perhaps only tentative, for in February 1592 he was preparing to cross the seas again, and to this end obtained for himself, John Bradstreet, Thomas Sackville, and Richard Jones, the following passport to the States-General of the Netherlands from the Lord Admiral:
Messieurs, comme les présents porteurs, Robert Browne, Jehan
Bradstriet, Thomas Saxfield, Richard Jones, ont deliberé de faire
ung voyage en Allemagne, avec intention de passer par le païs de
Zelande, Hollande et Frise, et allantz en leur dict voyage d'exercer
leurs qualitez en faict de musique, agilitez et joeux de commedies,
tragedies et histoires, pour s'entretenir et fournir à leurs despenses
en leur dict voyage. Cestes sont partant vous requerir monstrer et
prester toute faveur en voz païs et jurisdictions, et leur octroyer en
ma faveur vostre ample passeport soubz le seel des Estatz, afin que
les Bourgmestres des villes estantz soubs voz jurisdictions ne les
empeschent en passant d'exercer leurs dictes qualitez par tout.
Enquoy faisant, je vous demeureray à tous obligé, et me treuverez
très appareillé à me revencher de vostre courtoisie en plus grand cas.
De ma chambre à la court d'Angleterre ce x^{me} jour de Febvrier 1591.
Vostre tres affecsionné à vous fayre plaisir et sarvis,
C. Howard.[1]
Presumably the Lord Admiral gave this passport in his
official capacity, as responsible for the high seas, and it is
not necessary to infer that the travellers were in 1592 his
servants.[2]
There are not many clear notices of Browne and his company during this tour. They were at Arnhem, with a licence from Prince Maurice of Orange-Nassau, in 1592.[3] Thereafter they may have gone into residence at some Court, Wolfenbüttel or another. They can hardly have been the English 'comoedianten und springer' who came to Nyköping in Sweden for the wedding of Duke Karl of Sweden and Princess Christina of Holstein on 28 August 1592[4]; for it was only two days later that Browne approached the Frankfort magistrates for leave to play at the autumn fair, where they gave Gammer Gurton's Needle and some of Marlowe's plays.[5] It was on this occasion that Fynes Moryson, the traveller, visited the fair and noted the great vogue of the
- ↑ L. Ph. C. van den Bergh, 's Gravenhaagsche Bijzonderheden (1857), 51
from Hague Archives; Cohn, xxviii. A letter from R. Jones to Alleyn
(Henslowe Papers, 33), often assigned to this date, seems to me probably
to belong to 1615: cf. p. 287. - ↑ Another Admiral's passport is printed in Rye, 47.
- ↑ G. van Hasselt, Arnhemsche Oudheden, i (1803), 244, naming Robert Bruyn, Johan Bradsdret, Thomas Saxwiell, Richardus Jonas, and Everhart Sauss.
- ↑ Bolte in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xxxiii. 104.
- ↑ Mentzel, 23.
