in 1600. Certainly this was so by May 1603, when an acquittance for an advance entered in the account refers to a play to be written for 'the Earle of Worcesters players at the Rose'.[1] There is no complete list of the company in the diary. The names of those members incidentally mentioned, as authorizing payments or otherwise, are John Duke, Thomas Blackwood, William Kempe, John Thare, John Lowin, Thomas Heywood, Christopher Beeston, Robert Pallant, and a Cattanes whose first name is not preserved. The payees for the performance of 1601-2 were Kempe and Heywood. One Underell was in receipt of wages from the company, together with a tireman, who made purchases of stuffs for them. It is impossible to say which of these men had been with Worcester's and which with Oxford's before the amalgamation. Heywood, who was playwright as well as actor, had written for the Admiral's from 1596 to 1599, and had bound himself to play in Henslowe's house for two years from 25 March 1598. Pallant had been with Strange's or the Admiral's in 1590-1, and Duke, Kempe, and Beeston with the Chamberlain's in 1598. Since then Kempe had travelled abroad, returning in September 1601. It is little more than a guess that some of these men may have played with Henslowe as Pembroke's.[2] Several members of the company borrowed money from Henslowe, in some cases before their connexion with the Rose began. Duke had a loan as early as 21 September 1600, and Kempe on 10 March 1602.[3] Blackwood and Lowin borrowed on 12 March 1603 to go into the country with the company.[4] This was, no doubt, when playing in London was suspended owing to the illness of Elizabeth. A loan for a similar purpose was made on the same day to Richard Perkins, and suggests that he too was already one of Worcester's men. There is, indeed, an earlier note of 4 September 1602 connecting him with one Dick Syferweste, whose fellows were then in the country, while Worcester's were, of course, at the Rose. But this itself makes it clear that he was interested in a play of Heywood's, which can hardly be other than that then in preparation at the Rose, and perhaps Syferwest was an unfortunate comrade in Oxford's or Worcester's, who had been left out at the reconstruction.[5]
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 160, 190.
- ↑ Cf. supra (Chamberlain's).
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 132, 163.
- ↑ Ibid. 177.
- ↑ Ibid. 178, 'Lent vnto Richard Perckens the 4 of September 1602 to buy thinges for Thomas Hewode play & to lend vnto Dick Syferweste to ride downe to his felowes'. This is, of course, a private loan, and not in the company's account.
