2
Most people today associate Shakespeare with the Globe, the playhouse on the Bankside in Southwark which became iconic because of its associations with him, though it was not actually built until his a career was half over (1599). When he himself imagines a performance in his plays it is not in a public playhouse but in the private space of a royal palace or a lord’s house. Traveling players come to Elsinore in Hamlet and to the house of the Lord in The Taming of the Shrew; Ariel and his spirits perform for Duke Prospero in The Tempest; enthusiastic but inept artisans offer their service to Theseus and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ben Jonson, by contrast, often builds references to the London theatres into his plays, as when Fitzdottrel in The Devil is an Ass (1616) announces “Today, I go to the Blackfriars playhouse” – topping the joke by telling us that he is going to see … The Devil is an Ass (2012d, 1.6.31: see also 1.4.21). Jonson was always preeminently a Londoner, an urban dramatist (though he was a traveling player for a time in his early years). But Shakespeare always retained something of a pre‐urban sensibility, in which playing was closely attached to the service of a lord and to great private houses.
Despite the most assiduous research, we still do not know how Shakespeare’s move from Stratford to London took place. And we know nothing for certain of his employment or the patrons he might have cultivated prior to his arrival in London. Terence G. Schoone‐Jongen is the latest scholar to look for answers, but eventually he concludes: “Ultimately, it seems Shakespeare’s pre‐1594 company affiliations present the biographer with a jigsaw puzzle. Yet because the puzzle is missing key pieces, it cannot be fully assembled. Or, more to the point, it can be assembled in a number of different, plausible‐yet‐incomplete ways” (2008, 199). What I propose to do is to examine two of those “plausible‐yet‐incomplete ways” in which the puzzle can be assembled, to show between them the variety of theatrical situations Shakespeare may well have confronted – and with which he must certainly have been familiar – before the recorded part of his career began. The first is the Queen’s Men theory; the second is Hoghton Will theory.
This explanation of how Shakespeare may have entered the theatrical world centers on the first visit the Queen’s Men paid to Stratford, in 1587 (p. 19). It assumes that he had probably stayed in his birthplace up to that date, perhaps working alongside his father. The speculation focuses on the fact that the company probably arrived a man short. A coroner’s inquest reports that on June 13,1587, between 9 and 10 p.m., one of their leading players, William Knell entered a close called White Hound in Thame, Oxfordshire (not so far from Stratford) and assaulted his fellow actor, John Towne. Towne, fearing for his life, took to the high ground of a nearby “mound.” As the official report put it, “William Knell continuing his attack as before, so maliciously and furiously, and Towne … to save his life drew his sword of iron (price five shillings) and held it in his right hand and thrust it into the neck of William Knell and made a mortal wound three inches deep and one inch wide.” Knell bled to death within the half‐hour. The Queen pardoned Towne on August 15 after it was agreed he acted in self‐defense (Eccles, 1961, 82–3, 157–8).
Violence among the players was, sadly, not uncommon, though the Queen’s Men seem to have been unusually prone to it. In September 1598 Ben Jonson and Gabriel Spenser fought a duel in Hoxton fields. They had formerly been fellows together in the Earl of Pembroke’s Men and shared imprisonment for a play that Jonson co‐wrote, The Isle of Dogs (see p. 221). But both had a history of violence, Jonson killing an opponent in a personal duel when he fought in the Low Countries, Spenser killing one James Freake in an affray in 1596. Spenser apparently wounded Jonson in the arm, but Jonson managed to strike back, killing him. According to the inquest, he died from a six‐inch deep stab wound in his right side. Duelling was illegal and Jonson only escaped hanging by pleading benefit of clergy and reading “neck verse,” an old legal loophole for those who could prove they could read Latin (Donaldson, 2011, 95; 113–15; 132–7). Elizabethan theatre was not an arena for shrinking‐violet aesthetes.
The Queen’s Men were certainly no strangers to violence before 1587. An incident in Norwich on Saturday June 15, 1583, shortly after their formation, is testimony to this and also gives us some real information about playing on the road, as this company commonly did.1 They had previously given their “Mayor’s play” at the guildhall and were now performing for the public at the Red Lion inn. There was an affray. A man recorded only as “George” was killed and two of the players, John Bentley and John Singer, were imprisoned while the city authorities investigated. It all began when, as Edmund Brown, a Norwich draper, deposed:
one Winsdon would have entered in at the gate, but would not have paid until he had been within; and thereupon, the gatekeeper and he striking, Tarlton [the clown] came out off the stage and would have thrust him out at the gate; but in the mean‐time one Bentley – he which played the Duke – came off the stage; and with his hilts of his sword struck Winsdon upon the head, and offered him another stripe, but Tarlton defended it; whereupon Winsdon fled out of the gate, and Bentley pursued him: and then he in the black doublet, which kept the gate [identified elsewhere as the player, John Singer, in costume and wearing a false beard] ran up into the stage and brought an arming sword: and as he was going out the gate, he drew the sword, and ran out at the gate.
Another “examinate,” Henry Brown, deposed how he saw “one in a blue coat [‘George’] cast stones at Bentley and broke his head, being one of Her Majesty’s servants; whereupon this examinate said ‘villain, wilt thou murder the Queen’s man?’ and the fellow called this examinate ‘villain’ again, and thereupon this examinate struck him with his sword and hit him on the leg.” Various depositions establish that Singer and Bentley also stabbed “George,” Singer in the shoulder (though he denied drawing blood) and Bentley “thrust at him twice with his naked rapier; the one thrust was about the knee, but he [Brown] knoweth not where the other thrust was.” Since Bentley and Singer were released, they were apparently not held at fault; possibly Brown’s blow was the one deemed responsible for “George’s” death, but even he could claim that he was defending Bentley. One Thomas Holland heard Brown say “I have sped him” and Bentley reply “well done, boy, we will bear thee out in it.” Brown’s own version of what Bentley said is “be of good cheer, for if all this matter be laid on thee, thou shalt have what friendship we can procure thee.”
Being the Queen’s servants at the very least ensured that they would get a careful hearing, with powerful patronage in London should it be needed. The whole incident seems to have started as a result of Winsdon’s ignorance of the conventions of payment for a performance at an inn. He was probably used to performances in the street, where the actors would erect a stage and solicit payment during the course of the play or at its end. This of course could be subject to any manner of abuse, some of the audience slipping away without paying, others offering less than full payment if they had not been happy with what they saw. One of the attractions of playing in the inns must have been that the actors could control a limited number of entrances and demand payment in advance, as would happen in the purpose‐built London playhouses. For the Queen’s Men collecting the take was so important that one of their own sharers (senior players), John Singer, was entrusted with the role of gatekeeper – and he did it in costume, ready to take his place in the performance on cue. Presumably one of his fellows would relieve him at this point. As we shall see, ensuring that gatekeepers were trustworthy was an important consideration in the London theatres; although there are no records of sharer‐players doing it there, hired players – who would be needed on stage from time to time – were certainly sometimes employed (p. 166).
By comparison with the Norwich and Thame incidents the Stratford authorities may have been relieved in 1587 that they got away, after the “Mayor’s play,” with only having to pay sixteen pence “for mending of a form that was broken by the Queen’s players.” This sort of damage may well have been one reason that Stratford was among the first towns to stop players using their Guild Hall for performances, in 1602 (Mulryne 2006: 20; 19, 10–13). At all events, with the death of Knell the Queen’s Men would have been a player short. Shakespeare could have been recommended to them as literate and articulate, not able of course to fill Knell’s shoes but able to help out as the others adjusted.
If this happened, he stepped quickly into elite company. The company bearing the Queen’s name and scarlet livery came into being by Privy Council fiat, following a meeting called by its Principal Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham: “Edmund Tilney Esquire, Master of the [Revels] office being sent for to the court by letter from Master Secretary, dated the 10 of March 158[3]. To choose out a company of players for her Majesty” (ES, 2: 104). Elizabeth must certainly have given personal permission for this. Only two years earlier Tilney, a distant cousin of hers, had been given a Special Commission which conferred upon him virtually plenipotentiary powers over all actors and their playing‐places; the underlying motive was to ensure that he could provide entertainment of adequate quality at court whenever it was needed (Dutton, 1991, 41–55; Streitberger, 2016, 169ff). The creation of the Queen’s Men was clearly seen as a way of fulfilling that mandate: “there were twelve of the best [players] chosen, they were sworn as the Queen’s servants and were allowed … liveries as grooms of the chamber … Among these twelve players were two rare men, viz. Thomas [i.e. Robert] Wilson, for a quick, delicate, refined extempore wit, and Richard Tarlton, for a wondrous plentiful pleasant, extemporal wit; he was the wonder of his time. He lieth buried in Shoreditch church. He was so beloved that men use his picture for their signs.”2
The whole process, a clear demonstration that royal will trumped personal ambitions and profit in the business of playing, robbed all the existing leading companies of star players. Besides Wilson, Leicester’s Men lost William Johnson and John Laneham; Oxford’s Men lost John Dutton (who before 1588 would be joined by his brother, Laurence); John Adams, another clown, came with Tarlton from Sussex’s Men. The total of twelve leading players made it a super‐troupe of its era, easily capable of staging plays requiring casts of fifteen or more (including boys), without the need to recruit added hired men. It has been shown that their plays which have survived require about that number (Crockett, 2009, 234). Earlier in the century troupes had usually been significantly smaller. Mid‐century plays originally written for private performance later passed into print and the public repertoire, and title pages made a virtue of how few players they needed. The interlude, Lusty Juventus (circa 1550), for example, was printed with the claim that “Four may play it easily, taking such parts as they think best.” Thomas Preston’s Cambises (1570) was printed with a doubling chart on the title page, showing that eight people could play it. And that would include boys.
Box 2.1 Sir Thomas More
A play with some slight Shakespearean connection offers a memory of sorts of playing in earlier days.3 Sir Thomas More, a play which survives in manuscript, stages a play‐within‐a‐play, as it might have been done in early Tudor times, by Cardinal Wolsey’s players. They arrive unannounced at More’s London house when he is just about to entertain the Lord Mayor and several aldermen. They have “four men and a boy” (4.1.54) and a repertory of seven interludes or morality plays: The Cradle of Security, Hit Nayle o’the Head, Impatient Poverty, The Play of Four Pees, Dives and Lazarus, Lusty Juventus, and The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom (41–4). More chooses the last of these. He observes that, with only one boy, “there’s but few women in the play” (56). The lead player replies: “Three, my lord: Dame Science, Lady Vanity, and Wisdom, she herself” (57–8). More considers this a lot for the one boy: “By our lady, he’s laden” (59).
In fact the boy only gets to play one of his roles, Lady Vanity, in what we see. When More asks if the players are ready, “Enter … Inclination, the Vice, ready” (i.e. in costume). He beseeches More: “We would desire your honour but to stay a little; one of my fellows is but run to Ogle’s, for a long beard for young Wit, and he”ll be here presently” (124–5). More jokingly observes that Wit does not need a beard until he is married, so they should start the show, and stop if needs be when the missing player’s part begins. “The trumpet sounds. Enter the Prologue” (147.1), followed by “Wit ruffling [swaggering], and Inclination the Vice.” Inclination – who flourishes his traditional dagger at boys supposedly encroaching on the stage space – tempts Wit to take a wife; Wit casually assumes this will be Wisdom, but Inclination has arranged a liaison with Lady Vanity: “EnterLady Vanity singing, and beckoning with her hand” (199.1). More calls out “This is Lady Vanity, I’ll hold my life; / Beware, good Wit, you take not her to wife” (202–3). Wit pays no heed and flirts with her, but the performance comes to a halt when Inclination calls out “Is Luggins come yet with the beard?”/ Enter another player. / “No, faith, he is not come: alas, what shall we do”? (229–30). Inclination explains to More that “we can go no further till our fellow Luggins come, for he plays Good Counsel, and now he should enter, to admonish Wit that this is Lady Vanity, and not Lady Wisdom” (231–3). More himself, however, supplies the role of Good Counsel extemprically (270), until “Enter Luggins with the beard” (253.1).
At that point More decides it best to suspend the performance until after a banquet and we never see the end of the morality play, though we see the players rewarded by More as he is called away on the king’s business. Clearly the whole show has been included to emphasize Sir Thomas More’s role as the wise and witty counselor.4 It is evidently fictionalized, but seems authentic enough in its depiction of traveling players earlier in the century – a very small group by later standards; twelve to fifteen was not uncommon by Shakespeare’s day. They were prepared to put on one of seven plays, most in a familiar interlude or morality‐play mode, and probably all authentic: four have survived in print, and The Cradle of Security was the play R. Willis remembered so many years later (see p. 20).5 It seems unlikely that traveling players actually ever turned up without ensuring beforehand that they would be welcome; apart from anything else, it would avoid wasted journeys. But they would be always limited by the resources they could carry with them (see Dekker’s vignette of Jonson “ambling” by a cart: p. 273), so the possibility of mislaying a long beard – or any other prop or costume – must have been quite plausible; Ogle’s may have been a familiar shop that dealt in wigs and other hair items.
Inclination lives up to the traditional model of the Vice, “shaking his wooden dagger” as Jonson recalls in The Devil is an Ass (2012d, 1.1.85) and carrying a bridle because, as he tells More, “I must be bridled anon” (134). The foolish Wit would presumably ride off on his back, a variant on the Vice himself riding off on the devil’s back. The literal Vice had disappeared by Shakespeare’s maturity, but in the figure of Falstaff he is barely below the surface: “that reverend Vice, that grey iniquity … that vanity in years” (2.4.448–9), carries a “leaden dagger” (377) in place of the more traditional one made of lath – but harmless in either case.
What we are not told is how the play and its audience of More and his guests are deployed onstage. In fact it makes sense for them to be seated at a high table and for the performance to take place immediately below them, so that the audience in the playhouse always sees More and the city fathers through the performance – as we know the general audience would at court and colleges, and presume it did in other great halls (see pp. 4–5). This would also make sense for other plays‐within‐plays, such as those in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet – where senior members of the court also preside over the performance, and interrupt at will, much more arrogantly than More.
Cardinal Wolsey, as the most powerful royal servant of his time, would doubtless in reality have employed the best players available – probably somewhat more accomplished and professional than those we see here. But the size of the troupe and its repertoire seems plausible, given the more limited opportunities for earning a living by playing earlier in the century. The vignette we see of them shows them more as recipients of the patronage of the wealthy, not as hardened veterans of public stages.
When Leicester’s Men wrote to their patron in 1572 for confirmation of their status as his servants (see p. 29) only six players signed it, presumably the sharing members of the company. It may well be that the attempts to limit the patronage of playing, to which that letter responded, reduced the number of touring companies but increased the size of those that remained, helping turn them into more substantial commercial enterprises. In the case of the Queen’s Men, however, the figures may be somewhat deceptive, since it is apparent that they often split in two during their travels and perhaps only played as a unified company on special occasions, such as when summoned to court.6
We may compare this evidence with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and the Lord Admiral’s Men as they came into being in 1594; the former had about eight sharers, the latter nine (Gurr, 2006, 303, 253). But those operations, being London based, could also draw on a reliable pool of hired men to fill the lesser roles. We do know that when the Earl of Derby’s Men played at Chatsworth in 1611 there were fourteen in the party, which doubtless included hired men and boys as well as sharers; the following year, at the Earl of Cumberland’s Londesborough, there were thirteen of them (Bentley, 1984, 185–6). So the Queen’s Men, in their early years, were capable of matching other companies of the era without having to hire journeymen players, though they would certainly have needed perhaps three boys to play their female roles. Alternatively, of course, they could have mounted extremely lavish productions by hiring extras. The presence among them of both Wilson and Tarlton, both playwrights as well as comedians, gave them the potential to be highly self‐reliant. Wilson was the probable author of three extant plays, The Three Ladies of London, The Three Lords and Ladies of London, and The Cobbler’s Prophecy; Tarlton wrote the two‐part Seven Deadly Sins, a “plot” of the second part of which I reproduce and discuss later (see pp. 205ff)