My aduerse would not come: not one did hisse,
But flung me theames: I then extempore
Did blot his name from out their memorie,
And pleasd them all, in spight of one to braue me,
Witnesse the ringing plaudits that they gaue me.[556]
As the Elector Palatine’s men the company played at Court during the winter of 1613–14, twice before James and once before Charles. They were amongst the companies which performed irregularly in the Lent of 1615, and Humphrey Jeffes and Thomas Downton were summoned before the Privy Council to account for their misdoing. One of the irregular licences condemned by the Lord Chamberlain on 16 July 1616 was an exemplification of the patent of 1613, taken out by Charles Marshall, Humphrey Jeffes, and William Parr for provincial purposes.
xx. THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S (LORD HUNSDON’S) AND KING’S MEN
Henry Carey, s. of William Carey and Mary, sister of Anne Boleyn; nat. c. 1524; cr. 1st Lord Hunsdon, 13 Jan. 1559; m. Anne, d. of Sir Thomas Morgan; Warden of East Marches and Governor of Berwick, Aug. 1568; Lord Chamberlain, 4 July 1585; lived at Hunsdon House, Herts., and Somerset House, London; ob. 22 July 1596.
George Carey, s. of Henry, 1st Lord Hunsdon; nat. 1547; Kt. 18 May 1570; m. Elizabeth, d. of Sir John Spencer of Althorp; Captain-General of Isle of Wight, 1582; succ. as 2nd Baron, 22 July 1596; Lord Chamberlain, 17 Mar. 1597; lived at Carisbrooke Castle, Hunsdon House, Drayton, and Blackfriars; ob. 9 Sept. 1603.
A company of Lord Hunsdon’s men was at Leicester in the last three months of 1564, at Norwich and Maldon in 1564–5, at Plymouth before Michaelmas in 1565, at Canterbury in the autumn of 1565, at Gloucester and Maldon in 1565–6, at Bristol in July 1566, and at Canterbury in the spring of 1567. Another makes its appearance at Ludlow on 13 July 1581, and at Doncaster in 1582. In the winter Lord Hunsdon was apparently deputy for the Earl of Sussex as Lord Chamberlain, and took occasion to bring his men to Court, where they acted Beauty and Housewifery on 27 December 1582. They did not again appear at Court, but when plays were temporarily suppressed on 14 June 1584 the owner of the Theatre, presumably James Burbadge, made a claim to be Lord Hunsdon’s man. Meanwhile ‘my L. Hunsdouns and my Lords Morleis players being bothe of one companye’ are recorded at Bristol in March 1583, and Lord Hunsdon’s alone at Norwich in 1582–3, Bath in June 1583, and Exeter in July 1583. Hunsdon became Lord Chamberlain on 4 July 1585. Between October and December of that year, a visit was paid to Leicester by ‘the Lord Chamberlens and the Lord Admiralls players’, and on 6 January 1586 ‘the servants of the lo: Admirall and the lo: Chamberlaine’ gave a play at Court. These entries suggest an amalgamation of Hunsdon’s men with those of Lord Admiral Howard, both of whom had perhaps been weakened by the formation of the Queen’s men in 1583. But if so, it was only a partial or temporary one, for while the Admiral’s men established themselves in London, the Chamberlain’s are traceable in the provinces, at Coventry in 1585–6, at Saffron Walden in 1587–8, and at Maidstone in 1589–90.