I have not come across Sir Robert Lane’s men except at Bristol in August 1570, and at Court during the Christmas of 1571–2. On 27 December 1571 they played Lady Barbara and on 17 February 1572 Cloridon and Radiamanta. The first performance was paid for by a warrant of 5 January to Laurence Dutton; the second by a warrant of 26 February, in which, according to the entry in the Privy Council Register, Dutton was again named.[284] But the Treasurer of the Chamber records the payment as made to John Greaves and Thomas Goughe. Probably this company is identical with that found next year in the service of the Earl of Lincoln.

vii. THE EARL OF LINCOLN’S (LORD CLINTON’S) MEN

Players serving the Lord Admiral were at Winchester in 1566–7. A company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln and led by Laurence Dutton played at Court during the Christmas of 1572–3, and a company under that of Lord Clinton, and also led by Dutton, in Herpetulus the Blue Knight and Perobia on 3 January 1574, and on 27 December 1574 and 2 January 1575. For 1574–5 they rehearsed three plays, one of which was Pretestus. Probably these are the same company transferred by the Lord Admiral to his son. Dutton was with Sir Robert Lane’s men in 1571–2 and with the Earl of Warwick’s in 1575–6. The whole company may have taken service with Lincoln instead of Lane as a result of the statute of 1572 (App. D, No. xxiv), but it does not seem to have been altogether absorbed in Warwick’s, as Lord Clinton’s men are found at Southampton on 24 June 1577, when they were six in number, at Bristol in July, and at Coventry in 1576–7. A later company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln has a purely provincial record in 1599–1604. There is an isolated notice at Norwich in 1608–9.

viii. THE EARL OF WARWICK’S MEN

Dudley seems to have had players in London in January 1562, when they were rewarded by the Duchess of Suffolk.[285] They are also found in 1559–64 at Oxford, Gloucester, Bristol, Plymouth, Winchester, Dover, Canterbury, and Norwich. Their only Court performances upon record were two during the Christmas of 1564–5. In 1564–5 they were apparently at Canterbury.[286]

After an interval of ten years there are Warwick’s men at Court on 14 February 1575 and also at Stratford in the course of 1574–5, at Lichfield between 27 July and 3 August during the progress,[287] and at Leicester before 29 September 1575. At the following Christmas they gave three plays at Court, on 26 December 1575 and 1 January and on 5 March 1576. John and Laurence Dutton and Jerome Savage were their payees. Laurence Dutton and possibly others of the company had been, a year before, in Lord Clinton’s service. During the next four winters they appeared regularly at Court, and are recorded at Leicester in 1576 and Nottingham on 1 September 1577. On 26 December 1576 they played The Painter’s Daughter, and on 18 February 1577 The Irish Knight. The names of their plays on 28 December 1577 and 6 January and 9 February 1578 are not preserved. They were notified by the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor as one of the Court companies for the Christmas of 1578–9 (App. D, No. xl), and played The Three Sisters of Mantua on 26 December and The Knight in the Burning Rock on 1 March. A play intended for 2 February was not performed, but payment was made to Jerome Savage. Gabriel Harvey (cf. p. 4) mentions them as a London company in the summer of 1579. On 1 January 1580 they played The Four Sons of Fabius. A Winchester record of ‘Lord Ambrose Dudley’s’ men in 1581–2 must be an error.

The Duttons were evidently a restless folk, and the disappearance of Warwick’s men and the appearance of Oxford’s men in 1580 is to be explained by another transfer of their services. This is referred to in the following verses:[288]

In 1587–8 tumblers were at Bath under Warwick’s name. I do not understand the entry of his men in the Ipswich accounts, as playing on 10 March 1592. Ambrose Dudley died in 1590, and his doubtfully legitimate nephew, Sir Robert Dudley, does not seem even to have claimed the title until 1597. The Ipswich records are unreliable, but possibly Lady Warwick maintained a company for a while. The Corporation of London were considering some ‘cause’ of hers as to plays in May 1594 (App. D, No. xcviii).

ix. THE EARL OF OXFORD’S MEN

The Earls of Oxford had their players as far back as 1492.[289] A company belonging to the 16th Earl caused a scandal by playing in Southwark at the moment when a dirge was being sung for Henry VIII in St. Saviour’s on 6 February 1547.[290] It is probably the same company which is traceable in 1555–6 at Dover, in 1557–8 at Ipswich, in 1559–60 and 1560–1 at Maldon, and in 1561–2 at Barnstaple, Maldon, and Ipswich. Murray (ii. 63) adds a few notices. There is no sign of it at Court, and it is likely that the 17th Earl discontinued it soon after his succession. The last notices of it are at Leicester, Plymouth, and Ipswich in 1562–3.

At a later date, however, this Earl was clearly interested in things dramatic. He took part in a Shrovetide device at Court in 1579, and is recorded in Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia (1598) to have been himself a playwright and one of ‘the best for comedy amongst us’ (App. C, No. lii). In 1580 the Duttons and the rest of the Earl of Warwick’s men transferred themselves to his service, and thereby laid themselves open to satire upon their fickleness (cf. supra). I do not know whether it was their resentment at this that brought them into trouble, but on 12 April 1580 the Lord Mayor wrote to Sir Thomas Bromley, the Lord Chancellor, about a disorder at the Theatre two days before, which he understood to be already before the Privy Council; and on 13 April we find the Council committing Robert Leveson and Laurence Dutton, servants of the Earl of Oxford, to the Marshalsea for a fray with the Inns of Court. On 26 May the matter was referred to three judges for examination, and on 18 July Thomas Chesson, sometime servant to the Earl, was released on bail (App. D, Nos. xliii, xliv). These notices suggest that the company had arranged, possibly during the absence of Leicester’s men from town, to occupy the Theatre. In view of their disgrace, it was no doubt better for them to travel, and on 21 June John Hatcher, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, wrote to Lord Oxford’s father-in-law, Lord Burghley, to acknowledge recommendations received from him, as well as from the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chamberlain Sussex, that Oxford’s men should be allowed to ‘show their cunning in several plays already practised by them before the Queen’s majesty’, and to explain that, in view of pestilence, the need for industry at commencement, a previous refusal to Leicester’s men, and a Privy Council order of 1575 against assemblies in Cambridge, he had thought it better to give them 20s., and send them away unheard.[291] They are traceable provincially in 1580–3.[292] At Norwich (1580–1) the payment was made to ‘the Earle of Oxenfordes lads’, and at Bristol (Sept. 1581) there were nine boys and a man. These were probably boys of the Earl’s domestic chapel, travelling either with the Duttons or as a separate company.

The Duttons joined the Queen’s company, John on its first establishment in 1583. It is in the following winter, however, that an Oxford’s company first appears at Court. Here the Earl’s ‘servauntes’ performed on 1 January and 3 March 1584. Their payee was John Lyly, who had probably been for some years in the Earl’s service. Provincial performances continue during 1583–5, and in the records the company are always described as ‘players’ or ‘men’.[293] On 27 December 1584 Agamemnon and Ulysses was played at Court by the Earl of Oxford’s ‘boyes’. For this the payee was Henry Evans, probably the same who in 1600 set up the Chapel plays. I do not feel much doubt that the companies under Lyly and Evans were the same, or that in 1583–4 they in fact consisted of a combination of Oxford’s boys, Paul’s and the Chapel, working under Lyly and Evans at the Blackfriars theatre.[294] This arrangement had, no doubt, to be modified when Sir William More recovered possession of the premises in the spring of 1584, and after the performance of December 1584 Oxford perhaps ceased to maintain boy players and contented himself with another company of his servants, who made an appearance at Court on 1 January 1585, under John Symons, in feats of activity and vaulting. These tumblers had apparently been Lord Strange’s men in 1583, and by 1586 had returned into the service of the Stanley family.

An Oxford’s company did not again perform at Court, but his ‘plaiers’ were at Norwich in 1585–6, and Ipswich in 1586–7,[295] and players under his name were notified to Walsingham amongst others setting up their bills in London on 25 January 1587 (App. D, No. lxxviii). They were at York in June 1587 and Maidstone in 1589–90. Finally, at the end of the reign, comes a letter from the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor on 31 March 1602, which informs him that at the Earl’s suit the Queen has tolerated a new company formed by a combination of his servants and those of the Earl of Worcester, and that they are to play at the Boar’s Head (App. D, No. cxxx). Oxford’s men had probably then been established for some little time, as they are indicated as having played The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (1600, S. R. 23 October 1600) by the title-page, and The History of George Scanderbarge by the entry in the Stationers’ Register (3 July 1601). Meres’s reference to Oxford in 1598 suggests that they may have been in existence still earlier, as it is natural to suppose that he wrote comedies for his own men. Some of the writers, however, with whom Meres groups him belong to the early years of the reign, although others are contemporary. From 1602 the company was no doubt merged in Worcester’s, which in its turn became Queen Anne’s.

x. THE EARL OF ESSEX’S MEN

The Bourchiers, Earls of Essex, whom the Devereux succeeded through an heiress, had their players well back into the fifteenth century. In fact, the earliest household troop on record is that of Henry Bourchier, first earl of the senior creation, which is found at Maldon in 1468–9 and at Stoke-by-Nayland on 9 January 1482.[296]

Walter Devereux had a company, which visited Bath, Bristol, Gloucester, and Nottingham in 1572–3, Wollaton (Francis Willoughby’s) in July 1574, Coventry on 29 August, and Leicester before 29 September 1574, Gloucester, Dover, and Coventry in 1574–5, Coventry and Leicester in 1575–6, Nottingham in September 1576, and Bristol in September 1577. On the Earl’s death the Countess retained the company, and under her name it appeared at Coventry and Oxford in 1576–7. On 11 February 1578 it gave its only performance at Court, taking the place of Leicester’s men, to whom that day had originally been assigned. It was included in the list of Court companies sent to the Lord Mayor in December 1578 (App. D, No. xl), but gave no play that winter. The Privy Council described it as the Earl of Essex’s men, and it played under that name at Coventry in 1577–8 and at Ipswich in 1579–80; but at Oxford, Coventry, and Stratford-on-Avon in 1578–9, and at Oxford in 1579–80, it is still called the Countess of Essex’s. It could hardly have borne that name after August 1579, when the Countess’s secret marriage with Leicester was revealed to Elizabeth, and doubtless her disgrace debarred it from any further Court favour.

Robert Earl of Essex had a provincial company from 1581 to 1596. In 1581–2 it was at Exeter, in July 1584 at Ludlow, in 1583–4 at Leicester, Stratford-on-Avon, and Ipswich, and in 1584–5 at Bath. On 26 June 1585 it played at Thorpe in Norwich, in spite of a prohibition by the Corporation, and was sentenced to be excluded from civic reward in future. In 1585–6 it was at Coventry and Ipswich, in 1586 before 29 September at Leicester, and possibly about May at Oxford, on 27 February 1587 at York, on 16 July at Leicester, and in the course of the year at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1587–8 it was at Coventry, Ipswich, Saffron Walden, and Leicester, in 1588–9 at Bath, Saffron Walden, and Reading, on 7 September 1589 at Knowsley, on 31 October at Ipswich, and in the same year at Faversham. It was also at Coventry and Faversham in 1589–90, at Maldon in 1590, and twice at Faversham in 1590–1, and is last recorded at Ludlow in April 1596. Murray adds some intermediate dates. A company of Essex’s men which appeared at Coventry in 1600–1 is probably distinct. The execution of Essex on 25 February 1601 must have brought it to a premature end.

xi. LORD VAUX’S MEN

These companies are extremely obscure. Gabriel Harvey mentions the first in 1579 (cf. p. 4); the second was at Leicester in October-December 1601, Coventry in 1603–4 and 1608, and Skipton in 1609.

xii. LORD BERKELEY’S MEN

The only London record of this company is in July 1581, when some of them, including Arthur King and Thomas Goodale, were committed to the Counter after a brawl with Inns of Court men. Lord Berkeley apologized to the Lord Mayor on their behalf, and said that they would go to the country (App. D, Nos. xlix, l). Their other appearances are all in the country, at Bristol between 6 and 12 July 1578, where they played What Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man, at Bath on 11 July 1578 and on another day in 1578–9, at Abingdon in 1579–80, Stratford-on-Avon in 1580–1, Maldon in 1581, Stratford-on-Avon in 1582–3, Barnstaple in 1583–4, and Bath in 1586–7. Long after they, or a later company under the same name, reappear at Coventry in 1597–8, at Leicester in 1598 before Michaelmas, at Saffron Walden in 1598–9, and at Coventry and elsewhere in 1603–10. Lord Berkeley’s name is sometimes misspelt in the account-books as ‘Bartlett’.[297]

xiii. QUEEN ELIZABETH’S MEN

The origin of this company, the most famous of all the London companies during the decade of the ’eighties, can be dated with an extreme minuteness.[298] The Revels Accounts for 1582–3 record an expenditure of 20s. in travelling charges by

The date then was 10 March 1583, and the business was in the hands of Sir Francis Walsingham. Lord Chamberlain Sussex, to whom it would naturally have fallen, was ill in the previous September[300] and died on the following 9 June. Walsingham’s agency in the matter is confirmed in the account of the formation of the company inserted by Edmund Howes in the 1615 and 1631 editions of Stowe’s Annales:

Howes is not altogether accurate. ‘Thomas’ is obviously a mistake for ‘Robert’ Wilson. Elizabeth had maintained players before, the Interluders, although they had cut little figure in the dramatic history of the reign, and the last of them had died in 1580. Dr. Greg thinks that the players were not appointed as grooms of the Chamber, on the ground that their names do not appear in a list of these officers appended to a warrant of 8 November 1586.[302] But Tarlton is described as ‘ordenary grome off her majestes chamber’ in the record of his graduation as a master of fence in 1587, and both he and his ‘fellow’, William Johnson, are described as ‘grooms of her majesties chamber’ in his will of 1588. Their absence from Dr. Greg’s list is probably due to their treatment as a special class of grooms of the chamber in ordinary without fee, who were not called upon to perform the ordinary duties of the office, such as helping to watch the palace.[303] That they had liveries, which were red coats, is borne out by the particular mention of the fact that they were not wearing them, in the depositions concerning a very untoward event which took place in the first few months of their service. On the afternoon of 15 June 1583 they were playing at the Red Lion in Norwich. A dispute as to payment arose between a servant of one Mr. Wynsdon and Singer, who, in a black doublet and with a player’s beard on, was acting as gatekeeper. Tarlton and Bentley, who was playing the duke, came off the stage, and Bentley broke the offender’s head with the hilt of his sword. The man fled, pursued by Singer with an arming-sword which he took off the stage, and by Henry Browne, a servant of Sir William Paston. Both of them struck him, and one of the blows, but it was not certain whose, proved mortal.[304]

Several other places, besides Norwich, received a visit from the Queen’s men during the first summer of their existence. In April they were at Bristol, on 9 July at Cambridge, and between 24 July and 29 September at Leicester. Their travels also extended to Gloucester, Aldeburgh, Nottingham, and Shrewsbury.[305] In the winter they returned to London, and on 26 November the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Mayor to bespeak for them permission to play in the City and the liberties upon week-days until Shrovetide. The City accordingly licensed them to play at the Bull and the Bell, but with unwelcome limitations, for on 1 December it was necessary for Walsingham to write a personal letter, explaining that it was not the intention of the Council that the licence to play should be confined to holidays. The City record gives the names of the twelve members of the company as Robert Wilson, John Dutton, Richard Tarlton, John Laneham, John Bentley, Thobye Mylles, John Towne, John Synger, Leonall Cooke, John Garland, John Adams, and William Johnson. The company made its initial appearance at Court on 26 December, and played again on 29 December, and on 3 March 1584. Their public performances probably continued through the spring, but in June there were disturbances in and around the Middlesex theatres, and the City obtained leave from the Council to suppress plays. The Queen’s submitted to an injunction from William Fleetwood, the Recorder; and their leader advised him to send for the owner of the Theatre, who was Lord Hunsdon’s man, and bind him. They travelled again, and are found in 1583–4 at Bath and Marlborough, and in October or November at Dover. When the winter came on, they once more approached the Council and requested a renewal of the previous year’s privilege, submitting articles in which they pointed out that the time of their service was drawing near, and that the season of the year was past to play at any of the houses outside the City. They also asked for favourable letters to the Middlesex justices. The City opposed the concession, and begged that, if it were granted, the number and names of the Queen’s men might be set out in the warrant, complaining that in the previous year, when toleration was granted to this company alone, all the playing-places were filled with men calling themselves the Queen’s players. The records do not show whether the Council assented.[306] The company appeared four times at Court, giving Phillyda and Corin on 26 December, Felix and Philiomena on 3 January 1585, Five Plays in One on 6 January, and an antic play and a comedy on 23 February. They had prepared a fifth performance, of Three Plays in One, for 21 February, but it was not called for. Mr. Fleay has conjectured that the Five Plays in One and the Three Plays in One may have been the two parts of Tarlton’s Seven Deadly Sins.[307] The payment for this winter’s plays was made to Robert Wilson.

There is no evidence that the company were travelling in 1585. They were at Court again on 26 December and on 1 January and 13 February 1586. During 1586 they were at Maidstone, in July at Bristol, on 22 August and later at Faversham, and before 29 September at Leicester. In 1585–6 they were also at Coventry. On 26 December 1586 and on 1 and 6 January and 28 February 1587 they were at Court, and in the same January a correspondent of Walsingham’s names them amongst other companies then playing regularly in the City (App. D, No. lxxviii). During 1586–7 they were at Bath, Worcester, Canterbury, and Stratford-on-Avon, whence Malone thought that they might have enlisted Shakespeare.[308] They were at Bath again on 13 July 1587, and at Aldeburgh on 20 May and 19 July. Before 29 September they were at Leicester, on 9 September at York, where it is recorded that they ‘cam in her Majesties lyvereys’, twice in September at Coventry, and at Aldeburgh on 16 December. They were at Court on 26 December 1587 and on 6 January and 18 February 1588.

A subsidy list of 30 June 1588 shows that Tarlton, Laneham, Johnson, Towne, Adams, Garland, John Dutton, Singer, and Cooke were then still household players.[309] It can, perhaps, hardly be assumed that the whole of the company is here represented. Mills, Wilson, and Bentley may have dropped out since 1583. But one would have expected to find the name of Laurence Dutton beside that of John, as he was certainly a Queen’s man by 1589. Knell also acted with Tarlton in The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, and must have belonged to the company. He also may have been dead by 1588. And this must certainly be the case if he is the William Knell whose widow Rebecca John Heminges married on 10 March 1588. There is some reason to suppose that Heminges himself joined the Queen’s men, perhaps in right of his wife. The composition of the list of 1583 generally bears out the statement of Howes, that the Queen’s men were selected as the best out of the companies of divers great lords, for Wilson, Laneham, and Johnson belonged to Leicester’s in 1572, Adams to Sussex’s in 1576, and Dutton, after a chameleon past, to Oxford’s in 1580. Mr. Fleay, who did not know either the list of 1583 or that of 1588, declares that the original members of the company included James Burbadge and William Slaughter, and probably John Perkyn.[310] Of these William Slaughter is merely what the philologists would call a ‘ghost’-name, for there is no evidence that any such actor ever existed.[311] Evidently James Burbadge did not join the Queen’s men. Probably Mr. Fleay was biased by his knowledge that these men acted at the Theatre, which was Burbadge’s property. But this could prove nothing, as the relations between particular companies and particular theatres were much less permanent than Mr. Fleay is apt to suppose. The Queen’s seem to have been acting at the Theatre when Fleetwood suppressed them in June 1584, but the owner of the house, who can hardly be any other than James Burbadge, is specifically described as Lord Hunsdon’s man, which of course does not necessarily signify that he was a player at all. Moreover, it is clear from the official correspondence of the following autumn, not only that, as we know from other sources, the companies regularly moved in from the suburban houses to the City inn-yards at the approach of winter, but also that the Queen’s in particular had in the winter of 1583 dispersed themselves for their public performances over various play-places. The view that they did not exclusively attach themselves to Burbadge’s, or to any other one theatre, is further borne out by the indications in the Jests of Tarlton, which there is no reason to reject, however apocryphal they may be in detail, as evidence of the theatrical conditions under which the famous mime appeared. The Jests frequently speak of Tarlton as a Queen’s man and never mention any other company in connexion with him.[312] And, as it happens, they record performances at the Curtain,[313] the Bell,[314] and the Bull,[315] but none at the Theatre. Nashe, however, tells us that Tarlton made jests of Richard Harvey and his Astrological Discourse of 1583 there;[316] and an entry in the Stationers’ Register makes it possible to add that shortly before his death he appeared at the Bel Savage.[317] The stage-keeper in Bartholomew Fair (1614), Ind. 37, gives us a reminiscence of a scene between Tarlton and John Adams, ‘I am an Asse! I! and yet I kept the Stage in Master Tarletons time, I thanke my starres. Ho! and that man had liu’d to haue play’d in Bartholmew Fayre, you should ha’ seene him ha’ come in, and ha’ beene coozened i’ the Cloath-quarter, so finely! And Adams, the Rogue, ha’ leap’d and caper’d vpon him, and ha’ dealt his vermine about, as though they had cost him nothing. And then a substantiall watch to ha’ stolne in vpon ’hem, and taken ’hem away, with mistaking words, as the fashion is, in the Stage-practice.’

Tarlton’s own talent probably ran more to ‘jigs’ and ‘themes’ than to the legitimate drama. But the palmy days of the Queen’s company were those that intervened between its foundation in 1583 and his death on 3 September 1588. To it belonged the men whom such an actor of the next generation as Thomas Heywood could remember as the giants of the past,[318] and whose reputation Edward Alleyn’s friends were ready to back him to excel.[319] From 1588 the future of the stage lay with Alleyn and the Admiral’s men and Marlowe, and it may reasonably be supposed that the Queen’s men were hard put to it to hold their own against their younger rivals. Adams probably survived Tarlton, and his name appears to be traceable as that of the clowns in A Looking Glass for London and England (c. 1590) and James IV (c. 1591). In 1587–8 the Queen’s visited Coventry and Exeter, and in 1588 Dover, and on two occasions Faversham. On 19 July and 14 August they were at Bath. The Bath accounts for this year also show a payment ‘to the quenes men that were tumblers’. Owing to Tarlton’s death or to some other reason, the Queen’s men prolonged their travels far into the winter. On 31 October they were at the Earl of Derby’s house at New Park, Lancashire; on 6 November ‘certen of’ them were at Leicester; on 10 December they were at Norwich and on 17 December at Ipswich. But they reached the Court in time for the performance on 26 December, with which they seem to have had the prerogative of opening the Christmas season, and appeared again on 9 February. They must have had some share in the Martin Marprelate controversy, which raged during 1589. In the previous year, indeed, Martin was able to claim Tarlton as an ally who had ‘taken’ Simony ‘in Don John of London’s cellar’, and was himself accused of borrowing his ‘foolery’ from Laneham. But when the bishops determined to meet the Puritans with literary weapons like their own, they naturally turned to the Queen’s men amongst others. About April 1589 A Whip for an Ape bids Martin’s grave opponents to ‘let old Lanam lash him with his rimes’, and although it cannot be assumed that, if the Maygame of Martinism was in fact played at the Theatre, it was the Queen’s men who played it, Martin’s Month’s Minde records in August the chafing of the Puritans at players ‘whom, saving their liveries (for indeed they are hir Majesty’s men ...) they call rogues’. Influence was brought to bear to suppress the anti-Martinist plays. A pamphlet of October notes that Vetus Comoedia has been ‘long in the country’; and this accords with the fact that the provincial performances of the Queen’s men began at an unusually early date in 1589. They are found at Gloucester on 19 April, at Leicester on 20 May, at Ipswich on 27 May, at Aldeburgh on 30 May, and at Norwich on 3 June. On 5 July they were at the Earl of Derby’s at Lathom, and on 6 and 7 September at another house of the Earl’s at Knowsley. On 22 September Lord Scrope wrote from Carlisle to William Asheby, the English ambassador in Scotland, that they had been for ten days in that town. He had heard from Roger Asheton of the King’s desire that they should visit Scotland, and had sought them out from ‘the furthest parte of Langkeshire’.[320] One would be glad to know whether they did in fact visit Scotland. In any case they were back in England and at Bath by November. During 1588–9 they were also at Reading, at Nottingham, and twice at Coventry. Both the Nottingham records and those of Leicester furnish evidence that for travelling purposes they divided themselves into two companies. At Leicester the town account for 1588–9 shows ‘certen of her Maiests playars’ as coming on 6 November, and ‘others moe of her Mayestyes playars’ as coming on 20 May; that of Nottingham for the same year has an entry of ‘Symons and his companie, being the Quenes players’ and another of ‘the Quenes players, the two Duttons and others’. The arrangement was of course natural enough, seeing that even in London the Queen’s men were sufficiently numerous to occupy more than one inn-yard. Laurence Dutton was evidently by now a member of the company with his brother John. It is to be presumed that Symons is the John Symons who on not less than five occasions presented ‘activities’ at Court, in 1582–3 with Strange’s (q.v.), in 1585 with Oxford’s, in 1586 with ‘Mr. Standleyes boyes’, in 1587–8 with a company under his own name, and in 1588–9 either with the Admiral’s or possibly with the Queen’s itself.

Doubtless the incorporation of Symons into the Queen’s service explains the appearance of the Queen’s tumblers at Bath in 1589. Performances at Court, for which John Dutton and John Laneham received payment, took place on 26 December 1589 and 1 March 1590. During 1589–90 the company were at Coventry, Ludlow, Nottingham, Bridgnorth, and Faversham, on 22 April 1590 at Norwich, on 24 June under the leadership of ‘Mr. Dutton’ at Knowsley, and on 30 October at Leicester. Acrobatic feats still formed a part of their repertory, and in these they had the assistance of a Turkish rope-dancer.[321] There were further Court performances on 26 December and on 1, 3, and 6 January, and 14 February 1591. It is to be noted that payment was made for the play of 1 January to ‘John Laneham and his companye her maiesties players’ and for the rest by a separate warrant to ‘Lawrence Dutton and John Dutton her maiesties players and there companye’; and that this distinction indicates some further development of the tendency to bifurcation already observed may be gathered from a study of the provincial records for 1590–1. On the very day of the performance of 14 February Queen’s men were also at Southampton, and the form of the entry indicates that they were there playing in conjunction with the Earl of Sussex’s men. This was the case also at Coventry on 24 March and at Gloucester during 1590–1.[322] At Ipswich during the same year there are two entries, of ‘the Quenes players’ on 15 May 1591 and of ‘another company of the Quenes players’ on 18 May. Obviously two groups were travelling this year and one had strengthened itself by a temporary amalgamation with Sussex’s. Perhaps the normal combination was restored when the two groups found themselves on the same road at the end of May, for Queen’s men are recorded alone at Faversham on 2 June 1591, at Wirkburn on 18 August, and at Coventry on 24 August and 20 October.

It was probably during this summer that Greene, having sold Orlando Furioso to the Queen’s men for twenty nobles, resold it ‘when they were in the country’ to the Admiral’s for as much more. The winter of 1591–2 marks a clear falling-off in the position of the company at Court, since they were only called upon to give one performance, on 26 December, as against six assigned to Lord Strange’s men, with whom at this date Alleyn and the Admiral’s men appear to have been in combination. Yet it was still possible for the City, writing to Archbishop Whitgift on 25 February 1592, to suggest that Elizabeth’s accustomed recreation might be sufficiently served, without the need for public plays, ‘by the privat exercise of hir Ma^ts own players in convenient place’.[323] That they were again making use of the Theatre may perhaps be inferred from a passage in Nashe’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament of the following autumn, in which a Welshman is said to ‘goe ae Theater, and heare a Queenes Fice, and he make hur laugh, and laugh hur belly-full’.[324] During 1591–2 they were at Nottingham, Coventry, Stratfordon-Avon, twice at Aldeburgh, and twice at Bath. In 1592 they were at Rochester, on 27 May at Norwich, before 29 September at Leicester, and early in September at Chesterton close to Cambridge. Here they came into conflict with the authorities of Cambridge University, who were apprehensive of infection from the crowds assembled at Sturbridge fair, and forbade them to play. Encouraged by Lord North and by the constables of Chesterton, they disobeyed, set up their bills upon the college gates, and gave their performance. It is interesting to note that ‘one Dutton’ was ‘a principale’, and to remember that, twelve years before, the Duttons had gone to Cambridge as Lord Oxford’s men and had been refused permission to play by the University authorities.[325] The outcome of the present encounter was a formal protest by the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses to the Privy Council for which they requested Burghley’s support as Chancellor of the University. After a further appeal about a year later, they succeeded in obtaining a confirmation of their privileges.[326] Another letter from the University to their Chancellor, written on 4 December 1592, is of a different character. Its object is to excuse themselves from accepting an invitation conveyed through the Vice-Chamberlain to present an English comedy before Elizabeth at Christmas. Sir Thomas Heneage appears to have given it as a reason for his request ‘that her Maiesties owne servantes, in this time of infection, may not disport her Highnes w^th theire wonted and ordinary pastimes’.[327]

On 11 October 1592 the Queen’s men were at Aldeburgh, on the same day as, and conceivably in association with, Lord Morley’s men, although the payments are distinct. They did not in fact appear at Court during the Christmas of 1592–3, although both Lord Pembroke’s and Lord Strange’s did. They were at Coventry and Stratford-on-Avon in the course of 1592–3, at Leicester in June 1593 and again after Michaelmas, at Bath on 22 August, and at York in September. On 6 January 1594 they returned to Court and gave what proved to be their last performance there. On 1 April they began to play at one of Henslowe’s theatres ‘to geather’—that is to say, either alternately or in combination—with Sussex’s men, who had already performed there for the six weeks between Christmas and Lent. Possibly this was a renewal of an earlier alliance of 1591. Only eight performances are recorded, and of the five plays given only King Leire can very reasonably be assigned to the repertory of the Queen’s men. The others were The Jew of Malta and The Fair Maid of Italy, which Sussex’s men had been playing in the winter, Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which was played for Henslowe by other companies both before and after, and was probably his property, and The Ranger’s Comedy, the performances of which were being continued by the Admiral’s men in the following autumn, but which it is possible that they or Henslowe may have acquired from the Queen’s. For there can be no doubt that the Queen’s men, whether because they had ceased to be modish, or because their finances had proved unable to stand the strain of the plague years, were now at the end of their London career. On 8 May 1594 the significant entry occurs in Henslowe’s diary of a loan of £15 to his nephew Francis Henslowe ‘to lay downe for his share to the Quenes players when they broke & went into the contrey to playe’.[328] This by itself would not perhaps be conclusive, as there are other years in which the company began its provincial wanderings as early as May. But from the present journey there is nothing to show that they ever returned, and it may fairly be reckoned as another sign of defeat that while The Troublesome Reign of King John (1591) was the only play certainly theirs which was printed before 1594, no less than nine found their way into the publishers’ hands during that and the following year. These were, besides Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594, S. R. 14 May 1594), with which they probably had only a recent connexion, A Looking Glass for London and, England (1594, S. R. 5 March 1594), King Leire (1594, S. R. 14 May 1594), James IV and The Famous Victories of Henry V (1598, S. R. 14 May 1594), The True Tragedy of Richard III (1594, S. R. 19 June 1594), Selimus (1594), Peele’s Old Wive’s Tale (1595, S. R. 16 April 1595), and Valentine and Orson (S. R. 23 May 1595), of which no copy is known to be extant. Somewhat later came Sir Clyomon and Clamydes (1599).

The Queen’s men were at Coventry on 4 July 1594, at Bristol in August, and at Bath and Barnstaple, where they were unlucky enough to break down the ceiling in the Guildhall, during 1593–4, and thereafter they are traceable right up to the end of the reign, at Coventry, Oxford, and Bath in 1594–5, at Leicester both before and after Michaelmas 1595, twice at Coventry and at Ludlow in 1595–6, at Stratford-on-Avon on 16 and 17 July 1596, at Bristol in August, at Leicester between October and December 1596, and at Faversham and Bridgnorth in the same year, at Coventry, at Dunwich, and twice at Bath in 1596–7, at Bristol again about Christmas 1597, at Nottingham on 8 July 1597, at Bristol about 25 July, at Bath in 1597–8, at Leicester on 9 January 1598, at Maldon in 1598, at Ipswich and Reading in 1598–9, at Maldon in 1599, at Dunwich in 1599–1600, at Ipswich on 2 June 1600, and at Leicester before 29 September in the same year, at Coventry and Bath in 1600–1, at York in July 1602, at Leicester on 30 September 1602, at Belvoir in August or September of the same year, and at Coventry in 1602–3. But little, naturally enough, is known of the personnel of the company during this period of its decay. On 1 June 1595 Francis Henslowe borrowed another £9 from his uncle ‘to laye downe for his hallfe share w^th the company w^ch he dothe playe w^th all’,[329] and I see no particular reason to suppose that this was another company than the Queen’s. The loan is witnessed by William Smyght, George Attewell, and Robert Nycowlles, each of whom is described as ‘player’. It is likely enough that these were now fellows of Francis Henslowe. Attewell had been payee for Lord Strange’s men in 1591. The earlier loan was witnessed by John Towne, Hugh Davis, and Richard Alleyn. Davis and Alleyn appear elsewhere in connexion with Henslowe, but Towne was certainly a Queen’s man. He is in the 1588 list and is described as ‘one of her Majesties plears’ when on 8 July 1597 he obtained a release of debts due to Roger Clarke of Nottingham.[330] The other men of 1588 had nearly all vanished. John Singer had joined the Admiral’s by the autumn of 1594. I should not be surprised, however, to find that John Garland was still with the Queen’s. He was an associate of Francis Henslowe in the Duke of Lennox’s men in 1604, and was then ‘owld’ Garland. Indeed, it seems probable that, when the Queen’s men lost their last shred of claim to a livery on Elizabeth’s death, they made an attempt still to hold together under the patronage of Lennox. John Shank was once a Queen’s man.

xiv. THE EARL OF ARUNDEL’S MEN