Several other documents confirm this narrative. The Privy Council register contains an order of 8 November for an officer at arms to call upon the sessions by proclamation to rescind their resolution and a further proclamation of 10 November reciting the submission made by the sessions.[1] The Lord High Treasurer's accounts contain payments to Walter Forsyth, the officer employed, as well as gifts to 'ye Inglis comedianis' of £43 6s. 8d. in October, of £40 in November 'to by tymber for ye preparatioun of ane house to thair pastyme', and of a further £333 6s. 8d. in December.[2] It is George Nicolson, in a letter of 12 November forwarding the proclamation of 8 November to Sir Robert Cecil, who identifies the players for us as 'Fletcher and Mertyn with their company'.[3] The bounty of James, although it must be borne in mind that the sums were reckoned in pounds Scots, probably left them disinclined to quit Edinburgh in a hurry. Another gift of £400 reached them through Roger Ashton in 1601;[4] and on 9 October in the same year they visited Aberdeen with a letter of recommendation from the King, and with the style of his majesty's servants, and the town council gave them £22 and spent £3 on their supper 'that nicht thaye plaid to the towne'. Nay, more, another entry in the burgh register tells us that the players came in the train of 'Sir Francis Hospital of Haulszie, Knycht, Frensch-*man', and one of those 'admittit burgesses' with the foreign visitor was 'Laurence Fletcher, comediane to his Majesty'.[5]
Laurence Fletcher's name stands first in the English patent of 1603 to the King's men, and the inferences have been drawn that the company at Aberdeen was the Chamberlain's men, that their visit was due to a proscription from London on account of their participation in the Essex 'innovation', that Shakespeare was with them, and that he picked up local colour, to the extent of 'a blasted heath' for Macbeth.[6] To this it may be briefly replied that, as theSessions, and preaching of the ministers against them. The bellows blowers say that they are sent by England to sow dissension between the King and the Kirk'.]
- ↑ Acts of the Privy Council of Scotland, vi. 39, 41. Calderwood seems to have put the whole business a week too late.
- ↑ Dibdin, 22.
- ↑ Lee, 83, from S. P. D. Scotland (R. O.), lxv. 64; cf. summary in Scottish Papers, ii. 777, 'Performances of English players, Fletcher, Martin, and their company, by the King's permission; enactment of the [Fower
- ↑ Dibdin, 24.
- ↑ J. Stuart, Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen (Spalding Club), ii. xxi, xxii, 222.
- ↑ Fleay, 136; cf. Furness, Macbeth, 407. Fleay goes so far as to 'hazard the guess' that the 'speciall letter' of recommendation from James produced at Aberdeen was 'the identical letter that James wrote to Shakespeare with his own hand', as recorded by Oldys.
