[858] For documents addressed to Richard Young or mentions of him, cf. App. D, Nos. lxviii, lxxiv, xc. He is often referred to in the Hatfield MSS., in connexion with a monopoly of starch which he held, and otherwise. In 1593 (iv. 393) he writes 'from my house, Stratford the Bowe'. On 30 Nov. 1594 (v. 25) he wrote to the Queen, 'in these my aged and extreme or last days' with notes of many examinations, chiefly of papists, taken by him. On the other hand, Carter, Shakespeare Puritan and Recusant, 145, quotes an inscription on the coffin of Roger Rippon, who died in Newgate in 1592, 'his blood crieth for speedy vengeance against ... Mʳ. Richard Young, a justice of the peace in London, who in this and many like points hath abused his power for the upholding of the Romish Antichrist, Prelacy and Priesthood'.

[859] Cf. p. 265. Collier, i. 254, quotes an epigram calling Fleetwood 'the enemy of all poor players'. John Field dedicates his Godly Exhortation (1583) to him as a Middlesex and Surrey Justice.

[860] Cf. App. D, Nos. xxxvii, lxviii.

[861] Bacon, On the Controversies of the Church (Spedding, viii. 76).

[862] Cf. ch. xvi, introduction.

[863] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.vv. Jonson, Nashe.

[864] Cf. App. D, No. cxx.

[865] Wallace, ii. 162.

[866] There is no reference to licensing in the later Queen's Revels patent of 1610. That for the Queen's men in 1609 has the usual provision for licensing by the Master of the Revels. This was, however, not inconsistent with 'a kind of gouernment and suruey ouer the said players' by the Chamberlain of the Queen's Household (cf. ch. xiii).

[867] Philip Gawdy (Letters, 160) writes on 28 Oct. 1605 of his nephew in London, 'Playes he was never at any, for they are all put downe'; cf. App. D, Nos. cxxxix, cxl.

[868] Cf. ch. xvii.

[869] Some interesting light is thrown on the workings of the Vagabond Acts in the North Riding of Yorkshire by the presentations in Quarter Sessions Records (North Riding Record Soc.), i. 204, 260; ii. 110, 119, 197. At Topcliffe on 2 Oct. 1610 Thomas Pant, apprentice to Christopher Simpson of Egton, shoemaker and recusant, was released from his indentures on complaining that he had been 'trayned up for these three yeres in wandering in the country and playing of interludes'. At Helmesley on 8 July 1612 Christopher Simpson, late of Egton, was presented and fined as a player, and Richard Dawson, tanner and constable of Stokesley, for allowing Christopher and also Robert Simpson of Staythes, shoemaker, Richard Hudson of Hutton Bushell, weaver, and Edward Lister of Allerston, weaver, to wander as common players of interludes. A similar charge was made against William Blackborne, labourer and constable of Marton, as regards Robert Simpson, Richard Knagges of Moorsham, William Fetherston of Danby, and James Pickering of Bowlby, mason. At Helmesley on 9 Jan. 1616 a number of gentlemen and yeomen were presented for receiving players in their houses and giving them bread and drink. John, Richard, and Cuthbert Simpson, recusants, of Egton, Robert Simpson, of Staythes, and four other players were fined 10s. each. There were similar cases at Hutton Bushell on 4 April 1616, at Thirsk on 10 April 1616 and 7 April 1619, and at Helmesley on 9 July 1616. Presumably the Simpsons were the same men who brought Sir John Yorke into trouble with the Star Chamber in 1614 (cf. p. 328).

[870] Gildersleeve, 28, 35, 38. The origin of the error is probably in the shoulder-note 'No Licence by any Noblemen shall exempt Players' to 1 Jac. I, c. 7, § 1, in the R. O. edition of the Statutes.

[871] The players of Lords Berkeley, Chandos, Dudley, Evers, Huntingdon, and Mounteagle (Murray, ii. 28, 32, 43, 45, 49, 57), as well as those of the Duke of Lennox (cf. ch. xiii), are still traceable after 1604.

[872] Cf. App. D, No. clviii, and ch. xiii, s.v. Anne's.

[873] Cf. ch. xii, s.v. King's Revels. A later warrant of 20 Nov. 1622 deals with the same abuse of players and others who 'without the knowledge and approbacon of his maiesties office of the Revels' travel 'by reason of certaine grants comissions and lycences which they haue by secret meanes procured both from the Kings Maiestie and also from diuerse noblemen' (Murray, ii. 351).

[874] M. S. C. i. 284; Murray, ii. 192.

[875] The Lord Coke his Speech and Charge. With a Discouerie of the Abuses and Corruption of Officers (1607) H₂. There is an epistle to the Earl of Exeter signed R. P., said (D. N. B.) to be Robert Pricket.

[876] Coke, Preface to 7th Report, 'libellum quendam ... rudem et inconcinnum ... quem sane contestor non solum me omnino insciente fuisse divulgatum, sed ... ne unam quidem sententiolam eo sensu et significatione, prout dicta erat, fuisse enarratam'; cf. Gildersleeve, 40; J. Haslewood in Gentleman's Magazine, lxxxvi. 1. 205; 1 N. Q. vii. 376, 433.

[877] Prynne, 492, 497.

[878] Hazlitt, E. D. S. 67.

[879] Murray, ii. 77, gives records of seventy-nine 'Lesser Men's Companies', many of which appear at one town only, while all have a narrow range. Naturally the names of the great nobles carried weight over a wider area. The players in Ratseis Ghost (Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 326) 'denied their owne Lord and Maister, and used another Noblemans name'.

[880] The showman of the royal ape in Taylor's Wit and Mirth (cf. p. 267) wears 'a brooch in his hat, like a tooth drawer, with a Rose and Crowne, and two letters'.

[881] Harington, Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596), 135, 'I will neither end with sermon nor with prayer, lest some wags liken me to my L. (____) players, who when they have ended a bawdy comedy, as though that were a preparative to devotion, kneel down solemnly, and pray all the company to pray with them for their good Lord and master'; A Mad World, my Masters, v. ii. 200, 'This shows like kneeling after the play; I praying for my good lord Owemuch and his good countess, our honourable lady and mistress'. This prayer might be combined with one for the Sovereign and estates; cf. chh. xviii, xxii.

[882] Cf. ch. xiii (Interluders).

[883] R. O. Lord Chamberlain's Records, ii. 4 (4).

[884] N. S. S. Trans. (1877-9), 15*, from Lord Chamberlain's Records, vol. 58a, now ii. 4 (5).

[885] Sullivan, 250; C. C. Stopes in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvi. 92; from Lord Chamberlain's Records, ii. 48; v. 92, 93. I am not sure whether the velvet was for a 'cap' or a 'cape'.

[886] Sullivan, 253; cf. vol. i, p. 52.

[887] Stopes (supra). I find a confirmatory note to a Household list of 1641 in Lord Chamberlain's Records, iii. 1, 'Note that the Companyes of Players under the Titles of the Kings, Queenes, Queene of Bohemia, Prince & Duke of Yorke are all of them sworne Groomes of the Chamber in ordinary without fee'. I cannot accept Miss Sullivan's theory that 'without fee' means that the players did not have to buy their places.

[888] Cf. App. C, Nos. xvii, xxxi.

[889] Platter in 1599 (cf. ch. xvi, introd.) says that plays were given 'alle tag vmb 2 vhren nach mittag'. T. S. Graves, in E. S. xlvii. 66, argues in favour of occasional night performances, and is answered by W. J. Lawrence in E. S. xlviii. 213. Whatever may have been done before 1574 or thereabouts, I find no later evidence which is not to be explained either by private performances or by a loose use of 'night' for the evening hour at which plays terminated in winter. Nor can I go with Lawrence in supposing an exception for Sunday. The Southwark play at 8 p.m. on Sunday, 12 June 1592, cannot have been at a regular theatre, for there was none within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. The allusion in Crosse's Vertue's Commonwealth (1603) can quite well be to private plays (cf. App. C), and Henslowe's entry (i. 83) of a loan of 30s. 'when they fyrst played Dido at nyght', on Sunday, 8 Jan. 1598, only suggests to me the payment by Henslowe of the shot for a supper after the first performance. Or it may have been a private performance, for Henslowe does not appear (vide infra) to have opened the Rose on Sundays.

[890] Cf. App. D, No. xv (1564), 'now daylye, but speciallye on holydayes'; No. xvi (1569), 'on the Saboth dayes and other solempne feastes commaunded by the church to be kept holy'; No. xvii (1571), 'vpon sondaies, holly daies, or other daie of the weke, or ells at night'; No. xxxii (1574), 'on sonndaies and holly dayes, at which tymes such playes weare chefelye vsed'; App. C, No. xxii (1579), 'These because they are allowed to play euery Sunday, make iiii or v Sundayes at least euery weeke'.

[891] There was a disorder at the Theatre on Sunday, 10 April 1580, but by July 1581 the Lord Mayor had made an order against Sunday plays, which Berkeley's men disregarded. The Privy Council letter of 3 Dec. 1581 to the City accepts the exclusion of Sunday. Gosson, Playes Confuted (1582), 167, and Field (Jan. 1583), C. iii, acknowledge the change of day. When therefore Stubbes (1 March 1583), 137, criticizes Sunday plays, he must have the suburbs in mind. Paris Garden fell on Sunday, 13 Jan. 1583. On 3 July 1583 the Lord Mayor told the Privy Council that Sunday baitings were resumed. The documents of the 1584 controversy, however, state that as a result of the accident, letters were obtained to banish plays (and doubtless also baiting) 'in the places nere London' on the Sabbath days. Whetstone (1584) also alludes to a 'reforme' by the 'magistrate' in this matter.

[892] Henslowe, ii. 324.

[893] Cf. Middleton, A Mad World, my Masters (1608), I. i. 38, 'Tis Lent in your cheeks; the flag's down'; T. Earle, Microcosmography, char. 64, of a player, 'Shrove-tuesday hee feares as much as the bawdes, and Lent is more damage to him then the butcher'.

[894] Variorum, iii. 65, from Sir Henry Herbert's papers, which also record a similar payment in 1618 'for toleration in the holydays'. Herbert himself sold similar indulgences and in a list of customary Revels fees drawn up in 1662 includes £3 'for Lent fee', together with £3 'for Christmasse fee' (Variorum, iii. 266). Prynne, Histriomastix (1633), 784, notes the custom of suppressing plays 'in Lent, till now of late'.

[895] Cf. ch. xiii (Lady Elizabeth's). About 1617 Prince Charles's men were complaining to Alleyn that 'intemperate Mr. Meade' had taken 'the day from vs which by course was ours'.

[896] By 1574 the City had offers to farm their licensing rights 'to the relefe of the poore in the hospitalles'; but their regulations of Dec. 1574 provide for direct contributions to the poor and sick by holders of licences for playing-places. A weekly subsidy to the poor from every stage is suggested by Walsingham's correspondent of 1587. Hunsdon, in asking for the use of the Cross Keys in 1594, promised that his men would 'be contributories to the poore of the parishe where they plaie accordinge to their habilities'. In 1600 the Southwark Vestry were negotiating with the players for tithes and contributions for the poor on the basis of an 'order taken before my lords of Canterbury and London and the Master of the Revels'. In the same year the inhabitants of Finsbury recite the 'very liberall porcion' of money promised weekly for the relief of the poor as one of their grounds for assenting to the building of the Fortune. The accounts of the overseers of Paris Garden between 1611 and 1621 show varying sums, amounting to about £4 or £5 a year, as received during several years from the players at the Swan.

[897] The Middlesex records for 1616 show the Queen's men at the Red Bull as in arrear for their contribution, 'being taxed by the bench 40s. the yeare by theire own consentes'.

[898] Cf. ch. viii.

[899] As far back as 1549 the City had appointed two Secondaries of the Compters to license plays; but this arrangement doubtless terminated when the King and Council assumed the function; cf. ch. ix. In 1572 the Council were pressing the City to appoint 'discreet persons' for the purpose, and in 1574 suggested the suitability of one Mr. Holmes. But the City, who claimed to have had profitable offers to farm the licensing, repeated a former refusal to commit it to any private person. The regulations of 1574 provide for the appointment by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of persons to peruse and allow plays. But the Council are still urging, and the City promising, the appointment of licensers in 1582.

[900] Cf. ch. iii.

[901] The unauthorized company which stole this licence (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Worcester's) is probably that which appeared as the Master of the Revels' players at Ludlow on 7 Dec. 1583 and at Bath and Gloucester in 1583-4 (Murray, ii. 201, 282, 325). I do not think that Tilney himself had a company. His predecessor had. Plomer (3 Library, ix. 252) notes a Canterbury payment, omitted by Murray, in 1569-70, to 'Syr Thomas Bernars [? Benger's] players, Master of the Quenes Majesties Revells'. But this was before the Act of 1572.

[902] Possibly the Southwark order for tithes from players, taken before 'my lords of Canterbury and London and the Master of the Revels' about 1600, implies some continuance of the commission. The issue of licences, both for the performance and after 1607 for the printing of plays, 'under the hand of' the Master (cf. ch. xxii), does not exclude the possibility of his acting on the report of an expert assessor, and one is tempted to conjecture that this may have been the position of Segar, who sometimes licensed for the press as deputy to Buck. But it is clear from passages in Sir Henry Herbert's office-book (Variorum, iii. 229-42) that he at least personally read the 'books' of plays.

[903] Henslowe, ii. 113, where Dr. Greg inter alia disposes of Mr. Fleay's theory that some of the fees entered in the Diary are for licences authorizing the publication, not the performance, of plays.

[904] Cf. App. D, No. cliv.

[905] The intruding company of 1598 had not been 'bound' to the Master. The Master's licence to Worcester's men in 1583 is described as an 'indenture of lycense', and the players were 'bound to the orders prescribed by the said Edmund Tyllneye'. On 2 Jan. 1595 Henslowe paid the Master £10 'in full payment of a bonde of one hundreth powndes' (Henslowe, i. 39). This looks as if he had forfeited a recognizance.

[906] The licence to the Queen's Revels (1604) is an exception. Here there is no reference to the Master and the allowance of plays is committed to Samuel Daniel 'whome her pleasure is to appoynt for that purpose'. Nor is the Master mentioned in the unexecuted draft (c. 1604) for the Queen's men. Probably the reason is to be found in the existence of a separate Chamberlain for the Queen's Household. The Master of the Revels was of course an officer of the King's Lord Chamberlain. The Master's rights are reserved in the patent actually issued to the Queen's men in 1609. Daniel's licensing had been far from a success; cf. p. 326. Oddly enough, whatever Daniel's legal rights, it appears from his exculpation of his Philotas (q.v.) that the Master did in fact 'peruse' that play.

[907] A Chamberlain's warrant of 20 Nov. 1622 requires a licence from the Master for any travellers who 'shall shewe or present any play shew motion feats of actiuity and sights whatsoeuer' (Murray, ii. 352). This was motived by certain irregular licences procured 'both from the Kings Maiestie and also from diuerse noblemen'. The commission of 1581 is wide enough to cover all 'shewes'; possibly the actual practice was extended when the Act of 1604 restricted the protection of noblemen to players of interludes proper—a restriction evidently still imperfectly observed in 1622. The earliest licence for a non-dramatic show on record is one of date earlier than 5 Oct. 1605 to John Watson, ironmonger, 'to shewe two beasts called Babonnes' (Murray, ii. 338; cf. ch. xxiv, s.v. Sir G. Goosecap), and this was a royal warrant, perhaps under the signet. But on 6 Sept. 1610 Buck issued a licence to 'shew a strange lion, brought to do strange things, as turning an ox to be roasted, &c.' (S. P. D. Jac. I, lvii. 45), and the keeper of a 'motion' in Bartholomew Fair (1614), V. 5, 18, says, 'I have the Master of the Reuell's hand for it'. Later examples of signet warrants for shows are in Murray, ii. 342, and of licences from the Master in Murray, ii. 351 sqq., and Herbert, 46; cf. Gildersleeve, 64, 72.

[908] Cf. ch. xxii. Herbert noted at the Restoration (Dramatic Records, 96), 'Severall playes allowed by Mister Tilney in 1598. As Sir William Longsword allowed to be acted in 1598, The Fair Maid of London. Richard Cor de Lyon. See the Bookes.'

[909] The manuscript of The Honest Man's Fortune (1613) has some censorial notes and an allowance at the end of the book by Herbert on the occasion of a revival in 1625. Of later manuscripts, that of Sir John Van Olden Barnevelt (Bullen, O. E. P. ii. 101) has corrections by Herbert, but no allowance, and that of Massinger's Believe As You List (facs. in T. F. T.) is a second draft, prepared to meet criticisms by Herbert, and allowed by him; cf. Gildersleeve, 114, 123.

[910] The extent to which Tilney's handiwork is apparent in the text is a matter of great palaeographical difficulty fully studied by Dr. Greg, who takes the view that the insertions and many of the corrections in the manuscript were made before it was submitted to Tilney, and are not an attempt to carry out the revision directed by him. If so, he was very easy-going as regards willingness to peruse a most disorderly text.

[911] Herbert (Variorum, iii. 235) records a conversation between Charles I and himself about the language of Davenant's Wits, at the end of which he noted in his office-book, 'The Kinge is pleased to take faith, death, slight, for asseverations and no oaths, to which I doe humbly submit as my masters judgment; but under favour conceive them to be oaths, and enter them here, to declare my opinion and submission'. I also find Herbert occasionally expurgating 'obsceanes' and 'ribaldry' from plays (Variorum, iii. 208, 232, 241). But it is obvious from extant texts that neither he nor his predecessors made any attempt to enforce a high standard of decency.

[912] R. Whyte to Sir R. Sidney on 26 Oct. 1599 (Sydney Papers, ii. 136), 'Two daies agoe, the ouerthrow of Turnholt, was acted vpon a Stage, and all your Names vsed that were at yt; especially Sir Fra. Veres, and he that plaid that Part gott a Beard resembling his, and a Watchet Sattin Doublett, with Hose trimd with Siluer Lace. You was also introduced, Killing, Slaying, and Overthrowing the Spaniards, and honorable Mention made of your Service, in seconding Sir Francis Vere, being engaged'. Turnhout was taken from the Spanish by Count Maurice of Nassau, with the help of an English contingent, on 24 Jan. 1598.

[913] Winwood to Cecil from Paris on 7 July 1602 (Winwood, i. 425), 'Upon Thursday last, certain Italian comedians did set up upon the corners of the passages in this towne that that afternoone they would play l'Histoire Angloise contre la Roine d'Angleterre'. Winwood protested and secured an inhibition, but 'It was objected to me before the Counsaile by some Standers by, that the Death of the Duke of Guise hath ben plaied at London; which I answered was never done in the life of the last King; and sence, by some others, that the Massacre of St. Bartholomews hath ben publickly acted, and this King represented upon the stage'. The play introducing Henri IV was probably a revival by the Admiral's men of Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, for which Henslowe was making advances in Nov. 1601 and Jan. 1602; cf. Bk. III. Evidently Elizabeth got as good as she gave on the stage. On 2 June 1598 Dr. Fletcher describes to Sir R. Cecil (Hatfield MSS. viii. 190) a recent dumb show at Brussels in which she was mocked at. On 7 June 1598 one Mr. Hungerford describes to Essex (Hatfield MSS. viii. 197) another, or perhaps the same, show at Antwerp, in which also she appeared. In Oct. 1607 Walter Yonge records in his Diary (Camden Soc.), 15, a play at the Jesuit College of Lyons. It lasted two days, and employed 100 actors. An abbess played the Virgin. Calvin, Luther, and others 'with our late good Queen Elizabeth, condemned', were represented. The episodes included 'the meritorious deed intended of gunpowder; the conspiracy of Babington, and others, against Queen Elizabeth; all which were rewarded with the joys of Paradise'. Yonge adds that a storm broke, and 'the three resembling the Trinity, and the abbess were stricken with the hand of the Lord, and it was never known what became of them'. He says that books were printed about the incident; there are in fact no less than five recorded in Arber, iii. 361-4 (cf. App. M).

[914] Cf. ch. viii. On 20 July 1586 the Venetian ambassador in Spain reported (V. P. viii. 182) Philip's resentment at 'the masquerades and comedies which the Queen of England orders to be acted at his expense. His Majesty has received a summary of one of these which was lately represented, in which all sorts of evil is spoken of the Pope, the Catholic religion, and the King, who is accused of spending all his time in the Escurial with the monks of St. Jerome, attending only to his buildings, and a hundred other insolences which I refrain from sending to your Serenity'. This is confirmed by Collier, i. 279, from a manuscript Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubles supposed to be Intended against the Realm of England (1592). On 15 April 1598 George Nicolson wrote from Edinburgh to Burghley (Sc. P. ii. 749), 'It is regretted that the comedians of London should scorn the king and the people of this land in their play; and it is wished that the matter should be speedily amended lest the king and the country be stirred to anger'.

[915] Cf. ch. viii.

[916] Cf. App. C, No. xlv.

[917] S. P. F. xi. 567. Cecilia complained to her brother, King John of Sweden, 'Another time she being bidden to see a comedy played, there was a black man brought in, and as he was of an evil favoured countenance, so was he in like manner full of lewd, spiteful and scornful words, which she said represented the marquis, her husband'.

[918] Burn, 153, notes from Lansd. MS. 232, that the Star Chamber inflicted a severe punishment for the impersonation of Leicester in a play.

[919] Bacon (Spedding, ix. 177), The Proceedings of the Earl of Essex.

[920] S. P. D. Eliz. cclxxiv. 138.

[921] Cf. ch. xiii (Chamberlain's).

[922] It is probably unnecessary to take literally Arabella Stuart's letter of 16 Feb. 1603 to Edward Talbot (Bradley, Arabella Stuart, i. 128; ii. 119), 'I am as unjustly accused of contriving a comedy, as you (on my conscience) a tragedy'.

[923] Von Raumer, ii. 206.

[924] Winwood, ii. 54. Furnivall, Stubbes, 79*, tried in vain to identify a manuscript tract on the abusive attacks of players stated by Haslewood in Gentleman's Magazine (1816), lxxxvi. 1. 205, to be in the British Museum. Possibly it was Sloane MS. 3543, ff. 19ᵛ, 49, a Treatise Apologeticall for Huntinge, which refers to the 'taxation' of James on the stage for his love of sport; cf. R. Simpson in N. S. S. Trans. (1874), 375, and E. J. L. Scott in Athenaeum (1896), i. 756.

[925] Cf. ch. xii (Chapel).

[926] Sir Edward Conway to the Privy Council, 12 Aug. 1624 (Chalmers, Apology, 500, from S. P. D. Charles I, clxxi. 39), 'His Majesty remembers well there was a commandment and restraint given against the representing of any modern Christian Kings in those stage-plays'. This was written about the performance of Middleton's A Game of Chess, reflecting on the Spanish policy of James I, by the King's men; cf. M. S. C. i. 379. Other post-Shakespearian indiscretions were a performance of a play on the Marquis D'Ancre by an unnamed company in 1617 (M. S. C. i. 376), and one of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt by the King's men in 1619 (Bullen, O. E. P. iv. 381, from S. P. D. James cx. 37); cf. Gildersleeve, 113.

[927] This work is not directly concerned with the literary content of stage-plays. But I may be allowed to express the opinion that the search for the 'topical' in Elizabethan drama has been pushed beyond the limits of good sense. Thus I agree with P. W. Long, The Purport of Lyly's Endimion (M. L. A. xxiv. 164), that there is little ground for the elaborate theories of a dramatization of Elizabeth's personal amours propounded successively by N. J. Halpin, Oberon's Vision (Sh. Soc. 1843), G. P. Baker, Lyly's Endymion (1894), xli, and R. W. Bond, Works of Lyly (1902), iii. 81. Similarly the conjectures of R. Simpson in his School of Shakespeare (1878) and elsewhere, and of Fleay, and of most of the writers, other than Small, on the 'war of the theatres' require handling with the utmost caution.

[928] Winwood, ii. 41.

[929] Gildersleeve, 108, from Hist. MSS. iii. 57.

[930] 7 N. Q. iii. 126; Hist. MSS. iii. 62; S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxvii. 58 (John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton); Burn, 78, from Harl. MS. 1227. Yorke was fined and imprisoned with his wife and brothers, 'pur admittinge de certeigne comon players (vizᵗ) les Simpsons de player en son meason un enterlude in q. la fuit disputation perenter Popish preist et English minister et le preist est de convince le minister in argument et le weapon de le minister esteant le bible et le preist le crosse et le Diabole fuit counterfeit la de prender le English minister et son Angle prist le preist per q. enterlude le religion ore profeste fuit grandment scandall et pluss del audience fueront recusants.... Le cheife Justice [Coke?] dit q. players de enterludes sont Rogues per le statute ... et le very bringing de religion sur le stage est libell.' On the career of the Simpsons, cf. ch. ix. The actual offence may have been some years earlier than the Star Chamber sitting of 1614, for Devon, 261, records a payment to the Keeper of the Gatehouse at Westminster for the diet of Lady Julian, wife of Sir John Yorke, as a prisoner from 5 Nov. 1611 to 13 Oct. 1613. The Yorkes were not of those who learn by experience, for in 1628 the Star Chamber sentenced Christopher Malloy for playing the devil in a performance at Sir John Yorke's house in Yorkshire, in which part he carried King James on his back to hell, and alleged that all Protestants were damned (Burn, 119).

[931] Dekker, Work for Armourers (1609, Works, iv. 96), 'Tearme times, when the Twopeny Clients and Peny Stinkards swarme together to heere the Stagerites'.

[932] Dekker, The Dead Tearme (1608, Works, iv. 22), of Bartholomewtide, 'when thou (O thou beautifull, but bewitching Citty) ... allurest people from all the corners of the land, to throng in heapes, at thy Fayres and thy Theators'.

[933] Dekker, Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606, Works, ii. 52), 'The players prayd for his [Sloth's] comming: they lost nothing by it, the comming in of tenne Embassadors was never so sweete to them, as this our sinne was: their houses smoakt every after noone with Stinkards who were so glewed together in crowdes with the steames of strong breath, that when they came foorth, their faces lookt as if they had beene per-boyld'.

[934] Cf. App. D, Nos. cxxxi, cli.

[935] Cf. App. E.

[936] The full tables are in Murray, ii. 181.

[937] Your Five Gallants (1607), iv. 2. 30, 'If the bill down rise to above thirty, here's no place for players' (cf. App. E, s. a. 1605); Ram Alley (1607-8), iv. 1, 'I dwindle as a new player does at a plague bill certefied forty'. Thorndike, Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher upon Shakespeare, 16, doubts whether the theatres can in fact have been wholly closed from Aug. 1608 to Dec. 1609, when the bill was almost continuously over 40. I think that Murray, ii. 175, sufficiently answers some of his points, but in Shakespeare's Theater, 241, he cites Keysar v. Burbage (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Chapel) as evidence that the King's played at Blackfriars during the plague season of 1609. Both disputants seem to have overlooked the special payments to the King's men (App. B) for private practice before the Christmases of 1608-9 and 1609-10. It is possible that they were allowed, in spite of a general restraint, to use the Blackfriars for this purpose, and even admit a select audience. If a similar relaxation was given to the Revels at Whitefriars, the dating of Epicoene in' 1609' would be explained. I do not agree with Murray that it is likely to have been produced in the provinces. After all, the plague bill was well under 40 by 7 Dec. 1609, although it went up to 39 again on 28 Dec.

[938] In 1574, a restraint covers 10 miles from the city; in 1581 (a civic precept), 2 miles; in 1593, 7 miles; in 1594, 5 miles; in 1597, 3 miles.

[939] Cf. App. D, Nos. lxxii, lxxv, and the use of the Curtain as an 'easer' to the Theatre (ch. xvi); also the relations of the Admiral's and Strange's during 1589-94.

[940] Strange's men petitioned c. 1592 (App. D, No. xcii), 'oure Companie is greate, and thearbie our chardge intollerable, in travellinge the Countrie, and the contynuance thereof wilbe a meane to bringe vs to division and seperacion'. My impression is that, when they did have to travel in 1592 or 1593, Pembroke's (cf. ch. xiii) budded off from them. Their own travelling warrant was for 6 men, but this does not exclude hirelings. The provincial records do not give much evidence as to the actual size of travelling companies. The strength of seven companies which visited Southampton in 1576-7 (Murray, ii. 396) ranged from 6 to 12. I incline to agree with Murray and W. J. Lawrence (T. L. S., 21 Aug. 1919) that the average may be put at about 10 for the latter part of the sixteenth century and that it grew in the seventeenth. A Lord Chamberlain's licence of 1621 (Murray, ii. 192) sets a limit of 18. Probably 10 men, duplicating parts, could play many of the London plays without alteration, but obviously not the more spectacular ones.