On January 5 Lord Strange's company, who had reopened at the Rose, 29th December 1592, produced a new play called The Jealous Comedy; this I take to have been The Merry Wives of Windsor in its earliest form.
On January 30 they produced Marlowe's Guise or Massacre of Paris, which has reached us in an unusually mutilated condition.
On February 1 they performed for the last time this year in Southwark; the Rose as well as other theatres being closed because of the plague.
On April 18 Venus and Adonis was entered by Richard Field for publication. Shakespeare's choice of a publisher was no doubt influenced by private connection. R. Field was a son of Henry Field, tanner, of Stratford-on-Avon, who died in 1592. The inventory of his goods attached to his will had been taken by Shakespeare's father on 21st August in that year. Venus and Adonis was licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift) (at whose palace near Croydon Nash's play, Summer's Last Will, was performed in the autumn of 1592), and was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Shakespeare calls it "The first heir of my invention," which may mean his first published work; but more probably means the first production in which he was sole author, his previous plays having been written in conjunction with others; and he vows "to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour." He had probably then planned if not begun his Rape of Lucrece.
On May 6 a precept was issued by the Lords of the Privy Council authorising Lord Strange's players, "Edward Allen, William Kempe, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, Augustine Philipes, and George Brian" to play "where the infection is not, so it be not within seven miles of London or of the Court, that they may be in the better readiness hereafter for her Majesty's service." This list of names is by no means a complete one of the company of players; but probably does consist of all the shareholders therein. Shakespeare was not a shareholder yet. Alleyn is described as servant to the Admiral as well as to Lord Strange. Accordingly they travelled and acted in the country—in July at Bristol, afterwards at Shrewsbury. Meanwhile on June 1 Marlowe was killed, leaving unpublished his poem, Hero and Leander, his play Dido, and in my opinion other plays; of which more hereafter.
On 25th September Henry Earl of Derby died, and Ferdinand Lord Strange succeeded to his honours. His company of players are consequently sometimes called the Earl of Derby's for the next six months. There were no performances at Court at Christmas on account of the plague.
1594.
On 23d January Titus Andronicus was acted as a new play by Sussex' men at the Rose. This company gave up playing there on 6th February. On 26th February the Andronicus play was entered on S. R. Langbaine, who professes to have seen this edition, says it was acted by the players of "Pembroke, Derby, and Essex." Essex is clearly a mistake for Sussex, for in the 1600 edition the companies are given as "Sussex, Pembroke, and Derby." Halliwell's careless statement that Lord Strange's players transferred their services to Lord Hunsdon in 1594, has led me and others into grave difficulty on this matter. The fact is that Lord Derby's players became servants to the Chamberlain between 16th April, when Lord Derby died, and 3d June, when they played at Newington Butts under the latter appellation. There was strictly no Lord Strange's company after 25th September 1593, and no other Derby's company till 1599. The old name Strange, however, does sometimes occur instead of Derby. Hence it seemed that the transfer to Derby's company must have taken place in 1600. Indeed so little was the fact known even in 1600, that Shakespeare's company enjoyed the title of Derby's men for six months, that although that name is given on the first page, on the title the same men reappear as the Lord Chamberlain's. Why Pembroke's men should have acquired the play on 6th February, and possibly parted with it by the 26th, does not appear, nor is there any parallel instance known: there must have been some great changes in their constitution at this time. But in any case Shakespeare did not write the play; Mr. Halliwell's theory that he left Lord Strange's men, who in 1593 enjoyed the highest position of any then existing, and after having been a member successively of two of the obscurest companies, returned to his former position within a few months, is utterly untenable. There is no vestige of evidence that Shakespeare ever wrote for any company but one.
On 12th March York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI.) was entered on S. R.
From 1st to 8th April Sussex' men and the Queen's acted at the Rose, among other plays, the old Leir (April 8), on which Shakespeare's Lear was founded. Both these companies henceforth vanish from stage history.