It is unlikely that the Chamberlain’s Men included a tirewoman (in the sense of someone who made head tires) among their weekly salaried staff, but it is certainly not impossible that a woman was employed – as with the Children of the King’s Revels – whose duties included dressing and equipping the transvestite boy actors. But a tireman – or more likely tiremen – most certainly would have been on the regular staff. The male title alluded, not to headware, but to care of the stock of clothing that the company built up, which was its most valuable single asset. When Francis Langley’s attempt to set up the Earl of Pembroke’s Men in his Swan theatre went awry in 1597 it was a major point in his suit for reparations against the players that he should be reimbursed for “the great costs and charges he hath disbursed and laid out at and by their direction for … furnishing himself with sundry sorts of rich attire and apparel for them to play withal, whereof the defendant hath ever sithence had little use” (EPF, 444). Thomas Platter noted that “The comedians are most expensively and elegantly apparelled since” – he was apparently informed – “it is customary in England, when distinguished gentlemen or knights die, for nearly the finest of their clothes to be made over and given to their servants, and as it is not proper for them to wear such clothes but only to imitate them, they give them to the comedians to purchase for a small sum” (ES, 2: 365).
This account of how the players acquired their finery is not corroborated in Henslowe or elsewhere and may be something of an urban myth, since the Diary makes it very plain that they laid out great sums of money to acquire clothing for their productions – often significantly more than to acquire the script. In just eleven days (August 18–28, 1602) Henslowe advanced Worcester’s Men the following sums for costumes: £2 “to buy rebatos and farthingales”; £9 “to buy taffeta and other stuff to make two women’s gowns”; 5s “to buy buckram to make a pair of gyente [giant?] hose”; £12 “to buy a suit for ‘Oldcastle’ and a suit and a doublet of satin”; £4 for “a cloak of camlet [costly eastern fabric, or imitation of] lined with crimson taffeta, pinked,” followed by 14s. to pay the mercer for lace for the cloak; £6 for a man’s gown of branched [adorned with a figured pattern] velvet and a doublet; and 34s. “to pay unto the tailor for stuff and making of two women’s gowns” (Henslowe, 214–15).
However it was acquired, such attire needed to be stored safely and in such order that items could regularly be found. It needed to be cleaned and mended as use demanded. It needed to be aired and kept dry as – in an era before artificial fabrics – a defense against both rot and moths. (At court, it was one of the responsibilities of the Revels Office – and specifically the Yeoman of the Revels – to protect the extensive collection of costumes used in court entertainments in this way.)11 All of this was the tireman’s first responsibility. The scale of it may be judged from the inventories which Edward Alleyn drew up in March 1598, presumably demarcating what the Admiral’s Men owned as distinct from the property of Henslowe and Alleyn themselves, at a point when the business relationship between them was changing.12
One list, ominously – and despite the draconian penalties for absconding with company stock – is headed “Gone and Lost” and contains some obviously valuable items, including “1 orange tawny satin doublet, laid thick with gold lace,” “1 pair of carnation satin Venetians [hose or breeches], laid with gold lace,” “1 longshank’s [= Edward 1] suit,” “1 Spanish [?] doublet, pinked [= cut so as to reveal the lining],” “1 Harry the Fifth’s velvet gown.” Another is “The Inventory of the Clowns’ Suits and Hermits’ Suits, with divers other” which contains many standard, reusable items, even when they were apparently bought for a particular play: “1 senator’s gown, 1 hood, and 5 senators’ capes,” “1 suit for Neptune; firedrake’s [fiery dragon’s] suits for Dobe [unidentified],” “4 janissaries’ gowns, and 4 torchbearers’ suits,” “3 pair of red strasers [trousers],” “4 Hereward’s coats, and 3 soldiers’ coats, and 1 green gown for Marian,” “6 green coats for Robin Hood, and 4 knaves’ suits,” “2 russet coats, and 1 black frese [coarse woolen] coat, and 3 priests’ coats,” “2 white shepherds’ coats, and 2 Danes’ suits, and one pair of Danes’ hose,” “4 friars’ gowns and 4 hoods to them, and 1 fool’s coat, cape, and bauble, and Branholt’s bodice, and Merlin gown and cape,” “2 black saye [fine textured cloth] gowns, and 2 cotton gowns, and 1 red saye gown,” “5 pair of hose for the clown, and 5 jerkins for them,” “1 yellow leather doublet for a clown,” “Eve’s bodice, and 3 dons’ hats,” “1 red suit of cloth for Pig [John Pig, boy actor], laid with white lace,” “1 pair of yellow cotton sleeves, 1 ghost’s suit, and 1 ghost’s bodice,” “5 shirts, and 1 serpelowes [? = surplice], 3 farthingales,” “6 head‐tires, 1 fane [flag, banner], 3 rebatos [large, stiffened collars], 2 gyrketruses [unexplained]” and “18 copes and hats.” Some entries include properties, as if perhaps they were expected to be used in the same show: “The Moor’s limbs, and Hercules’s limbs, and Will Summers’s suit,” “2 Orlates [unidentified] suits, hats and gorgets, and 7 antics’ [grotesques’, clowns’] coats,” and “Cathemer [unidentified] suit, 1 pair of cloth white stockings, 3 Turks’ heads,” “1 hat for Robin Hood, 1 hobby‐horse.”
A brief inventory covers items “Left above in the tire‐house in the chest,” another (see p. 109) lists properties, and yet another seems to list the more precious clothes:
These lists are far from complete and the sheer quantity of clothing is staggering – but obviously necessary with such a repertoire and every play containing twenty roles or more. And the range of materials is impressive: from various forms of coarse woolen material to more luxurious taffeta, satin, velvet, and sarcenet. And an array of colors, favoring peach‐colored, black, white, orange‐tawny, and occasional bright red, as (fittingly) in Tamburlaine’s breeches. Trimming with copper (white or red, to imitate silver or gold) was common and cheaper than the precious metals – but there was plenty of real gold and silver on display as well, just as there were “pinked” items, pierced or slashed in some way to show off a splendid lining.
And the tireman’s first responsibility was to keep all this investment in good order. The Chamberlain’s Men doubtless had a wardrobe as impressive and expensive. In the case of the Admiral’s Men we actually have the name of their tireman, Steven Maggett, and it is apparent in Henslowe’s pages that he was a trusted part of the team. We first hear of him January 1595, when Henslowe sold him a doublet and a pair of Venetians (trousers) with two laces, for 16s., agreeing to take payment at the rate of 1s. per week. In December 1596 Henslowe recorded: “dd unto Steven the tireman for to deliver unto the company to buy a head‐tire and rebato [stiffened collar or ruff support] & other things … £4 10s” – a significant investment, and also responsibility. In August 1601 we hear of Henslowe repaying him 14d. of his own money which he had used to buy tiffany [fine, transparent silk] for the play of Cardinal Wolsey (37, 50, 180).
Thereafter Steven presumably transferred with the Admiral’s Men to the Fortune and a different tireman – Henslowe refers to him only as “our tireman,” even in his tenancy accounts – worked for Worcester’s Men, who took over the Rose. We hear of him in September 1602, being paid 8s. 8d. “for making of William Kemp’s suit and the boy’s.” The next month he was lent 8s. to buy soutage, a coarse cloth, “to make devils” suits for the new play of the 2 Brothers’ Tragedy and a further 18s. “to buy saye … to make a witch’s gown” for the same play. He was paid later in the month for doing the work. The next year he was entrusted with over £5 to buy eight and a half yards of black satin to make a suit for “The Second Part of The Black Dog” (Henslowe, 247, 218, 219, 224). This tireman clearly had tailors’ skills and was employed to make up at least some of their clothes rather than buy them ready‐made. This may show thrift on the part of a company which was by no means as well established as the Admiral’s Men, and suffered from having to compete with the Chamberlain’s Men at the Globe, a very short distance away.
The tireman’s duties clearly extended to helping with make‐up and other functions around the stage. In Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge, a boys’ play for Paul’s playhouse, a character comes on complaining “The tiring man hath not glued my beard half fast enough” (2.1.30–1); both Lyly’s Endymion and Marston’s What You Will have a stage direction: “Enter tireman with lights,” while in the Induction to the The Malcontent as staged by the King’s Men the opening stage‐direction is “Enter W. Sly, a tireman following him with a stool” (1.1.0). In the Induction to Jonson’s The Staple of News (performed at the Blackfriars in 1626) the Book‐holder (i.e. book‐keeper) commands “Mend your lights, gentlemen. Master Prologue, begin” and the stage direction follows: “The TIREMEN enter to mend the lights” (40–1); evidently, in the candle‐lit indoor playhouses, it fell to the tiremen (note the plural) to trim the candles (2012o). It is confirmed elsewhere that, like the gatherers, the tireman could on occasion be called on to take on walk‐on parts (Greg, 1907, 152). This is thus another case of hired men having a very specific responsibility within the company, but being expected to help out wherever necessary at performance time.