of the establishment to their utmost. All the principal members of the company appeared—'Mr. Allen, Mr. Denygten, Mr. Boorne, Mr. Towne, Mr. Singer, Mr. Jubie, H. Jeffs, A. Jeffs, Mr. Charles [Massey], and Mr. Sam [Rowley]'; and in addition Dick Jubie, W. Cart[wright], George [Somerset], Tho. Parsons, and Jeames [Bristow], who were in The Battle of Alcazar, and W. Parr, Tho. Marbeck, Jack Grigorie, Gedion, Gibbs, Tho. Rowley, Rester, 'old Browne', Ned Browne, 'the red fast fellow' and several boys, described, perhaps in some cases twice over, as Jack Jones, 'little Will', 'little Will Barne', who do not seem to be identical, 'Gils his boy', 'Mr. Denyghtens little boy', perhaps the same already recorded in 1600, and 'the other little boy'. 'Old Browne' can hardly be Robert Browne, who seems to have been in Germany; but Ned Browne may be the Edward Browne who, like Robert, was a member of Worcester's company in 1583. Little is added by the only other extant 'plot', the fragmentary one of 2 Fortune's Tennis. This is difficult to date, but it must be later than Dekker's 1 Fortune's Tennis of September 1600, and may not improbably be Munday's Set at Tennis of December 1602. The few names which it contains—Mr. Singer, Sam, Charles, Geo[rge Somerset], R. Tailor, W. Cartwright, Pavy—suggest proximity to The Battle of Alcazar and 1 Tamar Cham. The only fresh one is that of Pavy, who may or may not be connected with the Salathiel Pavy of Ben Jonson's epitaph. Both 1 Tamar Cham and 2 Fortune's Tennis must be earlier than January 1603, a month which saw the retirement of the old Queen's man, John Singer. So at least may be inferred from the fact that he makes no further appearance in the diary after 13 January, when he received £5 'for his play called Syngers Vallentarey'. I take 'vallentarey' to mean 'valediction'. His name is absent from the next list of the company, which belongs to 1604. He probably left to become an ordinary Groom of the Chamber in the royal household, a post which he is found occupying at the time of Elizabeth's funeral.[1]
The succession of new plays was not quite so rapid during 1600-3 as in previous periods. I can only trace thirty-one in all, as against fifty-five in 1594-7 and sixty-two in 1599-1600. It may well have been the case that Alleyn, who had 'created' parts in the 'eighties and early 'nineties, had a tendency towards revivals. For 1600-1 the company bought only seven new books. These were:
1 Fortune's Tennis (Dekker).
Hannibal and Scipio (Hathway and Rankins).
- ↑ Cf. ch. x.
