For 2 watering snaffles, iiis. iiiid.
The Earl of Northampton gives his accounts in a great roll, with the sum total of each bill and the name of the workman, referring to the special books. In this occur the name of John Shakespeare and the amount of his bills; but it seems unnecessary to do more than give the reference—Exchequer Q.R. 436 (3). Collier noted some of the entries.
With all this special work on lines associated with tournaments, it is evidently possible that John Shakespeare might be the person referred to in the Belvoir accounts. As there is more than a possibility that this John is the cousin who disappears from Snitterfield, the association with Burbage may be naturally explained. I have not made up my own mind upon the subject, but so many have asked me to put forward the facts that I thought it wise to do so. If there is nothing more in them, they at least prove that there was another contemporary and well-to-do “Mr. Shakespeare” in Court service, engaged in work which might have suggested employment “about my Lorde’s impreso.”
“Athenæum,” 16th May 1908.
XXIII
“THE QUEEN’S PLAYERS” IN 1536
Dramatic records of Henry VIII’s reign are very scarce, and therefore it may be of interest to some students to have the text of a little Chancery suit to which I was guided through the studies of Mr. J. S. Young. It is undated by the scribe, but a proximate date may be reckoned. The appeal was addressed to “Sir Thomas Awdley,” who was appointed Chancellor in 1533, and he was made Lord Audley of Walden, 29th November 1538. The complaint states that the company were Queen Jane’s players, “late her servants.” As she was married only in June 1536, and as the cause of the dispute was referred back to “a year and three quarters past,” and she died in 1537, the complaint must have been brought just before the Chancellor was ennobled in 1538.
The document does not tell us much. It only gives the names of the chief members of the company as John Young, John Sly, David Sotherne, and John Mountfield (names that appear in the Lord Chamberlain’s books); and shows that they had been travelling professionally in “the northern parts,” and came to trouble over their packhorse.
The only earlier notice of “the Queen’s company” was in 1532, when it must have been Queen Katherine’s, whose waning power may have accounted for the trifling reward at Oxford “given to her players by the President’s orders,” viz. 12d. (E. K. Chambers, ii, 249.)
Early Chancery Proceedings. Uncalendared
(Bundle 931, 11, Y., no date given.)