Lord Chamberlain of 16 July 1616, condemning the use of such exemplifications, and specifying amongst others two taken out by Thomas Swinnerton and Martin Slater, 'beinge two of the Queens Maiesties company of Playors hauing separated themselves from their said Company'.[1] Slater had, therefore, returned to the provincial field, and there were now two travelling companies of Queen's men. I take it that in 1617 the Lord Chamberlain succeeded in suppressing them, and that the Queen's men who continued to appear in the provinces up to Anne's death on 2 March 1619 were the London company.[2] Lee joined the Queen's Revels as reorganized under a licence of 31 October 1617. Slater, about the same time, joined the Children of Bristol, for whom, with John Edmonds and Nathaniel Clay, he got letters of assistance in April 1618. In these all three are described as her Majesty's servants. Swinnerton apparently succeeded in keeping on foot a company of his own, which visited Leicester in 1619.[3] The Bristol company was in fact under Anne's patronage, but Lee and Swinnerton, no less than Slater and Edmonds, remained technically the Queen's servants, and are included with the London men in a list of the players who received mourning at her funeral on 13 May 1619.[4] These were Robert Lee, Richard Perkins, Christopher Beeston, Robert Pallant, Thomas Heywood, James Holt, Thomas Swinnerton, Martin Slater, Ellis Wroth, John Comber, Thomas Basse, John Blaney, William Robinson, John Edmonds, Thomas Drewe, Gregory Sanderson, and John Garret.
The list of seventeen names includes seven of the ten patentees of 1609. I do not know what had become of John Duke and Robert Beeston. Thomas Greene had died in August 1612, having made on 25 July a will, amongst the witnesses to which were Christopher Beeston, Heywood, and Perkins. The disposal of his property led many years afterwards to a lawsuit, which gives valuable information as to both the personnel and the organization of the London company. After providing for his family and making some small legacies, including one to John Cumber, and 40s. to 'my fellowes of the house of the Redd Bull, to buy gloves for them', he left the residue to his widow and executrix, Susanna Greene, formerly wife of one Browne.[5] In June 1613 she took a third*
