was considerable, for in the provinces the London companies found rivals in the shape of other companies which rarely or never came to London at all, but were none the less substantial and permanent organizations. Thus Queen Elizabeth's men travelled for years between their last London appearance in 1594 and the end of the reign, and continued all the time to secure the exceptionally high rates of 'reward' which were due to the royal name. Other famous provincial companies, each of which can be traced through a period of years, were those of the Duchess of Suffolk (1548-63), and the Lords Mountjoy (1564-78), Stafford (1574-1604), Sheffield (1577-86), Berkeley (1578-1610), Chandos (1578-1610), Morley (1581-1602), Darcy (1591-1603), Mounteagle (1593-1616), Huntingdon (1597-1606), Evers (1600-13), and Dudley (1600-36). Some of these had a comparatively limited range; others covered the whole country. Their presence in the field, and that of many minor companies, must have made it difficult for the Londoners.[1] The charge of travelling, again, as Strange's men complained to the Privy Council about 1592, was intolerable, and the necessity for dividing the larger companies, so as to cover more ground, led to disorganization. Pembroke's men, when they travelled in 1593, could not save their charges, and had to pawn their apparel and return home. The years of plague and travellings were the lean years which sent the books of plays into the hands of the publishers.[2] And for a company to part with the books and garments that formed its stock in trade was a confession of failure.
The wanderings of English actors were by no means confined to England itself. They crossed the border to Scotland, where towards the end of the sixteenth century they incurred the hostility of the Kirk Sessions, which did not prevent James I from appointing one or more of them as Court comedians, and bringing them back with him in 1603 to figure in the lists of the patented royal companies.[3] Somewhat later they braved the Irish Channel, and are found at Youghal.[4] And on the
- ↑ Murray, ii. 19-98, records, in addition to the above, the names of from fifty to sixty patrons between 1559 and 1616, under whose names companies are not traceable in London.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxii.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xiii (King's, Anne's).
- ↑ Grosart, Lismore Papers, 1. xix; W. J. Lawrence, Was Shakespeare ever in Ireland? (Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlii. 65). The earliest notice is of Prince Charles's men in Feb. 1616.
(Murray, ii. 296), the Shuttleworths at Smithills and Gawthorpe Hall (Murray, ii. 393), and Francis Willoughby at Wollaton (Middleton MSS. 421). In A Mad World, my Masters, v. 1, 2, characters shamming to be Lord Owemuch's players come to Sir Bounteous Progress's, and perform The Slip, until they are interrupted by a constable.
