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Admirals Men : The Lord Admiral’s Men was one of the troupes of actors operating in London in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Their leading actor was Edward Alleyn. Alnager : it was the job of the alnagers to certify cloth brought for sale to the London markets. Most of their income came in the form of fines or bribes. back Blount : Edward Blount (1565?-1632?) served his apprenticeship with William Ponsonby and became a freeman of the Stationer's Company in 1588. His early publications include Giovanni Florio's Italian-English dictionary (1595), Florio's translation of Montaigne's essays (1603), and Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1598). In 1612 he published Thomas Shelton's translation of Cervantes Don Quixote. Campion : Edmund Campion (1540-1581) was the son of a bookseller and citizen of London who as a boy attracted the patronage of one of the London companies (probably the Grocers), who induced their guild to maintain him 'to the study of learning'. He studied at a London grammar school and at Christ's Hopsital, and was subsequently sent to Oxford, where he was greatly admired for his grace and eloquence. But he was unhappy with the changing religious practices, and left Oxford for Dublin to participate in a scheme to restore Dublin University. The scheme failed, however, and an order was made for his arrest. He subsequently resolved to repair to the English college at Douai, where he recanted his Protestantism, and then made a pilgrimage on foot to Rome, where he joined the Jesuit Order. He was sent to Prague in Bohemia and to Brunn in Moravia, and ordained a priest by the archbishop of Prague in 1578. In 1580, he was selected to join Robert Parsons and several others on a mission to England, where he had considerable success. He was arrested in July 1581, subjected to torture and condemned to death. During his trial he was asked what he could say why he should not die, he replied: 'It is not our death that ever we feared. But we knew that we were not lords of our own lives, and therefore for want of answer would not be guilty of our own deaths. The only thing that we have now to say is that if our religion do make us traitors we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the queen had. In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors - all the ancient priests, bishops, and kings - all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints and the most devoted child of the see of Peter. For what have we taught, however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned with these old lights - not of England only, but of the world - by their degenerate descendants is both gladness and glory to us. God lives; posterity will live; their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now going to sentence us to death.' He was executed on 1st December 1581. Chamberlains : Lord Chamberlain’s Men : on the death of Ferdinando Stanley in 1594, Lord Hunsden, the Lord Chamberlain, became patron. Coat of arms : it was an expensive business to apply for a coat of arms, probably costing about as much as a modest house, but it brought with it the epithet ‘gentleman’ and the title ‘Mr’. Shakespeare himself would later pursue the matter and secure a coat of arms in 1596.
Combe : John Combe (d1613 ) bequeathed £5 to Shakespeare in his will. The following epitaph for Combe is quoted by Aubrey, an early biographer of Shakespeare. Ten in the hundred the Devill allowes, And the following, transcribed by Robert Dobyns in 1673 Tenn in the hundred herelyeth engraved with the note that 'Since my being at Stratford the heires of Mr. Combe have caused these verses to be razed, so yt (that) now they are not legible.' The William Combe who championed the threatened enclosure was his nephew. Companies of players : a 1572 Act of Parliament required that all players and minstrels should operate under the protection of a baron or honourable person. Those not so protected were to be regarded as vagabonds and beggars, for which offence they were to be stripped and openly whipped. Condel : Henry Condell (d1627) became a principle actor with the King’s Men, and died in possession of considerable property in the Strand and Fleet Street. Davenant : Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) was the son of John Davenant who was the proprietor of the Crown Tavern in Oxford, though he claimed to be the illegitimate son of William Shakespeare. 22 of his plays were published between 1629 and 1673, as well as books of epic and other poetry. He was made Poet Laureate in 1638 on the death of Ben Jonson. Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. Her reign was threatened by invasion from the Spanish, who launched an armada against England in 1588, and deposition, as the Pope had pardoned in advance any Catholic who would assassinate her. It was in response to these threats that she enacted anti Catholic legislation, and allowed her ministers to pursue both Catholic and Protestant extremists with brutal savagery. Her continuing unmarried status and supposed virginity encouraged a cult of poetic worship from numerous courtiers, playwrights and poets, by whom she was frequently apostrophized as Diana or Cynthia or Oriana. First folio : The edition sold for £1.2s. A copy sold for $6,166,000 at Christies in New York in October 2001. Fletcher : John Fletcher (1579-1625) was involved in writing 53 plays, some with other authors, including Beaumont, Field, Rowley, Massinger and Jonson, as well as Shakespeare. Globe Theatre : Giles Allen proved difficult when the company tried to negotiate for a new lease on The Theatre. The company therefore decided to take a lease on land south of the river, in Bankside, and, taking advantage of a clause in the existing lease, took down the Theatre, and re-erected the building on the new land. See map. Greene : Robert Greene (1558-1592) wrote pamphlets, plays and verse. Shakespeare used his Pandosto as the basis for the Winter’s Tale. Heminges : John Heminges (c1556-1630) is listed as one of the principle actors in Lord Strange’s company in 1593, and therefore had been associated with Shakespeare for some considerable time. Like Shakespeare he was a part owner of the Globe theatre. James I (1566-1625), previously James VI of Scotland, was invited to England to succeed Elizabeth I. He reigned from 1603 to 1625, surviving the gunpowder plot of 1605. He had homosexual inclinations, and advanced his favourites (particularly Robert Carr and George Villiers). After his years as a monarch in Scotland, he described his time in England as a ‘perpetual Christmas’. Jonson : Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was a playwright and inventor of Masques. Langley : Francis Langley (1548-1602), was a money lender, alnager and property owner who acquired the manor of Paris Garden (comprising some 100 acres of land) on the south bank of the River Thames on which he built the Swan Theatre in 1595/6. See map. Lanier : Emilia Lanier (1569-1645) was the wife of Alphonso Lanier, a court musician. She was of Italian Jewish descent, and one time mistress of Lord Hunsden, the Lord Chamberlain from 1592. She was first proposed as the ‘Dark Lady’ of the sonnets by A.L.Rowse, who found notes made by the astrologer Simon Forman concerning her powerful personality and loose morals. Lucy : Sir Thomas Lucy (1532-1600) was knighted in 1565 and became High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1586. He was active in prosecuting Catholic recusancy (refusal to attend services in the Church of England). Manningham : John Manningham (1575?-1622) was a barrister-at-law at the Inner Temple. His diary covers the years 1602-3 and contains witticisms, anecdotes and quotations from sermons. Mean employment : According to Rowe 'his first expedient was to wait at the door of the playhouse and hold the horses of those that had no servants, that they might be ready again after the performance.....Shakespeare finding more horses put into his hand than he could hold, hired boys to wait under his inspection, who when Will. Shakespeare was summoned, were immediately to present themselves, "I am Shakespeare's boy, sir!"' The story would have more currency if it fitted in any way with the development of poetic genius. New Place : The property was the second largest in Stratford-on-Avon and included two barns, two gardens and two orchards. Pembroke : William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580-1630) was the eldest son of Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, sister to Sir Philip Sidney. He was Lord Chamberlain from 1615-1625 and a leading investor in the companies which set out to colonise both Virginia and the Bermudas. Pembroke2 : Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke (1584-1650) was the second son of Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, sister to Sir Philip Sidney. He was Lord Chamberlain from 1626-1641. He employed Inigo Jones and spectacularly rebuilt Wilton from 1635. Quiney : In 1598 Richard Quiney wrote an undeliverd letter requesting a £30 loan to 'my Loving good friend & countryman Mr Wm Shakespeare'. In the same year Adrian Quiney wrote to his son, Richard 'if you bargain with Wm Sha or recover money therefor, bring your money home', and Abraham Sturley wrote to his 'most loving brother', the same Richard, 'our countryman Mr Wm Shak. would procure us money which I will like of as I shall hear when where & howe: and I pray let not go that occasion if it may sort to any indifferent conditions'. (spelling modernised) Parsons : Robert Parsons or Persons (1546-1610) was the son of a blacksmith. He was educated at Stogursey and the free school at Taunton, afterwards at St Mary's Hall, Oxford and Balliol College, where he was elected a fellow in 1568, but he argued bitterly with his fellows and either left or was dismissed in 1574. He left England with the intention of studying medicine at Padua, but became dissatisfied and left on foot for Rome, where he entered the Jesuit Order, being ordained a priest in 1578. He was sent with Edmund Campion and others on a mission to England in 1580. Parsons visited Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester and Derbyshire, making many converts. He set up a secret printing press and issued a series of tracts, but left England in the autumn of 1581, after the execution of Edmund Campion. With the aid of the Duke of Guise he set up an English school in Normandy, and subsequently busied himself with plots to overthrow the government of Elizabeth I and to encourage a Spanish invasion of England. He died at Rome in 1610. Rowe : Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) was a lawyer, playwright and poet who became Poet Laureate. He published Some Account of the Life &c of William Shakespeare in 1709. For material, he sent his friend, the actor Thomas Betterton, to enquire about Shakespeare in Warwickshire, and it is from Betterton that most of his stories about Shakespeare derive. Stationer's List : The Guild of Stationers was established to protect the interests of those concerned with the trade in books, but came to be used by the government of Elizabeth I for the purposes of censorship. A Star Chamber Decree of 1586 provided that all books should be licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London prior to printing, and printing restricted to London and the University towns of Oxford and Cambridge. The Stationer's List therefore comprises a fairly comprehensive list of all publications for the period, though there were, of course, unlicensed presses and illegal imports nonetheless. Strange : Lord Strange’s Men : James Burbage had formed a partnership with his brother-in-law in 1567 to create what was probably England’s first permanent theatre, at the house called the Red Lion, in Stepney. After the 1572 Vagabonds Act, he secured the patronage of the Earl of Leicester and in 1576, he negotiated with Giles Allen for a 21 year lease on a plot of land in Shoreditch on which he built the Theatre. When Leicester died in 1588, the company sought the patronage of the Earl of Derby, Ferdinando Stanley, and became Lord Strange’s Men. Sydney : Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586) was a poet, courtier, diplomat and soldier whose sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella was influential. Tithes : a tithe is a tenth, originally a tenth part of the produce of land levied as a tax on the community to support the church and clergy. The custom became law in 855 and was not abolished until well into the 19th century. Shakespeare is buying the right to a percentage of the income from the tithes over a period of years. Watson : Thomas Watson (c1557-1592) wrote two collections of sonnets, Hekatompathia or The Passionate Centurie of Love, containing 100 sonnets in an irregular eighteen line form, and The Tears of Fancie or Love Disdained, containing 60 sonnets in the more usual fourteen line form. He also translated Italian madrigals into English which were set to music by William Byrd. Wayte : William Wayte was responding to a similar writ issued by Langley against himself and William Gardiner, the Justice of the Peace, who had previously (in 1593) enforced a judgement for assault against Langley. This case had been brought by William Moyerghe, who claimed that Langley had assaulted him in Southwark 'and made an affray and wounded and maltreated him so that he despaired of his life'.1 Wriothesley : Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (1573-1624), was a close friend of the Earl of Essex, and accompanied him on the naval expeditions of 1596 and 1597. His marriage in 1598 to Elizabeth Vernon, one of Elizabeth I’s maids in waiting, angered the Queen, and he lost favour. He was involved in Essex’s abortive coup of 1601, and condemned to death, but reprieved and finally freed on James I’s accession in 1603. He became a privy councillor in 1619, but lost favour because he opposed James I’s favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. In 1624 he volunteered to lead a troupe of soldiers against the Spanish in the Netherlands, but died of a fever shortly after arriving on the Continent. 1. William Ingram A London Life in the Brazen Age. Harvard University Press 1978. back |
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