Frederick Fleay - A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare

I must now recur to 1593. Immediately after Christmas the theatres reopened; but at the Rose the Earl of Sussex' men acted instead of Lord Strange's, who played about the city, at the Cross-Keys for example. When Sussex' men broke up, on the 8th April, the Rose remained empty except for three days, 14-16th May, when the Admiral's company acted there, no doubt under Alleyn, who was servant to the Admiral as well as to Lord Strange. The Admiral, however, had himself laid a restraint on the Rose theatre (probably c. 8th April), and ordered that Lord Strange's players should play "three days" ( i. e. , three days a week) at Newington Butts. This was petitioned against by the watermen, whose calling was greatly in request when the Rose was open, and by Lord Strange's players themselves. No redress appears to have been granted during the life of Lord Strange, who died on 16th April, but when the company had found a new patron in Lord Hunsdon the Chamberlain, and had submitted to the order by playing on alternate days with the Admiral's at Newington Butts, then the restraint on the Rose was removed. The Chamberlain's players, however, did not act there, but under Shakespeare and Burbadge reopened the old Theater, while Alleyn left them and acted with the Admiral's at the Rose.

Before passing to notice the poems written by Shakespeare during this period of "travelling," I may note that these plays acquired from Pembroke's men appear to have been written by Marlowe or Kyd. Edward III. , by Marlowe, was, with alterations by Shakespeare, acted about the city in 1594. Titus Andronicus and 3 Henry VI. were also acted by the Chamberlain's company; but they show no evidence of extensive alterations at Shakespeare's hand; he probably merely corrected them. Another play of this date, Richard III. , bears strong internal evidence of Marlowe's craftmanship, but was no doubt completed and partly rewritten by Shakespeare. The Kyd plays, on the other hand, were not utilised in this way. New plays on the same plots as the old Hamlet and The Taming of a Shrew were afterwards produced by the Chamberlain's men — Hamlet by Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew by Lodge (most likely), but greatly altered by Shakespeare some years after. Another play performed by Derby's men contemporaneously with these was The Seven Deadly Sins . This play had not been derived from Pembroke's men, but from the Queen's, for whom Tarleton had originally plotted it. The plot as acted in 1594 still exists, and is especially valuable as showing the composition of Lord Strange's company at that date. Shakespeare, however, took no part in it. The large number of performers singularly agrees with the statement in the players' petition above alluded to that "our company is great." There was also a play Locrine , published S. R. 20th July 1594, as revised by W. S., which has been interpreted William Shakespeare. I do not think he could in any way have been concerned in this revival of Peele and Tilney's stilted performance, and suspect that W. S. means William Sly; nor do I think that any other play of Shakespeare's, save those already mentioned, can be assigned to a date anterior to the formation of the Chamberlain's company except Troylus and Cressida in its original form, which was probably acted c. 1593. In fact, Shakespeare was from the breaking out of the plague in 1592 until the settlement of his reconstituted company in 1594 chiefly occupied, not with plays, but with poems. His Venus and Adonis has already been noticed, and on 9th May 1594 his Rape of Lucrece was published. In the Dedication to Lord Southampton, Shakespeare speaks of "the warrant I have of your honourable disposition: " in what especial way Southampton had shown his favour to Shakespeare has been the subject of many conjectures. My own opinion is that he had introduced him as representative of his fellow-actors to Lord Hunsdon, and procured them their new patron; but in a scandalous book called Willobie his Avisa , published 3d September 1594, the version of the connection between the nobleman and the "old player" is that W. S. had parted with a mistress to H. W. and been rewarded accordingly; and it would be useless to deny that the Sonnets written between 1594 and 1598 distinctly allude to some circumstance of this kind. The Avisa book was, however, suppressed or "called in" on 4th June 1599, as a libellous production.

This year may be regarded as the turning-point in Shakespeare's public career. Until the establishment of the Chamberlain's company, he had been an actor gradually rising in the esteem of his fellows, but often obliged to travel and to act about town in inn-yards, and his play-writing had been confined to vamping old plays by other men, or at best to assisting such writers as Wilson or Peele in producing new ones. He had served, as it were, a seven years' apprenticeship. But henceforward he takes his place as one of the chief actors in the principal company in London, acting in a licensed theatre; he is also, with occasional assistance, the sole purveyor of plays to this company, and he is the acknowledged writer of the most popular love poems of his time. For it is to the author of Lucrece and Adonis that his contemporaries assign their praises far more than to the writer of Lear or Hamlet . Poems were in their opinion fit work for a prince; but plays were only congruous with strolling vagabondism. It is just at this turning-point that the first nominal mention of Shakespeare is found as acting before the Court at Greenwich on December 26 and 28, along with Kempe and Burbadge.

The performance on 26th December was on the same day that Shakespeare and his company had acted The Comedy of Errors at Gray's Inn – the earliest of his plays in their present form, but founded on a previous version, in which another pen was concerned.

On 26th January 1594-5, Midsummer Night's Dream was, I conjecture, acted at Greenwich at the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby, and afterwards on the public stage; it was evidently written for a marriage, but, like the preceding play, had been altered for this special occasion. Its original production was probably in 1592, at the marriage of Robert Carey, afterwards Earl of Monmouth. In both instances the bridegrooms were close connections of the patrons of the actors; W. Stanley being brother to Ferdinand, Lord Strange, and Robert Carey son to Henry, Lord Hunsdon, the Chamberlain. Another 1595 play was Richard II. , evidently an imitation of Marlowe's Edward II.

Marlowe was Shakespeare's first model in Historical Plays, as Kyd was in Tragedy and Lyly in Comedy, but he followed Marlowe much more closely than either of the other two. If any other author contributed plays to the Chamberlain's company this year it must have been Lodge, to whom Mucedorus and A Larum for London may probably be attributed. At Christmas they acted five plays at Court.

In 1596, there is little doubt that Shakespeare produced his King John , founded on two old plays on the same subject which were written for the Queen's men in 1589 by Peele, Marlowe, and Lodge. Their plot has been very closely followed by Shakespeare and a few lines borrowed. At some time between 23d July 1596 and 5th March 1597 he also revived Romeo and Juliet , at the Theater; this new version was founded on the old play of 1591, in which Shakespeare was only part writer. Of plays by other authors only one can be traced to his company in this year, namely, Sir Thomas More (? by Drayton and Lodge). This play was severely handled by the Master of the Revels for its allusions to contemporary events, and the alterations made by him afford instructive study to dramatic critics. On August 5, immediately after the appearance of Romeo and Juliet , a ballad on the story was entered S. R., and on August 27, T. Millington was fined for printing ballads on The Taming of a Shrew and Macbeth . This indicates the existence of a Macbeth play at this time, but probably, like the older Hamlet and Lear , one in whose production Shakespeare had no share. Kempe mentions the Macbeth ballad as the first production of its author in his Nine Days' Wonder . In February this same year James Burbadge bought the property in Blackfriars, on which he began in November to build the Blackfriars Theatre, wherein in 1597, after some opposition, he succeeded in establishing the Chapel children under Evans. The Chamberlain's company did not act at this theatre in Shakespeare's time. There were six Court performances at Christmas 1596-7.