1609. Hythe, New Romney and Shrewsbury.
1610. Dover, Oxford and Shrewsbury.
1612. New Romney.
1613. Folkestone, Oxford and Shrewsbury.
1614. Coventry.
[40b] Cf. Knight’s Life of Shakespeare (1843), p. 41; Fleay, Stage, pp. 135-6.
[41a] The favour bestowed by James VI on these English actors was so marked as to excite the resentment of the leaders of the Kirk. The English agent, George Nicolson, in a (hitherto unpublished) despatch dated from Edinburgh on November 12, 1599, wrote: ‘The four Sessions of this Town (without touch by name of our English players, Fletcher and Mertyn [i.e. Martyn], with their company), and not knowing the King’s ordinances for them to play and be heard, enacted [that] their flocks [were] to forbear and not to come to or haunt profane games, sports, or plays.’ Thereupon the King summoned the Sessions before him in Council and threatened them with the full rigour of the law. Obdurate at first, the ministers subsequently agreed to moderate their hostile references to the actors. Finally, Nicolson adds, ‘the King this day by proclamation with sound of trumpet hath commanded the players liberty to play, and forbidden their hinder or impeachment therein.’ MS. State Papers, Dom. Scotland, P. R. O. vol. lxv. No. 64.
[41b] Fleay, Stage, pp. 126-44.
[41c] Cf. Duncan’s speech (on arriving at Macbeth’s castle of Inverness):
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Banquo. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov’d mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here. (Macbeth, 1. vi. 1-6).