Commissio specialis pro Laurencio Fletcher & Willelmo Shackespeare et aliis
Iames by the grace of god &c. To all Iustices, Maiors, Sheriffes, Constables, hedborowes, and other our Officers and louinge Subiectes greetinge. Knowe yee that Wee of our speciall grace, certeine knowledge, & mere motion haue licenced and aucthorized and by theise presentes doe licence and aucthorize theise our Servauntes Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustyne Phillippes, Iohn Heninges, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowly, and the rest of theire Assosiates freely to vse and exercise the Arte and faculty of playinge Comedies, Tragedies, histories, Enterludes, moralls, pastoralls, Stage-plaies, and Suche others like as theie haue alreadie studied or hereafter shall vse or studie, aswell for the recreation of our lovinge Subjectes, as for our Solace and pleasure when wee shall thincke good to see them, duringe our pleasure. And the said Commedies, tragedies, histories, Enterludes, Morralles, Pastoralls, Stageplayes, and suche like to shewe and exercise publiquely to theire best Commoditie, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, aswell within theire nowe vsual howse called the Globe within our County of Surrey, as alsoe within anie towne halls or Moute halls or other conveniente places within the liberties and freedome of anie other Cittie, vniversitie, towne, or Boroughe whatsoever within our said Realmes and domynions. Willinge and Commaundinge you and everie of you, as you tender our pleasure, not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without anie your lettes hindrances or molestacions during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be aidinge and assistinge to them, yf anie wronge be to them offered, And to allowe them such former Curtesies as hath bene given to men of theire place and quallitie, and alsoe what further favour you shall shewe to theise our Servauntes for our sake wee shall take kindlie at your handes. In wytnesse whereof &c. witnesse our selfe at Westminster the nyntenth day of May
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.
Of the nine players named, eight are recognizable as the principal members of the Lord Chamberlain’s company as it stood at the end of Elizabeth’s reign. Only Thomas Pope is not included. He was near his end. He made his will on 22 July 1603, and it was proved on 13 February 1604. In it he names none of his fellows, unless Robert Gough, who has a legacy, was already of the company; his interest in the house of the Globe passed to legatees and was thus alienated from the company. Laurence Fletcher, on the other hand, whose name heads the list in the patent, is not discernible as a Chamberlain’s man. His inclusion becomes readily intelligible, when it is recalled that he had headed English actors on tour in Scotland, and had already been marked by the personal favour of James.[603] Whether he ever joined the company in the full sense, that is to say, the association of actors as distinct from the body of royal servants, seems to me very doubtful. His name is not in the Sejanus list, or in the Folio list of Shakespearian players, and that he was described as a ‘fellow’ by Phillips in 1605 hardly takes the matter further. He may have held a relation to the King’s men analogous to that of Martin Slater to Queen Anne’s men. After 1605 nothing is heard of him.[604]
The terms of the patent imply that it was issued during a suspension of playing through plague. Probably this had followed hard upon the suspension at Elizabeth’s death. The company travelled, being found at Bath, Coventry, and Shrewsbury in the course of 1602–3. A misplaced Ipswich entry of 30 May 1602 may belong to 1603. The visits to Oxford and Cambridge referred to on the title-page of the 1603 edition of Hamlet must also have taken place in this year, if they did not take place in 1601. On 2 December 1603 the company were summoned from Mortlake to perform before the King at Lord Pembroke’s house of Wilton.[605]
During the winter of 1603–4 the company gave eight more plays at Court, a larger number than Elizabeth had ever called for. They took place on 26, 27, 28, and 30 December 1603 and on 1 January and 2 and 19 February 1604. On New Year’s Day there were two performances, one before James, the other before Prince Henry. The plague had not yet subsided by 8 February, and James gave his men £30 as a ‘free gifte’ for their ‘mayntenaunce and releife’ till it should ‘please God to settle the cittie in a more perfecte health’. One of the plays of this winter was The Fair Maid of Bristow. Another, produced before the end of 1603, was probably Ben Jonson’s Sejanus. For alleged popery and treason in this play Jonson was haled before the Privy Council by the Earl of Northampton, but there is nothing to show that the players were implicated. The principal actors in Sejanus were Burbadge, Shakespeare, Phillips, Heminges, Sly, Condell, John Lowin, and Alexander Cooke. This is Shakespeare’s last appearance in the cast of any play. He may have ceased to act, while remaining a member of the company and its poet. The names of Lowin and Cooke are new. Lowin had been with Worcester’s men in 1602–3. Cooke had probably begun his connexion with the company as an apprentice to Heminges. The identification of him with the ‘Sander’ of Strange’s men in 1590 is more than hazardous. The Induction to Marston’s Malcontent, published in 1604, records the names of Burbadge, who played Malevole, Condell, Sly, Lowin, Sincler, and a Tire-man. Sincler was probably still only a hired man. Nothing further is heard of him. This Induction seems to have been written by John Webster to introduce the presentation by the King’s men of The Malcontent, which was really a Chapel play. The transaction is thus explained:[606]
Sly. I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it?
Condell. Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimo-sexto with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it One for Another.
The play of Jeronimo, which the Chapel are here accused of taking, cannot be The Spanish Tragedy, which was an Admiral’s play, and is not very likely to have been the ‘comedy of Jeronimo’ which Strange’s men had in 1592, and which was evidently related to The Spanish Tragedy and may be expected to have remained with it. It might be the extant First Part of Jeronimo, written perhaps for the Chamberlain’s men about 1601–2, when Jonson was revising The Spanish Tragedy for the Admiral’s. A reference in T. M.’s Black Book shows that The Merry Devil of Edmonton, which belonged to the company, was already on the stage by 1604.[607]
The coronation procession of James, deferred on account of the plague, went through London on 15 March 1604, and the Great Wardrobe furnished each of the King’s players with four and a half yards of red cloth. The same nine men are specified in the warrant as in the patent of 1603, and their names stand next those of various officers of the Chamber. They did not, however, actually walk in the procession.[608] From 9 to 27 August 1604, they were called upon in their official capacity as Grooms of the Chamber to form part of the retinue assigned to attend at Somerset House upon Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Duke of Frias and Constable of Castile, who was in England as Ambassador Extraordinary for the negotiation of a peace with Spain. The descriptions of his visit, which have been preserved, do not show that any plays were given before him.[609]