When the Chamberlain’s Men first took up residence in the Theatre in 1594 their future must have looked as settled as that of any company of players could in the era. They had exclusive use of one of the few playhouses about the city, which was owned by the father of one of their leading players. They were one of only two companies invited to court for the Christmas Revels for each of the next five years. In Will Kemp they had the leading comedian of the day, a box‐office draw to rival Edward Alleyn, now with the Admiral’s Men at the Rose. In William Shakespeare they had one of the few proven playwrights of the day. The death or retirement from the stage of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, John Lyly, and George Peele had left a notable gap in the market, while the fact that Shakespeare seems to have been able to bring much of his earlier work with him gave the company a real opportunity to build a viable repertory.
The only real shadow on the horizon was that the lease of the land on which the Theatre stood would expire in April 1597 and the landlord, Giles Allen, had so far avoided granting the ten‐year extension for which the original contract allowed. Possibly against the risk that he would never do so – but equally possibly as a speculative venture of his own – James Burbage came up with a new plan. On February 4, 1596 he purchased parts of the extensive Blackfriars precinct that was owned by Sir William More and set about building a new playhouse there. This was not in the same part of the complex as the earlier Blackfriars theatre, built by Richard Farrant for the Children of the Chapel. What Burbage purchased was “the Seven Great Upper Rooms, the rooms on the floor below, and the rooms to the west in the Duchy Chamber” (Smith, 155). As Irwin Smith has demonstrated, the “Seven Great Upper Rooms” included what had been used as the Parliament Chamber in the time of Henry VIII, a commodious structure, within which Burbage was to build a splendid new indoor playhouse, perhaps for the use of the Chamberlain’s Men (164–74).
This is not the place to discuss the playhouse he built, something I defer until the point in the narrative when the King’s Men (as by then the company had become) were actually able to use it – as they were not in 1596/7 (see p. 290). But something needs to be said about the business plan behind this development, and why it failed. The short answer for its failure is that some influential neighbors of the theatre objected to it in November 1596 on a string of very familiar grounds, including claims that this:
common playhouse … will grow to be a very great annoyance and trouble, not only to all the noblemen and gentlemen thereabout inhabiting, but also a general inconvenience to all the inhabitants of the same precinct, both by reason of the great resort and gathering together of all manner of vagrant and lewd persons that … will come thither and work all manner of mischief, and also to the great pestering and filling up of the same precinct, if it should please God to send any visitation of sickness … for that the same precinct is already grown very populous; and besides that the same playhouse is so near the church that the noise of the drums and trumpets will greatly disturb and hinder both the ministers and parishioners in time of divine service and sermons. (480)
And the Privy Council apparently agreed with them, though there is no record of their actual response. Embarrassingly, one of the signatories to the complaint was the company’s own patron, a role now taken by the second Lord Hunsdon, his father having died on July 23, 1596 (see p. 130). Timing here was almost certainly everything, since they temporarily lacked a powerful patron in the highest quarters. The only upside to the whole affair is that it may have played its part in creating the character we know as Falstaff, who took shape around 1596/7 (see p. 102).
The petitioners almost certainly did identify Burbage’s intentions, doubtless formulated on the back of his extensive knowledge of the players’ preferences: “all the players being banished by the Lord Mayor from playing within the City by reason of the great inconveniences and ill rule that followeth them, they now think to plant themselves in liberties” (Smith, 480). Liberties like the Blackfriars (and the Clink) were anomalous pockets of territory, mostly within the City walls but outside the control of the City of London authorities. In most cases their status derived from their former privileges as church property. The Blackfriars had been a Dominican priory until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. Liberties thus had all the advantages of suburbs like Shoreditch, where the Theatre and Curtain stood, in being free of the Lord Mayor’s oversight; but they were as close to the population, and indeed to the quarters of some of the wealthiest citizenry, as the City inns – which, moreover, the Lord Mayor was doing his best finally to close down, something the petitioners noted. There would, therefore be little or no direct competition to the Blackfriars.
This is not to say, however, that the liberties were lawless.4 As Irwin Smith puts it: “In the course of time, as civil administration succeeded ecclesiastical, the inhabitants appointed their own justices to try petty offenders, their own porters and scavengers, and their own officers … to serve as civil magistrates” (1964, 114). Blackfriars did retain the ancient church privilege of sanctuary, protecting people from arrest for lesser crimes, including debt, which made it a haven for petty criminals. Yet despite this it was on the whole a prosperous, respectable neighborhood, one where aristocrats, courtiers, and successful businessmen chose to live. It was an ideal location for an upmarket theatre. Or would have been, but for the Privy Council.
This faced Lord Hunsdon’s Men (as they briefly were) with a real crisis. They could not use the Blackfriars; the Theatre lease was about to run out. They found a lifeline in the Curtain. Quite early in the life of the Theatre (1585) James Burbage had negotiated an agreement with the proprietor of the Curtain, Henry Lanman, to share the profits on their two properties on an equal basis (p. 99). They were only two hundred yards apart and serious rivalry between them could have been bad business for both. This agreement, though it ran out in 1592, probably established easy relations between the parties; if so, it paid off significantly at this critical time, because the Chamberlain’s Men now secured for themselves a long‐term lease at the Curtain.
Until very recently, with the exception of Newington Butts, we knew less about the Curtain than we do about any other Elizabethan playhouse, despite the fact that it was there virtually from the beginning and outlasted all the others. What has changed is that in 2011 parts of the foundations of the playhouse were unearthed by archaeologists, revealing most unexpectedly in 2016 that the external structure of the Curtain was rectangular, taking advantage of neighboring structures.5 And the galleries on its internal walls were straight, not curving around polygonal shapes such as those of the Theatre or the Globe. In both these respects it seems to have mirrored the kinds of inns that the players encountered on the road and in London, though it was probably larger (see pp. 39; 115ff). Unfortunately the archaeology has not been able to tell us anything about the size or disposition of the stage or its relationship to the tiring house. One unusual artefact to emerge is a small pottery “bird whistle” which, when filled with water, could be used to create bird noises, possibly echoing frequent references to such sounds in plays like Romeo and Juliet. For example:
her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
(2.2. 20–2)
Or again:
Juliet. It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Romeo. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale.
(3.5. 2–7)6
The Curtain seems hitherto normally to have catered for companies looking for a temporary London venue as part of their traveling circuit.7 Unlike the Rose and the Theatre it was never a base for players more‐or‐less permanently resident in London – until this crisis for the Chamberlain’s Men. The London‐resident players, by and large, are those whose plays have survived, giving us some clues as to the particular qualities of their home bases. So we have very little such evidence regarding the Curtain. Of course we must assume that the plays from the Chamberlain’s Men’s existing Theatre repertory could be played there without too much adaptation, or this new arrangement would hardly have been viable. The company’s stay at the Curtain lasted from around October 1597 to late 1599. But only one play survives which we can be categorically certain was written with the specific expectation of being played at the Curtain. This is Ben Jonson’s first play for the Chamberlain’s Men, Every Man In His Humour, the 1616 folio text of which assures us that it was first performed there in 1598. In fact we can date its first performance even more precisely, since there is a record of a German (“Almain”) dignitary who “lost 300 crowns at a new play called Every Man’s humour” on September 20, 1598 (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598–1601, 97). The critics were not wrong when they said that theatres attracted pickpockets; they also attracted foreign nobility who carried irresponsible amounts of money with them.
Every Man In as then staged was as it appeared in the 1601 quarto text, with a setting in Florence, Italy, rather than in the London of the folio version, which is quite radically different. In fact the quarto text provides us with no surprises. Entrances and exits can all be effected with two stage doors; there are no calls for use of an upper stage or a trapdoor; there is no use of pyrotechnics or other spectacular stage effects; all of the props required would have been quite standard – a tankard, a letter, tobacco, swords, papers, a book – with the exception of a red herring (a pun on the name of the character, Cob) and a striking clock (doubtless the one that Brutus anachronistically heard in Julius Caesar the following year, by when they had moved it to the Globe: see p. 268).
The only stage direction which is at all out of the ordinary occurs in 1.3, following line 62, where Cob is marked to exit and then “Bobadilla discovers himself on a bench.” This is odd for a couple of reasons.8 Cob’s exit momentarily leaves the stage empty – unless Bobadilla has been on stage, silent and unobserved, throughout the scene. But there is no indication of that in the text. An empty stage usually marks the beginning of a new scene in successive staging and that is how this sequence is presented in the folio version of the play. But Jonson goes for something slightly different in the quarto version. “Bobadilla discovers himself” almost certainly means that he draws back a curtain to reveal himself; if so the reference might be to a so‐called discovery space, which it is generally agreed existed in the rear wall of the stage in at least some theatres (see pp. 96, 249). It could be used as a third entrance, or a place from which substantial properties (like beds) could swiftly be conveyed out on to the main stage. Or it could be somewhere that characters could be “discovered,” often seated or in bed, by the drawing back of the curtain, cloth or arras which covered the mouth of the space.
But in general there is much fuller evidence for the use of discovery spaces from the era of the Globe onwards than from earlier. It is clear, however, that from early times a curtain, often described as an arras, hung on the rear wall of the stage and afforded sufficient space for people to stand behind it – possibly even without the need for a recess within the wall itself or for an opening from the tiring house, such as a true discovery space requires. So in King John (circa 1594) Hubert orders the executioners “look thou stand / Within the arras” (4.1.1–2), and in the first quarto of Hamlet (1603) Corambis famously undertakes to “shroud myself behind the arras,” where he will be stabbed by Hamlet.9 Robert Greene’s old Queen’s Men’s play, published in 1594, contains this overloaded stage direction: Enter Friar Bacon drawing the curtains with a white stick, a book in his hand, and a lamp lighted by him, and the brazen head and Miles, with weapons by him (Sc.xi.0). Does this mean that Bacon emerges from behind the “curtains” in such a way as to reveal the “brazen head,” or does he simply “discover” the head? Either way there is no requirement for any depth of recess behind the curtains, which need to conceal from view – at most – one person, the head and a lamp, which could easily be on a small table. Dr Faustus, an equally early play, does seem to call for a discovery space, but this might derive from later staging practices than those for which Marlowe wrote (see p. 137 Note 12). No text that indisputably reflects pre‐1594 staging requires a discovery space.
To return to Every Man In His Humour: it is quite conceivable that Bobadilla might discover himself on a bench at the Curtain, simply by drawing back the arras. If so – if, that is, there was no actual space in the tiring house wall, and so no conventional way to enter but by the stage doors – it means that the actor playing Bobadilla had sat there through two and a half scenes. That seems unlikely on the face of it. But it might actually be the point of this quite unusual staging. It gives Bobadilla – the loud star‐turn of the play, a trumpeting miles gloriosus or braggart soldier – a sudden, unexpected and dramatic “entrance,” bellowing “Hostess! Hostess!” (63). But all in all, this one striking instance does not establish that the Curtain had a true discovery space, as distinct simply from a hanging arras.
There might, however, be more evidence for a Curtain discovery space if we accept Tiffany Stern’s contention that the second quarto version of Romeo and Juliet was staged there (2009c, 81ff). We have presumed that the first quarto version, (Q1) published in 1597, relates to the Theatre (see p. 96); but the substantially different second quarto, (Q2) published in 1599, might logically be a Curtain piece. There is some confirmation of this in John Marston’s Scourge of Villainy, where Luscus – who is obsessed by theatre – is said to steal all his conversation from Romeo and Juliet in performances at the Curtain.
Luscus: what’s play’d to day? faith now I know.
I set thy lips abroach [i.e. set them flowing], from whence doth flow
Naught but pure Iuliat and Romio.
Say, who acts best? Drusus, or Roscio?
Now I have him, that ne’er of ought did speak
But when of plays or players he did treat.
H’ath made a common‐place book out of plays,
And speaks in print; at least whate’er he says
Is warranted by Curtain plaudeties [applause].
(Scourge of Villainy, 1598, H4)
It is commonly assumed that significant parts of the last act of Romeo and Juliet might take place inside the discovery space, or around its entrance, leaving the bodies of Paris, Romeo, and Juliet within. And the Q2 text seems to sanction that when the Prince orders that they should “Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while” (5.3.216), while he establishes what has happened. This seems to be a direction to draw the curtain over the discovery space as a convenient way of removing the bodies from the stage, and is often quoted as such. But in Q1 the Prince says “Come, seal your mouths of outrage for a while” (K3), cutting off Old Montague, who has begun to lament the death of Romeo, in favor of finding out what has happened. The phrasing “your mouths” can hardly refer to an open discovery space. Indeed, the Q1 reading might also alert us to ambiguity in Q2: “Seal up the mouth of outrage” need not refer to a discovery space at all, but might similarly speak to ending expressions of distress. In short, the evidence for a discovery space at the Curtain is inconclusive at best. Discovery spaces may have been more a feature of the next generation of playhouses, which began with the Swan in 1596 (though the De Witt / van Buchell drawing shows nothing resembling one: see p. Frontispiece).
One feature of the Curtain which Tiffany Stern draws attention to is its close association with prize fencing matches, though the Theatre also had such associations. Students of fencing needed to demonstrate their art in public contests in order to progress in rank; these contests were very popular and the playhouses obviously made ideal arenas. Jonson seems to allude to this side of the Curtain’s trade when he makes Bobadilla a loud‐mouthed “expert” in swordsmanship. He tells tall tales of how “with this instrument … my poor rapier, [I] ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance and put them pell‐mell to the sword” (2.3.111–13) or “[u]pon my first coming to the city they assaulted me, some three, four, five, six of them together … at my lodging, and at my ordinary, where I have driven them afore me the whole length of a street in open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me” (4.2.31–5). He proceeds to brag about his ability to train others to be almost as good as himself, running off fashionable Italian terms for the various thrusts: “And I would teach these nineteen the special tricks – as your punto, your reverso, your staccato, your imbroccato, your passado, your montanto – till they could all play very near or altogether as well as myself” (55–8). This expands into a fantasy of annihilating an army of forty‐thousand strong by challenging them all to “single” combat, twenty at a time. The comedy shades into something more serious when Cob speaks of Bobadilla as “that fencing Burgullian” (Q, 3.5.12–13), an allusion to John Barrose, a Burdundian swordsman who had challenged all comers earlier that year and was hanged on July 10 for murdering a City official who tried to arrest him. And the subject turned deadly serious for Jonson himself only two days after the German nobleman lost his money. On September 22, 1598 he went out into Hoxton Fields, north of the City, and slew Gabriel Spenser in a duel (see p. 39).
One other play has a reasonable claim to have been staged by the Chamberlain’s Men at the Curtain, and that is Henry V. But the claim is a contentious one and it is unwise to hang too much on it. A version of the play was almost certainly staged in 1599, but the issues are which version and exactly when. If it was the version published in quarto in 1600 – without the prologue and choruses, without “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” and (historically correct) without the Dauphin fighting at the Battle of Agincourt – then indeed it might have been staged at any date in 1599; and that would have meant performances at the Curtain any time up until the Globe was opened, which cannot be dated more precisely than late summer/early autumn, though no later than September/October when Thomas Platter saw Julius Caesar (see p. 267).
This is critical if it was the folio version of the play which was staged, containing the prologue and choruses. Critical because the chorus to Act 5 contains a famous reference to “the General of our gracious Empress,” imagining him returning home “Bringing rebellion broachèd on his sword” (30, 32). It is widely believed that this refers to the Earl of Essex, who had been sent to Ireland to put down a serious rebellion.10 Unfortunately his expedition went disastrously wrong almost from the beginning and it would have been impolitic or worse to talk about it publicly any time after midsummer at the latest.
In terms of the theatres what is principally at stake is: does the famous “wooden O” invoked in the prologue refer to the Curtain or to the Globe (or indeed to a venue at court)? Is it an apology for old and unimpressive facilities which the company would prefer not to have had to use at all? Or is it calculated mock‐modesty about the company’s splendid new house on the Bankside? We simply do not know, though it is difficult to see how the line about “the General of our gracious Empress” could have been voiced in public as late as September 1599, since Essex’s campaign had failed disastrously and he returned to London against the Queen’s express orders, arriving on the 28th of that month. Nevertheless, people have, with equal facility, been able to read the “wooden O” reference either way. Of course, the discovery that the Curtain was rectangular rather than polygonal might seem to tilt the odds in favor of “the wooden O” being the Globe; but rich metaphors can embrace many forms of reality.
In other respects neither version of Henry V poses any new challenges in terms of stagecraft which would incline us to suppose that it was written for one of these playhouses rather than the other. Editorial tradition, which universally cleaves to the folio version as the original text, assumes that the Governor of Harfleur appears on the walls to surrender in 3.3, so requiring an upper stage. In fact both versions have a bare “Enter Governor,” which tells us nothing about the staging.
A Warning for Fair Women is a difficult play to date, but was published in 1599 as it “hath been lately diverse times acted by the right Honourable, the Lord Chamberlain his servants,” and thus might be a Curtain play. It does, however, contain many early stylistic features, including dumb shows (though Hamlet is evidence enough that dumb shows were far from dead at this date). In particular, A Warning is framed by heavy metatheatrical – and indeed melodramatic – elements. The play opens: “Enter at door History with a drum and ensign, Tragedy at another, in her one hand a whip, in the other hand a knife.” Later they are joined by Comedy. The point of this preamble is to establish the proper genre for the action to follow, and it is Tragedy who prevails. As History notes: “The stage is hung with black: and I perceive / The auditors prepared for tragedy” (A3r); Tragedy later refers to “these sable curtains” (C2v). It is not clear if there were equally distinctive stage decorations for comedy, history or tragicomedy, but such black hangings for tragedy were standard in public playhouses and seem to have been a feature also of the indoor private playhouses, though it is less often commented upon (see p. 300).11 The plot of A Warning is based on a famous murder in 1573, of which Arthur Golding published a prose account. Tragedy claims that this is a new style of drama, shunning the old conventions of revenge tragedy and concentrating on domestic violence in a familiar English setting. The claim to novelty may be belied by Arden of Feversham (pub. 1592), but it is not impossible that A Warning does indeed antedate it. Yet plays based on true‐life murders did latterly become a stock‐in‐trade for the Chamberlain’s Men, as we see with A Yorkshire Tragedy (circa 1605) and The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (1607), both based on the same events in Yorkshire. A Warning for Fair Women could have been a straw in that wind, whether as a belated printing of an earlier play, with a recent playhouse revival, or as a new play in an old style.
The story of the play unfolds quite conventionally, except that the action is interrupted several times by dumb shows, introduced and commented on by Tragedy, in which the protagonists interact with abstract and mythological characters, like Furies, Lust, and Chastity – spelling out the moral misdirections and the inexorable process of divine retribution. Tragedy’s looming presence – “Tragedy expressing that now he goes to act the deed” – piles on the melodrama, which is stoked by very simple props and effects: “Enter Tragedy with a bowl of blood in her hand”; “Here some strange solemn music like bells is heard within.” Gruesome and gory it may be, but it is all very elementary stagecraft, calling on no unusual resources. The bowl of blood is a useful reminder that the staging of violent deaths and wounds was often very realistic, using concealed bladders filled either with vinegar or possibly real (calves' or lambs’) blood. Three characters in The Battle of Alcazar – an Admiral’s Men’s play – are disemboweled on stage, and the direction on the surviving “plot” of the play calls for “3 vials of blood and sheep’s gather [liver, heart and lungs].” The Fair Maid of Bristow (a Chamberlain’s / King’s Men’s play, printed 1605) calls for nothing so extreme, but in the course of the murder: “Here he stabs his arm and bloodies Sentloe’s face, and plucks out Vallinger’s sword and bloodies it, and lays it by him.” Presumably the arm was where this substantial bladder of blood was concealed.
The ending of A Warning for Fair Women is the only other place where the staging calls for some comment. The murderer, George Browne, is brought to trial. It was evidently decided that the event should be treated with suitable gravity, so that a considerable presence of stage furniture was called for: “Enter some to prepare the judgment seat to the Lord Mayor, Lord Justice, and the four Lords, and one clerk, and a sheriff; who being set, command Browne to be brought forth.” This makes explicit something we may only have presumed: that with continuous staging it would sometimes be necessary for back‐stage personnel to move properties in open view of the audience.12 In this instance it ensures that something like half the cast – all, except the clerk, wearing impressive finery – would be seated in (probably tiered), awe‐inspiring judgment. Browne is found guilty and sentenced to death. At the end of the execution sequence the direction reads only “He leaps off.” We may infer that before Browne delivers a penitent’s speech, he has mounted a ladder, used as a makeshift gallows. (There is talk of proper gallows being built for his three co‐conspirators, but that was hardly practical on stage). The actor would have been wearing a concealed harness, familiar to this day, which would take the strain of the rope without the noose endangering him. But the simulation of sudden death would have been effective, and the horror of the whole plot is rubbed in when Browne is denied his last plea, which was to be spared having his body hung in chains, to rot and be pecked at by crows. This is not a style of drama we would normally associate with Shakespeare (the play is sometimes credited to Heywood) but neither is Barnabe Barnes’s The Devil’s Charter, as we shall see. The Chamberlain’s Men were never tied to a single style. That point is further underscored if we consider what we know of a play called The Second Part of The Seven Deadly Sins.
David Kathman’s meticulous demonstration that the “plot” of 2 The Seven Deadly Sins13 relates not, as was long thought, to a company containing Edward Alleyn in the early 1590s but to the Chamberlain’s Men in 1597–8 is to my mind utterly convincing – certainly more convincing than any other that has been advanced.14 (On “back‐stage plots,” see p. 113). As such it offers us a unique insight into the inner workings and personnel of the company while it was based at the Curtain and around the time that Shakespeare was writing the Henry IV plays, The Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado About Nothing. One thing stands out immediately: that while Shakespeare was making striking innovations in the forms of history plays and romantic comedies, the company was still staging traditional, even old‐fashioned, plays like this, a morality play which portrays the consequences of three of the Seven Deadly Sins, Envy, Sloth, and Lechery. (The other four, Pride, Gluttony, Avarice, and Wrath, had presumably been the subject of the lost 1 Seven Deadly Sins, to which this was a sequel.) Neither A Warning for Fair Women nor An Alarum for London may be quite the outliers in the company’s repertory they have hitherto seemed (see p. 203).
I start by recapitulating Kathman’s identification of the adult actors included in the “plot.” Their names are first given as they appear, then fleshed out if needs be, followed by the roles they played in each of the three sections (Envy, Sloth, Lechery) or the framing Induction:
As Kathman summarizes: “The first eight players in the above list – Bryan, Pope, Phillips, Burbage, Sly, Cowley, Duke, and Sincler – are all known to have been active with the Chamberlain’s Men in 1597–8, if we assume that Bryan remained with the company for at least a while after December 1596 [see p. 157]. The other three men on the list – Holland, Pallant, and Goodale – have links with the Chamberlain‘s Men and can be plausibly placed with that company in the late 1590s, and none is known to have been with any other company at the time” (25). I concur with this analysis in all respects, except for one small caveat. The role of Will Fool does seem to be allocated to John Duke in Sc.14. But the company contained the most famous fool/clown of his day, and his name was Will – Will Kemp. So, as Andrew Gurr suggests: “It makes obvious sense to see … Will Kemp playing the script‐free clown, whose presence was registered only as ‘foole’ in scenes 14 and 15” (2007, 79).15 On balance I agree with this, though I recognize that it renders John Duke’s name at this point an anomaly which I cannot explain unless Duke simply accompanied Will Fool.
The list is obviously deficient in the sense that it never openly names not only Kemp but also two of the other most senior members of the company, John Heminge and William Shakespeare; they were all sharers in the company and so entitled to the honorific “Master” which is carefully accorded Bryan, Pope, and Phillips. But this can be explained by the fact that, besides “Will Fool,” there are two roles in the Induction with no indication of who played them. These are King Henry VI and the poet Lydgate. Since they apparently remained on stage throughout the performance they were obviously substantial roles. But they were of less interest to the book‐keeper and others who would consult the “plot,” since they had no entrances and exits to track. Kathman suggests that Shakespeare might have played the king (an epigram in John Davies’ 1610 Scourge of Folly suggests that he had “played some kingly parts in sport”), while Heminge played the venerable poet, and Kemp played [Mercury] the trickster messenger of the gods, an ideal role from which to guy the other characters (2004a, 31).16 This is entirely plausible, though I do wonder if there might not have been an exploitable in‐joke in making Shakespeare the poet who presents the scenes of Envy, Sloth, and Lechery to the king. Kemp as Mercury does make perfect sense; if he also played Will Fool that gave him stage‐time sufficient to his status and appeal.
Such speculation aside, however, this still only gives us six sharers in the company – Bryan, Pope, Phillips, Heminge, Shakespeare, and Kemp – which is on the low side for a major company at this date. All but Phillips had by this date received money from court on behalf of the company, an important responsibility that normally fell to sharers; so too had Richard Burbage, in 1595. It seems inconceivable that he was not in fact a sharer, despite the inconsistency in the “plot” in not dubbing him “Master” – he had important and substantial roles as King Gorboduc and Tereus. (Possibly his initial was used to distinguish him from his brother, Cuthbert, who, though not an actor, had inherited the Theatre from their father and was always close to the company). Richard Cowley also received court payment on behalf of the company in 1601, so might also already have been a sharer by 1597/8 (see p. 141). All those mentioned in this paragraph were identified as sharers in the King’s Men in 1603, except Bryan and Kemp who left, and Pope who died. By then Will Sly had risen to be a sharer and so had Henry Condell, who – as Kathman argues with conviction – was on the point of transition from boy player to adult at the time of 2 The Seven Deadly Sins.
Identifying the boy players is more problematic because often only their first names are given. But again Kathman’s deductions ring true in a striking number of cases:
The identification of “Harry” with Condell and “Kit” with Beeston makes perfect sense. Both are named in Jonson’s list of the “principal comedians” in Every Man In His Humour, staged in 1598. As I have said, Condell would buy his way into a sharer’s position before 1603, while Beeston (remembered by Augustine Phillips as his “servant” in his 1605 will) moved by 1602 to be a member of Worcester’s Men and to a spectacular entrepreneurial career with that company when it became Queen Anne’s Men (p. 141, 164). Both, that is, were really too old to be called boys by 1597, being close to the end of their apprenticeships.17 Thomas Belt and Alexander (“Saunder”) Cooke were both apprenticed to John Heminge, in 1595 and 1597 respectively – an earlier discovery by Kathman himself (2004b). Cooke would go on to flourish with the company, appearing in Jonson’s cast‐lists for Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist, and Catiline, dying as a shareholder‐member in 1614. Nicholas Tooley, like Cooke, received a legacy in Phillips’ 1605 will as his “fellow,” and was certainly a shareholder in the King’s Men by 1619, making him a strong candidate for “Nick.” Robert Gough is an equally likely candidate for “Ro. Go.” He would be remembered in the 1603 will of Thomas Pope, would witness Phillips’ will, and be a shareholder in the King’s Men by 1619. The other identifications are more speculative, especially that of Edmund Shakespeare for “Ned.” This would be William Shakespeare’s brother (b. 1580), presumed to be the man of that name buried in St Saviour’s Church, Southwark, in 1607, as a “player.” Nothing else is known of him, though it would be logical that a player living in Southwark at that date might be with the King’s Men at the Globe.
Such speculations are not, in fact, necessary to make Kathman’s hypothesis any more secure. The overwhelming majority of identifications make perfect sense and draw the “plot” (to my mind) closer to 1597 than 1598, given that this is the last we ever hear of George Bryan as a player. He was a payee for the company at court in December 1596, but not in the list for Every Man In His Humour. One striking feature of the list is how many of the boy players had an adult career with the company: Condell, Cooke, Tooley, and Gough all flourished with them. That makes it all the more likely that the “Will” in the list, playing a small role as a child, might be one of the Williams – Ostler and Ecclestone – who were with the King’s Men from around 1610, though that does not square very readily with what we think we know of their earlier lives.
The “plot” of 2 The Seven Deadly Sins thus shows us a company with fourteen adult players (the ones named plus Kemp, Heminge, and Shakespeare), of whom seven or eight were sharers. The other six or seven would all have been hired men, but it seems certain that they were not just employed casually; all have multiple roles that may have helped to bulk up the presence on stage (attendants, captains) but also probably called for some professional accomplishment. One of them, John Sincler (or Sinklo) would appear in the Induction to Marston’s The Malcontent, alongside sharers like Burbage and Sly, as familiar members of the company (see p. 283). In addition to the adult players there were a surprisingly large number of boys, nine in all. Of these Condell and Beeston stand out for having been given roles of real substance, Ferrex and a Lord in the case of the former, Attendant, Soldier, and Captain of the latter. Indeed, Condell looks very comparable in his roles to Sly, who played Porrex to his Ferrex, while Beeston looks identical to most of the hired men. It seems reasonable to assume that both were on the brink of adulthood.
Of the younger boys Saunder Cooke seems to have the pick of the female roles, playing Queen Videna and Procne, wife of Tereus (Burbage) and sister of the Philomela (Robert Gough), whom her husband would rape. (This makes him the leading candidate to have created roles such as Beatrice in Much Ado and Rosalind in As You Like It.) Although it is impossible to be sure, without knowing the script, most of the other female roles seem to have been more decorative than demanding. “Will” has only the role of the small boy, Itis, and may have been the youngest of them all. “Vincent” is the most difficult of all to place, since no known actor of that name seems to fit the time frame. David Kathman does, however, recall the anecdote about Thomas Vincent who is mentioned as a “book keeper or prompter” at the Globe not long after this (27; see p. 179). Possibly he moved into that position after starting as a boy player. Here he only appears briefly as a musician. Many if not all boy actors had some facility with instruments; and we note that originally only two musicians were called for and this was increased to three, his only role. He would have been available as “call‐boy” to the book‐keeper for most of the play, as would “Ned” and “Will” (see p. 113).
The “plot” is marked by a determination to describe the action in a number (26) of self‐contained sections or scenes, rather than to tell the story. It helps us make sense of this, however, if we know something of the three tales incorporated by the play.
Induction. The framing Induction focuses on the figure of King Henry VI, apparently after his deposition in 1461 by Edward IV, when he was held in the Tower of London – a fitting audience for the three tales of the fall of kings which make up the play. It seems to end with his restoration to the throne in 1470 by “Warwick” (Sc. 24), Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the “Kingmaker.” This was a brief reprieve however since Warwick was defeated and killed the following year, Henry was recaptured and murdered. It is not clear if the sequence ends with the temporary triumph or the ultimate fall; it is also not clear if the play treats Henry as a near saint and martyr, a widespread view after his death though one fading by the end of the sixteenth century. Shakespeare’s audience was familiar with a fuller version of the history in 3 Henry VI. John Lydgate was an appropriate author to present these tales to Henry, venerated at the time alongside Chaucer and Gower (cf. Pericles) as one of great poets of English antiquity; he had lived in Henry’s time (though he died before the deposition) and was famous for his enormous poem, Fall of Princes.18
Envy tells the tale of Gorboduc, one of the mythical line of early British kings including Brute, Lear, and Cymbeline, which was familiar to the Elizabethans from Holinshed’s Chronicles and from the famous old play by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton. Gorboduc made the fatal mistake of dividing his kingdom while he was still alive, leading to a disastrous civil war between his sons, Ferrex and Porrex (Scenes 5–9).
Sloth is the tale of Sardanapalus, a more‐or‐less mythical king of ancient Assyria, whose name became a byword for sloth and sybaritic living. He had many concubines of both sexes, though in the play they are all female. His general, Arbaces (here Arbactus) led a revolt against this decadent lifestyle (Sc.15), which Sardanapalus seemed initially to crush but which eventually overcame him at Nineveh. Rather than allow himself to be captured he and all his concubines died in a blazing funeral pyre, with all his wealth and royal trappings (hence “with as many jewels, robes and gold as he ca < n > carry,” Sc.16).
Finally Lechery tells the famous tale from Ovid and elsewhere of Tereus, married to Procne, who lusted after and raped his wife’s sister, Philomena, cutting out her tongue to prevent her from talking about it. Philomena, however, told her tale by weaving a tapestry (here “the sampler,” Sc. 23). She and Procne planned revenge, killing Tereus and Procne’s son, Itis. They baked his flesh in a pie, and fed it to Tereus, then showed him Itis’ severed head, from which he deduced what had happened (Sc. 23). Tereus tried to kill the sisters, but the gods intervened (“Mercury comes and all vanish”) and all three were turned into birds. In older versions of the tale Philomela was turned into a swallow, which has no song, while Procne became the nightingale, forever mourning her dead child. Since the most famous version of the myth, however, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the assignation of the birds has usually been reversed, with Philomela the nightingale lamenting her ravishment. Shakespeare notably adapted part of the tale for Titus Andronicus.
As I started this section by saying, it was clearly not the purpose of the “plot” to recount these stories. It was to convey to professionals within the playhouse how they had been converted into dramatic form, in such a way that anyone consulting it could see the sequence of scenes, entrances, and exits: exactly who should be on stage at any moment in the sequence (and so should be prepared to go on ahead of time). The great majority of scenes start with an entry, often followed with indications that other characters subsequently join those who enter first, but there is rarely any indication of what actions take place and no indication at all of what the characters talk about – the players are supposed to know all that from learning their parts. The scenes that do not begin with an entry almost all relate to the Induction/framing device involving Henry VI, Lydgate and (latterly) Mercury; the first two are apparently on stage throughout, until Lydgate exits at the very end. Henry may remain in his tent to watch the action, possibly emerging when he is involved with the Lieutenant of the Tower, his warder and the pursuivant (which might here mean either a royal warrant officer or a personal attendant). It is possible that he was meant to exit with Warwick at the end of Sc. 25, but that is not indicated.
Here, then, is a transcription of the “plot” of the play.
The Plat (Plot) of The Second Part of the Seven Deadly Sins
- A tent being placed on the stage for Henry the Sixth. He in it, asleep; to him the Lieutenant, a pursuivant, R(ichard) Cowley, John Duke, and [2] 1 warder [s], [John Holland], Robert Pallant. To them Pride, Gluttony, Wrath and Covetousness at one door, at another door Envy, Sloth and Lechery. The three put back the four. And so exeunt.
- Henry awaking, enter a Keeper, John Sincler; to him a servant, Thomas Belt; to him Lydgate and the Keeper. Exit then enter again. Then Envy passeth over the stage. Lydgate speakes.
- A sennet. Dumb show. Enter King Gorboduc with 2 Councillors; Richard Burbage, Master (George) Bryan, Thomas Goodale. The Queen with Ferrex and Porrex and some attendants follow; Saunder (Alexander Cooke), Will Sly, Harry (Condell), John Duke, Kit (Christopher Beeston), Robert Pallant, John Holland. After Gorboduc hath consulted with his Lords he brings his two sons to two several seats. They evaing one another, Ferrex offers to take Porrex his crown. He draws his weapon. The King, Queen and Lords step between them. They thrust them away and, menacing [ecc] each other, exit. The Queen < and Lords depart > heavily. Lydgate speaks.
- Enter Ferrex crowned, with drum and colours and soldiers, one way; Harry (Condell), Kit (Beeston), R. Cowley, John Duke. To them, at another door, Porrex, drum and colours and soldiers; W Sly, R. Pallant, John Sincler, J. Holland.
- Enter [Gorb] Queen, with 2 Councillors; Master Brian, Thomas Goodale. To them Ferrex and Porrex several ways with [his] drums and powers. Gorboduc, entering in the midst between. Henry speaks.
- Alarum with excursions. After Lydgate speaks.
- Enter Ferrex and Porrex severally, Goboduc still following them. Lucius and Damasus; Master Bryan, Thomas Goodale.
- Enter Ferrex at one door, Porrex at another. They fight, Ferrex is slain. To them Videna, the Queen; to her Damasus; to him Lucius.
- Enter Porrex sad with Dordan, his man; R(obert) P(allant), W Sly. To them the Queen and a Lady, Nick (Tooley?), Saunder. And Lords, R. Cowley, Master Bryan; to them Lucius running.
- Henry and Lydgate speaks; Sloth passeth over.
- Enter Giraldus, Phronesius, Aspatia, Pompeia, Rodope; Richard Cowley, Thomas Goodale, Robert Gough, Ned (Shakespeare?), Nick (Tooley?).
- Enter Sardanapalus, Arbactus, Nicanor and captains, marching; Master Phillips, Master Pope, R(obert) Pallant, Kit (Beeston), John Sincler, John Holland.
- < Enter > A captain with Aspatia and the ladies. Kit (Beeston).
* * *
Lydgate speak.
- Enter Nicanor with other captains; R. Pallant, J. Sincler, Kit (Beeston), J. Holland R. Cowley. To them Arbactus; Master Pope. To him Will Fool; J. Duke. To him Rodope; Ned (Shakespeare?). To her Sardanapalus like a woman, with Aspatia, Rodope, Pompeia, Will Fool. To them Arbactus and [2] 3 musicians; Master Pope, J. Sincler, (Thomas?) Vincent, R(ichard) Cowley. To them Nicanor and others; R. Pallant, Kit (Beeston).
- Enter Sardanapalus, with the ladies. To them a messenger; Thomas Goodale. To him Will Fool, running. Alarum.
- Enter Arbactus, pursuing Sardanapalus, and the ladies fly. After enter Sardanapalus with as many jewels, robes and gold as he ca < n > carry. Alarum.
- Enter Arbactus, Nicanor and the other captai < ns > in triumph; Master Pope, R. Pallant, Kit (Beeston), J. Holland, R. Cowley, J Sincler.
- Henry speaks and Lydgate; Lechery passeth over the stage. Enter Te < reus>, Philomele, <Julio>; R Burbage, Ro < R Pall.>, J < Sink > .
- Enter Procne, Itis and Lords; Saunder (Cooke), Will (Ostler? Eccleston?), J. Duke, W(ill) Sly, Harry (Condell).
- Enter Philomele and Tereus; to them Julio
- Enter Procne, Panthea, Itis and Lords; Saunder (Cooke), T(homas) Belte, Will (Ostler? Ecclestone?), W. Sly, Harry (Condell), Th(omas) Goodale. To them Tereus with Lords; R. Burbage, J. Duke, R. Cowley
- A Dumb Show. Lydgate speaks.
- Enter Procne with the sampler. To her Tereus from hunting with his Lords. To them Philomele with Itis’ head in a dish. Mercury comes and all vanish. To him 3 Lords; Th(omas) Goodale, Harry(Condell), W(ill) Sly.
- Henry speaks. To him Lieutenant, pursuivant and warder; R. Cowley, J. Duke, J. Holland, John Sincler. To them Warwick; Master Bryan.
- Lydgate speaks to the audience and so exits.
FINIS
The text of the “plot” is based, with permission, on the “diplomatic” version offered by David Kathman, which has old spelling and original punctuation (2004a, 35–8). I have modernized spelling and punctuation, but followed Kathman in respect of use of brackets: square brackets represent material crossed out – so, for instance, in Scene 1 the original plan was to have two warders, but this was later reduced to one; pointed brackets indicate best‐guess attempts to reconstruct text which has been lost to wear or damage, all of which I have accepted.
Round brackets represent my own expansion of abbreviated forms, purely to help the reader. The numbers designating the scenes are also my own, but very clearly suggested by the way the “plot” divides the action into two columns, each section of which is ruled off after a self‐contained sequence (i.e. a scene). The line of asterisks is not on the “plot” but marks where the left‐hand column ends and transitions to the right‐hand side. It seems that the items at the foot of the left column and the top of the right represent a single scene.
George Harvey attributed the “famous play of The Seven Deadly Sins” to the great comedian, Richard Tarlton, “which most deadly but most lively play I might have seen in London, and was very gently invited thereunto at Oxford by Tarlton himself” (ES, 3: 497; see p. 44). It was evidently a two‐part play, the first part of which is lost; but there is no reason to suppose that Tarlton did not write both parts. If so, they must have been written and performed (presumably by the Queen’s Men) before Tarlton’s death in 1588. As a morality / fall of princes play the Second Part does seem to belong to an earlier era than Shakespeare. Yet the Chamberlain’s Men somehow acquired a manuscript of it and saw fit to perform it as late as 1597/8; there is no record of its ever being printed. We do know, however, that the Queen’s Men sold a significant number of their plays to printers in 1594/5, at the time they lost their footing at court and became exclusively a touring operation. It is not impossible that the Chamberlain’s Men, looking to build up a repertoire of plays as quickly as possible, might have purchased one or both parts of the play then or later, with the licence to perform them.
Plays that strung multiple stories together were quite common. Four Plays in One was in the repertoire of Strange’s Men at the Rose in 1592; some have supposed it to be 1 The Seven Deadly Sins (see p. 213). A Yorkshire Tragedy declares itself to be “One of the four plays in one” performed togther under that title (p. 204). Overall, 2 The Seven Deadly Sins tells familiar tales of the falls of four princes: Henry VI, Gorboduc, Sardanapalus, and Tereus, the latter three destroyed by Envy, Sloth, and Lechery, as Lydgate doubtless moralized. But the fact that the play ends on an apparently positive note, with the restoration of Henry VI to his throne (albeit, historically, only briefly) does raise questions about the overall tone of the piece. The entry of Porrex “sad” does leave open the possibility of remorse and reconciliation which is not part of the traditional tale. The tale of Sardanapalus is counterpointed by the comic presence of Will Fool and the final emphasis is not on his death but on the triumph of the generals who restore his kingdom’s moral compass. The tragedy of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela is prevented from an even more tragic conclusion by the intervention of the gods – in the form, apparently, of Will Kemp. All in all it contrives to be a tragicomic piece, with lots of scope for flamboyant costumes, action (battles, chases), sententious speeches, comic diversions, and perhaps two spectacular set‐pieces: Sardanapulus’s funeral pyre and the “vanishing” with which the Lechery sequence ends.
I have dwelt at such length on this play because I believe that I am the first person writing on the Chamberlain’s Men and their theatres to pick up on David Kathman’s cogent argument for locating its “plot” in 1597/8, rather than several years earlier. It gives us unique insights into the personnel, roles, and staging practices of the company quite early in its existence. It also demonstrates that they were still performing plays of an earlier era and theatrical fashion than the sophisticated histories and comedies that Shakespeare was writing for them while they were housed at the Curtain.
The folio text of Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour, as we have already partially seen, gives us one last substantial piece of information about the company during their time at the Curtain (p. 199ff). It lists the “principal comedians” who performed in the original, quarto version; and this reinforces what we have inferred from the “plot” of 2 The Seven Deadly Sins. These appear in two columns: on the left, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, Henry Condell, William Sly, and William Kemp; on the right, Richard Burbage, John Heminge, Thomas Pope, Christopher Beeston, and John Duke. The principles on which Jonson compiled these lists are far from clear and attempts to correlate actors with particular roles are usually pure speculation. As mentioned earlier, neither Beeston nor Duke was ever a sharer with the Chamberlain’s Men, though they were successful – in Beeston’s case spectacularly successful – with other companies. All the others were certainly sharers. One name missing from the original line‐up is George Bryan, who had left for his position at court (see p. 157). Another missing name is that of Richard Cowley (see p. 141). His omission here may only prove that he did not take any major role, though he may have taken a number of smaller ones, the apparent practice with Armin in most of Jonson’s plays for the company while Armin was with them (see p. 150). If we omit Beeston and Duke from Jonson’s list and add Cowley I suspect we have a tally of all the sharers in 1598.
Although in general it is fruitless to speculate who played what role (especially Shakespeare) an exception can be made for Kemp, since it was always likely that he would take one of the more distinctive comic roles. There are two of these in Every Man In His Humour, Bobadilla and Cob. Bobadilla is, as we have seen, a braggart soldier, a type which does not align itself with any other role Kemp is suspected of playing. But Cob readily compares with Bottom or Dogberry and I concur with David Wiles in seeing it as Kemp’s role in the play:
The clown’s part is manifestly that of Oliver Cob. The part owes nothing to the theory of humours, everything to the clown tradition … Kemp’s clowning is rooted in festival. “Cob” identifies himself as a herring cob [head] – that is, an emblem of Lent. But Cob loathes fasting days, because herring then are eaten, so Cob becomes, paradoxically, the embodiment of Carnival … Cob’s English name distances him from the Italian world of the play, and he is English enough to deal in shillings and pence. A virtuoso mime routine is given him when he performs a balancing feat with his tankard to the nonsense words: “Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, up tails all, and a pox on the hangman.”
The central feature of Cob’s clowning is that the audience do not know whether they are laughing at or with him. On the face of it, he is set up as the fall guy to be cudgeled, scratched, knocked on the head by a door, and duped into thinking he must go to prison. Yet at the same time he remains in control of the humour of every scene in which he appears. (1987, 94–5)
Kemp was also at this time, while resident at the Curtain, at the height of his fame for his jigs. John Marston in his satirical Scourge of Villainy (1598) declares that “the orbs celestial will dance Kemp’s jig” (Sat. 11, line 30), while Everard Guilpin’s Skialetheia that same year says “Whores, beadles, bawds and sergeants filthily chaunt Kemp’s jig, or the Burgonians’ tragedy” (Sat. 5). Dancing, singing and bawdry – some of it impromptu – seem to have parts of his stock‐in‐trade, and such jigs often closed an afternoon’s performance.
Cob, however, was to be one of Kemp’s last new roles for the Chamberlain’s Men. As I shall explain, he left them before they moved to the Globe. But before we consider that major transition we need to consider events of 1597 and 1598 which did not centrally involve the Chamberlain’s Men but had a major impact on their future.
The cause and effect of the events of July and August 1597, when theatre in London seemed to be in danger of being obliterated altogether, are not easy to piece together. On July 28 the Privy Council wrote to the magistrates in Middlesex and Surrey, ordering that “those playhouses that are erected and built only for such purposes shall be plucked down” both in Shoreditch, where the Theatre and Curtain were, and in Southwark, where the Rose and the recently‐built Swan stood (EPF, 100–1; see also Dutton, 1991: 102–16; Dutton, 2000: 16–40). They also suspended all playing. The orders were signed by, among others, the patrons of both the Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s Men. On that very day the Court of Common Council of London had written to the Privy Council with what looks like a routine complaint, listing the familiar objections to the theatres – immorality, crime, absenteeism, spread of plague – and petitioning “for the present stay, and final suppressing, of the said stage plays” (EPF, 99). But there is nothing to suggest why the Privy Council should have reacted so dramatically on this occasion. There is, however, also no indication that anyone acted on the order to pluck the playhouses down.
It seems likely – though final evidence is lacking – that the Privy Council order was somehow linked with specific activity on the Bankside, focused on the new Swan theatre. It had been occupied by the Earl of Pembroke’s Men, who now constituted clear rivals to the Admiral’s Men, playing nearby at the Rose. Indeed they had been poaching some of their senior players, including Martin Slater (Gurr, 1996, 239). Over the next few months, however, Henslowe’s Diary shows that defectors were tempted back to the Admiral’s Men, and indeed some others of Pembroke’s Men joined them (Henslowe, 239–40).
A critical factor in reversing the flow was almost certainly the Council’s action against The Isle of Dogs, co‐written for Pembroke’s Men by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson; Jonson also performed in it. We do not know precisely when they took this action, but by August 15 they certainly had Jonson and other players in custody for their parts in the play, which supposedly “contain[ed] very seditious and slanderous matter” (ES, 4: 323). Moreover, they were employing the notorious inquisitor and licensed torturer, Richard Topcliffe, in pursuit of those responsible – the only time in the entire era that they demonstrated such naked aggression in their response to theatrical infractions. And it may well have been this play, rather than the petition from the Court of Common Council, which prompted the Privy Council’s actions against the playhouses (EPF, 101).
One clear outcome of all this – which, reading backwards, we might suspect had been intended all along – was that Pembroke’s Men went out of business and the Swan was largely unused for several years (Ingram 1978: 167–86, 313–14). Its owner, Francis Langley, unsuccessfully sued five of the players who had abandoned the Swan for the Rose (EPF, 437–46). Over the following months measures were put in place which gave public standing to the de facto pre‐eminence of the Chamberlain’s and Admiral’s Men, notionally making it more difficult for rival companies to challenge it. Parliament passed an even harsher statute governing the Punishment of Rogues and Vagabonds (February 9, 1598), restricting travel by professional players to those who carried their aristocratic masters’ sealed warrant and removing certain privileges of mayors and justices in that regard in the earlier legislation (see p. 29). Then on February 19 Privy Council letters went out simultaneously to the Middlesex and Surrey magistrates and to Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels:
Whereas licence hath been granted unto two companies of stage players retained unto us, the Lord Admiral and Lord Chamberlain, to use and practice stage plays, whereby they might be better enabled and prepared to show such plays before Her Majesty as they shall be required at times meet and accustomed, to which end they have been chiefly licensed and tolerated as aforesaid; and whereas there is also a third company who of late (as we are informed) have by way of intrusion used likewise to play, having neither prepared any play for Her Majesty nor are bound to you, the Master of the Revels, for performing such orders as have been enjoined to be observed by the other two companies before mentioned. We have therefore thought good to require you upon receipt hereof to take order that the aforesaid third company may be suppressed, and none suffered hereafter to play but those two formerly named belonging to us, the Lord Admiral and Lord Chamberlain, unless you shall receive other direction from us. (EPF, 104)
Nothing earlier is as explicit about the interrelationship of these two “licensed” and “tolerated” companies, the Master of the Revels and the provision of plays for the Queen. Nor had anything specified that the individual authorities of the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Admiral, in respect of the companies they patronized, carried the collective authority of the Privy Council. But this is unequivocal. Whatever understandings may have surrounded the emergence of these companies in 1594, these were now publicly stated policies of the Privy Council as far as the authorities in and around London were concerned.
This – following the appointment of their new patron as Lord Chamberlain, after Lord Cobham’s death – must have offered reassurance to his players and helped steer them to the actions which followed. Denied use of both the Theatre and the Blackfriars, and not content with the old Curtain, they needed a new playhouse. But James Burbage had died in February 1597, having invested all his capital in the Blackfriars. The briefly remaining lease on the Theatre had earlier been conveyed into the hands of Cuthbert, the elder son, while the freehold of the Blackfriars building now passed to Richard. It was, however, a fact of some importance to the stability of the Chamberlain’s Men that the Burbage brothers seem to have acted cooperatively in all their theatrical affairs. Cuthbert, though never an actor or a sharer in any company, was engaged in theatrical finance all his life, currently owner of the Theatre, and must have taken a lead over the next few months.
By the end of the year they had identified a site for a new playhouse. Either seeking to emulate the success of Henslowe’s Rose or determined to make a clean break with the Shoreditch district, where there was continuing litigation with their landlord at the Theatre, they chose a piece of garden ground “situate in Maiden Lane on the Bankside in the County of Surrey” (from a Privy Council order of 1604; ES, 2: 416). Their new lease was executed on February 21, 1599, but backdated to run from the Christmas just passed for thirty‐one years. This relates to the reality that they had actually been occupying the site since then. Under cover of darkness on December 28, 1598, the Burbage brothers, Peter Street (a carpenter) and some dozen workmen
did riotously assemble themselves together and then and there armed themselves with divers and many unlawful and offensive weapons, as namely swords, daggers, bills, axes, and such like, and so armed did then repair unto the said Theatre. And then and there, armed as aforesaid, in very riotous, outrageous, and forcible manner, and contrary to the laws of your Highness’s realm, attempted to pull down the said Theatre, whereupon divers of your subjects, servants and farmers, then going about in peaceable manner to procure them to desist from that their unlawful enterprise, they, the said riotous persons aforesaid, notwithstanding procured then therein with great violence, not only then and there forcibly and riotously resisting your subjects, servants and farmers, but also then and there pulling, breaking and throwing down the said Theatre in very outrageous, violent and riotous sort, to the great disturbance and terrifying not only of your subjects, said servants and farmers, but of divers others of your Majesty’s loving subjects there near inhabiting.
(Wallace, 1913, 278–9)
Thus the indignant legalese of their former landlord, Giles Allen, some three years later, as he pursued Cuthbert Burbage through the courts. In fact Allen was legally correct; property standing on the site when the lease expired formally passed to him. But he was never able to get a court to rule in his favor. Meawhile the timbers of the Theatre were shipped across the Thames to the Bankside, where they were to be re‐erected, by Peter Street the carpenter, as the Globe. That will be the subject of the next chapter.
We do not know all the details of how the Burbages were able to afford all this; they may have borrowed money. But one feature of their arrangements is known and was to prove yet another element in preserving the stability and cohesiveness of the Chamberlain’s Men. The lease on the Globe site was assigned to seven persons: the Burbage brothers, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminge, and Will Kemp. But the division was not equal. The Burbages had one moiety (half, or five tenths) of the lease between them, while Shakespeare and the other members of the company divided the other half (one tenth each), contributing £70 each towards the construction costs. The logical inference of all this is that these men had all invested their own money in building the Globe and so were naturally entitled to share in its profits. They thus became what were called “housekeepers” – in addition to remaining sharers in the company, the Chamberlain’s Men. So they became their own landlords and took a double profit in the operations of the Globe.
The disposition and value of the housekeeper shares would vary as their holders died or as agreement was reached to allow others into their ranks. There were attempts legally to bind the housekeepers into a “joint‐tenancy,” whereby they would only convey shares among themselves (ES, 2: 417–18). But this was certainly not observed in the long run; shares passed to widows and other heirs over time. There was also potential for friction between the housekeepers and those sharers who had no stake in the playhouse, not least since it would appear that there was more money (perhaps three times as much) in being a housekeeper than in merely being a company sharer. A replication of these divisions when the company also acquired use of the Blackfriars playhouse only compounded the pressures (see p. 292–3). These issues certainly boiled over in the 1630s, when some players became aggrieved at not being given the opportunity to obtain housekeeper shares as their predecessors had done. The Lord Chamberlain was called upon to arbitrate the matter and the Sharers’ Papers were the depositions put before him by various parties in the dispute, including Cuthbert Burbage who by then had a longer memory of everything that had happened than anyone else (Gurr, 2004a, 271–80). To all appearances these matters were handled amicably during Shakespeare’s working lifetime, though as early as 1615 they caused major discord within John Heminge’s own family (see p. 164).
The one really jarring note in early company relations came in fact with Will Kemp’s withdrawal from the consortium that had bought shares in the Globe; he withdrew from the agreement before it went into effect and his share was redistributed among Shakespeare, Phillips, Pope, and Heminge, leaving them with one and a‐quarter shares each. This was evidently a prelude to his departure from the company itself. Precisely when he left is unclear. The latest play we can associate him with, as we have seen, is Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour. He is not in the cast‐list for Every Man Out of His Humour, staged at the Globe in the autumn of 1599 – one of the first plays performed there (Jonson, 2012h, 239–40). And it seems likely that he had left before the company in fact moved to its new playhouse.
Thomas Platter, the Swiss tourist who described the penny‐by‐penny payment system, recorded visits to two performances where he had encountered it. He was only in England from September 18 to October 20, 1599, so both were in the same time‐frame. One, which I discuss later, was of Julius Caesar at the Globe (see p. 267). The other was of an unknown play “in Bishopgate,” which at this date must mean the Curtain. He described there a routine in which a master and servant “both got drunk, and the servant threw his shoe at his master’s head and they both fell asleep” (ES, 2: 365). In Every Man Out of His Humour, the tavern jester, Carlo Buffone remarks: “would I had one of Kemp’s shoes to throw after you” (4.5.118). Kemp in this scenario must have joined the company that succeeded the Chamberlain’s Men at the Curtain, and devised this comic routine for them. This is his old company’s salute to him.
Why Kemp left is a matter for conjecture. But it is surely telling that the break happened as the company prepared to cross the River Thames and take up residence at the Globe on the Bankside, very close to Henslowe’s Rose. Whether by accident or by design the move proved to be not only a geographical one, but one that changed the tone of the company’s repertory – in good part because of Kemp’s departure. It is likely that the sharers of the company discussed their professional objectives at this time, thinking about the types of audience they would hope to attract. They might feel it important to distinguish themselves from their rivals, the Admiral’s Men, who would now be performing barely 200 yards away – probably not knowing until their own plans were well advanced that the Admiral’s Men in turn would move to a new playhouse, the Fortune, which Henslowe built for them north of the City.
At the same time, however, they may have heard that moves were afoot to resuscitate the boy players who had been out of business for the best part of a decade. Indeed Paul’s boys re‐opened in their tiny indoor playhouse in the grounds of St Paul’s before the end of 1599, only weeks after the Globe welcomed its first audiences. And there were plans to revive the Children of the Queen’s Chapel by May of 1600, because Richard Burbage drew up a lease for them to use his father’s Blackfriars playhouse at a rent of £40 a year: it was executed on September 2. Evidently the company’s at least notional association with the royal chapel made it possible for them to play there when adult players could not.23 This must have been bittersweet for Burbage and the Chamberlain’s Men in general. It gave Burbage a financial return after all his family’s outlay on both the Blackfriars and the Globe. But it also gave an advantage to serious competitors, the “little eyases” who (in the folio version of Hamlet) are said to be responsible for driving the adult players out on their travels.
Any or all of these factors may have weighed with the company as they contemplated their move to the Bankside. And it may be that his colleagues felt that Kemp and his jigging, so long a mainstay of the company in the northern suburbs, were not well suited for attracting the kinds of audiences they hoped to bring to their new venue. What is indisputable is that they made no attempt to continue the tradition of jigs after Kemp left. It became a hallmark of the new playhouses in the northern suburbs, the Fortune (from 1601) and the Red Bull (1606), though even there it became disreputable (see p. 226). The Globe – and the boys – would offer different fare.
The change clearly left its mark on Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour, which was radically revised before it appeared in his 1616 Works. The quarto text, as performed at the Curtain in 1598, clearly shows preparations for the jig that was to follow (Wiles, 54). Fifteen of the sixteen named characters come together to celebrate with “Doctor” Clement, who invites them all to “enjoy the very spirit of mirth” (5.3.379–80; Jonson, 2012g). The missing character is Cob, Kemp’s clown part (see p. 217 and Wiles, 94–8). His long‐suffering wife, Tib, is present and briefly condoled, but does not speak. And three characters are dismissed – Bobadilla, Matheo, and Peto – before the end of the scene. In the 1616 version all sixteen of the named characters are on stage by the end of the play and included in “Justice” Clement’s determination to dedicate the night “to friendship, love, and laughter” (5.5.71–2; Jonson, 2012h). Cob and Tib are there with the others and, as the Justice puts it, “married anew” (57–8) among the romantic festivities.
The quarto thus clearly makes provision for Kemp and three fellows to stage a jig when the comedy winds up and the other characters leave the stage. But the 1616 text makes no such provision. The business of the afternoon’s playing is fully resolved within the terms and conditions of the printed text. It might be that the company felt that they could not follow Kemp in a form he had made so much his own, though Augustine Phillips is also credited with writing a lost jig, Phillips His Slipper. Or simply that the audience at the Globe had less stomach for the boisterous, bawdy, lawless jig. But the change certainly happened.
There are signs that the parting of the ways was not amicable. In February–March of 1600, by which time he had clearly left, Kemp morris‐danced from London to Norwich – a distance of some hundred miles – in nine days, spread over several weeks; it was an impressive physical achievement, which says much for his stamina and athletic ability. He took wagers against his failure as a way to profit from the stunt. Later that year he commemorated the achievement in Kemp’s Nine Days’ Wonder (see Figure 3.3). In his dedication of his book he acknowledges that he has “danced himself out of the world” (punning on “globe”) and proudly announces himself to be “one … that hath spent his life in mad jigs and merry jests.” Later on, however, he addresses “the impudent generation of ballad‐makers and their coherents” – apparently the originators of “slanders” against him mentioned on the title page – as “my notable Shakerags.” It is difficult not to see this as aimed personally at Shakespeare, while the “coherents” might be the rest of the company.
But Shakespeare may not have been above some pointed comments of his own. In Julius Caesar (which may well have been the first new play in the Globe) Brutus refers contemptuously to jigging fools (4.3.136). Might this be one of Kemp’s supposed “slanders”? Another one appears in Hamlet. The version printed in the first quarto (1603) seems related to the moment when the boy companies reopened; the “Tragedians of the City” are said to be traveling “For the principal public audience that / Came to them are turned to private plays, / And to the humour of children” (E3). This would be late 1599 or 1600. This text of the play contains a less familiar version of Hamlet’s famous rebuke to certain clowns:
And do you hear? Let not your clown speak
More than is set down. There be of them I can tell you
That will laugh themselves, to set on some
Quantity of barren spectators to laugh with them,
Albeit there is some necessary point in the play
Then to be observed. O, t’is vile, and shows
A pitiful ambition in the fool that useth it. (Q1, sig.F2)
In this, as indeed in everything he says about acting, Hamlet is at least partly talking about himself: his “antic disposition” is a kind of clowning, which repeatedly defers “some necessary point” in his own plans for revenge. But it is difficult to believe that this would not also be taken as an extra‐textual reference to Kemp and the way his extempore clowning sometimes cut across the artistry of Shakespeare’s plays.
There may, therefore, have been a personal edge in this parting of the ways. But it seems to have been all of a piece with what we might call professional and artistic differences. Kemp went on the continent for a time, before he returned and in 1602 joined Worcester’s Men, resuscitating his trademark jig. But he died the following year. That company, however – later Queen Anne’s Men, playing at the Red Bull – was one of those noted for keeping jigs alive and other forms of populist theatre, such as pyrotechnics, when such fare was no longer fashionable at the Globe. The Chamberlain’s Men, as we shall see, replaced Kemp with a very different style of comedian (see p. 264).