The letters “n e” have been clearly identified as meaning “new.” The question in debate is whether the play is the Shakesperean one or an older production.
After leaving the Rose in April, 1594, this company is not heard of again in London; their name appears in no document until 1602, when they acted at Coventry, they are last mentioned in 1615. During the years 1602–15 the company visited the provinces. It is especially noticeable regarding these London Companies that the documentary evidence is of the very slightest, and when not recorded in Henslowe’s Diary they cease having any separate existence. My own firm belief is that original research would reveal many valuable details connected with the dramatic history of London, and would well repay a young student in devoting his time to unravelling the mystery of these companies of actors who, at present, seem to flit here and there for a moment, and then vanish into thin air.
EARL OF OXFORD’S COMPANY
There was a company of actors under the patronage of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, as early as 1562, but no evidence of where they acted is in existence. Again, in 1580, the same Earl was patron of a company of boy actors, who performed chiefly in the provinces or at Court. They are described as the Earl of Oxenford, his boys. Antony Munday, the celebrated dramatist, was at one time a boy actor in this company. The Oxford men are mentioned as those who generally set up their play-bills in the City every day in the week; this notice refers to the year 1585.
The next piece of evidence occurs in the “Remembrancia,” in 1602, when they were permitted to play at the “Boar’s Head,” in Eastcheap; this is the last record of their appearance.
One of their plays, called “The Weakest goeth to the Wall,” has survived; it was acted by Lord Oxenford’s boys, and published in 1600. Meres, in his important review of the poets and dramatists of Elizabethan times, mentions the Earl of Oxford as good in comedy.
Several other companies occasionally acted in London, but little is known of their history. In a document issued by the Privy Council, 1578, it stated that the Lord Mayor should suffer the children of Her Majesty’s Chapel, the servants of the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex, of the Earl of Warwick, of the Earl of Leicester, of the Earl of Essex, and the children of St. Paul’s, and no companies else to exercise plays within the City, whom their Lordships have already allowed thereunto by reason that the companies aforesaid are appointed to play this Christmas before the Queen.
The Earl of Hertford was patron of a company, but only one reference to their playing in London has been chronicled, when they acted at Court in 1592.