The company were at Ipswich, Newcastle, and York in 1592–3. They were at Winchester on 7 December 1593; then came to London under the patronage of the fifth Earl, and, although not at Court, had a season of about six weeks, beginning on 26 December and ending on 6 February, with Henslowe, probably at the Rose. The names and dates of their plays and sums received at each, probably by himself as owner of the theatre, are noted by Henslowe in his diary. The company performed on thirty nights, in twelve plays. Henslowe’s receipts averaged £1 13s., amounting to £3 1s. on the first night and £3 10s. on each of the next two, and thereafter fluctuating greatly, from a minimum of 5s. to a maximum of £3 8s. This last was at the production of the one ‘new’ play of the season, Titus Andronicus, on 24 January. The enterprise was brought to an abrupt termination by a renewed alarm of plague, and a consequent inhibition of plays by the Privy Council on 3 February. Titus Andronicus was played for the third and last time on 6 February, and on the same day the book was entered for copyright purposes in the Stationers’ Register. The edition published in the same year professes to give the play as it was played by ‘the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex their Servants’. I suppose it to have passed, probably in a pre-Shakespearian version, from Pembroke’s to Sussex’s, when the former were bankrupt in the summer of 1593 (cf. infra), and to have been revised for Sussex’s by the hand of Shakespeare. If so, it is a plausible conjecture that certain other plays, which were once Pembroke’s and ultimately came to the Chamberlain’s men, also passed through the hands of Sussex’s. Such were The Taming of A Shrew, The Contention of York and Lancaster, and perhaps the Ur-Hamlet, 1 Henry VI, and Richard III. There is no basis for determining whether any of Shakespeare’s work on the York tetralogy was done for Sussex’s; but it is worth noting that one of their productions was Buckingham, a title which might fit either Richard III or that early version of Henry VIII, the existence of which, on internal grounds, I suspect. Of Sussex’s other plays in this season, one, George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, was published as theirs in 1599; another, Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, probably belonged to Henslowe, as it was acted in turn by nearly every company which he financed; and of the rest, God Speed the Plough, Huon of Bordeaux, Richard the Confessor, William the Conqueror, Friar Francis, Abraham and Lot, The Fair Maid of Italy, and King Lud, nothing is known, except for the entry of God Speed the Plough in 1601 and an edifying tale related about 1608 by Thomas Heywood in connexion with an undated performance of Friar Francis by the company at King’s Lynn.[283]
At Easter 1594 Henslowe records another very brief season of eight nights between 1 and 9 April, during which the Queen’s and Sussex’s men played ‘together’. This suggests to Dr. Greg that the companies appeared on different nights, but to me rather that they combined their forces, as they seem to have already done at Coventry in 1591. Henslowe’s receipts averaged £1 17s. The repertory included, besides The Fair Maid of Italy and The Jew of Malta, King Leare, doubtless to be identified with King Leire and his Three Daughters (1605), The Ranger’s Comedy, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. The latter was published in 1594 as a Queen’s play. Both it and The Ranger’s Comedy were played at a later date by the Admiral’s, and may have belonged to Henslowe. Strange’s had played Friar Bacon in 1592–3.
Thereafter Sussex’s men vanish from the annals; they may have been absorbed in the Queen’s men for travelling purposes. Later players under the same name are recorded at Coventry in 1602–3, Dover in 1606–7, Canterbury in 1607–8, Bristol, Norwich, and Dunwich in 1608–9, Leicester on 31 August 1615, and Leominster in 1618, and it may be these to whom Heywood alludes as visiting King’s Lynn. If so, their possession of Friar Francis suggests some affiliation to the earlier company.
vi. SIR ROBERT LANE’S MEN
Robert Lane, of Horton, Northants; nat. c. 1528; Kt. 2 Oct. 1553; m. (1) Catherine, d. of Sir Roger Copley, (2) Mary, d. of John Heneage.
I have not come across Sir Robert Lane’s men except at Bristol in August 1570, and at Court during the Christmas of 1571–2. On 27 December 1571 they played Lady Barbara and on 17 February 1572 Cloridon and Radiamanta. The first performance was paid for by a warrant of 5 January to Laurence Dutton; the second by a warrant of 26 February, in which, according to the entry in the Privy Council Register, Dutton was again named.[284] But the Treasurer of the Chamber records the payment as made to John Greaves and Thomas Goughe. Probably this company is identical with that found next year in the service of the Earl of Lincoln.
vii. THE EARL OF LINCOLN’S (LORD CLINTON’S) MEN
Edward Fiennes de Clinton; s. of Thomas, 8th Lord Clinton and Saye, nat. 1512; m. (1) Elizabeth Lady Talboys, d. of Sir John Blount, 1534, (2) Ursula, d. of William Lord Stourton, c. 1540, (3) Elizabeth Lady Browne, ‘the fair Geraldine,’ d. of Gerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, c. 1552; succ. as 9th Baron, 1517; Lord High Admiral, 1550–3, and again 13 Feb. 1558; 1st Earl of Lincoln, 4 May 1572; ambassador to France, 1572; Lord Steward, 1581–5; ob. 16 Jan. 1585.
Henry Fiennes de Clinton, s. of Edward and Ursula; nat. c. 1541; m. (1) Catharine, d. of Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, Feb. 1557, (2) Elizabeth, d. of Sir Richard Morison and wid. of William Norreys, after 1579; Kt. 29 Sept. 1553; succ. as 2nd Earl, 16 Jan. 1585; ob. 29 Sept. 1616.
Players serving the Lord Admiral were at Winchester in 1566–7. A company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln and led by Laurence Dutton played at Court during the Christmas of 1572–3, and a company under that of Lord Clinton, and also led by Dutton, in Herpetulus the Blue Knight and Perobia on 3 January 1574, and on 27 December 1574 and 2 January 1575. For 1574–5 they rehearsed three plays, one of which was Pretestus. Probably these are the same company transferred by the Lord Admiral to his son. Dutton was with Sir Robert Lane’s men in 1571–2 and with the Earl of Warwick’s in 1575–6. The whole company may have taken service with Lincoln instead of Lane as a result of the statute of 1572 (App. D, No. xxiv), but it does not seem to have been altogether absorbed in Warwick’s, as Lord Clinton’s men are found at Southampton on 24 June 1577, when they were six in number, at Bristol in July, and at Coventry in 1576–7. A later company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln has a purely provincial record in 1599–1604. There is an isolated notice at Norwich in 1608–9.