The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1

by E. K. Chambers

And when players had got their warrants and their licences, and signed their recognizances to the Master of the Revels, and paid their tithes, and made up their minds to observe the taboos of Sunday and of Lent, and to purge their plays of all perilous stuff, they had still to encounter the ordinary changes and chances incident to all mortality. The profits swelled in term time and dwindled in vacation.[931] Easter, Whitsuntide, Bartholomew Fair, were recurring seasons of prosperity.[932] Were the streets full for such an occasion as the entry of an ambassador, the theatres reaped their harvest.[933] A period of public mourning, on the other hand, as at the deaths of Elizabeth and of Prince Henry, meant the cessation of business.[934] Political changes—although, like the other elements of Stuart society, the players probably paid little attention to the forces that were gathering for their ultimate overthrow—might prove more disastrous still. But the dreaded enemy, in whose mysterious workings the Puritans recognized a direct expression of the wrath of God, was undeniably the plague. The menace, and too often the actual reality, of plague, in a city whose growth had far outstripped the advance of sanitary knowledge, was one of the principal domestic preoccupations of Elizabethan administrators. And the precaution, which was always resorted to, of forbidding public assemblies as probable centres of infection, reacted terribly upon theatrical enterprise. A study of the plague calendar which forms an appendix to the present volumes will show that there were three grave visitations of plague during the years which it covers, in 1563, in 1592-4, and in 1603; that in the long period 1564 to 1587 following the first visitation, and in the shorter period 1604 to 1609 following the third visitation, plague had become endemic, generally showing itself from July to November and reaching its maximum in September or October; that during these periods certain years, such as 1579 and 1580 in the one and 1604 in the other were comparatively free; and that probably during 1588-91, and certainly during 1595-1602 and 1610-16, plague was so far absent as to be practically negligible. In fact, after 1609 plague did not again become a serious factor in London life until 1625. The greatest developments of the Elizabethan drama thus coincide with the longest periods of exemption, and perhaps this simple physical fact has something to do with the break-down of the Puritan opposition and the settlement of theatrical conditions in 1597. Certainly the plaguesome years 1564-87 are marked by a series of inhibitions of plays on account of plague, some of which seem to be hardly justified by the actual state of things prevailing, and suggest that the Privy Council occasionally found it convenient to avoid controversy with the City by acquiescing in an inhibition for which the dread of infection was little more than the ostensible reason. This tendency seems to have come very near to bringing about a regular autumnal close season for plays. Ultimately, however, a different principle of regulation was adopted. This was based upon the showings of the plague-bill, a weekly summary of deaths from plague and from other causes respectively, prepared from returns rendered on behalf of each of the 109 parishes within the City area and a few of those in the suburbs.[935] The first indication of an appeal to this criterion is to be found in the documents belonging to the inquiry of 1584, to which the players appear to have contributed the proposal that their activities should continue to be tolerated so long as the deaths from plague in any one week did not exceed fifty. The City questioned the security afforded by this figure, and as an alternative offered toleration whenever the deaths from all causes should have remained below fifty for three weeks together. It is difficult to say whether this reply was intended to be taken seriously. Probably not, in view of the general attitude adopted in the argument of which it forms part. If it had been applied to the years 1578-82, for which plague-bills are extant, there would have been only fifteen weeks of playing during the five years, six weeks in 1580, and nine weeks in 1581.[936] The precise issue of the discussion of 1584 is unknown; but the principle then mooted is found in effective operation during the seventeenth century. Most of the patents do not make any specific reservation for times of plague, but that for the King's men, issued during the plague of 1603, and the unexecuted draft for the Queen's men are expressed as coming into operation 'when the infection of the plague shall decrease', and more precisely in the case of the Queen's men 'when the infeccion of the plague shall decrease to the nomber of thirtie weekly within our Citie of London and the liberties therof'. Similarly the Privy Council letter of 9 April 1604 in allowance of the resumption of plays is guarded by the proviso 'except there shall happen weeklie to die of the plague aboue the number of thirtie within the Cittie of London and the liberties therof; att which time we think it fitt they shall cease and forbeare any further publicklie to playe untill the sicknes be again decreaced to the saide number'. This criterion of thirty deaths was much less favourable to the players than that of fifty which they had themselves suggested in 1584. It appears to have ruled until about 1607 and then to have been replaced by the more liberal allowance of forty, which is the number specified in the later patents of 1619 and 1625 to the King's men.[937]

It is clear that a plague, if at all prolonged, hit the players very hard, partly because it was customary to divide up the profits weekly or even daily, and the companies, as distinct from prudent individuals, seem to have kept no reserve funds. In particular the plague of 1592-4 forms a regular watershed in the history of the companies. Some went under altogether; others, such as the famous Queen's men, failed for ever after to recover a foothold in the metropolis. The reconstructed organizations of 1594 have practically no continuity with those in existence up to 1592. The obvious resource in a time of inhibition was to travel, since a London plague did not necessarily extend far into the provinces.[938] It was a regrettable necessity. In favourable economic conditions, the London companies tended to grow, to effect amalgamations, to occupy more than one theatre.[939] Travelling, for more than a few summer weeks, meant the reduction of establishments to the level of provincial profits, the breaking up of partnerships, the division of books and apparel, the dismissal of hired men.[940] But plague was inexorable. Reluctantly the drums and trumpets were bought, the last stoup was quaffed at the Cardinal's Hat, and the rufflers of London streets resigned themselves to the hard life of country 'strowlers'.[941] On the road, with his wagon, the actor necessarily laid aside the conditions of a householder, and reverted to those of his grandfather, the minstrel.[942] And it is fair to say that, as a rule, although there were Puritans in the provinces as well as in London, he received a minstrel's welcome. His advent, about 1574, to a western borough is thus described by one R. Willis, in a half-autobiographical, half-religious, treatise entitled Mount Tabor, published in 1639:[943]

'In the City of Gloucester, the manner is (as I think it is in other like corporations) that when Players of Enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans servants they are, and so to get licence for their publike playing; and if the Mayor like the Actors, or would shew respect to their Lord and Master, he appoints them to play their first play before himselfe, and the Aldermen and common Counsell of the City; and that is called the Mayors play, where every one that will comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit, to shew respect unto them. At such a play my father tooke me with him, and made me stand betweene his leggs, as he sate upon one of the benches, where wee saw and heard very well.'

The account given by Willis receives general confirmation from the numerous entries with regard to players exhumed from the municipal archives not only of Gloucester itself, but of many other towns, and notably Canterbury, Dover, Southampton, Winchester, Exeter, Plymouth, Barnstaple, Oxford, Abingdon, Marlborough, Bath, Bristol, Shrewsbury, Chester, York, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Stratford-on-Avon, Maldon, Ipswich, Cambridge, and Norwich.[944] As a rule the information consists of a record in the annual accounts rendered by the Chamberlains or other borough treasurers of the 'rewards' paid to the companies for performing the 'Mayor's play'. These are often stated to have been paid at the 'appointment' of the Mayor, or of the Mayor and the Aldermen or other body who were his 'brethren'. The name of the company is generally given; sometimes the date of the performances, and more rarely the name of the play or some other detail which struck the fancy of the Chamberlains, is added. Sometimes, moreover, there is subsidiary expenditure to record; a stage has to be put up and lit;[945] damage done has to be repaired;[946] the players are entertained with the municipal courtesy of 'wine and sugar', or with a 'drinkinge', 'banket', or 'breakfast' at their inn.[947] At Gloucester the entertainment, of 'wine and chirries', took place in the house of 'Mr. Swordbearer', an official of the corporation. In the main the customs of the different towns seem to have been singularly uniform, but here and there variations of detail present themselves. Thus the mayor's play was not everywhere, as at Gloucester, open to all comers. A 'free' play is noted at Newcastle; at Bath and Canterbury on the other hand there was a 'gathering', supplemented by the town's reward.[948] At Leicester the same arrangement prevailed up to the end of the sixteenth century. The 'gathering' was levied upon the members of the two councils known as the 'Twenty-four' and the 'Forty-eight'; and orders are upon record limiting this liability to performances by the royal companies or the servants of privy councillors.[949] In 1590-1 collections were also taken 'at the hall dore'.

A Bridgnorth order of 1570 that no charge should be put upon the town fund appears to be exceptional at this date, and did not prove permanent.[950] The 'rewards' entered in the accounts are generally round sums; where they are broken, they probably went to make up the results of the 'gatherings' to round sums. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign the amounts often do not exceed a few shillings, but a general tendency to increase is apparent throughout the next half-century, and by 1616 rewards of £2 and even £3 are not uncommon. The establishment of the Queen's men in 1583 led to a rise in the rate of reward for that company, which in course of time brought about increased generosity to others.[951] The highest sums I have noted were £4 to the Queen's men at Ipswich in 1599, and to various companies at Coventry from 1612 onwards. Nottingham distinguished itself by economy, and did not go beyond 20s. at the best. In most places the rates fluctuate considerably to the end; being determined partly by the importance of the 'lord' and his relations to the town, partly in all probability by the opinion of the stage held by the mayor or the town, partly, one may hope, by the merits of individual plays and their interpreters. Commonly enough, the mayor's play took place in the guild-hall, in spite of the criticisms of those who, whatever their real motives, alleged the damage done and the interruption to municipal business.[952] For subsequent performances other quarters had often to be found. These were ordinarily in an inn;[953] occasionally in the church itself or the churchyard.[954] Great Yarmouth had its specially provided 'game house'; a theatre contemplated at York in 1608-9 was to have its own company, as 'a means to restrayne the frequent comminge of other stage players', but the scheme was never actually carried out.[955]

To some extent the evidence of the accounts can be eked out by that of other records throwing a more direct light upon the responsibilities assumed by the civic authorities in regard to plays. Singularly interesting is the register of the Mayor's Court at Norwich, in which are recorded the attendances of players on their arrival in the town to submit their credentials and obtain leave for their performances.[956] The patent companies produced their letters patent in original or in exemplification, in addition to which the Court seems to have expected some instrument of deputation, if none of the men actually named in the document were present.[957] The nature of the evidence forthcoming from other companies is not so clearly specified, but no doubt it consisted of the warrant of appointment by their lord, and after 1581 of the confirmatory licence from the Master of the Revels. Worcester's men were in a difficulty at Leicester in 1583 because, although they could produce the warrant from their lord, their licence from the Master had been purloined by another company.[958] It was probably as a quite special privilege that, when Strange's and Sussex's men travelled in 1593, they carried with them letters of assistance from the Privy Council itself. It may be gathered from the terms of the Norwich entries that the Court regarded its own permission or 'licence' as essential before players were entitled to set up their 'bills' or give their performances within its jurisdiction. The lord's warrant might protect his servants from the penalties of vagabondage; but it was not necessarily accepted, in the provinces any more than in London, as overriding the traditional right of the municipal governments to control the entertainments which might have serious results both upon the morality and the order of their areas. On the other hand, even if the plays had been less popular than they were, the livery of the Queen or of a powerful noble was not a thing to be lightly flouted. Perhaps the difficulty was solved by taking the warrant at its face value as a courteous letter of recommendation, and letting the licence to play and the 'reward' stand as return courtesies from the corporation to their very good lord. This fiction, however, can hardly have been applicable to the terms in which the Master of the Revels may be supposed to have worded his licence, and still less to those of the royal patents, which claimed to give direct authority to play 'within anie town halls or moute halls or other conveniente places within the liberties and freedoms of any cittie, vniversitie, towne or boroughe whatsoever within our realmes and domynions'. The corporations were not very likely to act upon the advice attributed to the Lord Coke in 1606 that such licences from the Crown were ultra vires.[959] No doubt they remained the arbiters as to what places were 'conveniente'. They also prescribed times and seasons, forbidding plays at their discretion on Sunday[960] or at night,[961] or in Lent,[962] or during divine service,[963] and laying down for each company the number of days during which it was at liberty to perform, or the interval which must elapse between one visit and the next. At Norwich the number of days ranged from one to eight, sometimes one performance and sometimes two being allowed on each day. The royal signet warrants which came into use about 1616 authorized the companies holding them to stay fourteen days in any one town. Sometimes Dogberry and Verges found good reason for refusing leave to play. It was a season of plague or of social disturbance in the town.[964] In 1603 when the Admiral's men visited Canterbury, 'it was thought fit they should not play at all in regard that our late Queen was then ether very sick or dead as they supposed'. Or even if the public playing was allowed, the corporation might be too busy for a Mayor's play to be appropriate. In either event the players generally got their fee all the same, and the Chamberlain, if punctilious, entered it not as a 'reward' but as a 'gratuity', and noted in his book that the company 'did not playe'.[965] Certain indications show themselves here and there that the Puritan controversy had spread to the provinces, and even that the desire to have done with plays altogether was not wholly confined to London. As early as 1590 there was a dispute in the corporation of Maldon between an ex-bailiff of the town and certain colleagues whom he abused as 'a sort of precisians and Brownists' because they forbade a performance on a Sunday evening.[966] In 1596 the Chester corporation made an order for the suppression of plays, and fixed a 'gratuity' of 20s. for the Queen's men, and 6s. 8d. for those of any noble. But it does not seem that the resolution was persisted in, and in 1615 the city was still suffering from 'the common brute and scandal' of 'obscene and unlawfull plaies or tragedies', and did no more than bar them out from the Common Hall and confine them to the day-time.[967] At Hull too fines were enacted against citizens resorting to plays and landlords harbouring them in 1598.[968] The players did not always prove conformable to municipal discipline. Several cases are recorded at Norwich, in which companies played contrary to orders, and were punished by committal to prison, or by threats that their lord should be certified of their contempt, and that they should never more have reward of the city.[969] One of the mutinous companies in 1583 was Worcester's, who in the following year repeated their offence at Leicester, going 'with their drum and trumppytts thorowe the towne in contempt of Mr. Mayor' and using 'evyll and contemptyous words' of that dignitary, who had given them an angel (3s. 4d.) towards their dinner. The threat of reporting them to their lord reduced them to submission, and after all they were allowed to play, and made a public apology to Mr. Mayor as a prologue.

The worst of travelling was that, after all the tramping of bad roads, and all the wrangling with jacks-in-office, there was but a scanty living to be made out of it, even with the aid of the few shillings to be picked up in the larger villages, from such a windfall as is described in Ratseis Ghost,[970] or from the generous hospitality of a friendly manor.[971] The competition was considerable, for in the provinces the London companies found rivals in the shape of other companies which rarely or never came to London at all, but were none the less substantial and permanent organizations. Thus Queen Elizabeth's men travelled for years between their last London appearance in 1594 and the end of the reign, and continued all the time to secure the exceptionally high rates of 'reward' which were due to the royal name. Other famous provincial companies, each of which can be traced through a period of years, were those of the Duchess of Suffolk (1548-63), and the Lords Mountjoy (1564-78), Stafford (1574-1604), Sheffield (1577-86), Berkeley (1578-1610), Chandos (1578-1610), Morley (1581-1602), Darcy (1591-1603), Mounteagle (1593-1616), Huntingdon (1597-1606), Evers (1600-13), and Dudley (1600-36). Some of these had a comparatively limited range; others covered the whole country. Their presence in the field, and that of many minor companies, must have made it difficult for the Londoners.[972] The charge of travelling, again, as Strange's men complained to the Privy Council about 1592, was intolerable, and the necessity for dividing the larger companies, so as to cover more ground, led to disorganization. Pembroke's men, when they travelled in 1593, could not save their charges, and had to pawn their apparel and return home. The years of plague and travellings were the lean years which sent the books of plays into the hands of the publishers.[973] And for a company to part with the books and garments that formed its stock in trade was a confession of failure.

The wanderings of English actors were by no means confined to England itself. They crossed the border to Scotland, where towards the end of the sixteenth century they incurred the hostility of the Kirk Sessions, which did not prevent James I from appointing one or more of them as Court comedians, and bringing them back with him in 1603 to figure in the lists of the patented royal companies.[974] Somewhat later they braved the Irish Channel, and are found at Youghal.[975] And on the Continent they ranged far and wide.[976] Notices of them in France, indeed, are rarer than might be expected, perhaps because of the barrier of religion, perhaps because the Italians had already occupied the ground, perhaps only because the archives have not been thoroughly searched. To Italy and to Spain they just penetrated. In northern Europe, on the other hand, in the Netherlands, in Germany, even in Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, they found a constant welcome, until their movements were checked by the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1620. A pioneer company, which made its way from Leicester's head-quarters at Utrecht to the Courts of Copenhagen and Dresden in 1586, included members who afterwards became fellows of Shakespeare as Lord Chamberlain's men. The shifting relations of the numerous bands which followed them are beyond research, but the initiative in organizing the raids seems to have been largely taken by two men. One of these was Robert Browne, who paid not less than five visits abroad between 1590 and 1620, and appears to have had many associates, of whom the most important was John Green. The other was John Spencer, who first appears in 1604, and whose operations were probably quite independent of Browne's. The industry of German scholars has made it possible to trace in outline the stories of Spencer and of a group of companies owing their origin more or less directly to Browne. Their adventures were clearly much facilitated by the existence of numerous petty German courts, under cultivated rulers who were glad to take a troop of actors into their service for a year or two at a time, and then let them go for a while on their travels from one to another of the great towns. Conspicuous amongst such patrons were the Electors Joachim Frederick (1598-1608) and John Sigismund (1608-91) of Brandenburg, the Electors Christian I (1586-91), Christian II (1591-1611), and John George (1611-56) of Saxony, Henry Julius (1589-1613) Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and Maurice (1592-1627) Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. Naturally, also, the actors made their way to Heidelberg, whither the Elector Palatine Frederick V brought his English bride in 1613. These were Protestant princes, but Catholic Germany, although less often visited, was not closed to the English, who found particular favour with the house of the Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, afterwards the Emperor Ferdinand II. Of the great cities of Germany the most hospitable to actors, so far as our knowledge goes, were Cologne, Strassburg, Ulm, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and above all Frankfort, where the two great marts or fairs held annually at Easter and in the autumn served as a rallying-point for travellers and entertainers of every species. The early successes of the English in Germany are reported by Fynes Moryson, who was at Frankfort for the autumn fair of 1592:

'Germany hath some fewe wandring Comeydians, more deseruing pitty then prayse, for the serious parts are dully penned, and worse acted, and the mirth they make is ridiculous, and nothing lesse then witty (as I formerly haue shewed). So as I remember that when some of our cast dispised stage players came out of England into Germany, and played at Franckford in the tyme of the Mart, hauing nether a complete number of Actours, nor any good Appareil, nor any ornament of the Stage, yet the Germans, not vnderstanding a worde they sayde, both men and women, flocked wonderfully to see theire gesture and Action, rather then heare them, speaking English which they vnderstoode not, and pronowncing peeces and patches of English playes, which my selfe and some English men there present could not heare without great wearysomenes. Yea my selfe comming from Franckford in the company of some cheefe marchants Dutch and Flemish, heard them often bragg of the good markett they had made, only condoling that they had not the leasure to heare the English players.'