William Harrison to note it as 'an evident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so riche that they can build suche houses'. And when Robert Greene wanted to paint a picture of a typical successful actor in 1592, he made him describe himself as one who had once travelled on foot and carried his properties on his back, but now his very share in playing apparel would not be sold for £200, and he was reputed by his neighbours able 'at his proper cost to build a windmill'.[1] James Burbadge was 'the first builder of playhowses', and thereby laid the foundations of the prosperity of his family. He had been a joiner, before he became a player, and perhaps this suggested the enterprise of the Theatre, which he put up in 1576 upon borrowed capital. When his son Richard died in 1619 he was reckoned worth £300 a year in land. Even more fortunate was Edward Alleyn, who was in a position to retire from the stage before he was forty, to purchase the manor of Dulwich for £10,000, to build the College of God's Gift, and thereafter to spend upon the maintenance of his household and his foundation at the rate of some £1,700 a year. Other actors, mainly of the King's company, can be shown to have made their more modest piles. Thomas Pope, Augustine Phillips, Henry Condell, all appear from their wills to have been substantial men when they died. John Heminge is described in 1614 as 'of greate lyveinge wealth and power'. The Restoration story that Shakespeare spent £1,000 a year at Stratford is probably apocryphal, in view of the fact that his known investments only amount to a little over £1,000; but at least he returned as a moneyed man to the scene of his father's bankruptcy, and enjoyed consideration as the owner of the best house in his native town. Aubrey's statement that he left property worth about £200 or £300 a year, which gives him a fortune about equal to Richard Burbadge's, seems not unreasonable.[2] Like true Englishmen, the successful players sought after less material proof of their worth than was afforded by their lands and houses. Alleyn, having long been lord of a manor, and having connected himself by marriage with the Dean of St. Paul's, was desirous in 1624 of 'sum further dignetie', probably a knighthood. Others were content with acquiring orto a sister'.]
- ↑ App. C, No. xlviii.
- ↑ C. Severn, Diary of John Ward (c. 1661-3), 183, 'I have heard that M^r. Shakespeare . . . in his elder days lived at Stratford: and supplied the stage with 2 plays every year, and for itt had an allowance so large, that hee spent att the rate of a 1,000l a year, as I have heard'; Aubrey, ii. 226, 'I thinke I have been told that he left 2 or 300 li per annum there and thereabout [i.e. at Stratford
