The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2

by E. K. Chambers

I think that the Earl of Derby’s players must be taken to be distinct from another company, which was performing during much the same period of years under the name of Lord Strange. These men are found in 1576–7 at Exeter, in 1578–9 at Bath, Ipswich, Rochester, Nottingham, Coventry, and Stratford-on-Avon. They also made their first appearance at Court in the winter of 1579–80. Their performance was on 15 January 1580, and they are spoken of, not as players, but as tumblers. On the other hand they appear as players at Bath, side by side with Derby’s men, in 1580–1 and 1582–3, and as players also at Bristol, Canterbury, and Gloucester in 1580–1, Plymouth in 1581–2, and Barnstaple in 1582–3 and 1583–4. With the tumbling at Court in 1580 begins a rather puzzling series of records. There are further Court entries of feats of activity by Lord Strange’s men on 28 December 1581, and of feats of activity and tumbling on 1 January 1583. For this last occasion the payee of the company was John Symons. Two years later Symons and his ‘fellows’ were again at Court with feats of activity and vaulting, but they were then under the patronage, not of Lord Strange, but of the Earl of Oxford. There would be nothing extraordinary about such a transference of service, were it not that during the following Christmas, on 9 January 1586, tumbling and feats of activity are ascribed to John Symons and ‘Mr. Standleyes boyes’, and that by ‘Mr. Standley’ one can hardly help assuming either Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, or some other member of his family to be intended. This inference is confirmed by a mention of Lord Strange’s men at Faversham in 1585–6, and it becomes necessary to assume that, after attaching himself for a year to the Earl of Oxford, Symons thought better of it, and returned to his original master. Symons and his company again showed feats of activity on 28 December 1587. No patron is named on this occasion, but as Strange’s men are traceable at Coventry during 1587–8, it is natural to assume that they were still holding together. Now a new complication comes in. There were activities again at Court in the winter of 1588–9, and Symons certainly took part in them.[336] But the only men companies to whom payments were made were the Queen’s and the Admiral’s, who now reappear at Court after absence during two winters, and it is only in the case of the Admiral’s that the payment is specified to be for activities. If the restless Symons had joined the Admiral’s men, it cannot have been for long, since in the course of 1588–9 he was leading one section of the Queen’s men to Nottingham. Nor had Strange’s yet entirely broken up, for on 5 November 1589, both they and the Admiral’s, evidently playing as distinct companies, were suppressed by the Lord Mayor in the City.[337] Strange’s, who were then at the Cross Keys, played contemptuously, and some of them were imprisoned. A year later, the Admiral’s were with Burbadge at the Theatre, and there I conceive that the residue of Strange’s, deserted by Symons, had joined them. If they were too many for the house, we know that the Curtain was available as an ‘easer’. After the quarrel with Burbadge in May 1591, the two companies probably went together to the Rose. The main evidence for such a theory is that, while the Privy Council record of play-warrants include two for the Admiral’s men in respect of plays and feats of activity on 27 December 1590 and 16 February 1591, the corresponding Chamber payments are to George Ottewell on behalf of Strange’s men.

This amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s, tentative perhaps in 1588–9, and conclusive, if not in 1589–90, at any rate in 1590–1, lasted until 1594. So far as Court records are concerned, the company seems to have been regarded as Strange’s. But the leading actor, Edward Alleyn, kept his personal status as the Lord Admiral’s servant, and it is to be observed that, for whatever reason, both the Admiral’s and Strange’s continue to appear, not only in combination, but also separately in provincial documents.[338] Of this various explanations are conceivable. One is that the municipal officials were not very precise in their methods, and when an amalgamated company came before them, sometimes entered the name of one lord, sometimes of the other, sometimes of both. Another is that a few of the Admiral’s men may have been left out of the amalgamation and have travelled separately under that name. We know, of course, that Richard Jones and others went abroad in 1592, but they may have spent some time in the provinces first. And thirdly, it is possible that, while the combined company performed as a whole in London, they found it more economical to take their authorities from both lords with them, when they went to the country in the summer, and to unite or divide their forces as convenience prompted. I am the more inclined to this third conjecture, in that the ‘intollerable’ charge of travelling with a great company and the danger of ‘division and separacion’ involved were explicitly put forward by Lord Strange’s men in a petition to the Privy Council for leave to quit Newington Butts, where they had been commanded to play during a long vacation, and return to their normal quarters, doubtless at the Rose, on the Bankside. They particularly wanted to avoid going to the country, but Newington Butts did not pay, and they were backed by the Thames watermen, who lost custom when the Rose was not open. It is not clear whether this petition belongs to 1591 or 1592.[339] The provincial records show that the company probably travelled during 1592, but not 1591. If the petition belongs to 1592, it is obvious that the plague intervened, and I strongly suspect that the company’s fears proved justified, and that the reorganization for provincial work did in fact lead to a ‘division and separacion’, by the splitting off of some members of the combine as Pembroke’s men (q.v.).

This, however, anticipates a little. To Alleyn’s talent must be attributed the remarkable success of the company in the winter of 1591–2, during which they were called upon to give six performances at Court, on 27 and 28 December, 1 and 9 January, and 6 and 8 February, as against one each allotted to the Queen’s, Sussex’s, and Hertford’s men. On 19 February 1592 the company began a season with Philip Henslowe, probably at the Rose, and played six days a week for a period of eighteen weeks, during which they only missed Good Friday and two other days. Henslowe records in his diary the name of the play staged at each of the hundred and five performances, together with a sum of money which probably represents his share of the takings.[340] If so, his average receipts were £1 14s. 0d.; but the daily amounts fluctuated considerably, sometimes falling to a few shillings and again rising to twice the average on the production of a new or popular play or during the Easter or Whitsun holiday. Twenty-three plays in all were given, for any number of days from one to fifteen; the same play was rarely repeated in any one week. Five of the plays are marked in the diary with the letters ne, which are reasonably taken to indicate the production of a new piece. These were ‘Harey the vj’, probably Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI, Titus and Vespasian, probably the play on which was based Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the Second Part of Tamar Cham, The Tanner of Denmark, and A Knack to Know a Knave. The eighteen old plays included Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, Greene’s Orlando Furioso and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Greene and Lodge’s A Looking Glass for London; also Muly Mollocco which might be Peele’s Battle of Alcazar, Four Plays in One, which is conjectured to be a part of Tarlton’s Seven Deadly Sins, and Jeronimo, which is almost certainly Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. There was also a play, sometimes given on the day before this last, under the varying titles of Don Horatio, the Comedy of Jeronimo, or The Spanish Comedy, which does not appear to have been preserved.[341] The same fate has befallen the other ten plays, of which the names were Sir John Mandeville, Henry of Cornwall, Clorys and Orgasto, Pope Joan, Machiavel, Bindo and Richardo, Zenobia, Constantine, Jerusalem, and Brandimer. From the financial point of view, the greatest successes were Titus and Vespasian, The Jew of Malta, 2 Tamar Cham, 1 Henry VI, and The Spanish Tragedy. These averaged respectively for Henslowe £2 8s. 6d. for seven days, £2 3s. 6d. for ten days, £2 1s. 6d. for five days, £2 0s. 6d. for fifteen days, and £1 17s. 0d. for thirteen days. The Seven Deadly Sins and perhaps also the Looking Glass must have passed in some way into the hands of Strange’s or the Admiral’s, or into Henslowe’s, from the Queen’s.

The performances came to an end on 23 June, for on that day the Privy Council inhibited all plays until Michaelmas. Whether the Newington Butts episode and the watermen’s petition followed or not, at any rate plague intervened in the course of the summer, and the company had to face the disadvantages of travelling. They were afoot by 13 July and still on 19 December. Ten days later, Henslowe resumed his account, and the resemblance of the list of plays to that of the previous spring renders it reasonable to suppose that the actors were the same.[342] The season lasted to the end of January 1593, and a play was given on each of the twenty-six week-days of this period. Muly Mollocco, The Spanish Tragedy, A Knack to Know a Knave, The Jew of Malta, Sir John Mandeville, Titus and Vespasian, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1 Henry VI, and 2 Tamar Cham all made their appearance again. In addition, there were a comedy called Cosmo, and two new plays, The Jealous Comedy, which may, I think, be The Comedy of Errors, and The Tragedy of the Guise, which is usually accepted as Marlowe’s Massacre of Paris. The first representation of the former yielded Henslowe £2 4s. 0d., that of the latter £3 14s. 0d.; as in the spring, his daily takings averaged £1 14s. 0d. Besides their public performances, Strange’s men were called upon for three plays at Court, on the evenings of 27 and 31 December 1592 and 1 January 1593.

The plague made a new inhibition of plays necessary on 28 January, but it does not seem to have been for some months that Strange’s men made up their minds to travel. A special licence issued in their favour by the Privy Council on 6 May is registered in the following terms:

‘Whereas it was thought meet that during the time of the infection and continewaunce of the sicknes in the citie of London there shold no plaies or enterludes be usd, for th’ avoiding of th’ assemblies and concourse of people in anie usual place apointed nere the said cittie, and though the bearers hereof, Edward Allen, servaunt to the right honorable the Lord Highe Admiral, William Kemp, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, Augustine Phillipes and Georg Brian, being al one companie, servauntes to our verie good the Lord the Lord Strainge, ar restrained their exercize of playing within the said citie and liberties thereof, yet it is not therby ment but that they shal and maie in regard of the service by them don and to be don at the Court exercize their quallitie of playing comodies, tragedies and such like in anie other cities, townes and corporacions where the infection is not, so it be not within seaven miles of London or of the Coort, that they maie be in the better readines hereafter for her Majesty’s service whensoever they shalbe therunto called. Theis therfore shalbe to wil and require you that they maie without their lett or contradiccion use their said exercize at their most convenient times and places (the accustomed times of Devine praiers excepted).’[343]

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.