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On the Actor Lists, 1578-1642 Author(s): F. G. Fleay Source: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 9 (1881), pp. 44-81 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3677936 Accessed: 27-06-2016 02:31 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Royal Historical Society, Cambridge University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Transactions of the Royal Historical Society This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:31:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ON THE ACTOR LISTS, 1578-1642. By F. G. FLEAY, M.A., Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. IT is singular that no attempt had been made to gather up these documents so fertile in suggestion and still more rich in definite evidence on many disputed critical and historical questions prior to the publication of my "Shakespeare Manual" in 1876. Collier had printed many lists in his " History of the Stage," but had not compared them or arranged them for comparison. My own former attempt is incomplete, partly because at that date I had no access to public libraries, and had to work on imperfect materials; partly because additional lists have been still more recently discovered. I have not wittingly neglected any data for the present essay, which, whatever its faults may be, claims at any rate to be the only thing of its kind at present existing. I have gathered a dozen complete casts of plays with actors' parts fully assigned. These unfortunately all belong to dates, subsequent to Shakespeare's death, between I616 and 1631. There exist also three plots of non-extant plays, with complete casts, but two of these did not belong to Shakespeare's company, and the third cannot be shewn to contain his name. But, besides these, I have brought to- gether from various sources more than six dozen lists of various companies within our date-limits; and, by so doing, have, I trust, got materials for more than one important decision in the much debated, but really little studied, dramatic history of the greatest literary period that the This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:31:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ON THE ACTOR LISTS, 1578-1642. 45 world has yet seen. And, which is of more general interest, I have thrown a little additional light on the career of one we never tire of discussing -though I fear mAny of us do tire of studying as we should-the career of William Shakespeare. Of the earliest companies of Actors, which were for the most part composed of children, I can find no lists. The names of their "masters" are however attainable. Sebastian Westcott was master of the Paul's Boys, 1561-1582. Thomas Giles ,, ,, ,, 1587-1588. Richard Farrant ,, ,, Windsor Boys, 1568-1570. Richard Mulcaster ,, ,, Merchant Taylors' Boys, 1573-1582- John Taylor ,, ,, Westminster Boys, 1571-1572. William Elderton ,, ,, ,, 1573-1574. William Honnis ,, ,, Chapel Boys, 1569-1575- All these are taken either from the accounts of the " Revels at Court," or from Malone's Shakespeare, iii. 423, &c. In one entry, 12th January, 1572-3, John Honnys appears, apparently in mistake, for William HIonnys. Passing from these boy players to men's companies, we find on the same authority that Laurence Dutton was manager of Sir R. Lane's company from 1571 to 1573, and that in conjunction with John Dutton, he was manager of the Earl of Warwick's company from 1574 to 1580. We also find from a patent dating 7th May, 1584, printed in Collier's "Annals of the Stage," i. 210, that James Burbadge, John Perkyn, John Lanham, William Johnson and Robert Wilson, were then servants to the Earl of Leicester. In March, 1582-3, twelve players were chosen from Warwick's and Leicester's men, to form the Queen's players. Robert Wilson, Richard Tarleton, Laurence Dutton, John Dutton, John Lanham, were certainly among these twelve, so were Bentley and Singer;* James Burbadge was almost certainly another; the other four were possibly William * See Halliwell's " Illustrations of the Life of Shakespeare," p. II9. This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:31:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 46 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Johnson, and three of the actors abroad in 1586-7, whom we have next to mention, but this is conjecture on my part, not history. In 1586, William [Kempe?] and Dan Jones' boy were at the court of Denmark from January to September, and in October, Bryan, Pope, Stevens, King, Percy [or Pierst, or rather Preston, I think; the name is written Perston] were in Saxony (Cohn's "Shakespeare in Germany," p. xxxvi., &c.). Mr. Richard Simpson in his " School of Shakespeare" has shown that William the Conqueror in the play of Fair Em, represents William Kempe, and traces him from Denmark to Saxony, where he probably joined the other players named above. They returned to England in 1587, and in the next year Kempe succeeded to Richard Tarleton as principal extempore comedian among the Queen's men. Tarleton died on 3rd September, 1588. We shall next meet with Kempe, Bryan and Pope, as members of L. Strange's company in 1593; and I have already shown in my edition of Shake- speare's " King John," that the first appearance of L. Strange's men is on 27th December, 1591, and the last appearance of the Queen's men on 26th December in that year. Putting all these facts together it is scarcely possible to avoid the in- ference that L. Strange's company was substantially the same as the Queen's, which then changed its name and patron for reasons unknown to us, although a fag-end of the Queen's troupe afterwards joined the company of the Earl of Sussex, and acted with them in 1593-4 as "The Queen's men and my lord of Sussex' men together." In confirmation of this induction we may add that Robert Greene, the poet of the Queen's company, was almost certainly on the continent in 1586, and that the Christmas, 1586-7, was the only one during the eight years that this company existed at which it did not present any plays at Court. But this company of actors (L. Strange's), as we shall see, was Shakespeare's company, and as it visited Denmark and Saxony, he in all probability accompanied them; we are not told which way they came home, but if Kempe took the This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:31:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ON THE ACTOR LISTS, 1578-1642. 47 same route as he did in I6oi he came through Italy. This would account for such local knowledge of Italy as Shake- speare shows, and would remove a difficulty from the critic's path; but it is far more important to notice that his residence in Saxony would explain how it came to pass that versions of the following plays, very different and far inferior to those we have, were acted in Germany by English players: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Titus and Vespasian (the same story as Titus Andronicus), not to mention the more doubtful cases of Much Ado About Nothing and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. A close examination of these German versions convinces me that they were rough drafts by juvenile hands in which great licence was left to the actors to fill up or alter extemporaneously at their option. Successive changes made in this way have greatly defaced them; but enough of the originals remains to show that they were certainly in some cases, probably in others, the earliest forms of our great drama- tist's plays. I have no doubt he drew up the plots for them while in Germany. I should also note that the successive mention of (I), John Dutton and John Lanham, (2) Laurence Dutton and John Dutton, (3) John Lanham, as managers of the Queen's men shows conclusively that these three actors belonged to one company, and disprove the figment of Messrs. Cunningham and Collier that there were two Queen's com- panies at the same time. The next list I come to I have not included in my table, as it is demonstrably a forgery. It was put forth unwarily by Mr. Collier as a memorial of Blackfriars players, dating November, 1589. The documents in Mr. Halliwell's " Illustrations," prove that " Blackfriars " was not used as a theatre till 1596. Nevertheless in this and other similar instances, Mr. Collier's statements have been re- iterated in an unaltered form in his new edition of his "Annals of the Stage." In other cases, however, of spurious documents that have been incautiously issued by Mr. Collier there has been a genuine basis on which the forgery has been founded. Indeed, were it not so, it is hardly possible that This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:31:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
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