[941] Dekker, The Wonderfull Yeare (1603, Works, i. 100), 'The worst players Boy stood vpon his good parts, swearing tragicall and busking oathes, that how vilainously soeuer he randed, or what bad and vnlawfull action soeuer he entred into, he would in despite of his honest audience be halfe a sharer (at leaste) at home, or else strowle (thats to say trauell) with some notorious wicked floundring company abroad'; News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 146), 'a companie of country players, ... that with strowling were brought to deaths door'; Belman of London (1608, Works, iii. 81), 'Nor Players they bee, who out of an ambition to weare the best Ierkin (in a Strowling company) or to Act great Parts, forsake the stately and our more than Romaine Cittie Stages, to trauel vpon the hard hoofe from village to village for chees & butter-milke'; Lanthorne and Candlelight (1608, Works, iii. 255), 'Strowlers; a proper name given to country players that (without socks) trotte from towne to towne vpon the hard hoofe'; The Raven's Almanac (1609, Works, iv. 196), 'Players, by reason they shal have a hard winter, and must travell on the hoofe, will lye sucking there for pence and twopences, like young pigges at a sow newly farrowed'.

[942] 'Paid to the plaiers with the waggon' (Exeter, 1576-7); 'Misdemeanoure done in the towne vppon misusage of a wagon or coache of the Lo. Bartlettes [Berkeley's] players' (Faversham, 1596-7); Dekker, Satiromastix, 1522, of Horace-Jonson, 'Thou hast forgot how thou amblest (in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, in the high way'; cf. ch. xi.

[943] R. W., Mount Tabor, 110 (repr. Harrison, iv. 355), Upon a Stage-play which I saw when I was a child. The play was the morality of The Castle of Security; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 189.

[944] Cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xii.

[945] 'For lynks to give light in the euenyng' (Bristol, 1577); 'for candells and torches then spent' (Canterbury, 1574); 'for the skafowld' (Exeter, 1604-5); 'to make a scaffolde in the Bothall' (Gloucester, 1559-60, with similar entries in other years up to 1568); 'a pounde of candelles' (Gloucester, 1561-2); 'for nayles ... for layeing the tymber off ye stage together' (Maidstone, 1568-9); 'bordes that was borowed for to make a skaffold to the Halle' (Nottingham, 1572); 'for bearinge of bordes and other furniture' (Plymouth, 1580-1); 'for setting up stoopes for players' (Stafford, c. 1616).

[946] 'For amendynge the seelynge in the Guildhall that the Enterlude players had broken downe there this yeare' (Barnstaple, 1593-4); 'for mending the bord in the Yeld hall and the doers there, after my L. of Leycesters players who had leave to play there' (Bristol, 1577-8); 'for mending of ii forormes which were taken out of Sᵗ George Chapple and set in the Yeld hall at the play, and by the disordre of the people were broken' (Bristol, 1581); 'for mendinge the cheyre in the parlor at the Hall ... which was broken by the playars' (Leicester, 1605); 'for mendinge the glasse wyndowes att the towne hall more then was given by the playors whoe broake the same' (Leicester, 1608); &c.

[947] Murray, ii. 205, 229, 247, 261-3, 277-81, 284-5, 377-8, &c.

[948] Ibid. 202, 224, 'Given to the Queens plaiers xixˢ iiijᵈ, and was to make it up xxvjˢ viijᵈ that was gathered at the benche' (Bath, 1587); 'xvˢ beside the gatheringe' (Bath, 1588); 'xvˢ vjᵈ besides that which was given by the companie' (Bath, 1592); 'iijˢ viijᵈ on and besyde the benevolens of the people' (Canterbury, 1549); G. B. Richardson, Extracts from the Municipal Accounts of Newcastle, 'the Erle of Sussessx plaiers in full payment of £3 for playing a free play, commanded by Mʳ Maiore' (1594).

[949] Kelly, 197, 209, 247. On 22 Nov. 1566 a Corporation 'Act agaynst Waystynge of the Towne Stock' laid down that at plays there should be no 'greate alowance' out of the stock for rewards to players, but that 'euery one of the Maiores Brethren & of the xlviij beinge requyred, or havinge sommons by the comaundement of Mʳ. Maior for the tyme beinge to be there shall beare euery one of theym his & theire porcion'. This was confirmed on 4 Jan. 1570. On 16 Nov. 1582, 'It is agreed that frome henceforthe there shall not bee anye ffees or rewards gevon by the Chamber of this Towne, nor anye of the xxiiijᵗᶦ or xlviijᵗᶦ to be charged with anye payments ffor or towards anye Bearewards, Beearbaytings, Players, Playes, Enterludes or Games, or anye of theym except the Quenes Maiesties or the Lords of the Privye Counsall, nor that anye Players bee suffred to playe att the Towne Hall (except before except) & then butt onlye before the Mayor & his bretherne, vppon peyne of xlˢ to be lost by the Mayor that shall suffer or doe to the contrarye, to be levyed by his successour, vpon peyne of vˡᶦ if he make default therein'. On 30 Jan. 1607, 'It is agreed that non of either of the Twoe Companies shalbee compelled at anie tyme hereafter to paye towards anie playes, but such of them as shalbee then present at the said playes: the Kings Maiesties playors, the Queenes Maiesties playors, and the young Prince his playors excepted; and alsoe all such playors as doe belonge to anie of the Lords of his Maiesties most honorable Privie Counsell alsoe excepted; to theise they are to paye accordinge to the auncyent custome, havinge warnynge by the Mace bearer to bee att euerye such play'.

[950] Murray, ii. 206, 'Order by the bailiffes and 24 aldermen, as also by the comburgesses, that no playars or berwardes shalbe receved upon the Townes chardges, but if any will see the same plaies or bere baytinges, the same must be upon there owne costes and chardges'.

[951] When performances were prohibited at Chester in 1596 the city fixed the scale of 'gratuity' at 20s. for the Queen's players and 6s. 8d. for noblemen's players (Morris, 333). The Queen's men were 'much discontented' with 6s. at Dunwich in 1596-7 (Hist. MSS., Various Collections, vii. 82).

[952] 'Forasmuch as the grauntinge of leave to stage players or players of interludes and the like, to act and represent theire interludes playes and shewes in the towne-hall is very hurtfull troublesome and inconvenyent for that the table, benches and fourmes theire sett and placed for holdinge the Kinges Courtes are by those meanes broken and spoyled, or at least wise soe disordered that the Mayor and bayliffes and other officers of the saide courts comminge thither for the administracion of justice, especially in the Pipowder Courts of the said Towne, which are there to bee holden twice a day yf occasion soe require, cannot sit there in such decent and convenient order as becometh, and dyvers other inconvenyences do thereupon ensue, It is therefore ordered by generall consent that from henceforth no leaue shall bee graunted to any Stage players or interlude players or to any other person or persons resortinge to this towne to act shewe or represent any manner of interludes or playes or any other sportes or pastymes whatsoeuer in the said hall' (Southampton, 1623); 'Forasmuch as we finde the glass windows in the Council Chamber to be much broken, and the city thereby suffereth much damage, ordered that no plaies nor players be suffered to have any use thereof' (Worcester, 1627). An earlier Worcester order had limited players to 'the lower end onlie' of the guildhall. At Chester in 1615 the exclusion of players from the hall was openly based on 'the common brute & scandall' due to 'convertinge the same beinge appointed & ordained for the judicial hearinge & determininge of criminall offences, & for the solempne meetinge & concourse of this howse into a stage for plaiers & a receptacle for idle persons'.

[953] 'At the New Ynn' (Abingdon, 1559); 'Certen playars, playinge uppon ropes at the Crosse Keys' (Leicester, 1590). Worcester's men played at Norwich in 1583 'in their hoste his hows', and the Queen's men in the same year at the Red Lion. A Norwich order of 1601 forbade plays at the White Horse in Tombland. A Salisbury order of 1624 laid down that all plays should in future be at the George in High Street. Where the house of a named citizen is given as the play-place, one may perhaps generally infer an inn; but in 1573 Leicester's men seem to have played at Bristol 'in the Mayors house', and at Plymouth in 1559-60 'players of London' performed 'in the vycarage'.

[954] 'In the churche' (Doncaster, 1574); 'in the colledge churche yarde' (Gloucester, 1589-90); 'in the churche lofte' (Marlow, 1608-9); 'in the churche' (Plymouth, 1559-60, 1565-6, 1573-4); 'in XXe churche' (Norwich, 1589-90); 'the Chappell nere the Newhall' (Norwich, 1616); 'because they should not play in the church' (Syston, 1602). On the religious opposition to this practice, cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 191.

[955] M. Sellers, in E. H. R. xii. 446, from Corporation Minute Book, xxxiii, f. 187.

[956] Murray, ii. 335.

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

[958] So, too, the Norwich accounts record in 1590 a reward to 'the lorde Shandos players' and 'Item more in rewarde to another company of his men that cam with lycens presently after saying that thos that cam before were counterfete and not the L. Shandos men'.

[959] Cf. ch. ix.

[960] 'There shall not any playes ... be played ... on any Sabaothe dayes nor aboue twoe daies together at any tyme. And no players ... to be suffered to playe againe ... within twentie and eighte daies nexte after such tyme as they shall haue laste played.... And they shall not exceede the hower of nyne of the clocke in the nighte' (Canterbury, Burghmote Book, 1595); 'This day lycens ys graunted to the L. of Huntington his players to playe one daye & not vppon the Saboath daye' (Norwich, 1597); 'The Quenes players had leave guiven them to play for one weeke so that they play neither on the Saboth day nor in the night nor more then one play a day' (Norwich, 1611).

[961] 'Not ... after nyne of the clocke' (Norwich, 1599); cf. Canterbury, above. A Chester order of 1615 fixed 6 p.m. and a Salisbury order of 1623 7 p.m. as the limit; an Exeter order of 1609 (H. M. C. Exeter MSS. 321) allowed 6 p.m. between Annunciation and Michaelmas and 5 p.m. between Michaelmas and Annunciation.

[962] Lord Coke, as Recorder of Coventry, wrote to the Corporation on 28 March 1615 (Murray, ii. 254): 'Forasmuch as this time is by his Maiesties lawes and iniunctions consecrated to the service of Almighty God, and publique notice was given on the last Sabaoth for preparacion to the receyving of the holy communion. Theis are to will and require you to suffer no common players whatsoever to play within your Citie for that it would tend to the hinderance of devotion, and drawing of the artificers and common people from their labour. And this being signified vnto any such they will rest therewith (as becometh them) satisfied, otherwise suffer you them not and this shall be your sufficient warrant.' The letter is endorsed 'The Lord Coke his lettre concerning the La: Eliza: Players'. The Earl of Cumberland would not let Lord Vaux's men play in 1609 'because it was Lent & therefor not fitting' (Murray, ii. 255).

[963] Murray, ii. 234 (Chester, 1595). The Privy Council warrant for the provincial tour of Strange's men in 1593 expressly excludes plays in service time.

[964] 'The tyme was busy, they dyd not play' (Bristol, 1541); 'for that they should not playe here by reason that the sicknes was then in this Cytye' (Canterbury, 1608); 'for that the tyme was not conveynyent' (Leicester, 1584); 'to avoyd the meetynge of people this whote whether for fear of any infeccon as also for that they came fro an infected place' (Norwich, 1583). On 6 May 1597 the Privy Council wrote to the Suffolk justices to prohibit stage plays during the Whitsun holidays at Hadleigh (App. D, No. cviii), 'doubting what inconveniences may follow thereon, especially at this tyme of scarcety, when disordred people of the comon sort wilbe apt to misdemeane themselves'. There had been tumults in Norfolk during April, owing to the scarcity of grain (Dasent, xxvii. 88). The Privy Council did not, however, often interfere directly with provincial plays; another example is the letter of 23 June 1592 to the Earl of Derby (cf. App. D, No. xci), forbidding plays on Sundays and holidays in his lieutenancy.

[965] I think there is a clear distinction in municipal accounts between a 'reward' for playing and a 'gratuity' for not playing; cf. the Norwich orders in Murray, ii. 339, 341, 'beinge demaunded wherefore their comeing was, sayd they came not to ask leaue to play but to aske the gratuetie of the Cytty' (1614), 'he was desired to desist from playing & offered a benevolence in money which he refused to accept' (1616), 'this house offered him a gratuitie to desist' (1616).

[966] A. Clark, Shirburn Ballads, 48. He complained that 'Before tyme noble-mens menn hadd such entertaynement when they came to the towne that the towne hadd the favour of noble-men, but now noble-mens menn hadd such entertaynement that the towne was brought into contempt with noble-menn'. The players were probably Essex's men, as their performance on Sunday was contrary to his 'lettre'. He was, however, also High Steward of Maldon.

[967] Cf. p. 336.

[968] T. Gent, Hist. of Hull, 128.

[969] Murray, ii. 337, 'This day John Mufford one of the Lᵈ Beauchamps players being forbidden by Mʳ Maiour to playe within the liberties of this Citie and in respect thereof gave them among them xxˢ and yett notwithstanding they did sett up bills to provoke men to come to their playe and did playe in XXe churche. Therefore the seid John Mufford is comytted to prison' (1590); cf. ch. xiii (Worcester's, 1583; Essex's, 1585; Derby's, 1602). So, too, at Coventry in 1600 'the lo: Shandoes [Chandos's] players were comitted to prison for their contempt agaynst Mʳ Maior & ther remayned untill they made their submisshon under their hands as appeareth in the fyle of Record and their hands to be seene'. At Nottingham in 1603 a penalty on the host is recorded in the entry 'Richard Jackson commytted for sufferinge players to sound thyere trumpetts and playinge in his howse without lycence, and for suffering his guests to be out all night'.

[970] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 326, reprints from this tract (S. R. 31 May 1605) the chapter 'a pretty Prancke passed by Ratsey upon certain Players that he met by chance in an Inne, who denied their Lord and Maister, and used another Noblemans name'. Gamaliel Ratsey, highwayman, harangued the players, like Hamlet, on 'striving to over-doe, and go beyond yourselves ... yet your poets take great paines to make your parts fit for your mouthes, though you gape never so wide', and on the ups and downs of the profession, for some 'goe home at night with fifteene pence share apeece', while others become wealthy. Later he met them again passing 'like camelions' under the name of another lord. They gave a 'private play' before Ratsey, who rewarded them with 40s., 'with which they held themselves very richly satisfied, for they scarce had twentie shillings audience at any time for a play in the countrey'. Next day he met them with their wagon in the highway, robbed them, bade them pawn their apparel, 'for as good actors and stalkers as you are have done it, though now they scorne it', gave them leave to play under his protection and share with him, and advised their leader to get to London.

[971] Payments to travelling companies appear in the household accounts of the Earl of Rutland at Belvoir (Rutland MSS. iv. 260), the Earl of Cumberland at Skipton Castle (Murray, ii. 255), the Duchess of Suffolk at Grimsthorpe (Ancaster MSS. 459), Sir George Vernon at Haddon Hall (G. Le B. Smith, Haddon, 121), Lord North at Kirtling (Murray, ii. 295), the Earl of Derby at Lathom House, New Park, and Knowsley Hall (Murray, ii. 296), the Shuttleworths at Smithills and Gawthorpe Hall (Murray, ii. 393), and Francis Willoughby at Wollaton (Middleton MSS. 421). In A Mad World, my Masters, v. 1, 2, characters shamming to be Lord Owemuch's players come to Sir Bounteous Progress's, and perform The Slip, until they are interrupted by a constable.

[972] Murray, ii. 19-98, records, in addition to the above, the names of from fifty to sixty patrons between 1559 and 1616, under whose names companies are not traceable in London.

[973] Cf. ch. xxii.

[974] Cf. ch. xiii (King's, Anne's).

[975] Grosart, Lismore Papers, 1. xix; W. J. Lawrence, Was Shakespeare ever in Ireland? (Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlii. 65). The earliest notice is of Prince Charles's men in Feb. 1616.

[976] Cf. ch. xiv.

[977] C. Hughes, Shakespeare's Europe, 304, 373. Moryson again refers to the vogue abroad of 'stragling broken companyes' from England in his account of the London theatre; cf. ch. xvi, introduction.

[978] E. Cellius, Eques Auratus Anglo-Wirtembergicus (1605), 229 'Profert enim multos et praestantes Anglia musicos, comoedos, tragoedos, histrionicae peritissimos, e quibus interdum aliquot consociati sedibus suis ad tempus relictis ad exteras nationes excurrere, artemque suam illis praesertim Principum aulis demonstrare ostentareque consueverunt. Paucis ab hinc annis in Germaniam nostram Anglicani musici dictum ob finem expaciati, et in magnorum Principum aulis aliquandiu versati, tantum ex arte musica, histrionicaque sibi favorem conciliarunt, ut largiter remunerati domum inde auro et argento onusti sunt reversi'; Johannes Rhenanus, in dedication of Streit der Sinne (a translation of the English play of Lingua) to Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, '... die Engländischen Comoedianten (ich rede von geübten) anderen vorgehn und den Vorzug haben'; Daniel von Wensin, Oratio contra Britanniam, in Fr. Achillis Ducis Würtemberg, Consultatio de principatu inter provincias Europae habita Tubingae in illustri collegio (1613), 'Nec diu est cum plerique artifices in Anglia peregrini et exteri et aurifabri Londini pene omnes fuerunt Germani: Anglis interea gulae voluptatibus ... et rebus nihili, atque adeo histrioniae iugiter operam dantibus; in qua sic profecerunt, ut iam apud nos Angli histriones omnium maxime delectent'.

[979] Another example is Ioannes Valentinus Andreae, who writes in his Vita (ed. 1849), 10 'Iam a secundo et tertio post millesimum sexcentesimum coeperam aliquid exercendi ingenii ergo pangere, cuius facile prima fuere Esther et Hyacinthus comoediae ad aemulationem Anglicorum histrionum iuvenili ausu factae'.

[980] M. Röchell, Chronik, in Die Geschichtsquellen des Bisthums Münster, iii. 174.

[981] E. Mentzel, Geschichte der Schauspielkunst in Frankfurt, 52.

[982] Cohn, lxxxviii.

[983] A. Glaser, Geschichte des Theaters in Braunschweig, 13.

[984] Archiv für Litteratur-Geschichte, xv. 212, from diary of Martin Crusius at Tübingen in 1597: 'Es sind wol x Comoedianten hie gewesen: qui 5 aut 6 dies comoedias egerunt in domo frumentaria. Dicuntur Angli esse et miri artifices. Sunt illi quibus Dux noster 300 fl. donasse dicitur. Ego non spectaui. Quid ad hominem ista septuagenario maiorem? fuerunt illa dramata amatoria. Hodie Susannam egerunt. Ego sum scriptoribus Homericis occupatus.'

[985] Cohn, lxxx.

[986] C. F. Meyer in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xxxviii. 200.

[987] C. Harris in M. L. A. xxii. 446.

[988] Cohn, xcvi.

[989] App. C, No. xlviii.

[990] C. Severn, Diary of John Ward (c. 1661-3), 183, 'I have heard that Mʳ. Shakespeare ... in his elder days lived at Stratford: and supplied the stage with 2 plays every year, and for itt had an allowance so large, that hee spent att the rate of a 1,000l a year, as I have heard'; Aubrey, ii. 226, 'I thinke I have been told that he left 2 or 300 li per annum there and thereabout [i.e. at Stratford] to a sister'.

[991] Lee, 281; G. R. French, Shakespeareana Genealogica, 514; Herald and Genealogist, i. 492.

[992] Lee, 285, citing (a) manuscript notes by Ralph Brooke on William Dethick's grants of arms, in which both Shakespeare and Cowley appear in a list of persons given arms on false pretences, and (b) a manuscript Discourse of the Causes of Discord amongst the Officers of Arms by William Smith, Rougedragon, 'Phillipps the player had graven in a gold ring the armes of Sʳ Wᵐ Phillipp, Lord Bardolph, with the said L. Bardolphs cote quartred, which I shewed to Mʳ York [Brooke, York Herald] at a small gravers shopp in Foster Lane.... Pope the player would have no other armes but the armes of Sʳ Tho. Pope, Chancelor of yᵉ Augmentations'.

[993] App. C, No. liv.

[994] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 325; cf. ch. x.

[995] App. C, Nos. xxii, lvii; cf. Wright (App. I, ii) on the 'grave and sober behaviour' of the later King's men.

[996] Cf. ch. xiii (Anne's).

[997] Cf. ch. xiii (Lady Elizabeth's).

[998] Dekker and Webster, Northward Ho! IV. i. 1:

Cf. Dekker, News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 99), 'Marrie players swarme there as they do here, whose occupation being smelt out, by the Caco-daemon, or head officer of the Countrie, to bee lucrative, he purposes to make vp a company, and to be chiefe sharer himselfe'; also A Mad World, my Masters, V. i. 42, where one of the sham Lord Owemuch's players is a 'politician', who 'works out restraints, makes best legs at court, and has a suit made of purpose for the company's business' and 'has greatest share and may live of himselfe'.

[999] Jonson, Poetaster, III. iv. 373, 'Commend me to seuen-shares and a halfe, and remember to morrow—if you lacke a seruice, you shall play in my name, rascalls, but you shall buy your owne cloth, and I'le ha' two shares for my countenance'. It appears from a list of Sir Henry Herbert's profits as Master of the Revels, drawn up in 1662, that he had secured a share, which he valued at £100 a year, from each of the London companies, other than the King's men (Variorum, iii. 266).

[1000] It is impossible to say what arrangement underlies the statement in an undated letter from Richard Jones to Alleyn about a German tour (Henslowe Papers, 33) that Robert Browne was 'put to half a shaer, and to stay hear, for they ar all against his goinge'.

[1001] Hamlet, III. ii. 286:

For half-sharers, cf. ch. xiii (Queen's, Admiral's). Three-quarter sharers existed in the Lady Elizabeth's men about 1614; cf. T. M., Father Hubburd's Tales (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 64), 'The ant began to stalk like a three-quarter sharer'.

[1002] The number of players named in the Jacobean patents varies from 7 to 14, but this gives little direct guidance as to the number of sharers. It is, however, consistent with my estimate, which is based mainly upon the number of Admiral's men shown at various times in contractual relations with Henslowe. There were 12 sharers in the Lady Elizabeth's company in 1611 and 12 in Queen Anne's company in 1617. Probably the Elizabethan companies ran rather smaller.

[1003] Dekker, News from Hell (1606), 'a companie of country players, being nine in number, one sharer and the rest jornymen'; cf. p. 362.

[1004] Cf. ch. ix.

[1005] Amalgamated companies also toured the provinces, and even entered into partnership with companies, such as Lord Morley's, which were purely provincial. Thus we find Hunsdon's and Morley's at Bristol in 1583, and Hunsdon's and Howard's at Leicester in 1585; the Queen's and Sussex's at Southampton, Gloucester, and Coventry in 1590-1; the Queen's and Morley's at Aldeburgh on 11 Oct. 1592 (Stopes, Hunnis, 314); the Admiral's, Strange's (or Derby's), and Morley's variously combined at Ipswich, Southampton, Bath, Shrewsbury, York, and Newcastle in 1592-4. Sometimes players worked with musicians, tumblers or rope-dancers; of course this was so in London itself, but naturally the old methods of the mimes tended to reassert themselves more markedly in the provinces.

[1006] Murray, i. 172 (table), 237.

[1007] Henslowe's agreement with John Cholmley, probably for the Rose, in 1587, provides for joint appointment by the parties as landlords. The same arrangement is implied, so far as the galleries are concerned, by the Lady Elizabeth's agreement of 1614. In 1612 Robert Browne wrote to Alleyn to procure 'a gathering place' for the wife of one Rose, a hireling of Prince Henry's men. Apparently the sharers had to pay the gatherers' wages. An undated letter from William Bird, also of Prince Henry's men, to Alleyn tells him of the dishonesty of John Russell, 'that by yowr apoyntment was made a gatherer with us'. The company will not let him 'take the box', but will pay his wages as 'a nessessary atendaunt on the stage', and if he likes, employ him also as a tailor. Henslowe made the Lady Elizabeth's pay for nine gatherers more than he was entitled to. In Frederick and Basilea, the gatherers came on as supers (Henslowe Papers, 3, 24, 63, 85, 89, 137). The 'place or priviledge' in the Globe and Blackfriars left by Henry Condell to Elizabeth Wheaton in 1627 was presumably that of a gatherer. A satirist wrote in The Actors Remonstrance of 1643 (Hazlitt, E. D. S. 263), 'Our very doore-keepers men and women most grievously complaine that by this cessation they are robbed of the privilege of stealing from us with licence: they cannot now, as in King Agamemnon's dayes, seeme to scratch their heads where they itch not, and drop shillings and half croune-pieces in at their collars'. The money taken at the door or in the gallery was traditionally put in a box and kept for division; cf. Rankins, Mirrour of Monsters (1587), f. 6, 'door-keepers and box-holders at plays'.

[1008] Cf. ch. xvi (Globe) and ch. xvii (Blackfriars); the document is printed in Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312.

[1009] This is the only point on which I have anything to add to Dr. Greg's personal information as to Henslowe; it is important as bearing on the history of Lord Strange's men (q.v.). He is described as Groom of the Chamber in an undated document (Henslowe Papers, 42) belonging to a series dealing with the opening of the Rose for Strange's men in a long vacation. This cannot be put later than 1592, as there was plague throughout the long vacation of 1593 and Lord Strange became Earl of Derby in Sept. 1593. On the other hand, Dr. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 9; Henslowe Papers, 36), following Warner, 8, argues that Henslowe must have become Groom of the Chamber later than 7 April 1592, since he is not named in a list of Grooms appended to a warrant of that date and is named in a similar list of 26 Jan. 1599. These warrants are in Addl. MS. 5750, ff. 114, 116. They are original warrants for the 'watching liveries' which were issued annually, but on irregular dates, to the Yeomen of the Guard and to the Groom Porter and fourteen Grooms of the Chamber. A complete series of copies of these warrants is preserved in Lord Chamberlain's Records, v. 90, 91, and shows that Henslowe only received a watching livery during three consecutive years, on 14 Nov. 1597, 26 Jan. 1599, and 27 Oct. 1599. Yet we know that he was a Groom in Aug. 1593 from the address on one of Alleyn's letters (Henslowe Papers, 36), and about 1595-6 from a petition to the first Lord Hunsdon, who died in June 1596 (Henslowe Papers, 44). Therefore the absence of his name from the livery list of 7 April 1592 is no proof that he was not then already a Groom. Probably Henslowe was only an Extraordinary Groom, and only some of the Extraordinary Grooms were needed to supplement the twelve Ordinary ones for watching purposes.

[1010] Dr. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 22, 25) shows that Henslowe almost certainly held a lease of the Barge, the Bell, and the Cock 'vppon the banke called Stewes', describes these houses as 'licensed brothels', and infers that Henslowe was 'the intermediate landlord between the stew-keepers and the Reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of Winchester'. It is possible that the tradition, as well as the name, of the district endured into Elizabeth's reign, but Dr. Greg forgets, in his Voltairean mood, that the system of episcopal licences terminated in the reign of Henry VIII (Rendle, Bankside, xi). Ultimately Alleyn secured on the property the settlement of his wife Constance, daughter of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, which must surely have established its respectability.

[1011] Henslowe, i. 98, 'Jemes Cranwigge the 4 of November 1598 playd his callenge in my howsse & I sholde haue hade for my parte xxxxˢ which the company hath receuyd & oweth yᵗ to me'.

[1012] Cf. vol. ii, p. 408.

[1013] Cf. Gosson, S.A. 39 (App. C, No. xxii), 'the very hyrelings of some of our players, which stand at reuersion of vi s by the weeke'; Dekker, News from Hell (Works, ii. 146), 'a companie of country players, being nine in number, one sharer, & the rest iornymen'; The Raven's Almanac (iv. 193), 'a number of you (especially the hirelings) shall be with emptie purses at least twice a week'; Jests to Make you Merrie (ii. 353), 'Nay, you mercenary soldiers, or you that are as the Switzers to players (I meane the hired men) by all the prognostications that I haue seene this yeare, you make but a hard and a hungry liuing of it by strowting [? 'strowling'] up and downe after the waggon. Leaue therefore, O leaue the company of such as lick the fat from your beards (if you haue any) and come hether, for here I know you shall be sharers'.

[1014] Cf. Chapman, May Day, III. iii. 228, 'Afore heaven, 'tis a sweet fac'd child: methinks he would show well in woman's attire.... I'll help thee to three crownes a week for him, and she can act well'. The will of Augustine Phillips in 1605 mentions his apprentice James Sands, and his late apprentice, Samuel Gilburne. The 'boys' of various Admiral's men appear in Henslowe's diary and in the Dulwich 'plots' of plays; cf. Henslowe, i. 71, 73, 'Thomas Dowtones biger boy'; Henslowe Papers, 137, 138, 142, 147, 'E. Dutton his boye', 'Mʳ. Allens boy', 'Mʳ. Townes boy', 'Mʳ. Jones his boy', 'Mʳ. Denygtens little boy'.

[1015] Henslowe, i. 201; Henslowe Papers, 48. There is also a contract by which Thomas Downton of the Admiral's men hires an unnamed player (Henslowe, i. 40). Augustine Phillips (1605) calls Christopher Beeston his 'servant', and Nicholas Tooley (1623) calls Richard Burbadge, then deceased, his 'late master'. But Beeston and Tooley were King's men by patent before the dates in question, and it is a little difficult, though not impossible, to suppose that a hireling would appear in a patent. Probably the terms only retain the memory of former apprenticeships.

[1016] Henslowe, ii. 120.

[1017] The diary records loans to Jonson, Chapman, Porter, Chettle, Day, Haughton, Munday, Dekker, Anthony Wadeson, and Robert Wilson, and to the actors Martin Slater, John Singer, Thomas Towne, Edward Dutton, Robert Shaw, Thomas Downton, William Borne, John Helle, Gabriel Spencer, Richard Alleyn, John Tomson, Humphrey Jeffes, Anthony Jeffes, Richard Jones, Charles Massey, John Duke, Richard Bradshaw, Thomas Heywood, William Kempe, Thomas Blackwood, John Lowin, Abraham Savery, Richard Perkins; as well as to Henslowe's nephew, Francis Henslowe. Except Francis Henslowe and Abraham Savery, of the Queen's men, and John Tomson, of whom nothing is known, all these men are traceable in connexion with either the Admiral's or Worcester's men. A few of the loans to poets, e.g. to Chettle, seem to have been on behalf of the Admiral's men, rather than of Henslowe himself.