Henceforward the company was regularly established in London, took the lead annually at Court, and except for brief periods of inhibition in 1596, 1597, and possibly 1601, does not appear to have travelled during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign. Whether Hunsdon's men got the Cross Keys for the winter or not, they probably had from the beginning the use of the Theatre for the summer seasons, for Richard Burbage, the son of the owner, was one of their leading members, and on 15 March 1595 appears as joint payee with William Kempe and William Shakespeare for two plays given at Court on 26 and 28 December 1594. These plays cannot be identified, but Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost and Romeo and Juliet may well have been produced this winter.[1] Most likely the date 28 December was entered in the payment warrant by mistake for 27 December, for the Admiral's men are also recorded as playing at Court on 28 December, and on the same night 'a company of base and common fellows', with whom one is bound to identify the Chamberlain's men, played 'a Comedy of Errors' as part of the Christmas revels of the Prince of Purpoole at Gray's Inn.[2] There seems to be some echo of Romeo and Juliet in the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude of A Midsummer-Night's Dream, which may very well have been given at Greenwich or Burghley House for the wedding of William Stanley, Earl of Derby, and Elizabeth Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, on 26 January 1595. Another possible occasion for the production, however, is the wedding of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Carey and grand-daughter of Lord Hunsdon, to Thomas, son of Henry Lord Berkeley on 19 February 1596. This took place at Blackfriars, presumably in Sir George Carey's house there.[3]
To 1595 or thereabouts I also assign Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona and King John and Richard II.[4] The company played at Court on 26, 27, and 28 December 1595
- [Footnote: it came under Hunsdon's patronage. The use which the company 'have
byn accustomed' to make of the inn is only related to 'this winter time'.]
- ↑ The dates here assigned to Shakespeare's plays are mainly based on the conclusions of my article on Shakespeare in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxiv, s.v. Gesta Grayorum and M. L. R. ii. 11.
- ↑ Cf. my paper on The Occasion of A Midsummer-Night's Dream in Shakespeare Homage, 154, and App. A.
- ↑ I have recently found confirmation of the date for Rich. II in a letter from Sir Edward Hoby inviting Sir R. Cecil to his house in Canon Row on 9 Dec. 1595, 'where, as late as shall please you, a gate for your supper shall be open, and K. Richard present himself to your view' (Hatfield MSS. v. 487).
