COOKE, THOMAS. Worcester’s, 1583.
COOKE, WILLIAM. Whitefriars lessee, 1608.
CORNISH, JOHN. Gentleman of Chapel, and pageant-master at wedding of Arthur in 1501.
CORNISH, KIT. A ‘ghost-name’ in Chapel records.
CORNISH, WILLIAM. Master of Song School, Westminster, 1479–80.
CORNISH, WILLIAM. Master of Chapel, 1509–23. Conceivably identical with the last, and in any case probably of the same family.
COWLEY, RICHARD, was of Strange’s men in 1593. He had played minor parts with that company or the Admiral’s in The Seven Deadly Sins of 1590–1, and is mentioned in Alleyn’s correspondence as travelling with the company. He joined the Chamberlain’s men, probably on their formation in 1594, and was payee for the company in 1601. The stage-directions to the Quarto (1600) and Folio texts of Much Ado about Nothing, IV. ii, show that he played Verges. He is in the 1603 and 1604 lists of the King’s men, and received a legacy from Augustine Phillips as his ‘fellow’ in 1605, but does not appear to have been a sharer in the houses of the Globe or Blackfriars. He is in the Folio list of performers in Shakespeare’s plays. He dwelt in Holywell, or for a short period in Alleyn’s Rents, both in the parish of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, whose register records his children, Robert (bapt. 8 March 1596, bur. (?) 20 March 1597), Cuthbert (bapt. 8 May 1597), Richard (bapt. 29 April 1598, bur. 26 February 1603), Elizabeth (bapt. 2 February 1602), as well as the funeral of his wife Elizabeth on 28 September 1616, and his own on 12 March 1619.[949] His will, dated on 13 January 1618, appoints his daughter Elizabeth Birch executrix and is witnessed by Heminges, Cuthbert Burbadge, Shank, and Thomas Ravenscroft, perhaps the madrigalist.[950]
CRANE, JOHN. A London player in 1550 (App. D, No. v).
CRANE, WILLIAM. Master of Chapel, 1523–45.
CROSSE, SAMUEL, is named amongst the performers of Shakespeare’s plays in the First Folio, but in no list of the Chamberlain’s or King’s men. Probably, therefore, he belongs to the very beginning of Shakespeare’s career, and is to be identified with the Crosse named by Heywood amongst famous actors of a generation before his time.[951]