Shakespeare

It was a residential area favoured by the richer merchants, among whose number could be counted Sir John Crosby and Sir Thomas Gresham. Crosby Place was in the parish, a late fifteenth-century mansion in which Richard III had lodged when he was Lord Protector; Shakespeare knew it well, and set part of The Tragedy of King Richard III there. It had also been owned by Sir Thomas More and, at the time of Shakespeare’s residence, it was inhabited by the Lord Mayor. The parish was also a harbour for several families of French or Flemish origin, and in fact there was a slightly less agreeable area known as “Petty France.” At a later date he would lodge with a Huguenot family in Silver Street; he preferred the company of what were termed “strangers” in the course of his restless London life. Another neighbour was Thomas Morley, the madrigalist and gentleman of the Chapel Royal; since Morley wrote the music for two or three of Shakespeare’s songs, at some stage they became acquainted. As an actor Shakespeare would also have been trained as a singer, and in his plays he displays a technical knowledge of musical terms. Is it too much to speculate that he and Morley joined in the universal Elizabethan pastime of music-making?

John Stow, the sixteenth-century London topographer, described the parish as containing “divers fair and large built houses for merchants and such like … many fair tenements, divers fair inns, large for receipt of travellers, and some houses for men of worship.” There was a new water conduit in the neighbourhood which, in the sanitary conditions of the period, was of great local benefit. So Bishopsgate had certain advantages over Shoreditch. The large inns here – among them the Bull, the Green Dragon and the Wrestlers – were well known for their commodious quarters. One of them, the Bull, had its own public stage where the Queen’s Men used to perform.

If Shakespeare was not quite yet a “man of worship,” in Stow’s sense, he was travelling ineluctably in that direction. His move to Bishopsgate may in fact have coincided with his admission into the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in which he also progressed from “hired man” to “sharer.” The company was established in the spring of 1594 by Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, who wanted to bring order into the general confusion of the London playing companies. The connection of the companies and the court should never be forgotten, since the principal purpose of the players was theoretically to provide entertainment for Her Majesty. The quality and continuity of that entertainment were now in jeopardy. The plague and the subsequent closure of the theatres had affected all of the companies. Some of them, like the Queen’s Men, had divided. In April Lord Strange had died, under mysterious circumstances, and Lord Strange’s Men came under the less certain patronage of his widow. So it became the Lord Chamberlain’s business to provide a durable and reliable source for the queen’s entertainment.

And so Hunsdon advanced an ambitious scheme. He established a duopoly in the city. He would patronise a new company to be called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men while his son-in-law, Charles Howard, the Lord High Admiral, would patronise and support a group of players to be known as the Lord Admiral’s Men. The Lord Admiral’s Men would be led by Edward Alleyn, and would perform at the Rose in Southwark owned by Philip Henslowe; the Lord Chamberlain’s Men would be led by Richard Burbage, and would perform at James Burbage’s theatres at Shoreditch. One troupe would command the south of the river, in other words, and the other would dominate the northern suburbs. As a concession to the civic authorities, who were not happy to see playhouses formally established in the suburbs, Huns-don agreed that no inns would be employed for the staging of the drama. It was a very neat arrangement that, in its pristine form, did not last for very long.

Hunsdon acquired the players for his new venture by poaching the best actors from a variety of companies – among them Lord Strange’s Men, the Queen’s Men and Sussex’s Men. From Sussex’s Men, he took William Shakespeare. Several of the players in Sussex’s Men went over to the Lord Chamberlain’s with Shakespeare; among them we find John Sincler and Richard Burbage himself. There seems to have been one other division of the spoils. When the Lord Admiral’s Men took Alleyn they were also granted the bulk of Marlowe’s dramas. When Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain’s, he brought with him all of his plays. This was their great advantage. From this time forward the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were the sole producers of Shakespeare’s drama. In the whole course of his career only they ever performed his plays. Soon after their union, in fact, they were performing Titus Andronicus, The Taming of a Shrew and a play called Hamlet . At the time of their formation they may also have inherited plays from other companies. They may have given these plays, such as Hamlet and King Leir , to their resident playwright for the purposes of reshaping and rewriting for the new cast of players. It is also likely that, in these circumstances, Shakespeare would feel moved to rewrite his own earlier plays for the new company. It was, after all, a fresh start. The company was an innovation. It deserved new-minted texts. It has been estimated that 90 per cent of their plays have not survived the trials of time and usage; certainly almost half of their extant texts are by Shakespeare himself, which at least testifies to his endurance and popularity. They were saved and reissued; the others were simply discarded and forgotten.

This extraordinary group of players, known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, became Shakespeare’s good companions for the rest of his life. He wrote for, and acted with, them only. They were his colleagues but, on the evidence of wills and other documents, they were also his intimate friends. They were also the most enduring company in English theatrical history, maintaining a recognisable identity from 1594 until 1642, a period of almost fifty years in which they performed the greatest plays in the history of world theatre.

We know the identity of some of them. Apart from Richard Burbage there were Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, George Bryan, John Heminges, John Sincler, William Sly, Richard Cowley, John Duke and the comedian Will Kempe. Heminges seems to have had a reputation for his business acumen as well as his acting; he became the financial manager of the company, and was named frequently as the overseer or trustee in his fellows’ wills. He died a wealthy and respectable citizen, given the title of “Gent.” in the confirmation of his arms by the College of Heraldry; he was also a “sidesman” or official in the parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury, an indication that the status of the acting profession had risen considerably during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Heminges may well have played older character parts, such as Polonius and Capulet.

Augustine Phillips was another actor who, like Heminges and Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms. He also died a wealthy man, with a country estate at Mortlake. He was a leading member of the company, and it was he who was once called in front of the Privy Council to represent his fellows. He seems to have been primarily a “straight” player, acting as “second” to Richard Burbage in parts such as Cassius and Claudio; but he could also entertain the audiences with farcical comedy. There is a notation in the Stationers’ Register of spring 1595 for “Phillips his gigg of the slyppers”-a “gig” or “jig” being an interlude of music, dancing and comic repartee. An Elizabethan actor had to be versatile. He had to be able to dance, to sing, to play an instrument, and if necessary to fight a convincing duel upon the stage. Thomas Pope, for example, was an excellent acrobat and clown as well as a player; he, too, took out a coat of arms. John Sincler, known as “Sinklo,” was a man of extraordinary thinness and as a result of his uncommon appearance played a number of comic roles including Pinch in The Comedy of Errors and Justice Shallow in the second part of Henry IV . He is also likely to have played such parts as the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet . It is clear, in fact, that Shakespeare created several roles with Sincler in mind.