by the Parlement on account of its high charges for admission, but returned in 1572 and played at the wedding of Henri of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois on 18 August. Nothing is heard of Ganassa in France after October 1572, but during the summer of 1574 he seems to have been in Madrid; so he also is not available for the English visit. It may very likely have been his company which the Earl of Lincoln saw. But it may also have been that led by Soldino of Florence and Anton Maria of Venice, which was performing ‘commedies et saults’ before Charles IX at Blois on 25 March 1572, and subsequently made its way to Paris. My authorities say nothing further about Soldino and Anton Maria, so we are at liberty to believe that Lincoln invited them to try their fortune across the sea.[724]

The ‘Drousiano’ of 1578 offers less difficulty. He must have been Drusiano, son of Francisco Martinelli, of Mantua, who in after years won a considerable reputation, although less than that of his brother Tristano Martinelli, as Arlecchino in the _commedia dell’ arte_.[725] There is no other notice of him before 1580, when he subscribes himself as ‘marito di M^a Angelica’, who appears to have been one Angelica Alberghini, and the company with which he was associated in 1578 is not known.[726] But it may very well have been the Gelosi. This company paid in 1577 their second visit to France, upon the invitation of Henri III, and remained there at least until July. They seem to have been in Florence fairly early in 1578, but some or all of them may have found time for an English trip in the interval. Direct proof that Drusiano Martinelli ever belonged to the Gelosi is lacking. But they are the only Italian company known to have been in France in the summer of 1577, and players are not likely to have passed from Italy to England without leaving some traces of their presence in France.[727]

The professional Italian actors of the second half of the sixteenth century played both the popular _commedia dell’ arte_ and the literary _commedia erudita_, or _commedia sostenuta_. The former, with its more or less improvised dialogue upon scenarii, which revolved around the amorous and ridiculous adventures of the _zanni_, the _arlecchino_, the _dottore_, and other standing types, was probably best adapted to the methods of wandering mimes in an alien land.[728] The latter was common to professionals and amateurs. And I suspect that the Court play of 27 February 1576, although it earned its reward from the Treasurer of the Chamber, was an amateur performance. The ‘Alfruso Ferrabolle’ of the account-book can hardly be other than a clerical perversion of the name of Alfonso Ferrabosco, the first of three generations of that name, father, son, and grandson, who contributed in turn to the gaiety of the English Court. The eldest Ferrabosco was certainly in this country by 1562 when he was granted an annuity of 100 marks. His service terminated after various interruptions in 1578.[729] He is doubtless the ‘Mr. Alphonse’ who took part in the preparation of a mask in June 1572.[730] In connexion with the same mask, a reward was paid to one ‘Petrucio’, while for a later mask of 11 January 1579 ‘Patruchius Ubaldinas’ was employed to translate speeches into Italian and write them out fair in tables.[731] This was Petruccio Ubaldini, another of Elizabeth’s Italian pensioners, who was both a literary man and an illuminator, and made his residence in England from 1562 to 1586.[732] It is quite possible that the performance of 1576 may be referred to in the following undated letter from Ubaldini to the Queen, in which he makes mention of Ferrabosco.[733] If so, it came off after all.

Sacra Serenissima Maiesta,

Perché à i giorni passati io haveva promesso à M. Claudio
Cavallerizzo, et à M. Alfonso Ferrabosco, d’esser contento di
recitare ad una piacevol Comedia Italiana; per compiacere alla
Maiesta Vostra; et non si trovando di poi altri, che tre ò
quattro, che fusser contenti d’accettar tal carico; ho voluto
che l’Altezza Vostra conosca da me stesso il pronto animo,
ch’ io ho per la mia parté di servirla, et di compiacerla in
ogni attioné, che me sia comandata ò da lei, ò in suo nomé,
non solamente comé servitore giurato, ch’io gli sono; ma comé
desiderosissimo di far conoscere, che la divotioné, ch’io
porto allé sue Reali qualità, supera ogn’ altro rispetto;
desiderandogli io contentezza, et felicità non meno, che
qualunqué altro suo servitore gli desideri: la cui bontà Dio ci
prosperi.

Di Vostra Sacra Serenissima Maiesta.

Of Claudio Cavallerizzo I regret to say that I know nothing.

A statement that Venetian actors were in England in 1608 rests upon a misreading of a record.[734]

ii. ENGLISH PLAYERS IN SCOTLAND

The interlude players of Henry VII, under John English, accompanied the Princess Margaret to Scotland for her wedding with James IV in 1503, and ‘did their devoir’ before the Court at Edinburgh.[735] It is the best part of a century before any similar adventure is recorded. In the interval came the Scottish reformation, which was no friend to courtly pageantry. Yet in Scotland, as elsewhere, Kirk discipline had to make some compromise with the drama. In 1574 the General Assembly, while utterly forbidding, not for the first time, ‘clerk playes, comedies or tragedies maid of ye cannonicall Scriptures’, went on to ordain ‘an article to be given in to sick as sitts upon ye policie yat for uther playes comedies tragedies and utheris profaine playes, as are not maid upon authentick pairtes of ye Scriptures, may be considerit before they be exponit publictlie and yat they be not played uppon ye Sabboth dayes’.[736] It was once more a royal wedding that led to a histrionic courtesy between England and Scotland. In the autumn of 1589 James VI was expecting the arrival of his bride Anne of Denmark, a sensuous and spectacle-loving lady, who had already had experience of English actors at her father’s Court in 1586.[737] And being then, two years after his mother’s execution, actively engaged in promoting friendly relations with Elizabeth, he sent a request through one Roger Ashton to Lord Scrope, the Warden of the English West Marches, ‘for to have her Majesties players for to repayer into Scotland to his grace’. In reply Scrope wrote from Carlisle on 20 September to William Ashby, the English ambassador at Edinburgh, begging him to notify the King, that he had sent a servant to them, ‘wheir they were in the furthest parte of Langkeshire, whervpon they made their returne heather to Carliell, wher they are, and have stayed for the space of ten dayes’.[738] After all, the Lapland witches and their winds delayed Anne’s crossing for some months, and James had himself to join her in Denmark. It is, I think, only a conjecture that the players whose ‘book’ was submitted on 3 June 1589 for the licence of the Kirk Session at Perth, in accordance with the order of 1574, were Englishmen.[739] But certainly ‘Inglis comedianis’ were in Scotland in 1594, probably for the baptism of Henry Frederick on 30 August, and received from James the generous gift of £333 6_s._ 8_d._ out of ‘the composicioun of the escheit of ye laird of Kilcrewch and his complices’.[740] Probably Laurence Fletcher was at the head of this expedition, for on 22 March 1595 George Nicolson, the English agent at Edinburgh, wrote to Robert Bowes, treasurer of Berwick, that, ‘The King heard that Fletcher, the player, was hanged, and told him and Roger Aston so, in merry words, not believing it, saying very pleasantly that if it were true he would hang them also’.[741] In any case, Fletcher appears to have been the leader of a company whose peregrinations in Scotland a few years later, much favoured by James, were also much embarrassed by the critical relations which then existed between the Sovereign and the Kirk. It is only a conjecture that this was the company which was refused leave to play at St. Andrews on 1 October 1598.[742] But of greater troubles, which took place at Edinburgh a year later, we are very well informed. They are detailed from the Kirk point of view in the more or less contemporary chronicle of David Calderwood.[743]

_The King Chargeth the Kirk of Edinburgh to Rescind an Act._

Some English comedians came to this countrie in the moneth of
October. After they had acted sindrie comedeis in presence of
the King, they purchassed at last a warrant or precept to the
bailliffes of Edinburgh, to gett them an hous within the toun.
Upon Moonday, the 12^{th} of November, they gave warning by
trumpets and drummes through the streets of Edinburgh, to all
that pleased, to come to the Blacke Friers’ Wynd to see the
acting of their comedeis. The ministers of Edinburgh, fearing
the profanitie that was to ensue, speciallie the profanatioun
of the Sabbath day, convocated the foure sessiouns of the Kirk.
An act was made by commoun consent, that none resort to these
profane comedeis, for eshewing offence of God, and of evill
exemple to others; and an ordinance was made, that everie
minister sould intimat this act in their owne severall pulpits.
They had indeid committed manie abusses, speciallie upon the
Sabboth, at night before. The King taketh the act in evill part,
as made purposelie to crosse his warrant, and caused summoun
the ministers and foure sessiouns, _super inquirendis_, before
the Secreit Counsell, They sent doun some in commissioun to
the King, and desired the mater might be tryed privatlie, and
offered, if they had offended, to repair the offence at his
owne sight; and alledged they had the warrant of the synod
presentlie sitting in the toun. The King would have the mater to
come in publict. When they went doun, none was called upon but
M^r. Peter Hewat and Henrie Nisbit. After that they were heard,
the sentence was givin out against all the rest unheard, and
charge givin to the ministers and foure sessiouns to conveene,
within three houres after, to rescind their former ordinance,
and to the ministers, to intimat the contrarie of that which
they intimated before. They craved to be heard. Loath was the
King, yitt the counsell moved him to heare them. M^r. Johne
Hall was appointed to be their mouth. ‘We are summouned, Sir,’
said M^r. Johne, ‘and crave to understand to what end.’ ‘It is
true’, said the King, ‘yee are summouned, and I have decerned
alreadie.’ M^r. Johne made no reply. M^r. Robert Bruce said, ‘If
it might stand with your good pleasure, we would know wherefore
this hard sentence is past against us.’ ‘For contraveening of
my warrant,’ said the King. ‘We have fulfilled your warrant,’
said M^r. Robert, ‘for your warrant craved no more but an hous
to them, which they have gottin.’ ‘To what end, I pray you,
sought I an hous,’ said the King, ‘but onlie that the people
might resort to their comedeis?’ ‘Your warrant beareth not that
end,’ said M^r. Robert, ‘and we have good reasoun to stay them
from their playes, even by your owne acts of parliament.’ The
King answered, ‘Yee are not the interpreters of my lawes.’ ‘And
farther, the warrant was intimated but to one or two,’ said
M^r. Robert, and, therefore, desired the King to retreate the
sentence. The King would alter nothing. ‘At the least, then,’
said M^r. Robert, ‘lett the paine strike upon us, and exeeme
our people.’ The King bade him make away. So, in departing,
M^r. Robert turned, and said, ‘Sir, please you, nixt the regard
we ow to God, we had a reverent respect to your Maiestie’s
royall person, and person of your queene; for we heard that the
comedians, in their playes, checked your royall person with
secreit and indirect taunts and checkes; and there is not a man
of honour in England would give such fellowes so much as their
countenance’. So they departed.

They were charged, at two houres, by sound of trumpet, the day
following, at the publict Croce, about ten houres, to conveene
themselves, and rescind the acts, or ellis to passe to the horne
immediatly after. The foure sessiouns conveene in the East Kirk.
They asked the ministers’ advice. The ministers willed them
to advise with some advocats, seing the mater tuiched their
estate so neere. M^r. William Oliphant and M^r. Johne Schairp,
advocats, came to the foure sessiouns. The charge was read. The
advocats gave their counsell to rescind the act, by reasoun the
King’s charge did not allow slanderous and undecent comedeis;
and farther, shewed unto them, that the sessiouns could doe
nothing without their ministers, seing they were charged as
weill as the sessiouns, and the mater could not passe in voting,
but the moderator and they being present. They were called in,
and after reasouning they came to voting. M^r. Robert Bruce
being first asked, answered ‘His Majestie is not minded to allow
anie slanderous or offensive comedeis; but so it is that their
comedeis are slanderous and offensive; therefore, the king,
in effect, ratifieth our act. The rest of the ministers voted
after the same maner. The elders, partlie for feare of their
estats, partlie upon informatioun of the advocats, voted to the
rescinding of the act. It was voted nixt, whether the ministers
sould intimat the rescinding of the act? The most part voted
they sould. The ministers assured them they would not. Henrie
Nisbit, Archibald Johnstoun, Alexander Lindsey, and some others,
tooke upon them to purchasse an exemptioun to the ministers.
They returned with this answere, that his Majestie was content
the mater sould be passed over lightlie, but he would have some
mentioun made of the annulling of the act. They refuse. Their
commissioners went the second tyme to the king, and returned
with this answere, ‘Lett them nather speeke good nor evill in
that mater, but leave it as dead.’ The ministers conveened apart
to consult. M^r. Robert Bruce said it behoved them ather to
justifie the thing they had done, or ellis they could not goe to
a pulpit. Some others said the like. Others said, Leave it to
God, to doe as God would direct their hearts. So they dissolved.
M^r. Robert, and others that were of his minde, justified it
the day following, in some small measure, and yitt were not
querrelled.

Several other documents confirm this narrative. The Privy Council register contains an order of 8 November for an officer at arms to call upon the sessions by proclamation to rescind their resolution and a further proclamation of 10 November reciting the submission made by the sessions.[744] The Lord High Treasurer’s accounts contain payments to Walter Forsyth, the officer employed, as well as gifts to ‘ye Inglis comedianis’ of £43 6_s._ 8_d._ in October, of £40 in November ‘to by tymber for ye preparatioun of ane house to thair pastyme’, and of a further £333 6_s._ 8_d._ in December.[745] It is George Nicolson, in a letter of 12 November forwarding the proclamation of 8 November to Sir Robert Cecil, who identifies the players for us as ‘Fletcher and Mertyn with their company’.[746] The bounty of James, although it must be borne in mind that the sums were reckoned in pounds Scots, probably left them disinclined to quit Edinburgh in a hurry. Another gift of £400 reached them through Roger Ashton in 1601;[747] and on 9 October in the same year they visited Aberdeen with a letter of recommendation from the King, and with the style of his majesty’s servants, and the town council gave them £22 and spent £3 on their supper ‘that nicht thaye plaid to the towne’. Nay, more, another entry in the burgh register tells us that the players came in the train of ‘Sir Francis Hospital of Haulszie, Knycht, Frenschman’, and one of those ‘admittit burgesses’ with the foreign visitor was ‘Laurence Fletcher, comediane to his Majesty’.[748]

Laurence Fletcher’s name stands first in the English patent of 1603 to the King’s men, and the inferences have been drawn that the company at Aberdeen was the Chamberlain’s men, that their visit was due to a proscription from London on account of their participation in the Essex ‘innovation’, that Shakespeare was with them, and that he picked up local colour, to the extent of ‘a blasted heath’ for _Macbeth_.[749] To this it may be briefly replied that, as the Chamberlain’s men were at Court as usual in the winter of 1602, any absence from London, which their unlucky performance of _Richard II_ may have rendered discreet, can only have been of short duration; that the most plausible reading of the Scottish evidence is that Fletcher’s company were in the service of James as Court comedians from 1599 to 1601; and that there is nothing whatever to indicate that Fletcher ever belonged to the Chamberlain’s company at all. In fact, very little is known of him outside Scotland, although it is just possible that he may have been the object of two advances made by Henslowe to the Admiral’s men about October 1596, and described respectively as ‘lent vnto Martyne to feache Fleatcher’ and ‘lent the company to geue Fleatcher’.[750] If Fletcher was the King’s man in Scotland, it was not unnatural that he should retain that status when James came to England; and it is very doubtful whether the insertion of his name in the patent in any way entailed his being taken into business relations with his ‘fellows’. I strongly suspect that his companion at Edinburgh, Martin, was put into a precisely similar position amongst Queen Anne’s men, for who can Martin be but Martin Slater, who is often, as in the passage quoted above, called Martin _tout court_ in Henslowe’s _Diary_, and who certainly left the Admiral’s men in 1597?

iii. ENGLISH PLAYERS ON THE CONTINENT

[_Bibliographical Note._--The earliest comprehensive study
of the foreign travels of English actors is that of A. Cohn,
_Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries_ (1865). Much material has been collected, mostly
since Cohn wrote, in a number of local histories and special
studies, of which the most important are: C. M. Plümicke,
_Entwurf einer Theatergeschichte von Berlin_ (1781); D. C. von
Rommel, _Geschichte von Hessen_ (1820–38); J. E. Schlager,
_Über das alte Wiener Hoftheater_ in _Sitzungsberichte der
phil.-hist. Classe der Kaiserlichen Akad. der Wissenschaften_,
vi (1851), 147; M. Fürstenau, _Zur Geschichte der Musik und des
Theaters am Hofe der Kurfürsten von Sachsen_ (1861); E. Mentzel,
_Geschichte der Schauspielkunst in Frankfurt am Main_ (1882); O.
Teuber, _Geschichte des Prager Theaters_ (1883); J. Meissner, in
_Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xix. 113 (Austria), and _Die englischen
Comoedianten zur Zeit Shakespeares in Oesterreich_ (1884);
K. Trautmann in _Archiv für Litteraturgeschichte_, xii. 319
(Munich, Augsburg); xiii. 34 (Suabia), 315 (Ulm); xiv. 113
(Nuremberg), 225 (Suabia); xv. 209 (Ulm, Stuttgart, Tübingen);
in _Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte_, vii
(Rothenburg); and in _Jahrbuch für Münchener Geschichte_, iii.
259; J. Crüger in _Archiv für Litteraturgeschichte_, xv. 113
(Strassburg); Duncker, _Landgraf Moritz von Hessen und die
englischen Komödianten in Deutsche Rundschau_, xlviii (1886),
260; A. Cohn in _Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xxi. 245 (Cologne); J.
Bolte in _Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xxiii. 99 (Denmark and Sweden),
and _Das Danziger Theater im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert_ (1893);
J. Wolter in _Zeitschrift des Bergischen Geschichtsvereins_,
xxxii. 90 (Cologne); A. Wormstall in _Zeitschrift für
vaterländische Geschichte und Altertumskunde Westfalens_, lvi
(1898), 75 (Münster); G. Witkowzski in _Euphorion_, xv. 441
(Leipzig). A collection of records from the earlier of these
and from more scattered sources is in K. Goedeke, _Grundriss
der deutschen Dichtung aus den Quellen_^2 (1886), ii. 524, and
valuable summaries are given in W. Creizenach, _Schauspiele
der englischen Komödianten_ (1889), and E. Herz, _Englische
Schauspieler und englisches Schauspiel zur Zeit Shakespeares
in Deutschland_ (1903). The excursus of F. G. Fleay in _Life
and Work of Shakespeare_ (1886), 307, is misleading. Additional
material, which has become available since Herz wrote, is
recorded by C. F. Meyer in _Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xxxviii. 196
(Wolgast), and C. Grabau in _Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xlv. 311
(Leipzig). Useful special studies are by C. Harris, _The English
Comedians in Germany before the Thirty Years’ War: the Financial
Side_ (_Publ. of Modern Language Association_, xxii. 446), A.
Dessoff, _Über englische, italienische und spanische Dramen
in den Spielverzeichnissen deutscher Wandertruppen_ (1901,
_Studien für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte_, i), and on
the problem of staging (cf. ch. xx) C. H. Kaulfuss-Diesch, _Die
Inszenierung des deutschen Dramas an der Wende des sechzehnten
und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1905). A collection of plays and
jigs, in German, but belonging to the repertory of an English
company, appeared as _Engelische Comedien und Tragedien_
(1620); some of the plays have been edited by J. Tittmann,
_Die Schauspiele der englischen Komödianten in Deutschland_
(1880), and the jigs by J. Bolte, _Die Singspiele der englischen
Komödianten und ihrer Nachfolger in Deutschland, Holland und
Scandinavien_ (1893). German plays written under English
influences are to be found in J. Tittmann, _Die Schauspiele
des Herzogs Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig_ (1880), and
A. von Keller, _Jacob Ayrers Dramen_ (1865). Cohn prints,
with translations, Ayrer’s _Sidea_ and _Phaenicia, Julio and
Hyppolita_ and _Titus Andronicus_ from the 1620 volume, and
early German versions of _Hamlet_ (_Der bestrafte Brudermord_)
and _Romeo and Juliet_ from manuscripts. The literary records
and remains of the English players are fully discussed by
Creizenach and Herz, and their relation to Ayrer by W. Wodick,
_J. Ayrers Dramen in ihrem Verhältniss zur einheimischen
Literatur und zum Schauspiel der englischen Komödianten_ (1912).

The material for the Netherlands, some of which was gathered by
Cohn, may be studied in J. A. Worp, _Geschiedenis van het Drama
en van het Tooneel in Nederland_ (1904–8), who also deals with
the Dutch versions of English dramas. The contemporary stage
conditions in France are best treated by E. Rigal, _Le Théâtre
français avant la période classique_ (1901), and those in Spain
by H. A. Rennert, _The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de
Vega_ (1909), who uses the results of recent researches by C.
Pérez Pastor, which have added much to the information furnished
by C. Pellicer, _Tratado histórico sobre el origen y progresos
de la Comedia y del Histrionismo en España_ (1804).]

Thomas Heywood records, about 1608, that ‘the King of Denmarke, father to him that now reigneth, entertained into his service a company of English comedians, commended unto him by the honourable the Earl of Leicester’.[751] This King of Denmark was Frederick II (1559–88), father of Christian IV (1588–1648), and of Queen Anne of England. English ‘instrumentister’, Johann Krafftt, Johann Personn, Johann Kirck or Kirckmann, and Thomas Bull, were at the Danish Court as early as 1579–80, and in 1585 certain unnamed English played (_lechte_) in the courtyard of the town-hall at Elsinore, when the press of folk was such that the wall broke down. These may be the same men who played and vaulted at Leipzig on 19 July 1585, and are the earliest English players yet traced in Germany.[752] But the particular comedians referred to by Heywood were probably another company who had accompanied Leicester to Holland, when he took the command of the English forces in 1585, and had given a show, half dramatic, half acrobatic, of _The Forces of Hercules_ at Utrecht on 23 April 1586. Certainly Leicester had in his train one Will, a ‘jesting plaier’, who is now usually identified with William Kempe, and in August and September 1586 the Household Accounts of the Danish Court record the presence of ‘Wilhelm Kempe instrumentist’, and of his boy Daniell Jonns. It is not clear what were the precise relations between Kempe and five other ‘instrumentister och springere’, Thomas Stiwens, Jurgenn Brienn, Thomas Koning, Thomas Pape, and Robert Persj, who were at Court from 17 June to 18 September 1586, and for whom the same accounts record a payment to Thomas Stiuens of six thalers a month apiece, at the end of that period. If he had, as is probable, been their fellow up to that point, he did not accompany them in their further peregrinations.[753] These took them to the Court of Frederick’s nephew, Christian I, Elector of Saxony (1586–91), as a result of correspondence, still extant, between the sovereigns, in which the offer of salaries at the annual rate of 100 thalers overcame the reluctance of the Englishmen to face the perils of an unknown tongue. They started with an interpreter on 25 September, and shortly after their arrival at Waidenhain on 16 October received instructions from Christian to follow him with mourning clothes to Berlin, where he was then sojourning. Christian’s own capital was Dresden, and here they held a formal appointment in his service, under which they were bound to follow him in his travels, and to entertain him with performances after his banquets, and with music and ‘Springkunst’, and were entitled, beyond their pay, to board, livery, and travelling expenses, and a lodging allowance of forty thalers each. The Dresden archives give their names as Tomas Konigk, Tomas Stephan or Stephans, George Beyzandt, Tomas Papst, and Rupert Persten. Their departure from Court is recorded on 17 July 1587.[754] In all these notices music and acrobatic feats are to the fore, but that the men were actors there can be no doubt, for two of them, Thomas Pope and George Bryan, reappear amongst Strange’s men, and thereafter as fellows of Shakespeare in the Chamberlain’s company. Of Stevens, King, and Percy no more is known. Kempe was abroad again, in Italy and Germany, during 1601, and returned to England on 2 September. It is not certain whether he took a company with him, or went as a solitary morris dancer. But it is noteworthy that on the following 26 November an English company, under one Johann Kemp, reached Münster, after a tour which had taken them to Amsterdam, Cologne, Redberg, and Steinfurt. They played in English, and had a clown who pattered in German between the acts.[755]

The man, however, who did most to acclimatize the English actors in Germany was Robert Browne, who paid several visits to the country, and spent considerable periods there between 1590 and 1620. With him he took relays of actors, some of whom split off into independent associations, and account for most, although not all, of the groups of ‘Engländer’ who became familiar figures at the Frankfort spring and autumn fairs and even in out-of-the-way corners of northern Europe. Of some of these groups the wanderings can be traced in outline, although the frequent failure of the archives to record individual names is responsible for many _lacunae_, which the conjectural ingenuity of literary historians has done its best to fill. Many of these anonymous performances I must pass over in silence.

Robert Browne first appears as one of Worcester’s men, with Edward Alleyn, in 1583, and in 1589 these two, probably as Admiral’s men, still held a common stock of apparel with John Alleyn and Richard Jones.[756] His career abroad begins with a visit to Leyden in October 1590.[757] This was perhaps only tentative, for in February 1592 he was preparing to cross the seas again, and to this end obtained for himself, John Bradstreet, Thomas Sackville, and Richard Jones, the following passport to the States-General of the Netherlands from the Lord Admiral:

Messieurs, comme les présents porteurs, Robert Browne, Jehan
Bradstriet, Thomas Saxfield, Richard Jones, ont deliberé de
faire ung voyage en Allemagne, avec intention de passer par le
païs de Zelande, Hollande et Frise, et allantz en leur dict
voyage d’exercer leurs qualitez en faict de musique, agilitez et
joeux de commedies, tragedies et histoires, pour s’entretenir
et fournir à leurs despenses en leur dict voyage. Cestes
sont partant vous requerir monstrer et prester toute faveur
en voz païs et jurisdictions, et leur octroyer en ma faveur
vostre ample passeport soubz le seel des Estatz, afin que les
Bourgmestres des villes estantz soubs voz jurisdictions ne
les empeschent en passant d’exercer leurs dictes qualitez par
tout. Enquoy faisant, je vous demeureray à tous obligé, et me
treuverez très appareillé à me revencher de vostre courtoisie en
plus grand cas. De ma chambre à la court d’Angleterre ce x^{me}
jour de Febvrier 1591.

Vostre tres affecsionné à vous fayre plaisir et sarvis,
C. Howard.[758]

Presumably the Lord Admiral gave this passport in his official capacity, as responsible for the high seas, and it is not necessary to infer that the travellers were in 1592 his servants.[759]

There are not many clear notices of Browne and his company during this tour. They were at Arnhem, with a licence from Prince Maurice of Orange-Nassau, in 1592.[760] Thereafter they may have gone into residence at some Court, Wolfenbüttel or another. They can hardly have been the English ‘comoedianten und springer’ who came to Nyköping in Sweden for the wedding of Duke Karl of Sweden and Princess Christina of Holstein on 28 August 1592[761]; for it was only two days later that Browne approached the Frankfort magistrates for leave to play at the autumn fair, where they gave _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_ and some of Marlowe’s plays.[762] It was on this occasion that Fynes Moryson, the traveller, visited the fair and noted the great vogue of the English actors amongst the merchants.[763] Englishmen played at Cologne in October and November 1592,[764] and at Nuremberg in August 1593;[765] but in view of the Nyköping company it can hardly be assumed that these were Browne and his fellows, and indeed the leader at Nuremberg is called ‘Ruberto Gruen’, which may, but on the other hand may not, be a blunder for Browne’s name. The Cologne players are anonymous. At any rate ‘Robert Braun, Thomas Sachsweil, Johan Bradenstreit und consorten’ were all at Frankfort in August 1593,[766] where they played scriptural dramas, including _Abraham and Lot_ and _The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha_. Thereafter the company seems to have broken up. Richard Jones certainly went home before 2 September 1594, when he bought a gown ‘of pechecoler in grayne’ from Henslowe.[767] He had doubtless already joined the Admiral’s men.

Thomas Sackville and John Bradstreet probably went to Wolfenbüttel. This was the capital of Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1589–1613), himself the author of plays, mostly printed during 1593 and 1594, in which an English influence is perceptible. The Duke married Elisabeth, daughter of Frederick II of Denmark, and his wedding at Copenhagen in February 1590 was attended by his brother-in-law, afterwards James I of England. It is possible that his earliest play, _Susanna_, was written either for this occasion or for the repetition of his wedding ceremony at Wolfenbüttel. In this piece the jester, a conventional personage, bears the name ‘Johan Clant’, in the later plays ‘Johan Bouset’; and in the _Ehebrecherin_ (1594) Bouset says, quite irrelevantly to his dramatic character, ‘Ich bin ein Englisch Mann’. Both names are in fact of English origin, from the words ‘clown’ and ‘posset’ respectively. Evidently the Duke must in some way have been in touch with the English stage at a date even earlier than Browne’s second German visit in 1592. It is not, therefore, necessary to conjecture, as has been conjectured, that Wolfenbüttel was the first objective of this visit.[768] Unfortunately the Brunswick household accounts for 1590–1601 are missing, and with them all direct evidence of the first formation of his English company by the Duke has probably gone. The company existed by 1596, when the ‘furstelige comoedianten och springers’ of the Duke paid a month’s visit to Copenhagen for the coronation of his brother-in-law, Christian IV of Denmark, on 29 August.[769] In the following year we find ‘Jan Bosett und seine Gesellen’ at Nuremberg, ‘Thomas Sackfeil und Consorten’ at Augsburg in June, ‘Johann Busset’ and Jakob Behel at Strassburg in July and August, and ‘Thomas Sackville, John Bouset genannt’, Johann Breitenstrasse and Jacob Biel at the Frankfort autumn fair.[770] The identity of this company with the Wolfenbüttel court comedians may perhaps be inferred from Sackville’s use of John Bouset as a stage name, and from a reference, in this same year 1597, to ‘Thomas Sackefiel, princely servant at Wolfenbüttel’. Another member of the company may have been Edward Wakefiel, with whom Sackville, also in 1597, had a brawl in a Brunswick tavern.[771] No more is heard of them until 1601, when John Bouset was expected to join his old friend Robert Browne for the Frankfort Easter fair.[772] The Brunswick household accounts are extant for 1602 and 1608, and from 1614 onwards. Thomas Sackville appears frequently. On 30 August 1602 he took a payment for the English comedians. Later references to him from 1 October 1602 to 1617 are mainly in connexion with purchases for the ducal wardrobe. It seems clear that, while remaining a ducal servant, and possibly even an actor, he went into business and prospered therein.[773] He is said to have been selling silk at Frankfort in 1604, and in 1608 Thomas Coryat, the Odcombian traveller and oddity, records:

‘The wealth that I sawe here was incredible. The goodliest
shew of ware that I sawe in all Franckford, saving that of the
Goldsmithes, was made by an Englishman one Thomas Sackfield a
Dorsetshire man, once a servant of my father, who went out of
England but in a meane estate, but after he had spent a few
yeares at the Duke of Brunswicks Court, hee so inriched himselfe
of late that his glittering shewe of ware in Franckford dit
farre excell all the Dutchmen, French, Italians, or whomsoever
else.’[774]

John Bradstreet’s name appears in 1604 with that of Sackville in the album of Johannes Cellarius of Nuremberg. He died in 1618 and Sackville in 1628, leaving a library of theology and English literature. Edward Wakefield reappears in the Brunswick accounts for 1602, not specifically as a player. But certainly the playing company continued to exist. The accounts mention it in 1608, and Thomas Heywood notes its existence about the same date. There were English players at Wolfenbüttel in May 1615 and at Brunswick in 1611 and 1617, but no names are recorded, and it can hardly be assumed that these were the original ducal company. Henry Julius himself died in 1613.[775]