Soon after 5th March, Lord Hunsdon was appointed Chamberlain vice W. Brooke, Lord Cobham, deceased, and Lord Hunsdon's men again became the Lord Chamberlain's.
During this year and the next Shakespeare undoubtedly produced 1 and 2 Henry IV. The name given to the "fat knight" was originally Sir John Oldcastle. This offended the Cobham family, who were lineally descended from the great Sir John Oldcastle, and through their influence the Queen ordered the name to be altered. The new name was that of Falstaff, unquestionably identical with the Fastolfe of history. Shakespeare had unwittingly adopted the name Oldcastle from the old play of The Famous Victories of King Henry V. Mr. Halliwell has pointed out that there must have been another play in which a Sir John Oldcastle was represented: he quotes Hey for Honesty, "The rich rubies and incomparable carbuncles of Sir John Oldcastle's nose;" and Howell's Letters, ii. 71, "Ale is thought to be much adulterated, and nothing so good as Sir John Oldcastle and Smug the Smith was used to drink." I venture to add that this last quotation fixes the other play. It was Drayton's Merry Devil of Edmonton, in which Sir John the priest of Enfield drinks ale with Smug the Smith, and "carries fire in his face eternally." This play was probably produced between 1 Henry IV. and 2 Henry IV. The words "tickle your catastrophe" in the latter are more likely to be an allusion to the "gag" in the Merry Devil than conversely; similar ridicule of this phrase is introduced in Sir Giles Goosecap, which is certainly of later date. It seems strange that Sir John Oldcastle should have been used as the name of a priest; but the play has been so greatly abridged (all the part of the story in which Smug replaces St. George as the sign of the inn, for instance, having been cut out) that it would be mere guess-work to try to restore its original form, and without such restoration we cannot judge of the reasons for so singular an impersonation. Of course it was attempted to remove all trace of Oldcastle's name; but just as the prefix Old. to one of the speeches in Shakespeare's play bears evidence to Oldcastle having been his original fat knight, so it is possible that in a hitherto unexplained passage there may be a trace of Oldcastle as Drayton's original ale-drinking priest. In scene 9 the words italicised in "My old Jenerts bank my horse, my castle" look very like a corruption of a stage direction written in margin of a proof thus—
Old- J. enters
castle
—he is on the scene directly after, and his entrance is nowhere marked.
T. Lodge, as well as Drayton, was writing about this date for the Chamberlain's men.
On August 29 Richard II. was entered on S. R., and on October 20 Richard III. These were evidently printed from authentic copies, duly authorised for publication.
About July 1597 the Theater, with regard to extension of the lease of which James Burbadge had been negotiating up to his death in the spring of that year, was finally closed as a place of performance. In October the Chamberlain's men no doubt began to act at the Curtain, which Pembroke's men left at that date to join the Admiral's company at the Rose; some of them, however, probably Cooke, Belt, Sinkler, and Holland, had already in 1594 joined the Chamberlain's, as we shall see. About this date Mr. Halliwell says "Shakespeare's company" were at Rye (in August), at Dover and Bristol (in September), &c. Pembroke's company were at these places, but he has given no proof that the Chamberlain's were. The "Curtain-plaudities" of Marston's Scourge of Villany, entered S. R. 8th September 1598, would certainly seem to show that they acted at the Curtain in 1598. This does not, however, involve the inference that they acted there in 1596, at which time they no doubt performed at the Theater.
About this same time the play of Wily Beguiled was acted, which contains distinct parodies of speeches by Shylock and old Capulet, as well as of other scenes in the Merchant of Venice, which must have preceded it. It has been alleged by Steevens and others that this play existed in 1596, but no proof has been given of this assertion.
In November John Shakespeare filed a bill against Lambert for the recovery of the Asbies estate. There is no trace of his having proceeded further with this litigation.
At Christmas the Chamberlain's men performed four plays at Whitehall, one of which was Love's Labour's Lost. The corrections and augmentations of the play, as we have it, may be confidently ascribed to the preparation for this performance.