In 1589, when the process of amalgamation between the Lord Admiral's, the Lord Chamberlain's, and Lord Leicester's companies, and Lord Strange's acrobats, which resulted in the formation of Lord Strange's company, was under way, discarded members of their companies, including, no doubt, some of the players of the old Worcester company, secured a licence from the new Earl of Worcester and continued to perform—though mostly as a provincial company—until 1603. Other old members, including Robert Brown—the leader of the former Worcester company—and Richard Jones, formed a new company for continental performances. Brown and others continued to make continental trips for years afterwards, while Richard Jones rejoined the Lord Admiral's men in 1594, after they and the Lord Chamberlain's men had separated.
It was plainly, then, Richard Jones' share in the stage properties of the Lord Admiral's company that Edward Alleyn bought in 1589. It is apparent that he also bought out his brother's and Robert Brown's shares, as neither of them afterwards appeared as Strange's or Admiral's men. This would give Edward Alleyn entire ownership of the properties of the Admiral's company, and, consequently, an important share in the new amalgamation.
It was on Burbage's stage, then, that this great actor between 1585 and 1589—after having spent several years touring the provinces—entered upon and established his metropolitan reputation, attaining in the latter year, at the age of twenty-three, a large, if not the largest, share in the properties and holdings, and also the management of the strongest company of players in England, as well as the reputation of being the greatest actor of the time.
It somewhat enlarges our old conception of the beginnings of Shakespeare's theatrical experiences and dramatic inspiration to know, that when he entered into relations with James Burbage, in 1586-87, and for from four to six years afterwards, he had as intimate associates both Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage; two young men of about his own age, who were already winning a good share of the notice and appreciation that later established them as the leading actors of the age. Which of them was the greater was one of the moot questions of the day eight to ten years later, when they had become the star actors of rival companies, and those the foremost two in London.
It is now pertinent to inquire as to which of these companies, if to any, Shakespeare was connected previous to the amalgamation, and also, whether or not he became a member of Lord Strange's company, along with Richard Burbage, and acted under, or wrote for, Alleyn and Henslowe between 1591 and 1594.
The suggestion which was first made by Mr. Fleay—in which he has since been followed by encyclopædists and compilers—that Shakespeare joined Lord Leicester's company upon one of its visits to Stratford-upon-Avon in 1586 or 1587, is plainly without foundation in the light of the foregoing facts, as is also his assumption that Lord Strange's company was merely a continuation of Lord Leicester's company under new patronage.
Lord Leicester's company spent the greater part of the years between 1585-86 and 1589 performing in the provinces. The records of its provincial visits outnumber all of those recorded for the other three companies concerned in the reorganisation of 1589. If Shakespeare acted at all in these early years he must have done so merely incidentally. When we bear in mind the volume and quality of his literary productions, between 1591 and 1594, it becomes evident that his novitiate in dramatic affairs in the dark years, between 1585-86 and 1592, was of a literary rather than of an histrionic character, though he also acted in those years. He would have found little time for dramatic composition or study during these years had he accompanied Lord Leicester's company in their provincial peregrinations. Bearing in mind his later habit of revising earlier work it is not unlikely that some of his dramatic work, which from internal and external evidence we now date between 1591 and 1594, is rewritten or revised work originally produced before 1591.
It is palpable that Shakespeare had not been previously affiliated with Lord Strange's acrobats, nor a member of the Lord Admiral's company, and evident, in view of the above facts and deductions, as well as of his future close and continuous connection with James Burbage, that his inceptive years in London were spent in his service, working in various capacities in his business and dramatic interests. It is apparent that between 1586-87 and 1588-89 Shakespeare worked for James Burbage as a bonded and hired servant. In Henslowe's Diary there are several instances of such bonds with hired servants, and covenant servants, covering terms of years—usually from two to three—between Henslowe and men connected with the Lord Admiral's company. It shall be shown later that Nashe in his preface to Greene's Menaphon alludes to Shakespeare in this capacity.
The title of Johannes factotum, which Greene, in 1592, bestowed upon Shakespeare, as well as the term "rude groome," which he inferentially applies to him, when coupled with the tradition collected by Nicholas Rowe, his earliest biographer, who writes: "He was received into the company then in being, at first, in a very mean rank, but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the stage, soon distinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer," all point to a business rather than to an exclusively histrionic connection with the Burbages in his earlier London years. These evidences are confirmed by the gossip of William Castle, who was parish clerk of Stratford for many years, and who was born two years before Shakespeare died, and, consequently, must have known and talked with many people who had known Shakespeare. He frequently told visitors that Shakespeare was first received in the playhouse as "a servitor." When the legal usage and business customs of that period, as exhibited in legal records and in Henslowe's Diary, are considered it becomes apparent that a youth of from twenty-one to twenty-three years of age, newly come to London, with no previous training in any particular capacity, with a bankrupt father and without means of his own, could not very well associate himself with a business concern in any other capacity than that of an indentured apprentice or bonded and hired servant. Without such a legally ratified connection with some employer, a youth of Shakespeare's poverty and social degree, and a stranger in London, would be classed before the law as a masterless man and a vagrant. The term "servitor" then does not refer to his theatrical capacity—as stated by Halliwell-Phillipps—but to his legal relations with James Burbage, his employer. Only sharers in a company were classed as "servants" to the nobleman under whose patronage they worked; the hired men were servants to the sharers, or to the theatrical owner for whom they worked.
Being connected with the Burbages between 1586-87 to 1588-89, whatever theatrical training Shakespeare may have received came undoubtedly from his association with the Lord Admiral's and Lord Hunsdon's companies, which performed at the Theatre in Shoreditch as one company during these years, combining in the same manner as Strange's company and the Lord Admiral's company did, under Henslowe and Alleyn at the Rose, between 1592-94. Though in later life he was reputed to be a fair actor, he never achieved great reputation in this capacity; it was plainly not to acting that he devoted himself most seriously during these early years. Working in the capacity of handy-man or, as Greene calls him, Johannes factotum, for the Burbages, besides, possibly, taking general charge of their stabling arrangements,—as tradition asserts,—he also, no doubt, took care of the theatrical properties, which included the MSS. and players' copies of the plays owned by the company. Though Shakespeare's grammar school days ended in Stratford he took his collegiate course in Burbage's Theatre. During the leisure hours of the years of his servitorship he studied the arts as he found them in MS. plays. I shall show, later, that Robert Greene, through the pen of his coadjutor, Thomas Nashe, in an earlier attack than that of 1592, refers to Shakespeare's servitorship and to the acquisitions of knowledge he made during his idle hours. That he made good use of his time and his materials, however, is demonstrated by the fact that in the four years intervening between the end of 1590 and the end of 1594, he composed, at least, seven original plays, two long poems, and over sixty sonnets; much of this work being since and still regarded—three hundred years after its production—as a portion of the world's greatest literature.