It was perhaps his employment as deputy to the Earl of Sussex in the office of Lord Chamberlain which led Lord Howard to encourage players. A company, under the name of Lord Howard’s men, appeared at Court for the first time at the Christmas of 1576–7. On 27 December they played Tooley, and on 17 February The Solitary Knight.[360] They came again for the last time in the following winter, and performed on 5 January 1578. They were also at Kirtling on 3 December 1577, Saffron Walden in 1577–8, Ipswich on 24 October 1577, in 1578–9, and perhaps on 8 October 1581, Bristol, where they gave The Queen of Ethiopia, between 31 August and 6 September 1578, Nottingham on 19 December 1578, and Bath and Coventry in 1578–9.

Howard again had players at Court, after he became Admiral in 1585. The first record of them is at Dover in June 1585. Later in the year they were playing in conjunction with the Lord Chamberlain’s (Lord Hunsdon’s). ‘The Lorde Chamberlens and the Lord Admirall’s players’ were rewarded at Leicester in October-December 1585, and ‘the servants of the lo: admirall and the lo: Chamberlaine’ for a play at Court on 6 January 1586.[361] During the same Christmas, however, the Admiral’s played alone on 27 December 1585, and as Hunsdon’s survived in the provinces, the two organizations may have been amalgamated for one performance only. The Admiral’s were at Coventry, Faversham, Ipswich, and Leicester in 1585–6. They were reported to Walsingham amongst other London companies on 25 January 1587 (App. D, No. lxxviii), although they did not appear at Court during this winter. In 1586–7 they were at Cambridge, Coventry, Bath, York, Norwich, Ipswich, Exeter, Southampton, and Leicester. By November they were back in London, and on the 16th an accident at their theatre is thus related by Philip Gawdy to his father:[362]

Possibly the company went into retirement as a result of this disaster; at any rate nothing more is heard of them until the Christmas of 1588–9. They then came to Court, and were rewarded for two interludes and ‘for showinge other feates of activitye and tumblinge’ on 29 December 1588 and 11 February 1589.[363] On 6 November 1589 they were playing in the City, and were suppressed by the Lord Mayor, because Tilney, the Master of the Revels, misliked their plays. Probably they had been concerning themselves with the Marprelate controversy. Strange’s men, who were evidently performing as a separate company, shared their fate. It may have been this misadventure which led the Admiral’s to seek house-room with James Burbadge at the Theatre (q.v.), where some evidence by John Alleyn, who, with James Tunstall, was of their number, locates them in November 1590 and May 1591. A relic of this period may be presumed to exist in the ‘plot’ of Dead Man’s Fortune, preserved with other plots belonging to the company at Dulwich, in which Burbadge, doubtless Richard Burbadge, then still a boy, appeared. Certainly there is nothing to connect Burbadge with the company at any other date. Other actors in the piece were one Darlowe, ‘b[oy?] Samme’, and Robert Lee, later of Anne’s men. The Admiral’s again showed ‘feats of activitie’ at Court on 28 December 1589, and a play on 3 March 1590. In 1589–90 they were at Coventry, Ipswich, Maidstone, Marlborough, Winchester, and Gloucester, and in 1590–1 at Winchester and Gloucester. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine was published in 1590 as ‘shewed upon stages in the City of London’ by the Admiral’s men. The Court records for the following winter present what looks at first sight like a curious discrepancy. The accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber include payments for plays and activities on 27 December 1590 and 16 February 1591 to Lord Strange’s men. The corresponding warrants, however, were made out, according to the Privy Council Register, for the Admiral’s. Probably there is no error here, and the entries are evidence of an amalgamation between the two companies, which possibly dated from as far back as the winter of 1589, and which seems to have endured until the summer of 1594. Technically, it would seem that it was the Admiral’s who were merged in Strange’s men. It is the latter and not the former who generally appear in official documents during this period. I have therefore dealt with its details for both companies, with the question of the precise date of the amalgamation, and with the possibility that the plot of The Seven Deadly Sins and its list of actors also belong to a Theatre performance of about 1590, in my account of Strange’s men, and need only remark here that the name of the Admiral’s does not altogether fall into disuse, especially in provincial records, and that the leading actor, Edward Alleyn, in particular, is shown by an official document to have retained his personal status as an Admiral’s servant.

It is a question of some interest how early Alleyn’s connexion with the Admiral’s may be supposed to have begun. Was he, for example, the original Tamburlaine of 1587, and was it as an Admiral’s man that Nashe referred to him, if it was he to whom Nashe referred, as the Roscius of the contemporary players in his Menaphon epistle of 1589? He is known to have been a member of Worcester’s company in 1583. Dr. Greg is disposed to think that he remained with them until the death of the third Earl of Worcester on 22 February 1589, and then joined the Admiral’s.[364] It is, however, to be observed that there is no trace of Worcester’s men between 1584 and 1590, and that it is in 1585 that the Admiral’s men begin to appear at Court. On the whole, it commends itself to me as the more probable conjecture that the first Earl of Worcester’s company passed into Howard’s service, when he became Admiral in 1585, and that the players of the fourth Earl of Worcester between 1590 and 1596 were distinct from those of his father. The issue concerns others besides Edward Alleyn himself. Amongst the members of Worcester’s company in 1583 were Robert Browne, James Tunstall, and Richard Jones; and all three of these are found concerned with Alleyn in matters of theatrical business during 1589–91. The most important document is a deed of sale by ‘Richarde Jones of London yoman’ to ‘Edwarde Allen of London gent’ for £37 10s. of ‘all and singuler suche share parte and porcion of playinge apparrelles, playe bookes, instrumentes, and other comodities whatsoeuer belonginge to the same, as I the said Richarde Jones nowe haue or of right ought to haue joyntlye with the same Edwarde Allen, John Allen citizen and inholder of London and Roberte Browne yoman’.[365] This is dated 3 January 1589. There are also three deeds of sale to Edward and John Alleyn of theatrical apparel between 1589 and 1591, and to two of these James Tunstall was a witness.[366] On Dr. Greg’s theory as to the date at which Alleyn took service with the Lord Admiral, the organization in whose properties Richard Jones had an interest would naturally be Worcester’s men; on mine it would be the Admiral’s, and it would follow that Jones and Browne, as well as Alleyn, had joined that company. We have seen that James Tunstall had done so by 1590–1. John Alleyn was an elder brother of Edward. There is nothing to connect him with Worcester’s men. He was a servant of Lord Sheffield in November 1580 and of the Lord Admiral in 1589.[367] A letter of one Elizabeth Socklen to Edward Alleyn refers to a time ‘when your brother, my lovinge cozen John Allen, dwelt with my very good lord, Charles Heawarde’, and this rather suggests that his service was in some household capacity, and not merely as player.[368] If so, it may have been through him that Edward Alleyn and his fellows became Admiral’s men. The first period of their activity seems to have lasted from 1585 to 1589, and it was no doubt Edward Alleyn’s genius, and perhaps also his business capacity, which enabled them to offer a serious rivalry to the Queen’s company. I suspect that in 1589 or 1590 they were practically dissolved, and this view is confirmed by the fact that their most important play was allowed to get to the hands of the printers. Alleyn, with the help of his brother, bought up the properties, and allied himself with Lord Strange’s men, and so far as the Admiral’s continued to exist at all for the next few years, it was almost entirely in and through him that it did so. After a financial quarrel with James Burbadge in May 1591, the combined companies moved to the Rose. There is nothing to show whether the Alleyns bought up Robert Browne’s interest as well as that of Richard Jones. At any rate Browne began in 1590 that series of continental tours which occupied most of the rest of his career (cf. ch. xiv). Jones joined him in one of these adventures in 1592, and it is possible that John Bradstreet and Thomas Sackville, who went with them, were also old Admiral’s men. But I do not think that it is accurate to regard this company, as Dr. Greg seems to be inclined to do, as being itself under the Admiral’s patronage. It is true that they obtained a passport from him, but this was probably given rather in his capacity as warden of the seas than in that of their lord. His name is not mentioned in any of the foreign records of their peregrinations. It is not possible to say which, other than Alleyn, of the members of the 1592–3 Strange’s and Admiral’s company, whose names have been preserved, came from each of the two contributing sources. They do not include either John Alleyn or James Tunstall, or Edward Browne, a Worcester’s man of 1583, who reappears with Tunstall among the Admiral’s after 1594. Nor is it possible to say how far the repertory of Strange’s men, as disclosed by the 1592–3 entries in Henslowe’s diary, included plays drawn from the Admiral’s stock. This may have been the case with The Battle of Alcazar, which was printed as an Admiral’s play in 1594, and with Orlando Furioso, which contemporary gossip represents Greene as selling first to the Queen’s and then to the Admiral’s. And it may have been the case with 1 Tamar Cham, which passed to the later Admiral’s. Neither Tamburlaine nor The Wounds of Civil War, printed like The Battle of Alcazar as an Admiral’s play in 1594, is recorded to have been played by Strange’s.

When the companies settled down again to a London life after the conclusion of the long plague in 1594, the Admiral’s men reconstituted themselves as an independent company with Alleyn at its head, leaving the greater number of their recent comrades of the road to pass, as the Lord Chamberlain’s men, under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon. The personal alliance between Alleyn and Henslowe, whose step-daughter, Joan Woodward, he had married on 22 October 1592, led to the institution of close business relations between the company and the pawnbroker, and the record of these in the famous diary enables us to follow with a singular minuteness the almost daily fortunes of the Admiral’s men during the course of some nine or ten years, broken into two periods by a reconstruction of the company in 1597 and finally closing about the time of their conversion into Prince Henry’s men in 1604. The precise nature of the position occupied by Henslowe has been carefully investigated by Dr. Greg,[369] and has already been briefly considered in these pages (ch. xi). He was not a member of the company, but its landlord, and, probably to an increasing extent, its financier. In the former capacity he received, after every day’s performance, a fluctuating sum, which seems to have represented half the amount received for admission to the galleries of the house; the other half, with the payments for entrance to the standing room in the yard, being divided amongst such of the players as had a share in the profits. Out of this, of course, they had to meet all expenditure other than by way of rent, such as the wages of hired men, payments for apparel and play-books, fees to the Master of the Revels for the licensing of plays, and the like. In practice it became convenient for Henslowe, who was a capitalist, while many of the players lived from hand to mouth, to advance sums to meet such expenditure as it fell due, and to recoup himself from time to time out of the company’s profits. It seems likely that, when the system was in full working, the moiety of the gallery money, which remained after the deduction of the rent, was assigned for the purpose of these repayments. During the period 1597–1604 Henslowe’s entries in his diary are mainly in the nature of a running account of these advances and of the receipts set off against them; for 1594–7 similar entries occur irregularly, but the principal record is a daily list, such as Henslowe had already kept during his shorter associations with Strange’s, the Queen’s, and Sussex’s companies in the course of 1592–4, of each performance given, with the name of the play and of the amount accruing to Henslowe himself in the form of rent. This list renders possible a very interesting analysis, both of the repertory of the company and of some at least of the financial conditions of their enterprise.

The entries start with the heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge the 14 of Maye 1594 by my lord Admeralls men’. After three days, during which The Jew of Malta, Cutlack, and The Ranger’s Comedy, all of which are found in the later repertory of the company, were given, they stop abruptly.[370] To about the same date may be assigned a fragmentary account, headed ‘Layd owt for my Lorde Admeralle seruantes as ffoloweth 1594’, and recording expenditure for coming and going to Court and to Somerset House, the residence of the Lord Chamberlain, ‘for mackinge of our leater twise’, and ‘for drinckinge with the jentellmen’, all evidently concerned with the initial business of forming and licensing the company.[371] On 5 June the account of performances is resumed with a fresh heading, ‘In the name of God Amen begininge at Newington my Lord Admeralle men and my Lorde Chamberlen men as ffolowethe 1594’.[372] Henslowe’s takings only averaged 9s. for the first ten days, probably on account of the distance of Newington Butts from London.[373] The takings for the three days in May averaged 41s., and it may perhaps be inferred that these May performances were at the Rose, and that some fear of renewed plague on the part of the authorities led to their being relegated to a safer quarter. The tentative character of these early performances is shown by the fact that the Admiral’s were still sharing a theatre with the Chamberlain’s. To the repertory of the latter it seems safe to assign three of the seven plays produced, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, and The Taming of A Shrew, and probably also a fourth, Hester and Ahasuerus, as there is no later sign of this amongst the Admiral’s plays. This leaves three others to be regarded as the Admiral’s contribution, The Jew of Malta and Cutlack, which they had played in May and were often to play again, and Belin Dun, to which are attached the letters ‘ne’, Henslowe’s normal indication of a new play.[374] There is nothing in the order in which the plays were taken to indicate an alternation of the two companies, and it is likely enough that neither was yet fully constituted, and that they actually joined forces in the same performances.

After the tenth play on 15 June, Henslowe drew a line across the page, and although the entries continue without any indication of a change in the conditions under which the performances were given, I can only concur in the conjecture of Mr. Fleay and Dr. Greg that at this point the Admiral’s plays were transferred to the Rose, and the combination with the Chamberlain’s ceased.[375] A sudden rise in the amount of Henslowe’s takings, and the absence from the rest of the list of the four plays named above and of any other attributable to the Chamberlain’s repertory, are alike strongly in favour of this view, which may be treated as a practical certainty. Henceforward the fortunes of the company seem to have followed a smooth course for the space of three years. Their proceedings may be briefly summed up as follows. They played for thirty-nine consecutive weeks from 15 June 1594 to 14 March 1595, appearing at Court during this season on 28 December, 1 January, and 6 January. After a break of thirty-seven days during Lent, opportunity of which was taken to repair the Rose, they played again for ten weeks from Easter Monday, 21 April, to 26 June 1595. Then came a vacation of fifty-nine days, with visits to Bath and Maidstone. They began again in London on 25 August 1595 and played for twenty-seven weeks to 28 February 1596, giving Court performances on 1 January, 4 January, and 22 and 24 February. This took them to the end of the first week in Lent. After forty-three days’ interval, they played for fifteen weeks, from Easter Monday, 12 April, to 23 July 1596. Their summer vacation lasted for ninety-five days, and they are noted during 1595–6 at Coventry, Bath, Gloucester, and Dunwich. In the autumn they started playing on 27 October, but the receipts were low, and if the record is complete, they suspended performances between 15 and 25 November, and then went on to 12 February 1597, making up a season of about fourteen weeks in all. They do not seem to have played at Court at all this winter. This year they rather disregarded Lent, stopping for eighteen days only, during a reconstruction of the company, and then playing three days a week until Easter, and then regularly until the end of July, in all twenty-one weeks. To certain irregularities at the close of this season it will be necessary to refer later. During the three years, then, there were three winter and three summer seasons of London playing, covering about a hundred and twenty-six weeks. Except in Lent or at the beginning or end of a season, or occasionally, probably for climatic reasons, at other times, especially in December, plays were given upon every week-day. It emerges from Dr. Greg’s re-ordering of Henslowe’s very inaccurate dates that there were no plays on Sundays.[376] On the other hand, a summons to play at Court in the evening did not necessarily entail a blank day in the afternoon. The total number of performances during the three years was seven hundred and twenty-eight. It is reasonable to assume that Henslowe’s takings varied roughly with those of the company, although the reserve must be made that different plays might prove the most attractive to the galleries and to the yard respectively. The amounts entered range from a minimum of 3s. to a maximum of 73s. Dr. Greg calculates the average over ‘certain typical periods of 1595’ as 30s.;[377] during the first half of 1597 it was 24s. The fluctuations are determined, partly by the popularity or novelty of the plays presented, partly by the season of the year, and doubtless the weather and the competition of other amusements. There were generally some high receipts during Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun weeks. Unfortunately there is no means of estimating the proportion which Henslowe’s share bore to that which fell for division among the players. Some light is thrown upon the expenses by the subsidiary accounts of advances, which Henslowe began to keep from time to time in 1596. In May of that year he lent Alleyn ‘for the company’ a total amount of £39 in several instalments, and recovered it by small sums of £1 to £3 at a time during the next three months.[378] A longer account extending from October 1596 to March 1597 reaches, with the aid of a miscalculation, a total of £52. Of this £22 was repaid during the same period, chiefly by deductions from the profits of first nights, and an acknowledgement given for the balance of £30.[379] The advances were made through various members of the company, and the purposes specified include apparel for three new plays, travelling expenses, and fees to playwrights. A third account, if I am right in the interpretation of some very disputable figures, shows an expenditure at the average rate of 31s. a day during the six months from 24 January to 28 July 1597, of which, however, nearly half was in fact incurred during the first twenty-four days of the period. In this case only the sums and not the purposes for which they were advanced are entered.[380]

During the three years the Admiral’s men produced new plays to the total number of fifty-five, and at the average rate of one a fortnight. The productions were not at regular intervals, and often followed each other in successive weeks. There is, however, no example of two new productions in the same week.[381] These are the names and dates of the new plays:

• Belin Dun (10 June 1594).
• Galiaso (28 June 1594).
• Philipo and Hippolito (9 July 1594).
• 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne (19 July 1594).
• The Merchant of Emden (30 July 1594).
• Tasso’s Melancholy (13 Aug. 1594).
• The Venetian Comedy (27 Aug. 1594).
• Palamon and Arcite (18 Sept. 1594).
• The Love of an English Lady (26 Sept. 1594).
• A Knack to Know an Honest Man (23 Oct. 1594).
• 1 Caesar and Pompey (8 Nov. 1594).
• Diocletian (16 Nov. 1594).
• The Wise Man of West Chester (3 Dec. 1594).
• The Set at Maw (15 Dec. 1594).
• The French Comedy (11 Feb. 1595).
• The Mack (21 Feb. 1595).
• Olympo (5 Mar. 1595).[382]
• 1 Hercules (7 May 1595).
• 2 Hercules (23 May 1595).
• 1 The Seven Days of the Week (3 June 1595).
• 2 Caesar and Pompey (18 June 1595).
• Longshanks (29 Aug. 1595).
• Crack me this Nut (5 Sept. 1595).
• The New World’s Tragedy (17 Sept. 1595).
• The Disguises (2 Oct. 1595).
• The Wonder of a Woman (16 Oct. 1595).
• Barnardo and Fiammetta (30 Oct. 1595).
• A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies (14 Nov. 1595).
• Henry V (28 Nov. 1595).
• Chinon of England (3 Jan. 1596).
• Pythagoras (16 Jan. 1596).
• 2 The Seven Days of the Week (23 Jan. 1596).
• The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (12 Feb. 1596).
• Julian the Apostate (29 Apr. 1596).
• 1 Tamar Cham (7 May 1596).
• Phocas (20 May 1596).
• 2 Tamar Cham (11 June 1596).
• Troy (25 June 1596).
• The Paradox (1 July 1596).
• The Tinker of Totnes (23 July 1596).
• Vortigern, Valteger, or Hengist (4 Dec. 1596).
• Stukeley (10 Dec. 1596).
• Nebuchadnezzar (18 Dec. 1596).
• That Will Be Shall Be (30 Dec. 1596).
• Jeronimo (7 Jan. 1597).
• Alexander and Lodowick (14 Jan. 1597).[383]
• Woman Hard to Please (27 Jan. 1597).
• Guido (21 Mar. 1597).
• Five Plays in One (7 Apr. 1597).
• A French Comedy (18 Apr. 1597).
• Uther Pendragon (29 Apr. 1597).
• The Comedy of Humours (11 May 1597).
• The Life and Death of Henry I (26 May 1597).
• Frederick and Basilea (3 June 1597).
• The Life and Death of Martin Swart (30 June 1597).

Oblivion has overtaken the great majority of these plays. Longshanks is possibly Peele’s Edward I, and Jeronimo certainly Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. The title of The Wise Man of West Chester agrees with the subject of Munday’s John a Kent and John a Cumber, the manuscript of which is dated December 1595. One would be more willing to identify Henry V with The Famous Victories, if the latter had not been printed in 1598 with the name of the Queen’s men on its title-page. A Knack to Know an Honest Man was printed, as acted ‘about the Citie of London’, but without any company name, in 1596 (S. R. 26 November 1595). Stukeley was also printed without a name, as The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley, in 1605 (S. R. 11 August 1600). 1 Tamar Cham and Frederick and Basilea are extant in ‘plots’ alone, and Belin Dun, or Bellendon, as Henslowe writes it, was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 24 November 1595 as The true tragicall historie of Kinge Rufus the first with the life and deathe of Belyn Dun the first thief that ever was hanged in England, but is not known to be extant. The list also contains two of the early works of George Chapman, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1598, Admiral’s, S. R. 15 August 1598), and The Comedy of Humours, which can be safely identified with A Humorous Day’s Mirth (1599, Admiral’s). Ingenious attempts have been made to trace in some of the remaining titles other plays by Chapman, or by Heywood, Dekker, and the like, or presumed early drafts of these, or the English originals of plays or titles preserved in German versions; but in most cases the material available is so scanty as to render the game a hazardous one.[384] It appears, however, from Henslowe’s notes of advances during 1596–7 that payment was made to Heywood for a book, from which it may be inferred that his activity as a dramatist for the company had already began. Payments to ‘marcum’ and ‘Mr. porter’ perhaps indicate the same of Gervase Markham and Henry Porter.[385]

It is evident that some of the plays marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe cannot have been new in the fullest sense. This applies to Jeronimo, which had been played by Strange’s men as an old play during 1592–3, and to 2 Tamar Cham, which had been produced by the same company on 28 April 1592, and on that occasion also marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe. It applies also to Longshanks and Henry V, if these are really the same as Edward I and The Famous Victories. And it may, of course, apply also in other cases, which cannot now be distinguished. Two explanations are possible. One is that plays were treated as new, for the purpose of Henslowe’s entries, which were only new to the repertory of the particular company concerned, having been purchased by them or by Henslowe from the stock of some other company. There is, however, no indication that Henslowe received any special financial advantage from the production of a new play, such as would give point to such an arrangement. The other, and perhaps the most plausible, is that an old play was marked ‘ne’ if it had undergone any substantial process of revision before revival. But it must be admitted that the problem set is one that we have hardly the means to solve.

In addition to their new and revised plays, the Admiral’s had a considerable stock of old ones. Some of these they were playing, when they began their first season in June 1594. Several others were revived in the course of that season, and a few at later dates. The only new play of the repertory which reached the stage of revival during the three years was Belin Dun, which was originally produced on 10 June 1594, played to the end of the year, then dropped, and afterwards revived for a single performance on 11 July 1596, and for a series in the spring of 1597. But it is not likely that many new plays were written during the plague years, and probably most of the revived plays of 1594–5 were a good deal more than two or three years old. A list of the plays not marked ‘ne’ by Henslowe, nineteen in number, follows. It is, however, possible that some of them are only plays in the list already given, masquerading under different names.

• Cutlack.
• The Ranger’s Comedy.
• The Guise, or, The Massacre of Paris.
• The Jew of Malta.
• Mahomet.
• 1 Tamburlaine.
• Dr. Faustus.
• The Love of a Grecian Lady, or, The Grecian Comedy.[386]
• The French Doctor.
• Warlamchester.
• 2 Tamburlaine.
• The Siege of London.
• Antony and Valia.[387]
• 1 Long Meg of Westminster.[388]
• The Welshman.[389]
• 1 Fortunatus.
• Osric.
• Time’s Triumph and Fortune’s.
• The Witch of Islington.

Five plays of Marlowe’s are conspicuous in the list. Mahomet might be either Greene’s Alphonsus, King of Arragon or Peele’s lost Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek. Fortunatus, as revised by Dekker in 1599, is extant, but it is doubtful whether Dekker was writing early enough to have been the author of the original play. Conjectural identifications of some of the other titles have been attempted.[390] There is, perhaps, a natural inclination to eke out our meagre knowledge of the repertory of the earlier Admiral’s men, as it was constituted before 1590, by the assumption that the old and the revised new plays of 1594–7 belong to that stock. But this can only be proved to be so in the case of 1 and 2 Tamburlaine, where the title-page of the 1590 edition comes to our assistance. There is no trace between 1594 and 1597 of any of the other three plays, The Battle of Alcazar, The Wounds of Civil War, and Orlando Furioso, which there is independent evidence for connecting with the Admiral’s. And it must be borne in mind that there were several other sources from which a supply of old plays might be drawn. Alleyn seems to have bought up the books and properties of the pre-1590 men, and we do not know how far he also retained rights in some or all of the plays produced during his alliance with Strange’s. Moreover, there were plenty of opportunities for either Alleyn, Henslowe, or the Admiral’s men as a whole, to acquire copies from one or more of the companies, Pembroke’s, the Queen’s, Sussex’s, which went under in the plague years. Henry V, if identical with The Famous Victories, had certainly been a Queen’s play; The Ranger’s Comedy had been played for Henslowe by the Queen’s and Sussex’s in April 1594; Jeronimo and The Guise had been similarly played by Strange’s in 1592–3; and the fact that Strange’s, the Queen’s, Sussex’s, and the Admiral’s, all in turn played The Jew of Malta leads to a strong suspicion that it was Henslowe’s property and placed by him at the disposal of any company that might from time to time be occupying his theatre.

The Rose was what is now known as a ‘repertory’ house. A very successful play might be repeated on the night after its first production or revival, or in the course of the same week. But as a rule one performance a week was the limit, and after a play had been on the boards a few weeks, the intervals between its appearances rapidly became greater. The Wise Man of West Chester, which was presented thirty-two times between December 1594 and July 1597, had a longer life than any other new play during the three years. Next came A Knack to Know an Honest Man, with twenty-one performances in two years, 1 Seven Days of the Week, with twenty-one performances in fifteen months, and The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, with twenty-two performances in fourteen months. Belin Dun, although not continuously upon the stage for long together, achieved with the aid of its revival a total of twenty-four performances. The only other new plays, that outlived a year, were 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne and A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies. Even such highly successful plays as 1 and 2 Hercules ceased to be heard of after six months. The usual run of a play was anything from six to seventeen nights, but sixteen plays failed to obtain even such a run, and several plays, which apparently did well enough on the first night, were not repeated at all. As a rule the first night of a play brought Henslowe the highest returns; but this was by no means invariably the case, and the success of any play, which held the boards for as many as six nights, can perhaps best be measured by its average returns. By far the most fortunate was The Comedy of Humours which averaged 53s. for the eleven nights available before the summer season of 1597 closed. Next came 1 and 2 Hercules with 42s. and 43s. respectively, 1 Seven Days of the Week with 35s., and The Wise Man of West Chester with 34s. On the other hand the average of Henry I was no more than 19s. and that of the second French Comedy no more than 16s. The highest individual returns were those from the first nights of 1 and 2 Hercules, 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, and 1 Seven Days of the Week, which yielded 73s., 70s., 71s., and 70s. respectively, and that from the sixth night of the Comedy of Humours, which was also 70s. The booking for this play shows a curious progress, being 43s., 55s., 58s., 64s., 66s., 70s., for the first six nights. Similarly The Wise Man of West Chester, which began with a bad first night of 33s., rose to a good average, while 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, for all its start of 70s., ended with an average of only 28s. The worst first night taking was the 22s. of Nebuchadnezzar, and this affords another curious example of box-office fluctuations, for, though it achieved no higher average than 22s., it rose on its third night to 68s. The worst takings, on other than first nights, were 3s. for Chinon of England,[391] 4s. for Vortigern, and for Olympo, and 5s. twice over for A Woman Hard to Please. Probably these were due to weather or other accidents, as each play averaged enough to justify a reasonable run. The success of the old plays followed much the same lines as that of the new ones. They ran for anything from one night to twenty-four, this total being reached by Dr. Faustus. The best average returns were the 32s. and 38s. of 1 and 2 Tamburlaine, the 30s. of Mahomet, the 29s. of 1 Long Meg of Westminster, the 27s. of The Guise, and the 26s. of The Jew of Malta; the best individual returns the 72s. and 71s. yielded by the respective first nights of Dr. Faustus and 1 Tamburlaine. The persistent popularity of Marlowe’s work comes out quite clearly from the statistics; and the success of Chapman’s first attempts is also not to be overlooked.

The personnel of the Admiral’s men during 1594–7 can be determined with some approach to certainty. They were Edward Alleyn, John Singer, Richard Jones, Thomas Towne, Martin Slater, Edward Juby, Thomas Downton, and James Donstone. Their names are found in a list written in the diary, without any explanation of its object, amongst memoranda of 1594–6.[392] There can be little doubt that it represents the principal members of the company, and in most cases corroborative evidence is available. The books of the Treasurer of the Chamber indicate Alleyn, Jones, and Singer as payees for the Court money of 1594–5, and Alleyn and Slater for that of 1595–6. Alleyn, Slater, Donstone, and Juby are noted in Henslowe’s subsidiary accounts for 1596 as responsible for advances made by him on behalf of the company.[393] Another advance was made to Stephen the tireman, and he is doubtless the Stephen Magett who also appears in personal financial relations with Henslowe during 1596.[394] Transactions by way of loan, sale, or pawn are also noted by Henslowe during 1594–7 with Slater, Jones, Donstone, Singer, and Towne, and also with Edward Dutton and Richard Alleyn.[395] These latter were probably not sharers in the company, but can be traced with others amongst its subordinate members by means of the ‘plot’ of Frederick and Basilea, which it is reasonable to connect with the performances of the play in June and July 1597, since it was a new play on 3 June, and it is recorded in the diary that Martin Slater, who figures in the ‘plot’, left the company on 18 July. It is to be inferred from the plot that the principal parts in Frederick and Basilea were taken by Mr. Alleyn, Mr. Thomas Towne, Mr. Martin [Slater], Mr. Juby, Mr. Donstone, and R. Alleyn; that minor male parts were taken by Edward Dutton, Thomas Hunt, Robert Ledbetter, Black Dick, Pigge, Sam, Charles, and the ‘gatherers’ or money-takers and other ‘attendants’; and that female parts were taken by Edward Dutton’s boy Dick and two other boys known as Will and Griffen. Apparently the play, although not employing all the principal actors, made considerable demands on the minor staff. Dr. Greg may be right in identifying Sam and Charles with the Samuel Rowley and Charles Massey who became members of the company at a later date.[396] It will be seen that the only name in Henslowe’s undated list which cannot be verified as that of a member of the company during 1594–7 is that of Thomas Downton; but it may safely be accepted. Downton had accompanied Alleyn on the provincial tour with Strange’s men in 1593. So had Pigge or Pyk. Jones and Donstone, who is the same as Tunstall, had belonged to Worcester’s men in 1583, and probably to the Admiral’s men before 1590; Jones had been abroad, as we have seen, during the plague years. John Singer had been a member of the Queen’s men in 1588. The other names now come into the story for the first time. Henslowe’s advances for 1596 included sums ‘to feache Fletcher’ and ‘to feache Browne’.[397] It can only be matter of conjecture whether there is evidence here of negotiations for the incorporation in the company of Robert Browne and of Laurence Fletcher, at a later date a colleague of Slater’s, and if so, whether they led to any fruitful result.

The departure of Martin Slater on 18 July 1597 was only one of several changes which profoundly modified the composition of the company in the course of that year.[398] In February Richard Jones and Thomas Downton went to the Swan as Pembroke’s men, and the disturbance thereby caused probably accounts for the three weeks’ cessation of playing during Lent. The Swan enterprise was brought to a disastrous conclusion after five months by the production of The Isle of Dogs, which not only brought personal trouble on the chief offenders, but also led to a restraint of plays at all the theatres. This event synchronizes with the first appearance in the diary of Nashe’s collaborator in The Isle of Dogs, Ben Jonson. On 28 July Henslowe lent him no less a sum than £4, and took Alleyn and Singer as witnesses. On the same day he opened an account headed ‘℞ of Bengemenes Johnsones share as ffoloweth’ with a first instalment of 3s. 9d.[399] On this very day of 28 July the Privy Council’s inhibition fell, and Jonson went to prison and paid no more instalments. It is impossible to say whether his ‘share’ was in the Admiral’s company or in Pembroke’s. In any event, although he continued to write for the Admiral’s men after 1597, there is no further sign that he was either a ‘sharer’, or indeed an actor in any capacity.

One result of the restraint was that Jones and Downton not merely returned to the Rose, but brought at least three other of Pembroke’s men, Robert Shaw, Gabriel Spencer, and William Bird, known also by the alias of Borne, with them. Henslowe was thus enabled, almost immediately after playing stopped, to set about the reconstitution of his company, and the memoranda of agreement which he noted in his diary during the next fourteen months are so interesting for the light which they throw upon his relations with the actors, that I think it well, before discussing them, to transcribe them in full. There are in all eleven of them, as follows:[400]

i. (Thomas Hearne)