to Dekker and Middleton in earnest of The Patient Man and the Honest Whore. This was entered in the Stationers' Register on 9 November 1604, and printed as The Honest Whore during the year. The name of Towne is in a stage-direction. On 14 March '1604', which may have been either 1604 or 1605, Henslowe had a final reckoning with the company and noted 'Caste vp all the acowntes frome the begininge of the world vntell this daye beinge the 14 daye of Marche 1604 by Thomas Dowghton & Edward Jube for the company of the prynces men & I Phillipe Henslow so ther reasteth dew vnto me P Henslow the some of xxiiij^{ll} all reconynges consernynge the company in stocke generall descarged & my sealfe descarged to them of al deates'.[1] With this, so far as the extant book goes, the record of his transactions with the company practically ceases. The only exception is a note of receipts at the Fortune during the three days next after Christmas in 1608, which amounted to 25s., 45s., and 44s. 9d. respectively.[2] Something of the career of the Prince's men may be gleaned from other sources. They played at Court before James on 21 January and 20 February 1604, and before Henry on 4, 15, and 22 January; and during the following Christmas before Anne on 23 November 1604 and before Henry on 24 November, 14 and 19 December, and on 15 and 22 January and 5 and 19 February 1605. On 8 February 1605 their play of Richard Whittington, of which nothing further is known, was entered on the Stationers' Register.[3] In the same year Samuel Rowley's When You See Me, You Know Me, was printed as played by them. During the Christmas of 1605-6 they gave three plays before James and three before Henry.[4] In 1604-5 they were at Maidstone and Winchester, in 1605-6 at Bath, on 17 July 1606 at Oxford, and on 17 October at Ipswich. During the Christmas of 1606-7 they gave six plays before James. Dekker's Whore of Babylon was entered on the Stationers' Register on 20 April 1607 and printed as theirs in the same year. In 1606-7 they were at Bath. During the Christmas of 1607-8 they gave four plays before James and Henry. In 1607-8 they were
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 175.
- ↑ Ibid. 214.
- ↑ There may be an allusion to this play in H. Parrot, Laquei Ridiculosi,
Springes for Woodcocks (1613), ii. 162:
'Tis said that Whittington was rais'd of nought,
And by a cat hath divers wonders wrought:
But Fortune (not his cat) makes it appear,
He may dispend a thousand marks a year.Dr. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 65) has dispersed Collier's myth of one Whittington 'perhaps a sleeping partner in the speculation of the Fortune'.
- ↑ Most of the play-dates of 1605-12 are in Apps. A and B.
