The accounts may be looked at from another point of view. If the unanalysable sum of £29 15s. 1d. for the missing items of March and April 1599 be neglected, there was a total expenditure for the six years of £1,317 11s. 3d. Of this £652 13s. 8d., being about half, went in payments in respect of play-books; £561 1s. 1d. for properties and apparel; and £103 16s. 6d. in miscellaneous outgoings, such as licensing fees, legal charges, musical instruments, travelling expenses, merry-makings and the like. Thus, if the company supped together at Mr. Mason’s of the Queen’s Head, or met to read a ‘book’ at the Sun in New Fish Street, Henslowe would put his hand into his pocket to pay the score, and would not forget afterwards to debit the company with the amount in his diary.[532] It must, of course, be borne in mind that only part of this miscellaneous expenditure was incurred through Henslowe. He certainly did not, for example, pay all the fees for the licensing of new plays by the Master of the Revels. And of course there were many matters, in particular the wages of hired actors and servitors, for which the company had regularly to find funds in other ways. It is probable that only play-books, properties, and apparel were normally charged to his account, although the convenience of an occasional extension of his functions can readily be understood. Dr. Greg may be right in thinking that his position as agent for the company in its purchases was a natural development of his pawnbroking business.[533] But during the period under review he did not, as a rule, supply them with goods himself. A sale of ‘A shorte velluett clocke wraght with bugell & a gearcken of velluet layd with brade coper sylver lace’ for £4 on 28 November 1598 was exceptional. Usually the payments are to tradesmen, to the mercers Stone, Richard Heath, and Robert Bromfield, to ‘him at the Eagell and Chylld’ for armour, to Mrs. Gosson for head-tires, and for wigs to one Father Ogle, who is mentioned also in the Revels Accounts and in the play of Sir Thomas More. Sometimes ready-made garments, new or second-hand, were bought. A doublet and hose of sea-water green satin cost £3 and a doublet and ‘venesyons’ of cloth of silver wrought with red silk £4 10s. But often stuffs were obtained in piece and made up by tailors, of whom the company employed two, Dover and Radford, the latter known, for the sake of distinction, as ‘the little tailor’. These and William White, who made the crowns, probably worked at the theatre, in the tiring-house. The company gave 6s. a yard for russet broadcloth and the same for murrey satin, 12s. for other satins, 12s. 6d. for taffeties, and no less than £1 for ‘ij pylle velluet of carnardyn’. Laces cost 1d. each; copper lace anything from 4s. a pound to 1s. 2d. an ounce. Of this they used quantities, and in the summer of 1601 they had run up a considerable ‘old debt’ to the copper lace-man, as well as another to Heath the mercer, which had to be paid off by degrees. The more expensive garments, such as a rich cloak bought of Langley for £19, were, of course, an investment on the part of the company, and were worn in their time by many sharers and hired men in different parts. But the principal actors had also, as Alleyn’s inventory shows, their private wardrobes. Henslowe was prepared to furnish these on the instalment system. Thus Richard Jones bought in 1594 ‘a manes gowne of pechecoler in grayne’ for £3 payable in weekly sums of 5s., and Thomas Towne in 1598 ‘a blacke clothe clocke layd with sylke lace’ for 26s. 8d. at 1s. weekly. It was as hard to keep these glories as to procure them. On one occasion the company came to the rescue and lent Thomas Downton £12 10s., to fetch out of pawn two cloaks, ‘which they exsepted into the stock’. The one was ‘ashecolerd velluet embradered with gowld’, the other ‘a longe black velluet clocke layd with sylke lace’.[534]
The termination of the record of advances after 12 March 1603 indicates an interruption of performances, probably due to the increasing illness of Elizabeth, who died on the following 24 March. Thereafter there are only a few winding-up entries in the diary. The company must have immediately begun to travel under the leadership of Thomas Downton, who in the course of 1602–3 received a gift for them from the Corporation of Canterbury, ‘because it was thought fitt they should not play at all, in regard that our late Queene was then very sicke or dead as they supposed’. London playing, if resumed at all, must have very soon been stopped again by the plague. There was some further small expenditure, of which the details are not given, before Henslowe noted that, in addition to the bond for £211 9s., ‘Ther reasteth dew vnto me to this daye beinge the v daye of Maye 1603 when we leafte of playe now at the Kynges cominge all recknynges abated the some of a hundred fowerscore & sevntenepowndes & thirteneshellynges & fowerpence I saye dew—£197 13s. 4d. the fyftye powndes which Jonnes & Shawe had at ther goinge a way not reconed’. The company travelled again during the plague, being traceable as the Admiral’s men in 1602–3 at Bath and York and on 18 August 1603 at Leicester, and as the Earl of Nottingham’s in 1602–3 at Coventry. The tour was over by 21 October, on which date Joan Alleyn wrote to her husband at the house of Mr. Chaloner in Sussex, telling him amongst other things that ‘all of your owne company ar well at theyr owne houses’, that all the other companies had returned, that ‘Nicke and Jeames be well’, and that ‘Browne of the Boares head’ had not gone into the country at all, and was now dead, ‘& dyed very pore’. This might be either Edward Browne, or the ‘old Browne’ who appeared with him in 1 Tamar Cham in the previous autumn. In any case, it is clear from the reference to him that he was not a regular member of Alleyn’s company. ‘Jeames’ is no doubt James Bristow, who, as Henslowe’s apprentice, would be likely to form part of his household; and ‘Nicke’, who seems to have been in the same position, may be supposed to be the Nick who tumbled before the Queen at Christmas 1601.
The Jacobean records of the company seem meagre in the absence of Henslowe’s detailed register of proceedings. About Christmas 1603 they were taken into the service of Prince Henry, and are hereafter known as the Prince’s players.[535] They are entered amongst other ‘Officers to the Prince’ as receiving four and a half yards of red cloth apiece as liveries for the coronation procession on 15 March 1604, and their names are given as ‘Edward Allen, William Bird, Thomas Towne, Thomas Dowton, Samuell Rowley, Edward Jubie, Humfry Jeffes, Charles Massey, and Anthony Jeffes’.[536] Alleyn, even if not a ‘sharer’, was therefore a member of the company in its official capacity. He is also named as the Prince’s servant, both in the printed account of the entertainment at which, dressed as a Genius, he delivered a speech, and in Stowe’s description of a bear-baiting which formed part of the festivities.[537] It may, however, be inferred that he took an early opportunity of leaving a profession to which he had only been recalled by the personal whim of the late Queen.[538] He was joint payee with Juby in the warrant of 19 February, but Juby’s name stands alone in another of 17 April and in those of all subsequent years up to 1615. And when the company received a formal licence by patent on 30 April 1606, Alleyn’s name was omitted, and does not appear in any further list of its members. It is true that as late as 11 May 1611 he is still described in a formal document as the Prince’s servant, but he may have held some other appointment, actual or honorific, in the household.[539] A note of his resources about 1605, however, includes ‘my share of aparell, £100’.[540] And he certainly remained interested in the company. They were his tenants at the Fortune, although an unexecuted draft of a lease to Thomas Downton dated in 1608 suggests that he may have taken steps to transfer the whole or a share of his direct interest to them. Under this lease Downton was to receive during thirteen years a thirty-second part of the daily profits accruing to Henslowe and Alleyn, and in return to pay £27 10s., a rent of 10s. annually and his proportionate share of repairs, and to bind himself to play in the house and not elsewhere without consent.[541] On 11 April 1612 Robert Browne is found writing to Alleyn on behalf of one Mr. Rose, lately ‘entertayned amongst the princes men’, to request his interest as one ‘who he knowes can strike a greter stroke amongst them then this’ to procure him a ‘gathering place’ for his wife.[542] Another letter from Bird to Alleyn, also about a gatherer, is amusing enough to quote in full. It is undated.
‘Sir there is one Jhon Russell, that by yowr apoyntment was made a gatherer wth vs, but my fellowes finding often falce to vs, haue many tymes warnd him ffrom taking the box. And he as often, with moste damnable othes, hath vowde neuer to touch, yet not with standing his execrable othes, he hath taken the box, & many tymes moste vnconsionablye gathered, for which we haue resolued he shall neuer more come to the doore; yet for your sake, he shall haue his wages, to be a nessessary atendaunt on the stage, and if he will pleasure himself and vs, to mend our garmentes, when he hath leysure, weele pay him for that to. I pray send vs word if this motion will satisfie you; for him his dishonestye is such we knowe it will not, Thus yealding our selues in that & a farr greater matter to be comaunded by you I committ you to god. Your loving ffrend to comaunde. W Birde.’[543]
With the exception of Alleyn, all the players of the 1604 list and no others appear in the patent of 1606, the text of which follows:[544]
De concessione licenciae pro Thoma Downton et aliis.
Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices, Maiors, Sheriffes, bailiffes, Constables, headboroughes and other our officers and loving subiectes greeting. Knowe ye that wee of our especiall grace, certaine knowledge, and meere mocion haue licenced and auctorized, and by theis presentes doe licence and auctorize Thomas Downton, Thomas Towne, William Byrde, Edwarde Iuby, Samuell Rowle, Humfrey Ieffes, Charles Massey, and Anthonie Ieffes, Servauntes to our dearest sonne the Prince, and the rest of theire Associates to vse and exercise the arte and facultie of playing Commedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Moralls, Pastoralls, Stageplayes, and such other like as they haue alreadie studied or hereafter shall vse or studie, aswell for the recreacion of our loving subiectes, as for our solace and pleasure when wee shall thincke good to see them, during our pleasure, And the said Commedies, Tragedies, histories, Enterludes, Moralls, pastoralls, stageplaies, and suche like to shewe and exercise publiquelie to their best Commoditie, aswell within theire nowe vsuall house called the Fortune within our Countie of Middlesex, as alsoe within anie Towne halls or Moutehalls or other convenient places within the libertie and ffredome of anie other Cittie, vniversitie, Towne, or Boroughe whatsoever, within our Realmes and Domynions, willing and Commaunding you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure, not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without anie your lettes, hindraunces, or molestacions during our saide pleasure, but alsoe to be aiding and assisting vnto them yf anie wrong be to them offered, And to allowe them such former curtesies as hath been given to men of theire place and quallitie, And alsoe what further favour you shall shewe vnto them for our sake wee shall take kindelie at your handes. Prouided alwaies, and our will and pleasure ys, that all auctoritie, power, priuiledges, and profittes whatsoever belonging and properlie appertaining to the Maister of our Revells in respecte of his office, and everie Clause, article, or graunte conteined within the letteres patentes or Commission, which haue heretofore been graunted or directed by the late Queene Elizabeth our deere Sister, or by our selves, to our welbeloued servantes Edmonde Tilney, Maister of the office of our said Revells, or to Sir George Bucke knighte, or to either of them in possession or reversion, shall be remayne and abide entire, and in full force estate and vertue, and in as ample sorte as yf this our Commission had never been made. In witnesse whereof etc. Witnesse our selfe at Westminster the Thirtith daie of Aprill. per breve de priuato sigillo.
Between 1606 and 1610 it seems to have been thought desirable to strengthen the composition of the company by the introduction of new blood. A list of ‘Comedyanes and Playores’, included in the establishment book drawn up when Henry formed his own Household as Prince of Wales in 1610, contains six names in addition to the eight of the patent.[545] They are ‘Edward Colbrande, Wm. Parre, Rychard Pryore, William Stratford, Frauncys Grace, and John Shanke’. Of these William Parr, who is in the plot of 1 Tamar Cham in 1602, is alone traceable in the earlier records of the company. Shank had been of Pembroke’s and Queen Elizabeth’s men.
Henslowe entered two more advances in his diary, one for ‘facynge of a blacke grogren clocke with taffytye’, the other to Dekker and Middleton in earnest of The Patient Man and the Honest Whore. This was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 9 November 1604, and printed as The Honest Whore during the year. The name of Towne is in a stage-direction. On 14 March ‘1604’, which may have been either 1604 or 1605, Henslowe had a final reckoning with the company and noted ‘Caste vp all the acowntes frome the begininge of the world vntell this daye beinge the 14 daye of Marche 1604 by Thomas Dowghton & Edward Jube for the company of the prynces men & I Phillipe Henslow so ther reasteth dew vnto me P Henslow the some of xxiiijli all reconynges consernynge the company in stocke generall descarged & my sealfe descarged to them of al deates’.[546] With this, so far as the extant book goes, the record of his transactions with the company practically ceases. The only exception is a note of receipts at the Fortune during the three days next after Christmas in 1608, which amounted to 25s., 45s., and 44s. 9d. respectively.[547] Something of the career of the Prince’s men may be gleaned from other sources. They played at Court before James on 21 January and 20 February 1604, and before Henry on 4, 15, and 22 January; and during the following Christmas before Anne on 23 November 1604 and before Henry on 24 November, 14 and 19 December, and on 15 and 22 January and 5 and 19 February 1605. On 8 February 1605 their play of Richard Whittington, of which nothing further is known, was entered on the Stationers’ Register.[548] In the same year Samuel Rowley’s When You See Me, You Know Me, was printed as played by them. During the Christmas of 1605–6 they gave three plays before James and three before Henry.[549] In 1604–5 they were at Maidstone and Winchester, in 1605–6 at Bath, on 17 July 1606 at Oxford, and on 17 October at Ipswich. During the Christmas of 1606–7 they gave six plays before James. Dekker’s Whore of Babylon was entered on the Stationers’ Register on 20 April 1607 and printed as theirs in the same year. In 1606–7 they were at Bath. During the Christmas of 1607–8 they gave four plays before James and Henry. In 1607–8 they were at Maidstone and Saffron Walden, and on 1 October 1608 they were at Leicester; but a visit of the same year from ‘the Princes players of the White Chapple, London’ is rather to be assigned to the Duke of York’s men (q.v.). They gave three plays before James and Henry during the Christmas of 1608–9, four before James during that of 1609–10, and four before James during that of 1610–11. Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl was printed in 1611 as lately played by them at the Fortune, and Field’s Amends for Ladies (c. 1610–11) names ‘Long Meg and the Ship’ as in their repertory. Presumably their Long Meg of Westminster of 1595 still held the boards.[550] In 1608–9 they were at Shrewsbury and Saffron Walden, in 1609–10 at Shrewsbury and Hereford, in 1610–11 at Shrewsbury and Winchester.
They played at Court before James on 28 and 29 December 1611, giving on the second night The Almanac, and before Henry in February and Elizabeth in April 1612. On 1 October 1612 the lewd jigs, songs, and dances at the Fortune are recited in an order of the Middlesex justices as tending to promote breaches of the peace. One of these may have been the occasion on which an obscure actor, Garlick by name, made himself offensive to the more refined part of his audience.[551] On the following 7 November Henry died and on 7 December his players figured in his funeral procession.[552]