1610 represents a revised version performed at Court on the previous Shrove Sunday. This might be either 18 February 1610 or 3 February 1611. The epilogue contains an apology for some recent indiscretion of the company in a play of which no more is known, but which might conceivably be Daborne's A Christian Turned Turk, since this certainly brought its players into some disgrace. By April the company were at the Globe, playing Macbeth on 20 April, Cymbeline probably shortly before, and Othello on 30 April.[1] To this year I assign The Winter's Tale and Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy. It also saw the production of Jonson's Alchemist, with a cast including Burbadge, Lowin, Condell, Cooke, Armin, Heminges, William Ostler, John Underwood, Tooley, and William Ecclestone. This is the last mention of Armin in connexion with the King's men, but it is sufficient to show that the production of his Two Maids of Moreclack by the King's Revels about 1608 did not involve any breach with his old company. Of Ecclestone's origin nothing is known.[2] Ostler and Underwood came from the Queen's Revels, probably when the Blackfriars was taken over in 1609. In fact an account of the transaction given by the Burbadges in 1635 suggests that the desire to acquire these boys was its fundamental motive. They say:
'In processe of time, the boyes growing up to bee men, which were
Underwood, Field, Ostler, and were taken to strengthen the King's
service; and the more to strengthen the service, the boyes dayly
wearing out, it was considered that house would bee as fitt for
ourselves, and soe purchased the lease remaining from Evans with our
money, and placed men players, which were Heminges, Condall,
Shakspeare, &c.'
This narrative seems, however, to have antedated matters
as regards Field. Or, if he did come to the King's men in
1609, he almost immediately returned to the Queen's Revels
at Whitefriars, joining the King's again about 1616.[3]
About 8 May 1610 some superfluous apparel of the company was sold by Heminges on their behalf to the Duke of York'sS. E. alla au Globe, lieu ordinaire où l'on joue les Commedies, y fut representé l'histoire du More de Venise'. Forman's accounts of Macbeth from Bodl. Ashm. MS. 208, f. 207, and of Cymbeline from the preceding leaf, but undated, are printed in N. S. S. Trans. (1875-6), 417.]
- ↑ Rye, 61, from narrative of tour of Lewis Frederick, Duke of Württemberg, 'Lundi, 30 [Apr.
- ↑ Fleay, 190, says that Ecclestone came from the Queen's Revels. I think he must have confused him with Field.
- ↑ Perhaps his place between Ostler and Underwood in the actor-list of the 1623 Folio gives some confirmation to the statement of the Burbadges; cf. p. 219.
