exhibition of the day being prevented, was augmented to twenty pounds.
The protection of the drama by Elizabeth and her ministers, though it did not exempt the public players, except in one instance, from the penalties of statutes against vagabonds, yet it induced, during the whole of her long reign, numerous instances of private patronage from the most opulent of her nobility and gentry, who, possessing the power of licensing their own domestics as comedians, and, consequently of protecting them from the operation of the act of vagrancy, sheltered various companies of performers, under the denomination of their servants, or retainers,—a privilege which was taken away, by act of parliament, on the accession of James, and, as Mr. Chalmers observes, "put an end for ever to the scenic system of prior times."[205:A]
To this private patronage of the latter half of the sixteenth century, we must ascribe not less than fourteen distinct companies of players, that, in succession, contributed to exhilarate the golden days of England's matchless Queen, and, in their turn, enjoyed the honour of contributing to her amusement. Of these, the following is a chronological enumeration:—Soon after the accession of Elizabeth, appeared Lord Leicester's company, the same which, in 1574, was finally incorporated by royal licence; in 1572, was formed Sir Robert Lane's company; in the same year Lord Clinton's; in 1575, companies were created by Lord Warwick, and the Lord Chamberlain, the name of Shakspeare being enrolled among the servants of the latter, who, in the first year of the subsequent reign, became entitled to the appellation of His Majesty's servants; in 1576, the Earl of Sussex brought forward a theatrical body, and in 1577, Lord Howard another, neither of which, however, attained much eminence; in 1578, the Earl of Essex mustered a company of players, and in 1579, Lord Strange, and the Earl of Derby, followed his
example; in 1591, the Lord Admiral produced his set of comedians; in 1592, the Earl of Hertford effected a similar arrangement; in 1593, Lord Pembroke protected an association of actors, and, at the close of Her Majesty's reign, the Earl of Worcester had in pay, also, a company of theatrical performers.
In the mean time theatres, both public and private, were greatly on the increase, and, during the period that Shakspeare immortalised the stage, not less than seven of these structures, of established notoriety, were in existence. Four of them were considered as public theatres, namely, The Globe on the Bankside, The Curtain in Shoreditch, The Red Bull in St. John's Street, and The Fortune in Whitecross Street; and three were termed private houses, one, for instance, in Blackfriars, another in Whitefriars, and The Cockpit or Phœnix, in Drury-Lane. As The Globe, however, and the theatre in Blackfriars were the property of the same set of players, only six companies of comedians were formed, or wanted, for the purposes of representation.
Beside these principal play-houses, several others, possessing a more ephemeral existence, as The Swan, The Rose, &c., sprung up and fell in succession, forming altogether such a number, as justly gave alarm and offence to the stricter clergy, and at length attracted the attention of the privy-council, who, on the 22d of June, 1600, issued an order for the reduction of the number of play-houses, limiting these buildings to two, selecting that called The Fortune for Middlesex, and fixing on The Globe for Surrey. To such a degree, however, had now arisen the attachment of the people to dramatic recreations, that notwithstanding these orders were re-issued, with still stronger injunctions, the following year, they could never be carried into any effectual execution.
Much as Elizabeth favoured the stage, it appears to have been patronised by her successor with equal, if not superior, zeal. James may be said, indeed, to have given a dignity and consequence to the profession, to which it had hitherto been a stranger, and to have introduced into the theatric world, a new, and better constituted
arrangement of its parts. No sooner had he ascended the throne, than three companies were formed under his auspices; the Lord Chamberlain's servants he adopted as his own; the Queen chose the Earl of Worcester's, and Prince Henry fixed upon the Earl of Nottingham's; and on the 19th of May, only twelve days after his arrival in London, he granted to his own company, being that performing at The Globe, the following licence, which was first published in Rymer's Fœdera, in 1705:—
"Pro Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare et aliis.
"A.D. 1603. Pat.