Chapter VIII: Introduction: The Boy Companies (6)

The importance of this document is in the information which it gives as to the composition of the company. Presumably only the leaders are named, and of these Alleyn alone is specially designated as an Admiral’s man. Kempe, at any rate, and probably also Pope and Bryan, were in Leicester’s service in the Low Countries during 1586, and all three were together during the same year in Denmark. Whether they had belonged, as has sometimes been supposed, to Leicester’s long-enduring company of Court players is less certain. Pope and Bryan passed from Denmark to Germany, and may have joined the Admiral’s or Strange’s on their return. They also were acrobats as well as players.[344] Kempe, however, seems to have parted company from the others in Denmark, and may have joined Strange’s independently, presumably before 10 June 1592, when _A Knack to Know a Knave_, in which he played ‘merrimentes’, was produced. Heminges may possibly have been a Queen’s man.

Some details of the 1593 tour and the names of two or three more members of the company are found in the familiar correspondence of Alleyn with his wife, whom he had married on 22 October 1592, and with Philip Henslowe, who was her step-father.[345] On 2 May he writes from Chelmsford, and on 1 August from Bristol. Here he had received a letter by Richard Cowley and he sends his reply by a kinsman of Thomas Pope. At the moment of writing he is ready to play _Harry of Cornwall_. He asks that further letters may be sent to him by the carriers to Shrewsbury, West Chester, or York, ‘to be keptt till my Lord Stranges players com’. He does not expect to be home until All Saints’ Day. A reply from Henslowe and Mrs. Alleyn on 14 August is in fact addressed to ‘Mr. Edwarde Allen on of my lorde Stranges players’. This mentions an illness of Alleyn at Bath during which one of his fellows had had to play his part. With these letters is one written to Mrs. Allen on behalf of a ‘servant’ of Alleyn’s, whose name was Pige or Pyk, by the hand of Mr. Doutone, possibly Edward Dutton, but perhaps more probably Thomas Dowten or Downton, who was later a sharer among the Admiral’s men. The provincial records, subject to the confusion of company nomenclature already noted, appear to confirm the visits to Bath, Shrewsbury, and York, to indicate others to Southampton, Leicester, Coventry, Ipswich, and Newcastle, and to show that some temporary alliance had been entered into with the purely provincial company of Lord Morley.[346] After 25 September 1593 Strange’s men of course became Derby’s men.

I now come to a difficult point. There exists amongst the Dulwich papers a ‘plott’ or prompter’s abstract of a play called _The Second Part of the Seven Deadly Sins_, which an ingenious conjecture of Mr. Fleay has identified on internal evidence with the _Four Plays in One_ included in the Strange’s repertory of 1592.[347] In this leading parts were taken, not only by ‘Mr. Pope’, ‘Mr. Phillipps’, and ‘Mr. Brian’, but also by ‘Richard Burbadge’; lesser ones by Richard Cowley, John Duke, Robert Pallant, John Sincler, Thomas Goodale, William Sly, J. Holland, and three others described only as Harry, Kitt, and Vincent; and female parts by Saunder, Nick, Robert, Ned, Will, and T. Belt, who may be presumed to have been boys.[348] Alleyn, Kempe, and Heminges are not named, but there are several parts to which no actors are assigned. What, however, is the date of the ‘plott’? Not necessarily 1592, for the performance of _Four Plays in One_ in that year was only a revival. The authorship of the _Seven Deadly Sins_ is ascribed to Tarlton, and therefore the original owners were probably the Queen’s men. They are not very likely to have parted with it before Tarlton’s death in 1588 brought the first shock to their fortunes, but clearly it may have come into the possession of Strange’s or the Admiral’s or the combined company before ever they reached the Rose. And surely the appearance of Richard Burbadge suggests that the ‘plott’ was brought from the Theatre, and represents a performance there. He is very unlikely to have joined at the Rose the company which had just been driven there by a quarrel with his father. It is true that in the ‘plott’ of _Dead Man’s Fortune_, which also probably dates from the sojourn of the Admiral’s (q.v.) at the Theatre, he was apparently not playing leading parts but only a messenger. But the wording is obscure, and after all the absence of the prefix ‘Mr.’ from his name in the ‘plott’ of the _Sins_ may indicate, in accordance with the ordinary usage of the Dulwich documents, that he was not yet a sharer when it was drawn up. Apparently, then, at least four of Strange’s men, as we find them in 1593, besides Alleyn, had been playing at the Theatre about 1590–1. These were Pope, Phillips, Bryan, and Cowley. Obviously we cannot say whether it was to the original Admiral’s or the original Strange’s that they belonged. One other point of _personnel_ must not be overlooked. Shakespeare contributed to the repertory of Strange’s in 1592 and perhaps also in 1593. Greene calls him a Shake-scene, but neither the ‘plott’ of 1590, nor the licence of 1593, nor the Alleyn correspondence of the same year, yields his name.[349]

Derby’s men did not appear at Court during the winter of 1593–4. On 16 April 1594 Lord Derby died. On 16 May the company used the Countess’s name at Winchester. It seems clear that during the summer there was some reshuffling of the companies, that Alleyn took the leadership of a new body of Admiral’s men, that several other members of the old combination, including Pope, Heminges, Kempe, and Phillips, joined with Burbadge, Shakespeare, and Sly, under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain, Henry Lord Hunsdon, and that, after a short period of co-operation with each other and Henslowe, the two companies definitely parted. In the course of 1594 the name of Derby’s men appeared upon the title-page of _Titus Andronicus_, probably because they had played it in its earlier form of _Titus and Vespasian_ in 1592–3, before it passed to Pembroke’s and from them to Sussex’s. In the same year was published _A Knack to Know a Knave_ (S. R. 7 January 1594) as played ‘by Ed. Allen and his companie’ and with ‘merrimentes’ by Kemp. This also belongs to the 1592–3 repertory, of the other plays in which _1 Henry VI_, like _Titus Andronicus_, passed ultimately to the Chamberlain’s men, and a considerable number, either as their own property or that of Henslowe, to the Admiral’s. These included _Tamar Cham_, _The Battle of Alcazar_, _The Spanish Tragedy_, _The Jew of Malta_, _The Massacre of Paris_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, and probably _Orlando Furioso_, of Orlando’s part in which a transcript, with alterations in Alleyn’s hand, is preserved at Dulwich.[350] The only play not named in Henslowe’s diary which can be traced to the company is _Fair Em_, which bears the name of Lord Strange’s men on its title-page, but of which the first edition is undated.

It is possible that those of the fifth Earl of Derby’s men who did not take service with the Lord Chamberlain, passed into a provincial period of existence under his successor, the sixth Earl. A company bearing his name was at Norwich on 15 September 1594, at Dunwich in 1594–5 and 1595–6, at Coventry, Bath, and Stratford in 1595–6, at Leicester between October and December 1596, at Bath in 1596–7, at Maldon in 1597, at Coventry twice in 1597–8, at Leicester in 1597–8, and between October and December 1598, at Wollaton (Percival Willoughby’s) on 7 October 1599, and at Leicester again on 16 October 1599. Letters of 30 June 1599 relate that the Earl of Derby was then ‘busy penning comedies for the common players’, and it is perhaps natural to suppose that his own company were chosen as the exponents of his art.[351] This perhaps explains its appearance at Court during the winters of 1599–1600 and 1600–1. Four performances were given, on 3 and 5 February 1600 and 1 and 6 January 1601, and for these Robert Browne, who had been both with Worcester’s men and the Admiral’s, but much of whose dramatic career had been spent in Germany, was the payee. In an undated letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Lady Derby writes, ‘Being importuned by my Lord to intreat your favor that his man Browne, with his companye, may not be bared from ther accoustomed plaing, in maintenance wherof they have consumde the better part of ther substance, if so vaine a matter shall not seame troublesum to you, I could desier that your furderance might be a meane to uphold them, for that my Lord taking delite in them, it will kepe him from moer prodigall courses’.[352] To this company are doubtless to be assigned _Edward IV_, perhaps by Heywood (1600, S. R. 28 August 1599), and the anonymous _Trial of Chivalry_ (1605, S. R. 4 December 1604), both of which are credited to Derby’s men on their title-pages. It again becomes provincial and is traceable at Norwich on 27 February and 9 June 1602, at Ipswich on 4 June 1602, and thereafter up to 1618, chiefly at Coventry and at Gawthorpe Hall, the house of Derby’s neighbours, the Shuttleworths.[353]

John Taylor, the water-poet, returned from his journey to Scotland in 1618 at the Maidenhead Inn, Islington, and here after supper on 14 October ‘we had a play of the Life and Death of Guy of Warwick, played by the Right Honourable the Earl of Derby his men’. Presumably this was Day and Dekker’s play entered on the Stationers’ Register in 1619, which Mr. Bullen declines to identify with the _Guy of Warwick_ published as ‘by B. J.’ in 1661.[354]

xviii. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE’S MEN

Henry Herbert, s. of William, 1st Earl of Pembroke; _nat. c._
1534; succ. as 2nd Earl, 17 Mar. 1570; m. (1) Catherine, d. of
Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, 21 May 1553, (2) Catherine, d. of
George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 17 Feb. 1563, (3) Mary, d.
of Sir Henry Sidney, _c._ Apr. 1577; President of Wales, 1586;
residences, Baynard’s Castle, London, Wilton House, Wilts.,
Ludlow Castle, &c.; _ob._ 9 Jan. 1601.

[_Bibliographical Note._--Halliwell-Phillipps collected
provincial records and other notes on Pembroke’s men in _A
Budget of Notes and Memoranda_ (1880). The Bill, Answer, and
Replication in Shaw _et al._ v. Langley (1597–8, Court of
Requests) are in C. W. Wallace, _The Swan Theatre and the Earl
of Pembroke’s Servants_ (1911, _E. S._ xliii. 340).]

There is an isolated record of a Pembroke’s company at Canterbury in 1575–6, hardly to be regarded as continuous with that which makes its appearance in the last decade of the century. Fleay, 87, puts the origin of the latter in 1589, and supposes it to be a continuation of Worcester’s men after the death of their original patron in 1589, and to be the company ridiculed by Nashe (iii. 324) for playing _Delphrigus_ and _The King of the Fairies_, in his preface to Greene’s _Menaphon_ (1589). But this Worcester’s company is not in fact traceable during 1585–9, and Fleay’s theory is only based on the allusion to _Hamlet_ in the same preface (iii. 315), and the assumption that the _Ur-Hamlet_, like some other plays, passed to the Chamberlain’s from Pembroke’s, whereas it may just as well have passed to them from Strange’s. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of Pembroke’s before 1592 and no reason to suppose that it had an earlier existence. It will be well to detail the few facts of its history before attempting anything in the nature of conjecture. It was at Leicester in the last three months of 1592 and made its only appearances at Court on 26 December 1592 and 6 January 1593. In the following summer it travelled, and is found at York in June, at Rye in July, and in 1592–3 at Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Coventry, Bath, and Ipswich. But it had little success. Henslowe wrote to Alleyn on 28 September, ‘As for my lorde a Penbrockes w^{ch} you desier to knowe wheare they be they ar all at home and hausse ben this v or sixe weackes for they cane not saue ther carges w^{th} trauell as I heare & weare fayne to pane ther parell for ther carge’.[355] About the same time three of their plays came to the booksellers’ hands. These were Marlowe’s _Edward the Second_ (1594, S. R. 6 July 1593), _The Taming of A Shrew_ (1594, S. R. 2 May 1594), and _The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York_ (1595). Probably the play to which this last is a sequel, _1 Contention of York and Lancaster_ (1594, S. R. 12 March 1594) was also theirs, although the name of the company is not on the title-page. It is on the title-page of _Titus Andronicus_ (1594), and its position suggests that the play passed to them from Strange’s and from them before publication to Sussex’s. All these plays, with the exception of _Edward II_, seem to have been worked upon by Shakespeare, and probably they ultimately became part of the stock of the Chamberlain’s men. These men were playing _Titus Andronicus_ and _The Taming of The Shrew_ in June 1594, and that they also owned _The Contention_ in its revised form of _2, 3 Henry VI_ is suggested both by its inclusion in the First Folio and by the reference in the Epilogue to _Henry V_ not only to the loss of France but also to the bleeding of England ‘which oft our stage hath shown’.

I now enter a region of conjecture. It seems to me, on the whole, likely that the origin of Pembroke’s men is to be explained by the special conditions of the plague-years 1592–3, and was due to a division for travelling purposes of the large London company formed by the amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s. Such a division had been foreshadowed as likely to be necessary in the petition sent by Strange’s men to the Privy Council during the summer of 1592 or earlier, and may actually have become necessary when, after all, the plague rendered travelling imperative. If this suggestion is well founded, it becomes not difficult to explain some of the transferences of acting rights in certain plays which seem to have taken place. Thus Strange’s may have handed over _Titus Andronicus_ in its earlier form of _Titus and Vespasian_ to Pembroke’s for the travels of 1593, and may also have handed over _The Contention of York and Lancaster_, if that was originally theirs, as is suggested by their production of _1 Henry VI_, which belongs to the same closely related series. This opens up a more important line of speculation. It is usual to assume that one of the members of Strange’s from 1592 or earlier until its reconstitution as the Chamberlain’s in 1594 was William Shakespeare, and there is no reason to doubt his authorship at any rate of the Talbot scenes, which we know from Nashe to have been staged as part of _1 Henry VI_ in 1592. At the same time, the names of at least seventeen of Strange’s and the Admiral’s men in 1590–3 are otherwise known, and his is not one of them, and in particular his prominence amongst the Chamberlain’s men from the very beginning renders it extremely unlikely that, if he had been a member of the company in 1593, he would not have been mentioned in the Privy Council warrant of 6 May. Further, it seems to me impossible to resist the inference that the attribution to him of _Titus Andronicus_ both by Francis Meres in 1598 and in the First Folio of 1623 can only be explained by his revision under that name of _Titus and Vespasian_, and that this was for the second production of the play as ‘ne’ for Henslowe by Sussex’s men on 24 January 1594. There is, therefore, really some basis for the suggestion made long ago by Halliwell-Phillipps that he is to be looked for during these years in Pembroke’s company until its collapse and then in Sussex’s, and that it was from this rather than directly from Strange’s that he went to the Chamberlain’s.[356] On the other hand, it may be that for a time he was not attached as an actor to any company at all. It is possible that he took advantage of the plague-interval to travel in Italy and only resumed the regular exercise of his profession when the Chamberlain’s company was formed. In any event, it must have been he who revised _The Contention_ as _2, 3 Henry VI_, and the close stylistic relation of these plays to _1 Henry VI_ makes it probable that the work on all three belongs to about the same date. The limitations of conjecture on so intricate a question are obvious, but I can conceive the order of events as being somewhat as follows. Shakespeare’s first dramatic job, which earned him the ill will of Greene, was the writing or re-writing of _1 Henry VI_ for Strange’s, in the early spring of 1592. During the winter of 1592–3 he revised _The Contention_ for Pembroke’s and completed the series of his early histories with _Richard III_, and, as I am inclined to suspect, also an _Ur-Henry VIII_. He also wrote _The Jealous Comedy_ or _Comedy of Errors_ for Strange’s. In the summer of 1593 Sussex’s took over the plays of the bankrupt Pembroke’s, including the Shakespearian histories _Titus and Vespasian_ and _The Taming of A Shrew_. Some at least of these Pembroke’s had themselves derived in 1592 or 1593 from Strange’s. During the winter of 1593–4 Sussex’s played either _Richard III_ or _Henry VIII_ as _Buckingham_, and also _Titus and Vespasian_ revised for them by Shakespeare as _Titus Andronicus_. Alarmed at the further inhibition of plays in February, they allowed the revised _Titus_ and unrevised texts of _The Taming of A Shrew_ and _The Contention_ to get into the hands of the booksellers. Whether Shakespeare had already revised _A Shrew_ or did so later for the Chamberlain’s (q.v.) I am uncertain. Finally, by the transfer of their plays to the Chamberlain’s men, who at once revived _A Shrew_ and _Titus Andronicus_, and by the incorporation of Strange’s men in the same company, the original stock of Strange’s plays, as distinct from the Admiral’s, came together in the same hands once more. On the assumption that Shakespeare never left Strange’s, it is difficult to explain either the fortunes of _Titus Andronicus_, or the absence from the lists of Strange’s plays in Henslowe’s diary of _Richard III_, which must have been written about 1592–4. The silence as regards Strange’s both of the Court records and of Henslowe’s diary during the winter of 1593–4 makes it unlikely that they were in London, and they would surely not produce a new play in the country.

Nothing further is heard of a Pembroke’s company for three or four years.[357] But in 1597 one appeared in London about which we have rather full information, recently increased by Mr. Wallace’s discovery of a Court of Requests suit in which they were concerned. Towards the end of February in that year Robert Shaw, Richard Jones, Gabriel Spencer, William Bird _alias_ Borne, and Thomas Downton, who describe themselves in a suit of the following November as Pembroke’s servants, together with others their ‘accomplices and associates’, entered into an agreement with Francis Langley to play for twelve months ending on 20 February 1598 at the Swan. Each man gave a bond of £100, which was apparently to safeguard Langley against any failure by the company as a whole or of Robert Shaw or a sufficient substitute in particular to perform during this period, or against any performance elsewhere, otherwise than ‘in private places’, within five miles of London. Langley found £300 for apparel and, as he claimed, making ready of the play-house, and was to receive a moiety of the takings of the galleries and to be repaid for the apparel out of the other moiety. Of the men concerned, Jones and Downton had been Admiral’s men during 1594–7, and their transference coincides with a three weeks’ break in the performances of the Admiral’s at the Rose from 12 February onwards. Mr. Wallace (_E. S._ xliii. 357) says that Shaw, Spencer, and Bird were also of the Admiral’s, but of this there is no evidence. If Pembroke’s had any continued life during 1594–7, they may have shared it. But this seems improbable, and on the whole I am inclined to think that they came from the Chamberlain’s (q.v.). Plays were given at the Swan for some months, and Langley took £100 from the galleries, and £100 more for apparel. Then came an inhibition of plays near London on 28 July 1597, caused by the production of _The Isle of Dogs_, as a result of which one of the authors, Nashe, fled, and the other, Jonson, together with Shaw and Spencer, was committed to the Marshalsea. The definite evidence that Shaw and Spencer were Pembroke’s men at the Swan, now produced by Mr. Wallace, confirms my conjecture (_M. L. R._ iv. 411, 511) that _The Isle of Dogs_ was an adventure of that house and not, as has sometimes been thought, of the Rose. Either in anticipation of a prolonged closing of the house or for some other reason, the company now desired to shake off their relations with Langley. Early in August Jones returned to Henslowe and made a new covenant with him. His example was followed by Shaw, Spencer, and Bird, and early in October by Downton. Their prescience was justified, for when in the course of October the chief offenders were released, and the inhibition, which was nominally terminable on 1 November, was in practice relaxed, it proved that, while Henslowe was able to get a new licence for the Rose, Langley could get none for the Swan. He urged them to try their fortunes without a licence, as others of their company were willing to do, but they not unnaturally refused, and Henslowe (i. 54) records, ‘The xj of October begane my lord Admerals and my lord of Penbrockes men to playe at my howsse 1597’. He describes the company under the double name again on 21 and 23 October and 5 November, but on 1 December and thereafter as the Lord Admiral’s (i. 68–70). A study of the Admiral’s repertory for 1597–8 suggests that some or all of the plays _Black Joan_, _Hardicanute_, _Bourbon_, _Sturgflattery_, _Branholt_, _Friar Spendleton_, _Alice Pierce_, and _Dido and Aeneas_ may have been brought in by Pembroke’s men.

The five seceders had not heard the last of Langley. He sued them at common law on the bonds given not to play in a rival house. They successfully applied to have the case transferred to the Court of Requests, and in the course of the pleadings maintained, firstly, that they were prevented from playing at the Swan by the restraint and Langley’s failure to get a licence; secondly, that Langley had orally assented to their transfer to Henslowe; thirdly, that they could not appear at the Swan as a company, since Langley had ‘procured from them’ two (or, as they afterwards said, three) of their associates, to whom he had returned their obligations; and fourthly, that Langley had suffered no damage, since other men were occupying his house. They also complained that Langley had never handed over the apparel for which they had recouped him out of their gallery takings. The negotiations with Langley which they describe seem to have taken place during October. About the covenants entered into with Henslowe as far back as the beginning of August they said nothing, and whether either Langley or the court ever found out about these, and what the ultimate decision of the court on the main issue was, must remain uncertain. But certain loans entered in Henslowe’s diary suggest that in March 1598 Langley was in a position to arrest Bird, and that in September of the same year some kind of agreement was arrived at, under which Langley received £35, as well as £19 or more for a rich cloak (i. 63, 72, 73, 95, 96). It is possible that a ‘sewt agenste Thomas Poope’ of the Chamberlain’s, for which Henslowe (i. 72) made a personal advance of 10_s._ to William Bird on 30 August 1598, may also have been connected with the shiftings of companies in 1597.

The names of the two or three members of the company to whom Langley gave back their bonds are not stated in the pleadings. Perhaps one was Jonson, and the other two might conceivably have been Humphrey and Anthony Jeffes, since the name of ‘Humfrey’ stands with that of ‘Gabriel’ in stage-directions to _3 Henry VI_, and Henslowe’s list of the reconstituted Admiral’s company as it stood in October 1597–January 1598 contains ‘the ij Geffes’, who are not traceable in the 1594–7 company and may well have come in with the five Pembroke’s men. Langley tells us that certain ‘fellows’ of his opponents had taken a more reasonable line than theirs and returned to the Swan. How long these men remained there we do not know, but probably they secured Pembroke’s patronage after the five had been definitely merged in the Admiral’s, for by the end of 1597 there was clearly a distinct Pembroke’s company again. Provincial records yield the name, not only at Bath in 1596–7 and at Bristol in September 1597, which may point to a tour of the undivided Swan company during the period of restraint, but also at Bath in 1598–9, at Bristol in July 1598, at Leicester between October and December, at Dover on 7 October, at Coventry on 12 December, and at Bewdley on 22 December. They were at Norwich in April 1599, at Coventry on 4 July, and at Bristol in July. They were at York on 21 January 1600, Bristol in April, Marlborough in May, and Leicester before Michaelmas. In October they were in relationship with Henslowe, who notes ‘my Lordes of Penbrockes men begane to playe at the Rosse’, and records performances of _Like Unto Like_ and _Roderick_ on 28 and 29 October respectively.[358] The former brought him 11_s._ 6_d._ and the latter 5_s._, and there apparently the experiment ended, and with it, so far as is known, the career of Pembroke’s men. It is just possible that they were merged in Worcester’s company, which arose shortly afterwards. Mr. Fleay expands this possibility into a definite theory that Kempe, Beeston, Duke, and Pallant left the Chamberlain’s men for Pembroke’s in 1599, and ultimately passed from these to Worcester’s. This is improbable as regards Kempe, and unproved as regards the rest.[359]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is a question of some interest how early Alleyn’s connexion with the Admiral’s may be supposed to have begun. Was he, for example, the original Tamburlaine of 1587, and was it as an Admiral’s man that Nashe referred to him, if it was he to whom Nashe referred, as the Roscius of the contemporary players in his _Menaphon_ epistle of 1589? He is known to have been a member of Worcester’s company in 1583. Dr. Greg is disposed to think that he remained with them until the death of the third Earl of Worcester on 22 February 1589, and then joined the Admiral’s.[364] It is, however, to be observed that there is no trace of Worcester’s men between 1584 and 1590, and that it is in 1585 that the Admiral’s men begin to appear at Court. On the whole, it commends itself to me as the more probable conjecture that the first Earl of Worcester’s company passed into Howard’s service, when he became Admiral in 1585, and that the players of the fourth Earl of Worcester between 1590 and 1596 were distinct from those of his father. The issue concerns others besides Edward Alleyn himself. Amongst the members of Worcester’s company in 1583 were Robert Browne, James Tunstall, and Richard Jones; and all three of these are found concerned with Alleyn in matters of theatrical business during 1589–91. The most important document is a deed of sale by ‘Richarde Jones of London yoman’ to ‘Edwarde Allen of London gent’ for £37 10s. of ‘all and singuler suche share parte and porcion of playinge apparrelles, playe bookes, instrumentes, and other comodities whatsoeuer belonginge to the same, as I the said Richarde Jones nowe haue or of right ought to haue joyntlye with the same Edwarde Allen, John Allen citizen and inholder of London and Roberte Browne yoman’.[365] This is dated 3 January 1589. There are also three deeds of sale to Edward and John Alleyn of theatrical apparel between 1589 and 1591, and to two of these James Tunstall was a witness.[366] On Dr. Greg’s theory as to the date at which Alleyn took service with the Lord Admiral, the organization in whose properties Richard Jones had an interest would naturally be Worcester’s men; on mine it would be the Admiral’s, and it would follow that Jones and Browne, as well as Alleyn, had joined that company. We have seen that James Tunstall had done so by 1590–1. John Alleyn was an elder brother of Edward. There is nothing to connect him with Worcester’s men. He was a servant of Lord Sheffield in November 1580 and of the Lord Admiral in 1589.[367] A letter of one Elizabeth Socklen to Edward Alleyn refers to a time ‘when your brother, my lovinge cozen John Allen, dwelt with my very good lord, Charles Heawarde’, and this rather suggests that his service was in some household capacity, and not merely as player.[368] If so, it may have been through him that Edward Alleyn and his fellows became Admiral’s men. The first period of their activity seems to have lasted from 1585 to 1589, and it was no doubt Edward Alleyn’s genius, and perhaps also his business capacity, which enabled them to offer a serious rivalry to the Queen’s company. I suspect that in 1589 or 1590 they were practically dissolved, and this view is confirmed by the fact that their most important play was allowed to get to the hands of the printers. Alleyn, with the help of his brother, bought up the properties, and allied himself with Lord Strange’s men, and so far as the Admiral’s continued to exist at all for the next few years, it was almost entirely in and through him that it did so. After a financial quarrel with James Burbadge in May 1591, the combined companies moved to the Rose. There is nothing to show whether the Alleyns bought up Robert Browne’s interest as well as that of Richard Jones. At any rate Browne began in 1590 that series of continental tours which occupied most of the rest of his career (cf. ch. xiv). Jones joined him in one of these adventures in 1592, and it is possible that John Bradstreet and Thomas Sackville, who went with them, were also old Admiral’s men. But I do not think that it is accurate to regard this company, as Dr. Greg seems to be inclined to do, as being itself under the Admiral’s patronage. It is true that they obtained a passport from him, but this was probably given rather in his capacity as warden of the seas than in that of their lord. His name is not mentioned in any of the foreign records of their peregrinations. It is not possible to say which, other than Alleyn, of the members of the 1592–3 Strange’s and Admiral’s company, whose names have been preserved, came from each of the two contributing sources. They do not include either John Alleyn or James Tunstall, or Edward Browne, a Worcester’s man of 1583, who reappears with Tunstall among the Admiral’s after 1594. Nor is it possible to say how far the repertory of Strange’s men, as disclosed by the 1592–3 entries in Henslowe’s diary, included plays drawn from the Admiral’s stock. This may have been the case with _The Battle of Alcazar_, which was printed as an Admiral’s play in 1594, and with _Orlando Furioso_, which contemporary gossip represents Greene as selling first to the Queen’s and then to the Admiral’s. And it may have been the case with _1 Tamar Cham_, which passed to the later Admiral’s. Neither _Tamburlaine_ nor _The Wounds of Civil War_, printed like _The Battle of Alcazar_ as an Admiral’s play in 1594, is recorded to have been played by Strange’s.

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

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

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

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

_Belin Dun_ (10 June 1594).
_Galiaso_ (28 June 1594).
_Philipo and Hippolito_ (9 July 1594).
_2 Godfrey of Bulloigne_ (19 July 1594).
_The Merchant of Emden_ (30 July 1594).
_Tasso’s Melancholy_ (13 Aug. 1594).
_The Venetian Comedy_ (27 Aug. 1594).
_Palamon and Arcite_ (18 Sept. 1594).
_The Love of an English Lady_ (26 Sept. 1594).
_A Knack to Know an Honest Man_ (23 Oct. 1594).
_1 Caesar and Pompey_ (8 Nov. 1594).
_Diocletian_ (16 Nov. 1594).
_The Wise Man of West Chester_ (3 Dec. 1594).
_The Set at Maw_ (15 Dec. 1594).
_The French Comedy_ (11 Feb. 1595).
_The Mack_ (21 Feb. 1595).
_Olympo_ (5 Mar. 1595).[382]
_1 Hercules_ (7 May 1595).
_2 Hercules_ (23 May 1595).
_1 The Seven Days of the Week_ (3 June 1595).
_2 Caesar and Pompey_ (18 June 1595).
_Longshanks_ (29 Aug. 1595).
_Crack me this Nut_ (5 Sept. 1595).
_The New World’s Tragedy_ (17 Sept. 1595).
_The Disguises_ (2 Oct. 1595).
_The Wonder of a Woman_ (16 Oct. 1595).
_Barnardo and Fiammetta_ (30 Oct. 1595).
_A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies_ (14 Nov. 1595).
_Henry V_ (28 Nov. 1595).
_Chinon of England_ (3 Jan. 1596).
_Pythagoras_ (16 Jan. 1596).
_2 The Seven Days of the Week_ (23 Jan. 1596).
_The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ (12 Feb. 1596).
_Julian the Apostate_ (29 Apr. 1596).
_1 Tamar Cham_ (7 May 1596).
_Phocas_ (20 May 1596).
_2 Tamar Cham_ (11 June 1596).
_Troy_ (25 June 1596).
_The Paradox_ (1 July 1596).
_The Tinker of Totnes_ (23 July 1596).
_Vortigern_, _Valteger_, or _Hengist_ (4 Dec. 1596).
_Stukeley_ (10 Dec. 1596).
_Nebuchadnezzar_ (18 Dec. 1596).
_That Will Be Shall Be_ (30 Dec. 1596).
_Jeronimo_ (7 Jan. 1597).
_Alexander and Lodowick_ (14 Jan. 1597).[383]
_Woman Hard to Please_ (27 Jan. 1597).
_Guido_ (21 Mar. 1597).
_Five Plays in One_ (7 Apr. 1597).
_A French Comedy_ (18 Apr. 1597).
_Uther Pendragon_ (29 Apr. 1597).
_The Comedy of Humours_ (11 May 1597).
_The Life and Death of Henry I_ (26 May 1597).
_Frederick and Basilea_ (3 June 1597).
_The Life and Death of Martin Swart_ (30 June 1597).