X
THE ACTOR'S QUALITY
[Bibliographical Note.—This chapter mainly rests upon the official
documents in Appendix D, the plague-data in Appendix E, and the
detailed accounts of individual companies in Book III. To the books
and dissertations cited for those sections and for chapter viii may be
added, as studies of the stage in its political aspect, R. Simpson, The
Political Use of the Stage in Shakespeare's Time and The Politics of Shakespere's
Historical Plays (1874, N. S. S. Trans. 371, 396), S. R. Gardiner,
The Political Element in Massinger (1875-6, N. S. S. Trans. 314), S. Lee,
The Topical Side of the Elizabethan Drama and Elizabethan England and
the Jews (1887-92, N. S. S. 1, 143), J. A. de Rothschild, Shakespeare
and his Day (1906), T. S. Graves, Some Allusions to Religious and Political
Plays (1912, M. P. ix. 545), and The Political Use of the Stage during the
Reign of James I (1914, Anglia, xxxviii. 137). The fragments of Sir Henry
Herbert's office-book, showing the working of the censorship from 1623 to
1642, usually cited from the Shakespeare Variorum (1821), and G. Chalmers,
Supplemental Apology (1799), are now conveniently collected in J. Q.
Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert (1917). A useful
study has recently appeared in A. Thaler, The Travelling Players in
Shakespeare's England (1920, M. P. xvii. 489).]
The history detailed in the foregoing chapter represents, from the point of view of the playing companies, a vexed progress towards that state of regulative security which, in the case of any industry dependent upon a permanent habitation and the outlay of capital, is the first condition of economic stability. More than once in the course of the struggle was an approach made to a settlement before it was actually reached. The rather obscure period of the first attempts of the companies to establish themselves in London was closed by the experimental patent to Leicester's men and the fairly reasonable City regulations of 1574. But the building of the suburban theatres on the one hand and the aggressiveness of the preachers on the other broke down the equilibrium; and there followed a period of acute conflict, of which the commission to the Master of the Revels in 1581, the City prohibition of 1582, the appointment of the Queen's men in 1583, and the controversy before the Privy Council in 1584 formed the final stages. The players were victorious, and the result of their victory was an assured position under the Council and the Master of the Revels, which was not indeed wholly accepted by the City, and was seriously threatened in 1596 and 1597, but only to be the more firmly established in the
