xi. (Charles Massey and Samuel Rowley)
Memorandom that this 16 of November 1598 I hired as my covenant servantes Charles Massey & Samewell Rowley for a yeare & as mvche as to Sraftide begenynge at the daye a bove written after the statute of Winchester with ij syngell pence & for them they haue covenanted with me to playe in my howes & in no other howsse dewringe the thime publeck but in mine yf they dooe with owt my consent yf they dooe to forfett vnto me xxxxli a pece wittnes
Thomas Dowton
Robart Shawe
Wm Borne
Jubey
Richard Jonnes.
Evidently the position of James Bristow is distinct from that of the other players. He was a ‘boy’ or apprentice, whose indentures had been transferred to Henslowe for a consideration by his former master. In the rest of the cases, the essence of the agreement appears to be the undertaking by the player under bond to play only with the Admiral’s men at Henslowe’s house. It is interesting to notice that in the agreement with Hearne Henslowe calls the company ‘my company’; and the fact that its members were constituted Henslowe’s covenant servants seems to argue a closer personal relation between the organization and its financier, than might on other grounds have been inferred. Dr. Greg, indeed, draws a distinction between the agreements with Jones, Shaw, Borne, and Downton, whom he regards as merely ‘binding themselves to play at Henslowe’s house like other sharers’, and those with the rest, whom he regards as ‘placing themselves in the position of covenant servants to him, which would seem to imply that they were merely hired men’.[401] But I do not think that there is any justification for this theory in the terms of the documents, and it immediately gets Dr. Greg into difficulties about Massey and Rowley, who, as we shall see, were in fact on the footing of full members of the company even before the date of their agreement. I do not mean that I deny the distinction between sharers and hired men, which is of course important, but that I do not think that it is relevant to the contractual relations set up by the agreements. I am not quite clear whether Henslowe’s memoranda, which are written throughout, including the names of the witnesses, in his own hand or Alleyn’s, constitute the formal instruments under which the agreements were effected, or are merely notes for his own information. But in either event their terminology is loose. They are not always expressed as being agreements of hiring, or for service, even in the cases of those men whom Dr. Greg does not suppose to have been sharers, and they are not careful to specify the considerations, other than the formal 2d. or 3d., which the actors were to receive. Wages are, in fact, provided for only in the agreements with Hearne and Kendall, and it is quite possible that, if we had the full terms before us, we should find that, while some of the others were also to receive wages, some were to find their recompense in a share of such profits as the company might make. It is probable that, even where Henslowe undertook to pay wages, the general agreement between him and the company provided for the shifting of that liability to them. They certainly had to pay him, at the rate of 3s. a week, for the services of his boy Bristow.[402] To a slightly later date belongs an agreement with an unnamed actor, in which the hirer is not Henslowe but Thomas Downton, and this I add in order to complete the series.[403]
xii.
Thomas Downton the 25 of Janewary 1599 ded hire as his couenante servante —— for ij yers to begyne at Shrofe Tewesday next & he to geue hime viijs a wecke as longe as they playe & after they lye stylle one fortnyght then to geue hime hallfe wages wittnes P H & Edward Browne & Charlles Masey.