ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS
ARE FOUNDED.
Until April 1564.
On 26th April 1564 was baptized William, son of
John Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon and Mary
Arden, at that time an only child, two girls born
previously having died in their infancy. John
Shakespeare was son of Richard Shakespeare of
Snitterfield, where his brother Henry also resided:
he was a glover, who speculated in wool, corn, &c.
He lived in Henley Street, Stratford, as early as
29th April 1552, having left his father about 1550,
and in October 1556 purchased two small estates
in that town—one that is now shown as the birthplace,
the other in Greenhill Street. In 1557 he
married Mary Arden, whose father, Robert, a yeoman,
had contracted a second marriage with Agnes
Hill, widow, and in the settlement then made had
reserved to Mary the reversion to estates at Wilmecote
and Snitterfield. Some part of this land was
occupied by Richard Shakespeare's grandfather.
Mary Arden also received under her father's will,
dated 24th November 1556, a considerable sum in
money, and the fee-simple of Asbies at Wilmecote,
a house with sixty acres of land. In 1557
John was a burgess, a member of the corporation,
and by choice of the Court Leet ale-taster to the
borough, sworn to look to the assize and goodness
of bread, ale, or beer. In September 1558
he was one of the four constables under the rules
of the Court Leet. On 6th October 1559 he
was again chosen constable and one of the four
affeerors for determining fines under the borough
bye-laws. In 1561 he was again chosen affeeror,
and one of the borough chamberlains, which office
he held till the end of 1563.
1564.
In July the plague broke out in Stratford, and
continued to December. There died 238 in that
half-year, no Shakespeares among them. John
Shakespeare had had an early lesson in sanitation
by way of a fine of 12d. in April 1552 for
having a muck heap in front of his door in Henley
Street, within a stone's-throw of one of the public
stores of filth. He now contributed fairly to
relieve the poor and plague-stricken; about 12d.
per month.
1565.
In March John Shakespeare with his former
colleague made up the chamberlain's accounts from
September 1563 to 1564. Neither of them could
sign their names.
1566.
In February he again made up these accounts,
and was paid £3, 2s. 7d. "for a rest of old debt"
by the corporation. On 13th October his son Gilbert
was baptized.
1567.
In September, Ralph Perrot, brewer, John Shakespeare,
and Ralph Cawdrey, butcher, were nominated
for the office of High Bailiff or Mayor.
Cawdrey was elected. For the first time the
name appears as "Mr." John Shakespeare.
1568.
On 4th September "Mr. John Shakysper" was
chosen High Bailiff. He was succeeded the next
year by Robert Salisbury.
1569.
On 15th April John Shakespeare's third daughter
(named Joan after her deceased elder sister) was
baptized.
1571.
On 28th September John Shakespeare's fourth
daughter Anne was baptized. William was now
seven, then the usual age for the commencement of
grammar-school education, the use of the Absey
book and horn-book having been acquired at
home. Lily's Accidence and the Sententiæ Pueriles
were the usual text-books for beginners in Latin.
Shakespeare had some knowledge of Latin, and
a little French; all beyond this is very problematical.
1573.
On 11th March, Richard, John Shakespeare's third
son, was baptized.
1575.
John Shakespeare bought two houses in Stratford.
1578.
In January John Shakespeare paid only the
amount of borough taxes paid by other aldermen.
William was then fourteen, the usual age for commencing
apprenticeship. There is a tradition given
by Aubrey that he was apprenticed to a butcher.
I believe this to be a myth, originating in the epithet
"kill-cow," often applied to tragic actors. Some
writers still think that the tradition may be relied
on. Another story traced to the parish clerk of
1693 is that he followed his father's profession.
May be so; may not be.
1579.
In Easter Term Asbies was mortgaged to Edmund
Lambert for £40, to revert if repayment be made
before Michaelmas 1580.
On 4th July Anne Shakespeare was buried; in
the chamberlain's accounts occurs this item: "For
the bell and pall for Mr. Shaxper's daughter, 8d.,"
the highest fee in the list.
On 15th October John Shakespeare and his
wife convey their interest in Snitterfield to Robert
Webbe. Agnes Arden's will is dated in this
year.
1580.
On 3d May, Edmund, son of John Shakespeare,
was baptized.
On or before 29th September, the money in discharge
of the Asbies mortgage was tendered and
refused unless other moneys due were also paid.
1581.
On 19th January the goods of Agnes Arden,
deceased, were appraised.
On 1st September Richard Hathaway of Shottery
made his will.
1582.
On 28th November the marriage bond between
William Shagspere and Anne Hathway was
given, under condition that neither party had been
precontracted to another person, and that the said
William Shagspere should not proceed to solemnization
with the said Anne Hathway without
consent of her friends. They were to be
married with one asking of the banns. The
bondsmen were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,—the
seal is R.H., which may be Richard
Hathaway's.
1583.
On May 26th Susanna their daughter was
baptized. It is assumed that a precontract existed
between the parents which, according to the custom
of the time, "was not legally recognised, but
it invalidated a subsequent union of either of the
parties with any one else" (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 45).
The reader must form his own opinion. Taking
into consideration the low morality of the time in
such matters, the fact that Anne Hathaway was
twenty-six, and Shakespeare eighteen in 1582, the
practice still not unknown in rural districts of cohabitation
under conditional promise of marriage,
should the probable birth of a child make it necessary
or prudent, the fact that from 1587 to 1597
we have no evidence that Shakespeare even saw
his wife, and the palpable indications in the Sonnets
that during this interval he was intriguing with
another woman—for my own part I cannot help
adopting De Quincey's view that he was entrapped
into some such conditional promise by this lady
and kept his promise honourably. Compare on
the precontract question the plays of The Miseries
of Enforced Marriage by Wilkins, which is founded
on the contemporary history of the same Calverley
who is the murderer in The Yorkshire Tragedy,
with Shakespeare's own views in 1604 in Measure
for Measure; his opinions in Twelfth Night, ii. 4
(early part, c. 1592), and Midsummer Night's
Dream, i. 1, on wives that are older than their husbands:
and, by way of showing that his plays do
discover sometimes his personal feelings, Valentine's
resignation of Silvia in The Two Gentlemen
of Verona, with the story involved in the Sonnets
of Shakespeare's own transfer of his illicit love.
1585.
February 2. Hamnet and Judith, Shakspeare's
twin children, were baptized at Stratford-on-Avon.
By April 26th he had certainly attained his majority,
and his apprenticeship had probably expired.
1585-7.
Three or four years after his union with Anne
Hathaway, he had, says Rowe, "by a misfortune
common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill
company, and, amongst them, some, that made a
frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him
with them more than once in robbing a park, that
belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near
Stratford; for this he was prosecuted by that
gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely,
and in order to revenge that ill usage made a
ballad upon him, and though this, probably the
first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to
have been so very bitter that it redoubled the
prosecution against him to that degree that he
was obliged to leave his business and family in
Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in
London." Whether this tradition be well founded
or no, we are compelled by subsequent events to
place the date of Shakespeare's leaving Stratford
in or about 1587; and whether there be any truth
in the story traced to Davenant or not, that he
held horses at the play-house door, while their
owners were witnessing performances inside, it is
certain that he was very soon connected with the
stage, first as actor, then as dramatic writer. It
becomes therefore of importance to ascertain if
possible the specific company with which he originally
joined.
In the latter part of 1585 there were two regular
theatres existing in London, the Theater and the
Curtain. It clearly appears from a report by
Recorder Fleetwood preserved in the Lansdown
MSS. that at Whitsuntide 1584 these were
occupied by the Queen's players and those of
Lord Arundel. It is not clear that a third company,
that of Lord Hunsdon, acted at the Theater:
although Mr. J. O. H. Phillipps (whom I most
usually refer to under his former and better known
name of Halliwell) assures us that it is so. It
is true that the "owner of the Theater," whom
he takes to be a temporary occupier of that
building, but whom I regard as the ground landlord,
Giles Alleyn, is called a servant of Lord Hunsdon's,
and that a company of actors, called Lord
Hunsdon's men, acted at Court 27th December
1582; but it does not follow that these men were
occupiers of the Theater. In fact the only companies
anyhow known to us as in London in 1585
are the two already mentioned. It is by no means
likely à priori, nor would it agree with the passages
hereafter to be referred to in the writings of Greene
and Nash, that Shakespeare should immediately on
his appearance in London obtain employment in
either. But there was a third company not
noticed in Collier's Annals of the Stage, into which
he may easily have obtained admittance. When
the Queen's company was formed in 8th March
1582-3, by the selection of twelve players from the
companies of the two Dudleys, Earls of Leicester
and Warwick, there must have been sufficient men
left unemployed to form another company. These
were probably still retained by the Earl of Leicester:
for in a letter from Sir Philip Sidney, dated
Utrecht, 24th March 1575-6, mention is made of
"Will, the Earl of Leicester's jesting player,"
who had gone with the Earl to the Netherlands
in December 1575. Thomas Heywood, in his
Apology for Actors, 1612, tells us that "The
King of Denmark, father to him that now reigneth,
entertained into his service a company of English
comedians, commended unto him by the honourable
Earl of Leicester." This King of Denmark,
Frederick II., died in 1588, and the exact date
of the transaction is fixed by documents dated
October 1586, in which we find that five of these
actors had been transferred from the service of
Frederick II. of Denmark to that of Christian I.,
Duke of Saxony. I am far from wishing to adopt
the conjecture of Mr. Bruce that "jesting Will"
was Shakespeare; but when among the names of
these five actors—Thomas King, Thomas Stephen,
George Bryan, Thomas Pope, Robert Persie—we
find two, Pope and Bryan, that are identical with
those of two actors in the very first list extant
of the first company with which we can positively
connect Shakespeare as an actor; when we find
this same company acting at Stratford in 1587,
at the very time that Shakespeare's disappearance
from all known connection with that town for nine
years commences; when we find among a list of
plays that had been acted by the English in
Germany Hester and Ahasuerus, Titus Andronicus
[and Vespasian], both of which we shall trace to
Shakespeare's company; when we also find a
version of the Corambis Hamlet existing early in
the same country—then I think we are justified in
saying that there is great likelihood of this company
having been the one in which Shakespeare
found his first employment. If so, he accompanied
it in all its fortunes, and never (as we shall see)
forsook it for another.
1586.
Meanwhile in London the plague had prevailed
to such an extent that the theatres were shut up
during 1586. It was not then during this year
that Shakespeare held horses at stage-doors, or
obtained employment in London theatres. But at
the end of the year Lord Leicester's players returned
to England, and in January 1586-87 are
mentioned together with the Queen's, the Admiral's,
and the Earl of Oxford's, in a letter to Walsingham
from a spy of his, which is preserved in the Harleian
MSS.
1587.
This same company, the Earl of Leicester's men,
visited Stratford-on-Avon in 1587. I have not
been able to trace their previous presence there
since 1576, although other companies paid frequent
visits to this town. It is singular that in this year,
the only one in which this company visited Stratford
during the twelve years intervening between
the birth and death of Hamnet Shakespeare, we
find also the only record of the poet's presence in
the place of his nativity. I give this in the words
of Mr. Halliwell. "In 1578 his parents had
borrowed the sum of £40 on the security of his
mother's estate of Asbies, from their connexion,
Edmund Lambert of Barton-on-the-Heath. The
loan remaining unpaid, and the mortgage dying in
March 1587, his son and heir John was naturally
desirous of having the matter settled. John Shakespeare
being at that time in prison for debt, and
obviously unable to furnish the money, it was
arranged shortly afterwards that Lambert should,
on cancelling the mortgage and paying also the sum
of £20, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute
title to the estate. His offer would perhaps not
have been made had it not been ascertained that
the eldest son William had a contingent interest,
derived no doubt from a settlement, and that his
assent was essential to the security of a conveyance.
The proposed arrangement was not completed,
but" the poet's sanction to it is recorded.
I believe that immediately after this, in 1587,
Shakespeare left Stratford either with or in order
to join Lord Leicester's company.
1588.
The Earl of Leicester died on 4th September
1588. Previously to this date the company of
players acting under his patronage had played in
London, probably at the Cross-Keys in Bishopsgate
Street, and more frequently had travelled in the
country. At the death of Dudley, they had of
course to seek for a new patron, and no doubt
found one in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, whose company
(containing as we shall see some of the actors
already known as Leicester's men) are first traceable
in 1589. An earlier company bearing the title
of Lord Strange's men, c. 1582, seem to have been
merely acrobats or posture-mongers. But before
entering on the history of this company under its
new name, of which we know Shakespeare to have
been a member, we must note some particulars regarding
other dramatists, especially Marlowe, Greene,
and Nash, which indirectly concern Shakespeare, and
have hitherto been wrongly interpreted.
In 1587, when the Admiral's men re-opened
after the plague, they produced, in what succession
we need not here determine, Greene's Orlando and
Alphonsus of Arragon, Peele's Battle of Alcazar,
and Marlowe's Tamberlaine. Those plays are enumerated
in Peele's Farewell, 1589, as—
"Mahomet's pow, and mighty Tamberlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest."
"Mahomet's pow" is the head of Mahomet in Alphonsus;
King Charlemagne was probably a character in
the complete play of Orlando, of which only a mutilated
copy has come down to us; Tom Stukeley
is the hero of The Battle of Alcazar; and "the rest"
most likely indicate Lodge's Marius and Sylla and
Marlowe's Faustus. Greene and Peele wrote no
more for this company, but in 1587 removed to the
Queen's men, who had been travelling in the country.
On 29th March 1588 Greene's Perimedes the
Blacksmith was entered on the Stationers' Registers.
In the introduction Greene attacks Marlowe and
Lodge, who had remained with the Admiral's men,
in a passage worth quoting: "I keep my old course
still to palter up something in prose, using mine
old posy still, omne tulit punctum; although lately
two gentlemen poets made two madmen of Rome
beat it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in
derision, for that I could not make my verses jet
upon the stage in tragical buskins, every word filling
the mouth like the fa-burden of Bow-bell, daring
God out of heaven with that atheist Tamberlaine or
blaspheming with the mad priest of the sun. But
let me rather openly pocket up the ass at Diogenes'
hand than wantonly set out such impious instances
of intolerable poetry. Such mad and scoffing poets
that have poetical spirits as bred of Merlin's race,
if there be any in England that set the end of
scholarism in an English blank verse, I think
either it is the humour of a novice that tickles
them with self-love, or too much frequenting the
hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat
out all the greatest part of their wits." For the
fuller understanding of this satire it may be noted
that no "priest of the sun" is known in an early
play except in The Looking-glass for London and
England by Lodge and Greene, which is certainly
of later date than Perimedes, yet may indicate
Lodge's liking for that character; that Diogenes is
the name assumed by Lodge in his Catharos, 1591,
and that Marlowe's name was written Merlin as
often as Marlowe. There can be no doubt as to
the persons aimed at, nor of the effect of the satire,
for both of them left off writing for the Admiral's
men; and Marlowe during the next two years produced
The Jew of Malta, which can be traced to the
Queen's company, and together with Greene, Lodge,
and Peele produced the plays of The Troublesome
Reign of King John, and The First Part of York
and Lancaster on which 2 Henry VI. is founded.
The internal evidence for the authorship of these
last-mentioned plays is very strong: they were,
however, published anonymously.
1589.
Before the entry of Greene's Menaphon on the
Stationers' Registers on 23d August 1589, Hamlet
and The Taming of a Shrew must have been represented
by Pembroke's men, and Marlowe must have
left the Queen's company. As Menaphon is accessible
in Professor Arber's reprint to the general
reader, it will be sufficient to refer to it here without
quoting passages in full. That Greene refers
so satirically to Marlowe as to prevent our supposing
that at this date they could be writing jointly for
the same theatre, is clear from a hitherto unnoticed
passage in p. 54: "Whosoever descanted of that
love told you a Canterbury tale; some prophetical
fullmouth, that, as he were a Cobler's eldest son,
would by the last tell where another's shoe wrings."
Marlowe or Merlin was a shoemaker's son of Canterbury.
That Doron in the story is meant for the
author of The Taming of a Shrew was shown by Mr.
R. Simpson by comparing Doron's speech in p. 74:
"White as the hairs that grow on Father Boreas'
chin," and the passage in Nash's introduction, p. 5,
about mechanical mates, servile imitators of vain-glorious
tragedians, who think themselves "more
than initiated in poet's immortality if they but once
get Boreas by the beard," with the words of the
play itself: "whiter than icy hair that grows on
Boreas' chin." Mr. Simpson was, however, entirely
wrong in identifying Doron with Shakespeare, and
did not notice that Doron's entire speech parodies
one of Menaphon's in p. 31, just as The Taming of
a Shrew parodies Marlowe's plays, or "the mechanical
mates" alluded to by Nash imitate the
"idiot art-masters" in the "swelling bombast of
a bragging blank verse," or the "spacious volubility
of a drumming decasyllabon." The name
Menaphon is taken from Marlowe's Tamberlaine. In
these passages Greene and Nash satirise Kyd, then
writing for Pembroke's company. In another paragraph,
p. 9, Nash speaks of "a sort of shifting
companions" that "leave the trade of Noverint
whereto they were born," who get their aphorisms
from translations of Seneca and can "afford you
whole Hamlets of tragical speeches." This passage
is familiar to all students of Shakespeare; and yet
no one has, I think, pointed out that Nash identifies
these "famished followers" of Seneca with the
"Kidde in Æsop, who, enamoured with the Fox's
newfangles, forsook all hopes of life to leap into a
new occupation." This pun in a tractate containing
similar allusions to the names Greene, Lyly, and
Merlin is equivalent to a direct attribution of the
authorship of Hamlet as produced in 1589 to Kyd,
and is also a refutation of those who have seen
in the whole passage an allusion to Shakespeare.
Very shortly after Greene's Menaphon Nash
issued his Anatomy of Absurdities, which had been
entered on the Stationers' Registers 19th September
1588, and which contains much of the same
satirical matter as his address in Menaphon.
We have now to pass from the private quarrel
of Greene and Nash, as representing the Queen's
men at the Theater, with Marlowe and Kyd, the
writers for Pembroke's company, to a much more
important controversy in which many of the same
dramatists were concerned. Between October 1588
and October 1589 the Martinists published their
Puritan controversial tracts; in opposition to them
various writings had appeared, whose authors were
Cooper, formerly schoolmaster, afterwards Bishop;
Lyly the Euphuist; Nash the satirist; and Elderton
"the bibbing fool" ballad-maker. They had also
been ridiculed on the stage, in April 1589, at the
Theater, most likely by Greene; at the Paul's school
probably by Lyly; and either in ballad or interlude
by Antony Munday, even at that early date a
dramatic writer. As the anti-Martinist plays were
on the side of the clergy and of secular authority
they were not interfered with. But in November
1589, in consequence of certain players in London
handling "matters of Divinity and State without
judgment or decorum"—in other words, having
the impertinence to suppose that there could be two
sides to a question, Mr. Tylney, the Master of the
Revels, suddenly becomes awake to the danger of
allowing such discussions on public stages, and writes
to Lord Burleigh that he "utterly mislikes all plays
within the city." Lord Burleigh sends a letter
to the Lord Mayor to "stay" them. The Theater
and Curtain, where the Queen's men and Pembroke's
were playing, were without the city, so that the
anti-Martinist plays were not interfered with; the
Paul's boys were for the nonce not regarded as a
company of players: so that the Mayor could only
"hear of" the Admiral's men, who on admonishment
dutifully forbore playing, and Lord Strange's,
who departed contemptuously, "went to the Cross-Keys
and played that afternoon to the great
offence of the better sort, that knew they were
prohibited." The Mayor then "committed two
of the players to one of the compters." These
players, however, gained their end, for all plays
on either side of the controversy were forthwith
suppressed, and commissioners were appointed to
examine and licence all plays thenceforth "in and
about" the city played by any players "whose
servants soever they be."
It is pleasing to find Shakespeare's company
acting in so spirited a manner in defence of free
thought and free speech: it would be more pleasing
to be able to identity him personally as the chief
leader in movement. And this I believe he was.
The play of Love's Labour's Lost, in spite of great
alteration in 1597, is undoubtedly in the main the
earliest example left us of Shakespeare's work: and
the characters in the underplot agree so singularly
even in the play as we have it with the anti-Martinist
writers in their personal peculiarities that
I have little doubt that this play was the one
performed in November 1589. If the absence of
matter of State be objected, I reply that it would
be easy for malice to represent the loss of Love's
labour in the main plot as a satire on the love's
labour in vain of Alençon for Elizabeth. We must
also remember that it is most likely that for some
years at the beginning of his career Shakespeare
wrote in conjunction with other men, and that in
those plays that were revived by him at a later
date their work was replaced by his own. In
the case of the present play, as the revision was
for a Court performance, we may be sure that
great care would be taken to expunge all offensive
matter: the only ground for surprise is that enough
indications remain to enable us to identify the
characters at all.
1590.
Love's Labour's Lost would no doubt be closely
followed by Love's Labour's Won, which play I
for other reasons attribute to this year.
We must now again refer to Greene. His
Farewell to Folly had been entered on the Stationers'
Registers, 11th June 1587, but was not published till
after his Mourning Garment, the entry of which
dates 2d November 1590. In the introduction,
which was certainly written at the time of publication,
although the body of the work had been lying
by for some three years and more, Greene distinctly
alludes to Fair Em and accuses its author
of "simple abusing of Scripture," because "two
lovers on the stage arguing one another of unkindness,
his mistress runs over him with this canonical
sentence 'a man's conscience is a thousand witnesses';
and her knight again excuseth himself
with that saying of the Apostle, 'Love covereth the
multitude of sins.'" The exact words in the play
are "Love that covers multitude of sins" and
"thy conscience is a thousand witnesses." Greene,
says Mr. R. Simpson, who first drew attention to
this allusion to Fair Em in a paper unfortunately
spoiled by an absurd attempt to identify Mullidor,[4]
of "great head and little wit," with Shakespeare,
has parallel plots to those of Fair Em in his
Tully's Love (1589) and Never Too Late (before 2d
November 1590). To me the connexion seems
closer between this satire, by Greene the profligate
parson, based on Scriptural grounds, of a play
written for Lord Strange's company, and the persecution
they had just endured for venturing to
present a play in favour of the Martinists. And
as if to emphasise his intention in this direction,
Greene says in his Dedication of his tract, "I
cannot Martinize." That Fair Em was the production
of R. Wilson will I think be evident to
those who will read it with careful remembrance.
The Comedy of Errors was also probably acted
this year in its original form.
1591.
In this year were most likely produced two plays,
not in the shape in which they have come down
to us, but as originally written by Shakespeare and
some coadjutor, viz., The Two Gentlemen of Verona
and Romeo and Juliet. The question of the dates
of these and all other plays of Shakespeare will be
separately argued further on. It may be just worth
while to note that the "pleasant Willy" of Spenser,
who has been so carelessly identified with Shakespeare,
with Kemp, and with Tarleton (!) is certainly
Lyly. The line "doth rather choose to sit in idle
cell" (Tears of the Muses) identifies him with
"slumbering Euphues in his cell at Silexedra"
(Menaphon). Compare "Euphues' golden legacy
found after his death in his cell at Silexedra" (title
of Lodge's Rosalynde).
1591-2.
In the Christmas Records of this year, the
Queen's company made their final appearance at
Court on December 26th. Lord Strange's men
performed at Whitehall on December 27th, 28th,
January 1st, 9th, February 6th, 8th. The import
of this fact has not been fully appreciated. The
exceptionally large number of performances of Lord
Strange's men show a singular amount of Court
favour, and go far to prove that Elizabeth did
not sanction their persecution at the hands of
Burleigh two years before. They henceforth, under
various changes of name and constitution, until
the closing of the theatres in 1642, retain the chief
position in the performances at Court. This date,
1592, is in the history of this company of players,
and therefore in that of Shakespeare, their chief
poet and one of their best actors, of the very
greatest importance.
The old plays of King John, on which Shakespeare's
was founded, were published this year,
as having been acted by the Queen's company—an
additional indication of an important change in
their internal constitution.
1592.
This year was scarcely less eventful than the
preceding for the company to which Shakespeare
belonged. On 19th February Henslowe opened
the Rose theatre on Bankside for performances
by Lord Strange's men under the management of
the celebrated actor, Edward Alleyn. Whether
(and if at all, for how long) Alleyn had been
previously connected with the company, we are
not directly informed; but as he gave up playing
for Worcester's men, c. January 1588-9, the exact
time when the players of the late Earl of Leicester
found a new patron in Lord Strange, that is the
probable date of his joining them. This possession
of a settled place for performance gave his
company additional influence and status. At first
they played old plays, among which may be mentioned
Kyd's Jeronymo and Spanish Tragedy, Greene's
Orlando and Friar Bacon, Greene and Lodge's
Looking-glass, Marlowe's Jew of Malta, and Peele's
Battle of Alcazar. This last-named play, may, like
Greene's Orlando, have been originally sold to the
Queen's men, and to the Admiral's afterwards; but
whether this be so or not, we have the singular
fact to explain that four plays, three by Greene and
one by Marlowe, all belonging to the Queen's men, are
now found in action by Lord Strange's. Combining
this with their sudden disappearance from the Court
Revels, it would seem that some grave displeasure
had been excited against them, and that they had
become disorganised. In fact, although they, or
a part of them, lingered on in some vague connection
with Sussex' players, they now practically
disappear from theatrical history. Of new plays
Lord Strange's men produced on March 3d, Henry
VI., which is by the reference to it in Nash's Piers
Penniless (entered 8th August 1592) identified with
the play now known as The First Part of Henry VI.
It was acted fourteen times to crowded houses
(Nash says to 10,000 spectators), and was the
success of the season. I have no doubt that
this play was written by Marlowe, with the aid of
Peele, Lodge, and Greene, before 1590, and that the
episode of Talbot's death added in 1592 is from
the hand of Shakespeare himself. In this last
opinion it is especially pleasing to me to find
myself supported by the critical judgment of Mr.
Swinburne. On 11th April the play of Titus and
Vespasian was first acted. Had it not been for
the existence of a German version (given in full in
Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany) we should not
have been aware that this play was identical in
story with that known as Titus Andronicus. It is
unfortunately lost—a loss the more to be regretted
since it has led to the supposition of the extant
play having proceeded from the hand of Shakespeare.
On 10th June A Knack to Know a Knave
was performed for the first time. Mr. R. Simpson
without the slightest ground conjectured that this
was the play that Greene says he "lastly writ"
with "young Juvenal." The most successful new
plays in this season were Henry VI. and Titus and
Vespasian (performed seven times in two months);
of old plays the Spanish Tragedy (performed thirteen
times), The Battle of Alcazar (eleven performances),
and The Jew of Malta (ten performances).
On June 22 the last performance took place
before the closing of the theatres on account of the
plague.
On August 8 Piers Penniless was entered S. R.,
which contains Nash's reference to I Henry VI.
On September 3 Greene died.
On September 20 his Groatsworth of Wit was
entered in the Stationers' Registers. This pamphlet
was edited by Chettle, and contains the often quoted
address to Marlowe, "young Juvenal," and Peele.
In the portion where Greene speaks to all three of
them, he says: "Trust them not, for there is an
upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with
his Tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes
he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as
the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes
Factotum, is in his own conceit the only shake-scene
in our country." Mr. R. Simpson showed that
"beautified with our feathers" meant acting plays
written by us, but "bombast out a blank verse"
undoubtedly refers to Shakespeare as a writer also.
The line "O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide"
occurs in Richard Duke of York (commonly but
injudiciously referred to as The True Tragedy), a play
written for Pembroke's men, probably in 1590, on
which 3 Henry VI. was founded. It is almost
certainly by Marlowe, the best of the three whom
Greene addresses. In December Chettle issued his
Kindheart's Dream, in which he apologises for the
offence given to Marlowe in the Groatsworth of Wit,
"because myself have seen his demeanour no less
civil than he excellent in the quality he professes;
besides divers of worship have reported his
uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty,
and his facetious grace in writing, which approves
his art." To Peele he makes no apology, nor
indeed was any required. Shakespeare was not
one of those who took offence; they are expressly
stated to have been two of the three authors
addressed by Greene, the third (Lodge) not being
in England.
There were three plays performed at Hampton
Court this Christmas, on December 26, 31, January
1, by Lord Strange's men, in spite of the plague.
I think the latter part of 1592 the most likely
time for the writing of some scenes in All's Well
that Ends Well and Twelfth Night that show marks
of early date.
1593.
On January 5 Lord Strange's company, who had
reopened at the Rose, 29th December 1592, produced
a new play called The Jealous Comedy; this
I take to have been The Merry Wives of Windsor
in its earliest form.
On January 30 they produced Marlowe's Guise
or Massacre of Paris, which has reached us in an
unusually mutilated condition.
On February 1 they performed for the last time
this year in Southwark; the Rose as well as other
theatres being closed because of the plague.
On April 18 Venus and Adonis was entered by
Richard Field for publication. Shakespeare's choice
of a publisher was no doubt influenced by private
connection. R. Field was a son of Henry Field,
tanner, of Stratford-on-Avon, who died in 1592.
The inventory of his goods attached to his will had
been taken by Shakespeare's father on 21st August
in that year. Venus and Adonis was licensed by
the Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift) (at whose
palace near Croydon Nash's play, Summer's Last
Will, was performed in the autumn of 1592), and
was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of
Southampton. Shakespeare calls it "The first heir
of my invention," which may mean his first published
work; but more probably means the first production
in which he was sole author, his previous plays
having been written in conjunction with others;
and he vows "to take advantage of all idle hours
till I have honoured you with some graver labour."
He had probably then planned if not begun his
Rape of Lucrece.
On May 6 a precept was issued by the Lords of
the Privy Council authorising Lord Strange's players,
"Edward Allen, William Kempe, Thomas Pope, John
Heminges, Augustine Philipes, and George Brian" to
play "where the infection is not, so it be not within
seven miles of London or of the Court, that they
may be in the better readiness hereafter for her
Majesty's service." This list of names is by no
means a complete one of the company of players;
but probably does consist of all the shareholders
therein. Shakespeare was not a shareholder yet.
Alleyn is described as servant to the Admiral as
well as to Lord Strange. Accordingly they travelled
and acted in the country—in July at Bristol, afterwards
at Shrewsbury. Meanwhile on June 1 Marlowe
was killed, leaving unpublished his poem,
Hero and Leander, his play Dido, and in my opinion
other plays; of which more hereafter.
On 25th September Henry Earl of Derby died,
and Ferdinand Lord Strange succeeded to his
honours. His company of players are consequently
sometimes called the Earl of Derby's for the next
six months. There were no performances at Court
at Christmas on account of the plague.
1594.
On 23d January Titus Andronicus was acted as
a new play by Sussex' men at the Rose. This
company gave up playing there on 6th February.
On 26th February the Andronicus play was entered
on S. R. Langbaine, who professes to have seen
this edition, says it was acted by the players of
"Pembroke, Derby, and Essex." Essex is clearly
a mistake for Sussex, for in the 1600 edition the
companies are given as "Sussex, Pembroke, and
Derby." Halliwell's careless statement that Lord
Strange's players transferred their services to Lord
Hunsdon in 1594, has led me and others into grave
difficulty on this matter. The fact is that Lord
Derby's players became servants to the Chamberlain
between 16th April, when Lord Derby died, and 3d
June, when they played at Newington Butts under
the latter appellation. There was strictly no Lord
Strange's company after 25th September 1593, and
no other Derby's company till 1599. The old name
Strange, however, does sometimes occur instead of
Derby. Hence it seemed that the transfer to
Derby's company must have taken place in 1600.
Indeed so little was the fact known even in 1600,
that Shakespeare's company enjoyed the title of
Derby's men for six months, that although that
name is given on the first page, on the title the
same men reappear as the Lord Chamberlain's.
Why Pembroke's men should have acquired the
play on 6th February, and possibly parted with it by
the 26th, does not appear, nor is there any parallel
instance known: there must have been some great
changes in their constitution at this time. But in
any case Shakespeare did not write the play; Mr.
Halliwell's theory that he left Lord Strange's men,
who in 1593 enjoyed the highest position of any then
existing, and after having been a member successively
of two of the obscurest companies, returned
to his former position within a few months, is utterly
untenable. There is no vestige of evidence that
Shakespeare ever wrote for any company but one.
On 12th March York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI.)
was entered on S. R.
From 1st to 8th April Sussex' men and the
Queen's acted at the Rose, among other plays, the
old Leir (April 8), on which Shakespeare's Lear
was founded. Both these companies henceforth
vanish from stage history.
On April 16 Lord Derby died.
On May 2 The Taming of a Shrew was entered
on S. R.
On May 9 The Rape of Lucrece was entered.
The difference in tone between the dedication of this
poem to Lord Southampton and that of Venus and
Adonis distinctly points to a personal intercourse
having taken place in the interval. Hence the date
of Shakespeare's first interview with his patron may
be assigned as between April 1593 and May 1594.
On May 14 The Famous Victories of Henry V.
and Leir were entered on S. R.
On May 14 also the Admiral's company, of
which nothing is heard since 1591, began to act
at the Rose, having acted at Newington for three
days only. Alleyn, Henslow's son-in-law, had
left the management of Shakespeare's company
on the death of Lord Derby, and now joined the
Admiral's men.
Between[5] June 3 and June 13 the Chamberlain's
men played at Newington Butts alternately with
the Admiral's: among the Chamberlain's plays we
notice on June 3, 10, Hester and Ahasuerus, which
exists in a German version of which a translation
ought to be published; June 5, 12, Andronicus;
June 9, Hamlet; June 11, The Taming of a Shrew.
The intermediate days were occupied by the
Admiral's men: who on the 15th [17th] went to
the Rose, and the Chamberlain's men no doubt
to the Theater, the Burbadges' own house. The
Chamberlain's company at this date included
W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, J. Hemings, A.
Phillips, W. Kempe, T. Pope, G. Bryan, all of
whom, with the possible exception of Burbadge,
had been members of Lord Strange's company;
together with H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Cowley, N.
Tooley, J. Duke, R. Pallant, and T. Goodall, who
had previously been in all probability members
of the Queen's company. C. Beeston must have
joined them soon afterwards. The names of
Richard Hoope, William Ferney, William Blackway,
and Ralph Raye occur in Henslow's Diary
as Chamberlain's men c. January 1595. The
Queen's men came in on the reconstitution of that
company in 1591-2. See on this matter further
on under the head of The Seven Deadly Sins.
On June 19 the old play of Richard III. (with
Shore's wife in it) was entered on S. R., a pretty
sure indication, which tallies with other external
evidence, that the play attributed to Shakespeare
was produced about this time. No one can read the
four plays composing the Henry 6th series without
feeling that, however various their authorship, they
form a connected whole in general plan. Margaret
is the central figure, who hovers like a Greek
Chorus over the terrible Destiny that involves
King and people in its meshes. But Margaret is
not Shakespeare's creation; she is Marlowe's.
Shakespeare had no share in the plays on the
contention of York and Lancaster, and but a slight
one in 1 Henry VI. Marlowe had a chief hand in
1 Henry VI. and York and Lancaster; probably
wrote the whole of Richard Duke of York, and
laid, in my opinion, the foundation and erected
part of the building of Richard III. At his death
he seems to have left unacted or unpublished his
poem of Hero and Leander, finished afterwards by
Chapman; Dido, partly by Nash, and produced
(when?) by the Chapel children; Andronicus
acted (under Peele's auspices?) by the Sussex men,
and Richard III., completed by Shakespeare, and
acted by the Chamberlain's company as we have
it in the Quarto. All these plays were produced
or published in 1594. About the same time an
earlier play of Marlowe's, originally acted c. 1589,
was altered and revised by Shakespeare. The
date and authorship of the Shakespearian part of
Edward III., viz., from "Enter King Edward" in the
last scene of act i. to the end of act ii., are proved
by the allusion to the poem of Lucrece; the repetition
of lines from the Sonnets: "Their scarlet
ornaments," "Lilies that foster smell far worse
than weeds," and many smaller coincidences with
undoubted Shakespearian plays: while the original
date and authorship of the play as a whole will
appear from the following quotations. In the
Address prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, in a
passage in which Nash has been satirising Kyd
and another as void of scholarship and unable to
read Seneca in the original, he suddenly attacks
Marlowe, whom he has previously held up as the
object of their imitation, and asks what can they
have of him? in Nash's own words: "What can be
hoped of those that thrust Elysium into Hell, and
have not learned, so long as they have lived in the
spheres, the just measure of the Horizon without
an hexameter?" Marlowe in Faustus[6] has "confound
Hell in Elysium," and, in Edward III, horízon
is pronounced hórizon. This, however, might occur
in other plays; but in Greene's Never Too Late
we find Tully addressing the player Roscius, who
certainly represents R. Wilson, in these words:
"Why, Roscius, are thou proud with Æsop's crow,
being pranked with the glory of others' feathers?
Of thyself thou canst say nothing: and if the
Cobbler hath taught thee to say Ave Cæsar, disdain
not thy tutor because thou pratest in a King's
chamber." Unless another play can be produced
with "Ave Cæsar" in it, this must be held to allude
to Edward III., in which play Wilson must have
acted the Prince of Wales (act i. 1. 164). The
"cobbler" alludes to Marlowe as a shoemaker's
son.
On July 20, Locrine, an old play written, says
Mr. Simpson, by G. Tylney in 1586, but in which
Peele had certainly a principal hand, was entered on
S. R. It was issued as "newly set forth, overseen
and corrected by W. S." I see no reason to believe
that this was Shakespeare. Of course he had
no hand in writing the play; and in any case Peele
did not probably sanction the publication.
To this year we must assign the production of
the earliest of Shakespeare's Sonnets. That these
(or rather that portion of them which are continuous,
1-126) were addressed to Lord Southampton
was proved by Drake. The identity of
language between the Dedication of Lucrece and
Sonnet 26, the exact agreement of them with all we
know of the careers of Shakespeare and his patron
during the next four years, and the utter absence
of evidence of his connection with any other patron,
are conclusive on that point. They begin (1-17)
with entreaties to marry, which date about 6th
October 1594, when Southampton attained his
majority, and before he had met Elizabeth Vernon,
and end (117) in a time when "peace proclaiming
olives of endless age," after the treaty of Vervins,
2d May 1598: and before the Earl's marriage at
the end of that year. They involve a story of
some frail lady who had transferred her favours
to the young lord from the older player (40-42).
Far too much has been written on this matter from
a moral point of view. The fact remains, and all
we can say is: Remember these Sonnets were
written "among private friends," and not for
publication. The lady has not hitherto been identified,
but is, I think, identifiable. On September
3d was entered on S. R., Wyllobie his Avisa. Dr.
Ingleby has shown in his Shakespeare Allusion-books
that the W. S. in this poem is William Shakespeare,
and that Hadrian Dorrell, the reputed editor, is a
fictitious character. He has, however, missed the
key to this anonymity; viz., that the book was
known to be a personal satirical libel. P[eter]
C[olse], according to the author of Avisa, "misconstrued"
the poem; and so necessitated the
further figment in the 1605 edition that the
supposed author, A. Willobie, was dead; in this
edition the mythical H. D. says: "If you ask me
for the persons, I am altogether ignorant of them,
and have set them down only as I find them
named or disciphered in my author. For the
truth of this action, if you enquire, I will more fully
deliver my opinion hereafter." But independently
of this evidence from the book itself we find in
S. R. (Arber, iii. 678) that when the works of
Marston, Davies, &c., were burnt in the Hall, 4th
June 1599, other books were "stayed;" viz., Caltha
Poetarum, Hall's Satires, and "Willobie's Adviso
to be called in." This marks the book as of the
same character as its companions; viz., libellous,
calumnious, personally abusive. The characters
in the poems were evidently representations of real
living persons. The heroine of the poem is Avĭsa,
or Avīsa (sometimes written A vis A), that is,
Avice or Avice A. This name was not uncommon
(see Camden's Remaines, p. 93). She lived in
the west of England, "where Austin pitched his
monkish tent," in a house "where hangs the badge
of England's saint." The place is more fully
described thus:—
"At east of this a castle stands
By ancient shepherds built of old,
And lately was in shepherds' hands,
Though now by brothers bought and sold:
At west side springs a crystal well:
There doth this chaste Avisa dwell."
And again:—
"In sea-bred soil on Tempe downs,
Whose silver spring from Neptune's well
With mirth salutes the neighbouring towns."
These descriptions suit the vale of Evesham,
the castle being that of Bengworth and the well that
of Abberton. Austin's oak was traditionally placed
in this part by some, though others put it in
Gloucestershire. Avisa's parents are mentioned as
"of meanest trade." They were, I take it, inn-keepers,
and the inn had the sign of St. George.
The other characters are D. B., a Frenchman, with
motto Dudum Beatus; Didymus H., an Anglo-German,
with motto Dum Habui; H. W., Italo Hispalensis,
and W[illiam] S[hakespeare]. The story
is that Avisa, the chaste, who "makes up the
mess" of four with Lucrece, Susanna, and Penelope,
has been married at twenty, tempted by a Nobleman,
a Cavaliero, a Frenchman, an Anglo-German,
&c., without result, and is consequently England's
rara avis, who matches those of Greece, Palestine,
and Rome. The mottoes of the foreigners, however,
point to a different conclusion, and so does this
passage: "If any one, therefore, by this should
take occasion to surmise that the author meant to
note any woman, whose name sounds something like
that name, it is too childish and too absurd, and
not beseeming any deep judgment, considering
there are many things which cannot be applied to
any woman." In plain language, Mr. Dorrell believes
no woman to be chaste. H. W., at first sight of
Avisa, is infected with a fantastical fit, and bewrays
his disease to his familiar friend, W. S., who, not
long before, had tried the courtesy of the like passion,
and was now newly recovered [in 1594].
Having been laughed at himself he determined to
see whether it would sort to a happier end for the
new actor than it did for the old player. Doubtless
W. S. is Shakespeare, and Avisa is represented
ironically as a trader who had made a Frenchman
long happy (dudum beatus), been possessed by an
Anglo-German (dum habui), had then passed to
Shakespeare, and finally to H. W. Such was the
slanderous story published in 1594; how far true,
whether at all true, I care not to inquire; but that
it is the same story as that of the Sonnets, that
H. W. is Henry Wriothesley, and that the black
woman of the Sonnets is identical with Avisa, I
regard as indubitable. Of course the Thomas
Willoby, Frater Henrici Willoughby nuper defuncti,
of the 1605 edition is a mere device to blind the
licensers for the press. Similar devices have often
been used, but I know of none so impudently
charming as the "author's conclusion" as to the
man who is nuper defunctus. "H. W. was now
again stricken so dead that he hath not yet any
further essayed, nor I think ever will, and whether
he be alive or dead I know not, and therefore I
leave him."
On December 26th and 28th the Chamberlain's
servants performed before the Queen at Greenwich,
apparently in the daytime. Kempe, Shakespeare,
and Burbadge were paid for these performances on
the following March. It is singular that the performance
of "A comedy of Errors like unto Plautus
his Menœchmi" should have also been performed
apparently by the same company at Gray's Inn,
also on December 26th. This seems to be the first
mention of Shakespeare's play, the true title of
which is simply Errors: but whether it was written
in 1590 or 1593-4, there is no evidence that is
absolutely decisive. The allusion to France fighting
against her heir, v. ii. 2. 125, would be equally
applicable at any date from July 1589, when Henri
III. was killed, to February 1594, when Henri IV.
was consecrated.
1595.
That the date of Midsummer Night's Dream
should be fixed in the winter of 1594-5 was
long since seen by Malone, the allusions to the
remarkable weather of 1594 being too marked to
be put aside contemptuously. It has also been
attempted to assign other dates on account of the
play's being manifestly written for some marriage
solemnity. It is not needful to alter the date for
that reason. Either the marriage of W. Stanley,
Earl of Derby, at Greenwich, on 24th January,
1594-5, or that of Lord Russel, Earl of Bedford,
to Lucy Harrington (before 5th February, S. R.),
would suit very well in point of time. The former
is the more probable; because it took place at
Greenwich, where we know the Chamberlain's men
to have performed in the previous month, and because
these actors had mostly been servants to
the Earl of Derby's brother in the early part of
the previous year.
There is little, if any doubt, that Shakespeare
produced Richard II. and The Two Gentlemen of
Verona, as we now have it, in this year. A larum
for London, or The Siege of Antwerp, by (?) Lodge,
was acted about this time.
The play of Richard Duke of York was printed
in 1595 and on 1st December Edward III. was
entered on S. R.
The performances of the Chamberlain's men,
1594-5, at Court, were on December 26, 27, 28;
January 5; February 22. Payment was made to
Hemings and Bryan.
1596.
Early in this year the play of Sir T. More was
produced by the Chamberlain's company. The
name of T. Goodale, who was one of their actors,
occurs in the MS. It appears from the notes of
E. Tylney, then Master of the Revels, that much
revision had to be made in its form in consequence
of its reproducing, under a thin disguise, a narrative
of the Apprentice Riots of June 1595. The imprisonment
of the Earl of Hertford in October of
the same year was too closely paralleled by that
of Sir T. More in the play to be agreeable to the
Government. Another point objected to was satirical
allusion to Frenchmen. The date hitherto assigned
to this play is "1590 or earlier" (Dyce), which is
palpably wrong.
Soon after Shakespeare's King John was acted.
It contains, in my opinion, an allusion to the
expedition to Cadiz in June (i. 2. 66-75).
On July 23d Henry Carey died, and the
"Chamberlain's players" became the men of his
son, George Carey L. Hunsdon.
In the same month, or earlier, Romeo and Juliet
was revived in a greatly altered and improved form.
All work by the second hand was cut out and
replaced by Shakespeare's own writing. It was
not, however, acted at this date at the Curtain, but
at the Theater. Lodge's allusion in his Wit's
Miserv, 1596, to Hamlet, as acted in that house, is
inconsistent with any other supposition. On August
5 a ballad on Romeo and Juliet was entered on
S. R. This is taken by Mr. Halliwell as evidence
that the play was then on the stage. On August
27 ballads are also mentioned on Macdobeth and
The Taming of a Shrew. That on Macbeth could
not have been on the play as we now have it,
but that a play on this subject, perhaps an earlier
form of the extant one, was then acted, is very
probable.
On August 11 Hamnet Shakespeare was buried
at Stratford: his father undoubtedly was present.
This is the first visit to Stratford on his part since
1587 so far as any evidence exists.
Shakespeare returned to his lodgings "near the
Bear Garden" in Southwark (Alleyn MS. teste
Malone) before October 20, where a draft of a
grant of arms was made to John Shakespeare, no
doubt at his son's expense.
In November, a petition was presented by the
inhabitants of Blackfriars against the transformation
into a theatre of a large house bought by J. Burbadge
on the preceding February 4. The petition
was ineffectual.
Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, sometimes
called The Jew of Venice, is generally assigned
to this year. I prefer 1597.
On December 29, Henry Shakespeare, the poet's
uncle, was buried at Snitterfield; and his wife
Margaret on 9th February 1596-7.
The Court performances of Lord Hunsdon's men
at Whitehall were six in number, two at Christmas,
and others on 1st, 5th January; 6th, 8th February
1596-7.
1597.
Before March 5 a surreptitious edition of Romeo
and Juliet was published, but not entered on S. R.
This consists of an imperfect and abridged copy
of the revised play, with lacunæ filled up by
portions of the original version of 1591. See
hereafter in Section IV.
In Easter term, Shakespeare purchased New
Place, a mansion and grounds in Stratford, for £60.
This was freehold, and henceforth his designation
is, William Shakespeare of New Place, Stratford,
Gentleman. From this time, male heirs failing,
his ambition seems to be to found a family in one
of the female branches; and Stratford is to be
regarded as his residence.
Soon after 5th March, Lord Hunsdon was appointed
Chamberlain vice W. Brooke, Lord Cobham,
deceased, and Lord Hunsdon's men again became
the Lord Chamberlain's.
During this year and the next Shakespeare
undoubtedly produced 1 and 2 Henry IV. The
name given to the "fat knight" was originally Sir
John Oldcastle. This offended the Cobham family,
who were lineally descended from the great Sir
John Oldcastle, and through their influence the
Queen ordered the name to be altered. The new
name was that of Falstaff, unquestionably identical
with the Fastolfe of history. Shakespeare had
unwittingly adopted the name Oldcastle from the
old play of The Famous Victories of King Henry V.
Mr. Halliwell has pointed out that there must have
been another play in which a Sir John Oldcastle
was represented: he quotes Hey for Honesty, "The
rich rubies and incomparable carbuncles of Sir John
Oldcastle's nose;" and Howell's Letters, ii. 71, "Ale
is thought to be much adulterated, and nothing so
good as Sir John Oldcastle and Smug the Smith
was used to drink." I venture to add that this
last quotation fixes the other play. It was Drayton's
Merry Devil of Edmonton, in which Sir John
the priest of Enfield drinks ale with Smug the
Smith, and "carries fire in his face eternally." This
play was probably produced between 1 Henry IV.
and 2 Henry IV. The words "tickle your catastrophe"
in the latter are more likely to be an
allusion to the "gag" in the Merry Devil than conversely;
similar ridicule of this phrase is introduced
in Sir Giles Goosecap, which is certainly of later
date. It seems strange that Sir John Oldcastle
should have been used as the name of a priest;
but the play has been so greatly abridged (all the
part of the story in which Smug replaces St.
George as the sign of the inn, for instance, having
been cut out) that it would be mere guess-work to
try to restore its original form, and without such
restoration we cannot judge of the reasons for so
singular an impersonation. Of course it was
attempted to remove all trace of Oldcastle's name;
but just as the prefix Old. to one of the speeches
in Shakespeare's play bears evidence to Oldcastle
having been his original fat knight, so it is possible
that in a hitherto unexplained passage there
may be a trace of Oldcastle as Drayton's original
ale-drinking priest. In scene 9 the words italicised
in "My old Jenerts bank my horse, my castle" look
very like a corruption of a stage direction written
in margin of a proof thus—
—he is on the scene directly after, and his entrance
is nowhere marked.
T. Lodge, as well as Drayton, was writing about
this date for the Chamberlain's men.
On August 29 Richard II. was entered on
S. R., and on October 20 Richard III. These
were evidently printed from authentic copies, duly
authorised for publication.
About July 1597 the Theater, with regard to
extension of the lease of which James Burbadge
had been negotiating up to his death in the spring
of that year, was finally closed as a place of performance.
In October the Chamberlain's men no
doubt began to act at the Curtain, which Pembroke's
men left at that date to join the Admiral's company
at the Rose; some of them, however, probably
Cooke, Belt, Sinkler, and Holland, had already in
1594 joined the Chamberlain's, as we shall see.
About this date Mr. Halliwell says "Shakespeare's
company" were at Rye (in August), at Dover and
Bristol (in September), &c. Pembroke's company
were at these places, but he has given no proof
that the Chamberlain's were. The "Curtain-plaudities"
of Marston's Scourge of Villany, entered
S. R. 8th September 1598, would certainly seem to
show that they acted at the Curtain in 1598. This
does not, however, involve the inference that they
acted there in 1596, at which time they no doubt
performed at the Theater.
About this same time the play of Wily Beguiled
was acted, which contains distinct parodies of
speeches by Shylock and old Capulet, as well as of
other scenes in the Merchant of Venice, which must
have preceded it. It has been alleged by Steevens
and others that this play existed in 1596, but no
proof has been given of this assertion.
In November John Shakespeare filed a bill
against Lambert for the recovery of the Asbies
estate. There is no trace of his having proceeded
further with this litigation.
At Christmas the Chamberlain's men performed
four plays at Whitehall, one of which was Love's
Labour's Lost. The corrections and augmentations
of the play, as we have it, may be confidently ascribed
to the preparation for this performance.
1598.
On January 24 Abraham Sturley wrote to
Richard Quiney urging him to persuade Shakespeare
to make a purchase at Shottery, on the
ground that he would thus obtain friends and
advancement, and at the same time benefit the
Corporation.
On February 25 1 Henry IV. was entered on
S. R., and on July 22 The Merchant of Venice.
In this spring or in 1597 Much Ado about
Nothing was probably produced. It was probably
an alteration of Love's Labour's Won.
In September Jonson joined the Chamberlain's
men, and produced his Every Man in his Humour at
the Curtain. This was the Quarto version with
the Italian names. Aubrey has been subjected to
much unfounded abuse for asserting that Jonson
acted at the Curtain. The actors in this play were
Shakespeare, Burbadge, Phillips, Hemings, Condell,
Pope, Sly, Beeston, Kemp, and Duke. Shakespeare,
it will be noted, is first on the list.
On September 7 Meres' Palladis Tamia was
entered on S. R. Among the abundant and often-quoted
praises of Shakespeare in this work the most
important for biographical purposes are the enumeration
of his plays, the lists of tragic and comic
dramatists, and this passage, which I shall have to
refer to hereafter. "As the soul of Euphorbus
was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the great
witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued
Shakespeare. Witness his Venus and
Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared Sonnets among his
private friends," &c. A careful comparison of the
list of dramatists with that of known plays or
titles of plays that have come down to us shows
that the Palladis Tamia could not have been completed
for the press till June 1598, and an examination
of the list of Shakespeare's plays shows that
it consists of those then in the repertoire of the
Chamberlain's company, that is, of those either
newly written or revived between June 1594 and
June 1598. These plays are: Gentlemen of Verona;
Errors; Love's Labour's Lost; Love's Labour's Won;
Midsummer-Night's Dream; Merchant of Venice—comedies.
Richard II.; Richard III.; Henry IV.;
John; Titus Andronicus; Romeo and Juliet—tragedies.
It is clear that Richard III. and a play
on Andronicus, which I believe to be the one we
have, were attributed to Shakespeare at that time.
On 25th October Richard Quiney wrote from the
Bell in Carter Lane to his "loving good friend and
countryman Mr. William Shakespeare," who was,
according to the subsidy roll discovered by Mr. J.
Hunter, then living in the parish of St. Helen's,
Bishopsgate, asking for the loan of £30. On
the same day he wrote to his brother-in-law Mr.
Sturley at Stratford, that "our countryman Mr.
W. Shakespeare would procure us money." The
former letter was sent evidently by hand, an affirmative
answer obtained, and soon after instructions
given by Shakespeare for the procuring the money.
We could not otherwise account for the letter being
preserved among the documents of the Corporation.
The Famous Victories of Henry V. was reprinted
in 1598; as we so often find to be the case with
old plays on which other plays have been founded.
The complaint about the name Oldcastle no doubt
was a special motive for reproducing the old play
in this instance.
There were three plays performed at Court by
Shakespeare's company in the Christmas festivities.
1599.
In April a play of Troylus and Cressida, by
Dekker and Chettle, was written; no doubt an
opposition play to some revival of Shakespeare's
older one on the same subject.
The Chamberlain's men acted A Warning for
Fair Women about this time. This play appears
to me to come from the hand of Lodge.
In this year The Passionate Pilgrim, "by W.
Shakespeare," was imprinted by Jaggard. It contains
two of the Sonnets, two other Sonnets from
Love's Labour's Lost, and one other poem from the
same play by Shakespeare. The remaining poems,
as far as they are known, are by Barnefield and
other inferior authors. There is not a vestige of
reason for reprinting this book as Shakespeare's.
In the spring Shakespeare's company left the
Curtain and went to act at the Globe. This was
a newly erected building on Bankside, made partly
of the materials of the old Theater, which had been
removed by Burbadge at the beginning of the year.
One of the first plays performed in it was Jonson's
Every Man out of his Humour, the chief actors in
which were Burbadge, Hemings, Phillips, Condell,
Sly, and Pope. Kempe, Beeston, Duke, and Pallant
had left the company, and did not act at the Globe.
But Shakespeare's name is also absent in this list,
and this fact, coupled with that of the libellous
nature of this "comical satire," and Jonson's leaving
the Chamberlain's men immediately after it to
continue his strictures on Dekker, &c., at Blackfriars
with the Children of the Chapel, makes it
exceedingly probable that the disagreement which
eventuated in the "purge" given by Shakespeare
to Jonson mentioned in The Return to Parnassus
had already arisen. It would lead to too long a
digression to do more than touch on this stage
quarrel here. I can only say that it lasted till
1601; that Jonson and Chapman on the one side at
Blackfriars, and Shakespeare, Marston, and Dekker
on the other, at first at the Globe, Rose, and Paul's,
afterwards at the Fortune, kept up one continual
warfare for more than three years. Not one of
their plays during this time is free from personalities
and satirical allusions; nor, indeed, are most
comedies of Elizabeth's time; it is only because
the allusions have grown obscure and uninteresting
to us, that we fail to see that the Elizabethan
comedy is eminently Aristophanic. It is not till the
reign of James that we find the comedy of manners
and intrigue at all generally developed.
Another play produced after the opening of the
Globe was Henry V., and soon after in this year
As You Like It.
Somewhere about this time an attempt was
made to get a grant to "impale the arms of Shakespeare
with those of Arden," ignotum cum ignotiore.
The grant was not obtained.
At this Christmas the Chamberlain's men gave
three performances at Court, viz., on 26th December
at Whitehall, on 5th January 1599-1600 and on
4th February at Richmond.
1600.
Shrovetide, February 4. The play performed at
Court was probably The Merry Wives of Windsor.
This play is assigned by tradition to a command of
the Queen, who wished to see Falstaff represented
in love, and is said to have been written in a fortnight.
It was probably an adaptation of the old
Jealous Comedy of 1592, and is more likely to have
come after than before Henry V., in which Shakespeare
had failed, according to his implied promise
in the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV., to continue the
story with Falstaff in it. It stands apart altogether
from the historical series.
March 6. The Chamberlain's men acted "Oldcastle"
before their patron, Lord Hunsdon, and
foreign ambassadors at Somerset House. This
could not have been Shakespeare's "Falstaff," for
the obnoxious name of Oldcastle would certainly
not have been revived before such an audience;
nor could it have been the Sir John Oldcastle, which
belonged to another company; it may have been
The Merry Devil of Edmonton.
About this time Shakespeare, always attentive to
pecuniary matters, brought an action against one
John Clayton for £7, and obtained a verdict.
The August entries on S. R. are specially interesting.
On the 4th a memorandum (not in the
regular course of entry) appears to the effect that As
You Like It, Henry V., Every Man in his Humour,
and Much Ado about Nothing, were "to be stayed."
On the 14th, Every Man in his Humour was
licensed; on the 23d, Much Ado about Nothing,
and along with it 2 Henry IV., "with the humours
of Sir John Falstaff. Written by Master Shakespeare."
On the 11th the first and second parts
of the History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord
Cobham, "with his Martyrdom," had been licensed.
The "staying" is generally supposed to have
relation to surreptitious printing; I think it more
likely to have been caused by the supposed satirical
nature of the plays. As You Like It was not
printed; Henry V. was printed in an incomplete
form[7] without license; while the emphatic mention
of Falstaff and the insertion of the author's
name to 2 Henry IV., not customary at that date,
show that the Oldcastle scandal had not yet died
out. This is still further proved by the almost
simultaneous entries of the two plays written
October to December 1599 for the Admiral's men by
Monday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathaway, on Sir
John Oldcastle. Only one has reached us, which
is plainly satirical of Henry V. It was, however,
in one of the editions printed in 1600 ascribed to
William Shakespeare. Drayton, who was the chief
author concerned in its production, had left the
Chamberlain's men in 1597, and been writing for
the Admiral's ever since. It is noticeable that
after 1597 we find the favourable notices of Lodge
and Shakespeare which had been inserted in previous
editions expunged from his writings, notably
the lines on Lucrece in the legend of Matilda.
Drayton had probably quarrelled with both his
coadjutors. With the entry here on Oldcastle's
"martyrdom" compare the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV.
This was not the play acted before Hunsdon on
March 6, which was probably The Merry Devil.
On 8th October Midsummer-Night's Dream was
entered on S. R.; on 28th October The Merchant
of Venice. Curiously enough, two rival issues of
each of these plays was made this year, although
only one publisher made an entry in each case.
On 22d July 1598, J. Roberts had entered The
Merchant of Venice, but was refused permission to
print unless he could get the Lord Chamberlain's
license, who was the patron of the actors of that
play. He apparently did not get it; but in 1600,
when J. Heyes does get the license, he arranges
with Heyes to print the book for him, but previously
prints a slightly differing copy on his own
account. He makes with Fisher, the publisher of
the other play, a somewhat similar transaction.
There were three Court performances this Christmas
by the Chamberlain's men, December 26,
January 5, February 24. The payment for these
to Hemings and Cowley indicates that the latter
was a shareholder in the Globe.
2 and 3 Henry VI. were probably revised and
revived at the Globe about this time.
1601.
In this year All's Well that Ends Well and
Hamlet were produced. The form in which the
latter appeared is matter of dispute; but we may
safely assert that it lay between the version of the
first Quarto and that of the Folio; the variation
of the Quarto from this original form being caused
by the surreptitious nature of that edition, and
that of the Folio by a subsequent revision in 1603.
The company of "little eyases" satirised in this
play was not of the Paul's children, with whom the
Chamberlain's men were on the most friendly terms,
but of the Chapel children at the Blackfriars, who
were then acting Jonson's "comical satires" against
Dekker, Marston, and Shakespeare. Singularly
enough, they were tenants of the Burbadges, who
were also owners of the Globe.
In the same year 1601, a poem by Shakespeare
appeared along with others by Jonson, Marston, and
Chapman in R. Chester's Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's
Complaint. This publication, could we ascertain its
exact date, would show the time when the stage
controversy ceased and these four writers could
amicably appear together. Dekker, however, does
not appear among them, and we cannot tell if his
Satiromastix was acted with Shakespeare's approval
or not. It was produced at the Globe by his company
as well as by the children of Paul's at some
time between 22d May, up till which day Dekker
was writing for the Admiral's men, and 11th
November, when it was entered on S. R. This
bitter satire seems to have been the last open word
in the controversy, but by no means the end of its
history.
The next fact we have to notice may perhaps
explain why, just at this point of Shakespeare's
career, we find in 1602 a cessation of production,
accompanied by a change of manner in outward
form and inward thought when writing was resumed
in 1603. In March 1601, in the Essex trials,
Meyrick was indicted "for having procured the
outdated tragedy of Richard II. to be publicly acted
at his own charge for the entertainment of the conspirators"
(Camden). From Bacon's speech (State
Trials) it appears that Phillips was the manager
who arranged this performance. This identifies the
company as the Chamberlain's, and therefore the
play as Shakespeare's. It may seem strange that
a play, duly licensed and published in 1597, could
give offence in 1601; but the published play did
not contain the deposition scene, iv. 1, the acted
play of 1601 certainly did. This point is again
brought forward in Southampton's trial: he calmly
asked the Attorney-General, "What he thought in
his conscience they designed to do with the Queen?"
"The same," replied he, "that Henry of Lancaster
did with Richard II." The examples of Richard II.
and Edward II. were again quoted by the assistant
judges against Southampton, while Essex in his
defence urged the example of the Duke of Guise in
his favour. From all which it is clear that the
subjects chosen for historical plays by Marlowe and
Shakespeare were unpopular at Court, but approved
of by the Essex faction, and that at last the company
incurred the serious displeasure of the Queen.
Accordingly, they did not perform at Court at
Christmas 1601-2;[8] and we find them travelling
in Scotland instead—L. Fletcher with his company
of players being traceable at Aberdeen in October.
Here the actors would hear of the Gowry conspiracy
instead of Essex', of which we shall find the result
hereafter. Before leaving London, however, or in
the next year after their return, they acted The Life
and Death of Lord Cromwell, Earl of Essex, a play in
which the rise and fall of Robert Devereux, the late
Earl, was pretty closely paralleled. This was entered
on S. R., 11th August 1602, "as lately acted."
On September 8 John Shakespeare, the poet's
father, was buried at Stratford.
1602.
On 18th January The Merry Wives of Windsor
was entered on S. R.: a surreptitious issue. On
2d February, Twelfth Night was performed at the
Readers' Feast at the (?) Middle Temple, "much
like The Comedy of Errors or the Menechmi in
Plautus, but most like and near to that in Italian,
called Inganni" (Manningham's Diary).
On 19th April 1 and 2 Henry VI. (evidently the
Quarto plays on which 2 and 3 Henry VI. were
founded) were assigned by Millington to Pavier,
salvo jure cujuscumque, S. R. This entry is important.
It shows that the remodelling of the old
Quarto plays under the new name of Henry VI.
instead of The Contention of York and Lancaster had
taken place; it indicates a doubt or fear as to
whether the copyright might be disputed by some
publisher, authorised by the Chamberlain's men to
produce the amended version.
In May, Shakespeare bought for £320, from the
Combes, 107 acres of arable land in Old Stratford.
The indenture was sealed and delivered in his
absence to his brother Gilbert.
On July 26 the surreptitious Hamlet was entered
on S. R., and on August 11 The Life and Death of
the Lord Cromwell.
On 28th September, at a Court Baron of the
Manor of Rowington, Walter Getley transferred to
Shakespeare a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane,
about a quarter of an acre with forty feet frontage,
possession being reserved for the lady of the manor
till suit and service had been personally done for
the same.
Two plays were performed by the Chamberlain's
men at Court this Christmas, one at Whitehall 26th
December, one at Richmond 2d February.
1603.
February 7. Troylus and Cressida, as performed
probably in 1602 by the Chamberlain's men, not the
play by Dekker and Chettle, was entered on S. R.
The Taming of the Shrew as we have it was
probably produced in March.
March 24. The Queen Died.
On 19th May a license was granted to L. Fletcher,
W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, A. Phillips, J.
Hemings, H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Armin, R. Cowley,
to perform stage plays "within their now usual
house called the Globe," or in any part of the
kingdom. They are henceforth nominated the
King's Players. The functions of Fletcher are not
exactly known: he did not act, and was probably a
sort of general manager; the other eight were
probably shareholders, among whom it will be
noted that Shakespeare and Burbadge stand first.
In the list of actors in Jonson's Sejanus, Cowley
and Armin are omitted, A. Cook and J. Lowin
appearing instead. This play got Jonson into
trouble. He was accused before the Council for
"Popery and treason" in it. When he published
it next year he no doubt omitted the most objectionable
passages, and put forth an excuse that a second
hand had good share in it. This was his usual
way of getting out of a difficulty of this kind.
Even as the play stands there is abundant room
for malice to interpret the quarrel between Sejanus
and Drusus as that between Essex and Blount;
and to see in Sejanus' poisoning propensities
allusions to the Earl of Leicester. Whalley's
curious notion that Jonson in his argument alluded
to the Powder plot, ignores the fact that the play
was entered on 2d November 1604 in S. R. It is
Raleigh's plot that is intended.
The London Prodigal, and Wilkins' Miseries of
Enforced Marriage, were written and perhaps acted
(at the Globe?) this year.
The edition of Hamlet entered in the preceding
year was issued in the autumn.
On December 2 the King's players performed at
the Earl of Pembroke's at Wilton, and at Hampton
Court before the King on December 26, 27, 28,
January 1 [? December 29]; before the Prince,
December 30, January 1; before the King at
Whitehall, February 2, 18; nine plays in all. A
much larger number of plays were acted at
Christmas festivities at Court in James's reign than
in Elizabeth's. Perhaps the Queen only cared for
new plays. We know that James frequently
ordered a second performance of any one that
specially pleased him, and often had old plays
revived.
On 8th February 1604, there occurs an entry
in the Revels accounts which explains the small
number of public theatrical performances, and the
cessation of work of the principal author for the
King's men in 1603. To R. Burbadge was given
£30, "for the maintenance and relief of himself and
the rest of his company, being prohibited to present
any plays publicly in or near London by reason
of great peril that might grow through the extraordinary
concourse and assembly of people to a
new increase of the plague, till it shall please God
to settle the city in a more perfect health." From
July 1603 till March 1604 the theatres were
probably closed. Hence my doubt as to whether
The London Prodigal and The Miseries of Enforced
Marriage were performed in London till 1604.
The King's company were most likely travelling in
the provinces till the winter; but were disappointed
at not being allowed to reopen at Christmas when
the plague had abated.
1604.
The King's men, like those of other companies,
had an allowance for cloaks, &c., to appear at the
entry of King James on 15th March.
The second Quarto of Hamlet was published in
this year—"Newly imprinted and enlarged to
almost as much again as it was, according to the
new and perfect copy." This version was probably
that performed at Court in the Christmas festivities
1603-4. We cannot suppose that among the nine
plays then exhibited Hamlet would not be included.
Of course on such occasions plays were always more
or less rewritten. In this instance the remodelling
is twofold; the Quarto version for the Court, 1603-4,
the Folio for the public, of the same date. That
the Folio does not merely reproduce the 1601 play,
as it was acted in London, "in the Universities of
Cambridge and Oxford" (perhaps in going to or
returning from Scotland in 1601), "and elsewhere,"
is clear for many reasons, one of which concerns us
here. In the well-known passage in ii. 2 relating
to the Children's company, an "inhibition" and
"innovation" are mentioned in the 1604 Quarto of
which there is no note in that of 1603. The only
time at which we know of any contemporary inhibition
and innovation was in January-February
1604. The inhibition on account of the plague,
which was going on till nearly 8th February, I
have already noticed; the innovation was either
the political conspiracy of Raleigh or the attempt
at reformation in religion by the Puritans. The
Children of the Chapel, who under Evans, Burbadge's
lessee, had satirised Shakespeare and other players
in their performances at Blackfriars, were reappointed
at this time to act in that same theatre
under E. Kirkham, A. Hawkins, T. Kendall, and
R. Payne, with the new appellation of Children of
the Revels. The date of the warrant is 30th
January 1604. The King's men acted at Court
2d February, and if Hamlet was then performed
the passage in ii. 2 may have brought their
grievance under the King's notice, and resulted in
the gift of £30 by way of compensation. I do not
insist on this, however, as it is omitted in the Quarto.
No doubt they had expected to get rid of the children
at Blackfriars at the end of seven years from
the date of the original lease, 4th February 1596.
At the end of another seven years they did so, but
only by purchasing the remainder of the lease.
In this summer Marston's Malcontent was obtained
in some indirect manner from these Blackfriars
children, perhaps from one of the children
actors who "left playing" at the time of the new
license, and was played at the Globe, with an
Induction by Webster introducing Sinkler, Sly,
Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin on the stage. This
was a retaliation for the children having in like
fashion previously appropriated Jeronymo (The
Spanish Tragedy), which belonged to the Chamberlain's
men. The curious thing about the transaction
is that the Malcontent was originally produced
in 1601, containing satirical allusions to Hamlet;
and that in 1604 both plays, revised, were acted
on the same stage, by the same actors.
On 2d November Sejanus was entered on S. R.
On 18th December a letter from Chamberlain to
Winwood contains the following notice. "The
tragedy of Gowry, with all action and actors, hath
been twice represented by the King's players, with
exceeding concourse of all sorts of people: but
whether the matter or manner be not well handled,
or that it be thought unfit that princes should be
played on the stage in their lifetime, I hear that
some great councillors are much displeased with
it, and so 'tis thought it shall be forbidden."
Shakespeare's work during this year is shown by
the transcript of the Revels Accounts obtained by
Malone. The King's men acted at Whitehall on
November 1 The Moor of Venice; November 4,
The Merry Wives of Windsor; December 28,
Measure for Measure, and Errors; ["Between
January 1 and January 5" in the forged copy
of this entry still extant][9] Love's Labour's Lost;
January 7, Henry V.; January 8, Every One out of
his Humour; February 2, Every One in his Humour;
February 10, The Merchant of Venice; February
11, The Spanish Maz; February 12, The Merchant
of Venice again. I have given the full list as in
the forged copy, but Malone is our safe guarantee
for all the Shakespeare plays. It appears then
that in this year Shakespeare must have written
Measure for Measure and Othello, and, as we have
already seen, produced a revision of Hamlet. How
much of this work was performed in 1603 we
cannot tell; but it is not likely that Othello was
written till 1604. The only definite dates in this
year relate to other matters.
In May Shakespeare entered an action at Stratford
against one Philip Rogers for £1 15s. 10d.,
balance of account for malt.
In August the King had a special order issued
that every member of the company should attend at
Somerset House when the Spanish ambassador came
to England (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 136). The Christmas
Court performances have been noted above.
1605.
On 8th May, the old play on Leir was entered
on S. R.
On 4th May Phillips made his will, which was
proved on the 13th. In it he leaves 30s. each to
Shakespeare and Condell, and 20s. each to Fletcher,
Armin, Cowley, Cook, and Tooley, all his fellows;
to Beeston, "his servant," 30s.; to Gilburne, his
"late apprentice," 40s. and clothes; to James Sandes,
"his apprentice," 40s. and musical instruments; to
Hemings, Burbadge, and Sly, overseers and executors,
a bowl of silver of £5 apiece.
On 3d July a ballad on the Yorkshire Tragedy
was entered on S. R.; the play which has been
erroneously attributed to Shakespeare was no doubt
acted about the same time.
The London Prodigal was published, but not
entered on S. R., this same year, with the name of
William Shakespeare on the title-page.
Jonson's Fox was acted by the King's men; the
chief actors were the same as those of Sejanus
in 1603, except Phillips, who died in May, and
Shakespeare, a most noteworthy exception.
On 24th July, William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon,
bought of Ralph Huband an unexpired
term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease
of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford,
Bishopton, and Welcombe for £440, subject
to a rent payable to the corporation of £17, and
£5 to John Barker. This, at the rate of interest
then prevalent, was a dear purchase. In 1598 his
"purchasing these tithes" had been mooted at
Stratford.
As to Shakespeare's dramatic work during this
year I have no doubt that Lear was on the stage in
May, when the old play was published. I cannot
otherwise account for the description of the latter
in S. R. as a tragical history. Until Shakespeare's
play this story had always been treated as a comedy.
Macbeth was probably produced in the winter,
or in the following year. When James I. was at
Oxford in August, he had been addressed in
Latin by the three witches in this story, at an
entertainment given by the University. No doubt
James would be pleased by their prophecies, and
desirous that they should be promulgated in the
vulgar tongue. No more likely date can be found
for the holograph letter which he is said to have
addressed to Shakespeare. It may possibly be
that that letter was a command to write this play.
But, putting conjecture aside, Oldys says that
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, told Lintot that he
had a letter from the King to the dramatist.
On October 9, Shakespeare's company performed
before the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford. It
may have been on this occasion that Shakespeare
made the acquaintance of the Davenants, and
stopped for the first time at the Crown, the license
for which inn had only been taken out by Davenant
in the preceding year. Enough has been
written by others as to the scandal about Mrs.
Davenant, and the tradition that William Davenant
the poet, the godson of Shakespeare, was really
his son. No foundation beyond a Joe Miller joke
has been discovered for this report.
At Court, ten plays were acted in the Christmas
season by the King's men; among them the revived
Mucedorus, which, as we have seen, was an apology
for Jonson's satire in Volpone.
1606.
In this year, Shakespeare's portion of Timon of
Athens, and that part of Cymbeline which is founded
on so-called British history, were probably written.
A play called The Puritan (Widow), evidently
by Middleton, was acted by the Paul's boys this
year, in which we find direct allusion to Richard
III. and Macbeth, both of which were probably on
the stage. The same scene contains a palpable
parody of the action of the scene in Pericles in
which Thaisa is recovered to life. That play must
then have also been on the stage. It does not
follow that it was the play as we have it. It may
have been, and I believe was, Wilkins' play before
Shakespeare's improvement had been introduced.
During July or August, the King's men had performed
three plays before the King of Denmark and
his Majesty—two at Greenwich, one at Hampton
Court; and at Christmas they performed at Court
nine plays: on December 26, 29; January 4, 6, 8;
February 2, 5, 15, 27. That on 26th December was
Lear, as we have it in the Quarto version. The
Folio is that used on the stage of the same date.
1607.
Anthony and Cleopatra must have been acted
about this time, as well as Cyril Tourneur's Revenger's
Tragedy.
On 25th June Susanna, Shakespeare's eldest
daughter, married Dr. John Hall, an eminent
physician at Stratford.
On 6th August Middleton's Puritan Widow was
entered on S. R., and imprinted as by W.S.
Twine's Pattern of Painful Adventures, on which
Wilkins' version of Pericles was founded, was reprinted
in this year.
On 22d October Drayton's Merry Devil of
Edmonton was entered on S. R. The entry on
5th April under the same title, in which the authorship
is ascribed to T[homas] B[rewer], refers to
the prose story, not the play.
On 26th November King Lear was entered on
S. R.
On December 31 Shakespeare's brother Edmund
was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, aged
twenty-eight, "a player," "with a forenoon knell
of the great bell."
There were thirteen Court performances by the
King's men: on December 26, 27, 28; January 2, 6
(two plays), 7, 9, 17 (two plays), 26; February 2, 6.
1608.
On February 21 Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's
granddaughter, was baptized at Stratford.
The Yorkshire Tragedy was entered on S. R.
May 20, as by William Shakespeare. The authorship
of this play has not been yet ascertained.
On May 20 Anthony and Cleopatra, and Pericles
(not as in the Quarto version with the three last acts
by Shakespeare), were entered on S. R. Wilkins'
prose version of the play was printed this same
year. I take the order of events regarding this
play to have been as follows. Wilkins wrote a
play on Pericles in 1606, which was parodied in
Middleton's Puritan that same year; in 1607 Twine's
Pattern of Painful Adventures was reprinted; in
the same year Wilkins left the King's company
and joined the Queen's; in May 1608 the play
was entered for publication, but not published;
it may have been "stayed" by the Chamberlain's
company; in the same year Wilkins issued surreptitiously
(it was not entered on S. R.) his "true
history of the play as it was lately presented by
the poet Gower." Such a proceeding as this, a
printing of a prose narrative founded on an unprinted
play and by the same author, is unparalleled
in the history of Shakespearean drama. It must
be remembered that Wilkins was not even connected
with the King's company at the time.
Meanwhile Shakespeare had rewritten Acts iii.-v.
In this new shape the play was acted in 1608,
and was, as we know from an allusion in Pimlico,
or Run Redcap (entered S. R. 15th April 1609),
very popular. An edition of the play thus altered
was issued in 1609, not by Blount, who made the
entry in May 1608, but by Gosson, as the "late
much-admired play ... with the true relation of
the whole history ... as also the no less strange
and worthy accidents in the birth and life of his
daughter Marina," that is, of the part written by
Shakespeare. This edition is very hurriedly and
carelessly got up.
In August Shakespeare commenced an action
against Addenbroke.
On September 9 Shakespeare's mother was
buried at Stratford. Shakespeare's company had
been shortly before travelling on the southern coast
(Halliwell, who suppresses the exact date as usual).
It is always dangerous to read personal feeling in
a dramatist's work; but the coincidences in date of
his King John and Hamnet's death, of his Coriolanus
and his mother's death, justify, I think, my opinion
that his wife's grief is apotheosised in Constance,
and his mother's character in Volumnia. This is
confirmed by the great change that takes place in
his work at this time; his next four plays are
devoted to subjects of family reunion after separation.
On 16th October he was godfather to William
Walker at Stratford.
In this autumn Coriolanus was probably produced.
The Court Christmas performances by the King's
men were twelve, on unknown dates.
1609.
On January 28 Troylus and Cressida was entered
on S. R., and published from a surreptitious copy,
with a preface, stating that it had been "never
staled with the stage." This preface was withdrawn
before the close of the year, probably at
the instance of the King's company. It has been,
however, the cause of misleading many modern
critics (myself included), as to the date of the production
of the play. In the new issue the title
states that it is printed "as it was acted by the
King's Majesty's servants."
On February 15, a verdict for £6 and £1, 4s.
costs was given in favour of Shakespeare against
John Addenbroke for debt, and execution issued.
This suit began in August 1608; the precept for
a jury is dated 21st December, when an adjournment
of the trial probably took place. After the
final judgment Addenbroke was non inventus, and
on 7th June 1609, Shakespeare proceeded against
his bail, one Horneby. All these proceedings were
conducted not personally, but through his solicitor
and cousin Thomas Greene.
On 20th May the Sonnets were entered on S. R.,
and published with dedication to Mr. W. H., who,
in my opinion, was some one connected with Lord
Southampton, who had obtained a copy from him
or his, and possibly may have given Shakespeare
the hint to write them in the first instance, at the
time (1594) when his friends were anxious for
him to marry. Such a person was Sir William
Hervey, the third husband of Southampton's mother:
she died in 1607, and I conjecture that the delay
in publishing the Sonnets was due to the fact that
she wished them to remain in MS. at any rate
during her lifetime. The copy used may have
been found among her papers.
On 20th May 1608 had been entered Pericles,
and Antony and Cleopatra, which were not published
by Blount, who made the entry. Pericles, however,
was printed surreptitiously in 1609 for another
firm as we have it in the Quarto. This play was
probably then continued on the stage, as we find
another edition required by 1611.
Cymbeline was probably produced in the autumn.
This year being a plague year there was little
dramatic activity; even Jonson did not produce
his Epicene for the King's men, but had it acted
by the Chapel (or Revels) children. For the same
reason there were no stage performances at Court
at Christmas.
1610.
On 4th January a patent was granted to R.
Daborne, P. Rossiter, J. Tarbook, R. Jones, and
R. Browne, to set up a new Children's company
in Whitefriars. Their success was no doubt the
cause that determined the Burbadges to take the
Blackfriars into their own hands.[10] Accordingly
they arranged to purchase at Lady Day the remainder
of Evans' lease of the Blackfriars (they
had already taken the boys, "now growing up to
be men," Underwood,[11] Ostler, &c., to "strengthen
the King's service"), and to place men players—Hemings,
Condell, Shakespeare, &c., therein.
Before the end of the year we accordingly find the
boys alluded to acting as members of the King's
company in Jonson's Alchemist. The chief players
were Burbadge, Hemings, Lowin, Ostler, Condell,
Underwood, Cooke, Tooley, Armin, and Egglestone.
Of these Tooley and Cooke had been boy actors
in the Chamberlain's company, Underwood and
Ostler in the Revels children. Shakespeare's name
does not occur; nor do I find any evidence except
Mr. Halliwell's unsupported assertion (Outlines, p.
111), that he continued to act at this date. It is
noticeable that there are ten actors mentioned;
this is very unusual in these play lists, and suggests
that the number of sharers may have been increased
from eight to ten. There are certainly
about this time allusions to ten shares scattered
about in contemporary plays. If this be the case,
Shakespeare would no longer be a shareholder:
the whole question of his shares is involved in
difficulty, and this conjecture is only thrown out
to call attention to any allusions in writings of
this date that may throw light on the matter.
The King's men performed fifteen plays at
Court this Christmas.
In this year, in my opinion, Shakespeare having
produced The Winters Tale and The Tempest, retired
from theatrical work. Malone's hypothesis that
Sir W. Herbert's mention of Sir G. Buck's
"allowing" the former play implies a date subsequent
to August 1610, is worthless; Buck had
the "allowing" of plays in his hands from 1607
onwards. There is direct evidence that the Blackfriars
Theatre was occupied even after 1611 by
other companies. Field's Amends for Ladies was
acted there by the Prince's and the Lady Elizabeth's
men; and Charles could not be called Prince
till after the death of Henry, 6th November 1612.
The production of Field's play was probably in the
spring 1613. By careful comparison of the dry
documents concerning shareholders in 1635, with
those of the Blackfriars property in 1596, we ascertain
that J. Burbadge bought that property 4th
February 1596; that in November the establishment
of a theatre there was petitioned against, but
carried out soon after; that a lease of twenty-one
years was granted to Evans, either at Christmas
1596 or Lady Day 1597, most probably the latter;
that at the end of thirteen years the Burbadges
bought the remaining eight years of the lease, probably
at Lady Day 1610, and took possession of the
building;—but that they at the same time took the
boys into the King's company or set up Hemings,
Shakespeare, &c., in the Blackfriars is mere rhetoric
of Cuthbert's. Underwood and Ostler had both
left the Revels children before the performance of
Jonson's Epicene in 1609, and Field did not join
the King's men till 1618-19.
In June Shakespeare purchased twenty acres of
pasture land from the Combes.
At Christmas the King's men performed fifteen
plays at Court.
1611.
In this year unusual efforts seem to have been
made by the King's company to secure authors
of repute to write for their playhouse. Jonson's
Catiline was acted by nearly the same cast as
The Alchemist, the only change being that Robinson
appears in the list instead of Armin. The second
Maiden's Tragedy was produced in October, most
likely written by Tourneur, having been preceded
by the first Maid's Tragedy by Beaumont and
Fletcher, who also in this year brought out their
Philaster and King and no King: in all we have
five new plays of the first rank, acted by a company
that hitherto appears to have almost entirely
depended on about two plays from Shakespeare,
and occasionally a third by some other hand, as
sufficient novelty to attract a year's full houses.
It is this quasi monopoly in writing for his company
that explains Shakespeare's accumulation of
property; and it is to me incredible that Macbeth,
The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest
should all have been produced in this year. Yet
this seems to be the belief of practical critics who
believe only what can be supported by what they
term "positive evidence," the evidence in this
case being that Forman, the astrological charlatan,
entered in his note-book that he had seen acted
Cymbeline, Macbeth, 20th April 1610 [1611];
Richard II., 30th April 1611; Winter's Tale, May 15.
This evidence has, however, value of another kind,
for it shows that a large number of revivals took
place in this year; indeed, coupling this with the
fact that at this Christmas and the next the unprecedented
number of fifty plays were performed
by the King's men at Court, it is likely that all
Shakespeare's plays were revived immediately after
his retirement from the stage. We cannot trace
fifty plays to the possession of his company at this
date without including them.
On September 11 Shakespeare's name occurs
in the margin of a folio page of donors (including
all the principal inhabitants of Stratford) to a
subscription list "towards the charge of prosecuting
the bill in Parliament for the better repair of
the highways." This appears to confirm the view
that Shakespeare was at this time residing in
Stratford.
On December 16 the play of Lord Cromwell was
entered on S. R., and published as by W. S.
The plays at Court were twenty-two: on October
31; November 1, 5; December 26; January 5,
February 23, before the King; on November 9,
19; December 16, 31; January 7, 15; February
19, 20, 28; April 3, 16, before Prince Henry and
Charles, Duke of York; on February 9, 20 (sic),
before the Prince; on March 28, April 26, before
the Lady Elizabeth.
1612.
On February 3 the burial of Gilbert Shakespeare
"adolescens" was entered in the Stratford Register.
I agree with Mr. French that this was most likely
Shakespeare's brother.
In this year a suit was commenced "Lane
Greene, and Shakespeare complts." on the ground
that they had to pay too large a proportion of the
reserved rent of the tithes purchased in 1605. It
appears from the draft of the bill filed before Lord
Ellesmere that Shakespeare's income from this
source was £60.
The plays produced by the King's men were
The Woman's Prize, Cardenno (i.e., Cardenes, or
Loves Pilgrimage), and The Captain, by Fletcher
and his coadjutors, and the Duchess of Malfi by
Webster, who also published The White Devil,
with the remarkable allusion to the "right happy
and copious industry" of Shakespeare, Dekker,
and Heywood. Curiously enough, this is often
referred to even now as a eulogy on Webster's
part; it is really damning with faint praise the
poet to whom he hoped to be the successor as
provider of plays to the King's company.
The Passionate Pilgrim reached a third edition,
and was reissued as "certain amorous Sonnets
between Venus and Adonis," by W. Shakespeare;
"whereunto is added two love epistles" between
Paris and Helen. These were stolen from Heywood's
Troja Britannica of 1609. In his Apology
for Actors (1612), he complains of the injury done
him, as it might lead to unjust suspicion of piracy
on his part, and adds, "As I must acknowledge
my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he
hath published them, so the author I know much
offended with M. Jaggard that altogether unknown
to him presumed to make so bold with his name."
In consequence, no doubt, of this remonstrance,
Jaggard had to substitute a new title-page, from
which Shakespeare's name was entirely omitted.
He had allowed his name to be used in the titles
of The London Prodigal in 1605, of The Yorkshire
Tragedy in 1608, of The Passionate Pilgrim of 1609,
and even of Sir John Oldcastle in 1600 without
murmuring; but directly the interests of another
demand justice at his hands he takes prompt action,
and compels the piratical publisher to withdraw his
name altogether.
The King's men at the Christmas festivities, &c.,
presented at Court fourteen plays before the King
and fourteen before the Prince, the Lady Elizabeth,
and the Prince Palatine. Among the plays so
represented were Philaster, The Knot of Fools,
Much Ado about Nothing, The Maid's Tragedy, The
Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Tempest, A King and
no King, The Twins' Tragedy, The Winter's Tale,
Sir John Falstaff (The Merry Wives of Windsor),
The Moor of Venice, The Nobleman, Cesar's Tragedy,
Love lies a bleeding (Philaster repeated), before the
Prince, Lady Elizabeth, and the Palatine; A Bad
Beginning makes a Good Ending (? All's Well that
Ends Well; but entered S. R. 1660 as Ford's, and
destroyed in MS. by Warburton's servant; Ford's
revision must, of course, have been later than
1623), The Captain, The Alchemist, Cardenno, The
Hotspur (1 Henry IV.), Benedicte and Betteris (Much
Ado about Nothing), before the King. See Stanhope's
Accounts (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 597, third
edition, and Revels Accounts, p. xxiii.) Of these
twenty Shakespeare contributes nine, Fletcher (with
Beaumont) six, Jonson one, Tourneur one, Drayton
(?) one, and two have not been identified.
1613.
On 4th February Richard Shakespeare, the poet's
only surviving brother, was buried at Stratford.
On 10th March Shakespeare purchased in Blackfriars
a house with yard and haberdasher's shop
for £140, subject to a mortgage of £60. This
property had greatly increased in value since 1604,
when it was sold for £100, probably in consequence
of the immediate vicinity of the theatre, which drew
large custom for feathers and other articles of
attire to Blackfriars. Shakespeare leased it to
John Robinson, who had by this time seen the
absurdity in a business point of view of his opposition
to the establishment of the theatre in 1596. One
of the trustees for the legal estate (the mortgage
remaining unredeemed till 1613) was John Heming,
unquestionably Shakespeare's friend the actor.
On 8th June the King's men played at Court
before the Duke of Savoy's ambassadors.
On 29th June the Globe Theatre was burnt
down, "while Burbadge's company were acting
the play of Henry VIII., and there shooting off
certain chambers by way of triumph" (T. Lorkin's
letter). Sir H. Wotton says it was "a new play
called All is True, representing some principal
pieces of the reign of Henry VIII." It was of
course Shakespeare's play in its original form. A
Fool must have acted in it, for in the old ballad
about this fire, "the reprobates prayed for the
fool and Henry Condy" (Condell), who were apparently
the last actors who escaped.
It has been conjectured that at this time Shakespeare
retired from the stage, having sold his shares
in the Globe and Blackfriars in order to purchase
the house above mentioned. There is no particle
of evidence that he had not saved the £80 then
paid from his usual economies, or that if he had
wished to sell his shares he could have done so.
It is true that shares in the later Globe (rebuilt
1613-14) were so sold; but all the evidence as to
the theatre in which Shakespeare was concerned
points the other way. It appears from the 1635
documents that Hemings, Shakespeare, &c., had
their shares without paying any consideration, and
that all the shares held by Pope, Kempe, Bryan,
Shakespeare, Sly, and Cowley had reverted by 1614
into the hands of the surviving shareholders, the
Burbadges, Hemings, and Condell. If we examine
the wills of these men, we find that Pope indeed, in
1603, leaves all his estate or interest in the Globe,
"which I have or ought to have," to Mary Clark
and Thomas Bromley; but that Phillips in 1605,
and Cooke in 1614, make no mention of any shares.
It seems most likely that this will of Pope's raised
the question as to whether these shares were held
during office as actor or absolutely. There can be
little doubt that the former was the case, as is only
reasonable where the shares, as in the first Globe,
were given "without consideration." Purchased
shares, like those in the latter Globe, are in a different
position. At any rate, the shares left to
Bromley and Clark in fact reverted to the surviving
shareholders. Sly's will in 1608, which is in
similar terms to Pope's, leaves his shares to Robert
Brown, who, like Clark and Bromley, disappears
from all future history of these shares. Moreover,
there is no mention of any shares belonging to
Cowley, Beeston, or Kempe: yet there can be no
doubt that Kempe was till 1599 a shareholder.
On 15th July, in the Ecclesiastical Court at
Worcester, the case of Dr. John Hall v. John Lane,
for slandering his wife, was heard, and the defendant
excommunicated on the 27th.
There were sixteen plays performed at Court by
the King's men this year, on November 4, 16; January
10; February 4, 8, 10, 18; and nine others.
1614.
Fletcher, Webster, and Beaumont had all left the
King's men, and now, 31st October, Jonson leaves
them too, and produces his Bartholomew Fair at the
Hope, with abundant sneers at Shakespeare's plays,
especially the Tempest and Winter's Tale. He does
not allude to Henry VIII. Fletcher was now, as
well as Jonson, a writer for the Princess Elizabeth's
players.
In July John Combe left Shakespeare £5 as a
legacy.
In the autumn an attempt was made by W.
Combe, the squire of Welcombe, to inclose a large
portion of the neighbouring common fields; this
attempt was opposed by the Corporation, but supported
by Mr. Manwaring and Shakespeare. The
latter clearly acted simply with a view to his own
personal interest. His name as an ancient freeholder
occurs in a list, 5th September, as having claim for
compensation if the inclosure took place. On 18th
October, Replingham, Combe's agent, covenanted
to give him full compensation for injury by "any
inclosure or decay of tillage:" on 16th November
he went to London: on 17th November his "cousin,"
T. Greene, town clerk of Stratford and at the same
time his own solicitor, called to see him: he said
the inclosures were to be less than had been represented,
that nothing would be done till April, and
that he and Mr. Hall thought nothing would be
done at all. On 23d December letters to Mr. Manwaring
and Shakespeare were written, with "almost
all the company's hands" to them, and a private
letter in addition by Greene to "my cousin," with
copies of all the acts of the Corporation, and notes
of the inconveniences that would result from the
inclosure. The inclosure was not made, and Shakespeare
did not get his compensation.
1616.
On 25th January the first draft of Shakespeare's
will was drawn up. On 10th February his daughter
Judith was married without a license to T. Quiney,
vintner of Stratford; they were summoned in consequence
to the Ecclesiastical Court of Worcester a few
weeks after. On 25th March the will was executed,
and on 25th April "Will. Shakspere, gent." was
entered in the burial register at Stratford. He died
just before completing his fifty-fourth year; but it is
usually supposed on the 23d, his birthday.
