of ware in Franckford dit farre excell all the Dutchmen, French, Italians, or whomsoever else.'[1]
John Bradstreet's name appears in 1604 with that of Sackville
in the album of Johannes Cellarius of Nuremberg. He died
in 1618 and Sackville in 1628, leaving a library of theology and
English literature. Edward Wakefield reappears in the
Brunswick accounts for 1602, not specifically as a player.
But certainly the playing company continued to exist.
The accounts mention it in 1608, and Thomas Heywood
notes its existence about the same date. There were English
players at Wolfenbüttel in May 1615 and at Brunswick in
1611 and 1617, but no names are recorded, and it can hardly
be assumed that these were the original ducal company.
Henry Julius himself died in 1613.[2]
Robert Browne's own movements are uncertain after the break-up of his company in 1593. He is not traceable for a year or so either in Germany or in England, where his wife and all her children and household died of plague in Shoreditch about August 1593.[3] But sooner or later he found his way to Cassel. This was another of the literary courts of Germany, the capital of Maurice the Learned, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (1592-1627). Maurice himself wrote an 'Anglia Comoedia' and other plays in Terentian Latin, which were performed by the pupils of the Collegium Mauritianum, but are unfortunately not preserved. He also composed music and, like the Duke of Brunswick, gave a welcome to John Dowland on one of his several foreign tours.[4] Possibly Dowland was one of the two lutenists who are recorded to have spent fifteen weeks at Cassel in 1594.[5] In the following year there were performances by players and acrobats at Maurice's castle of Wilhelmsburg at Schmalkalden, and in the same year Maurice wrote to his agent at Prague to give assistance to his comedians in the event of their visiting that city.[6] To 1594 or 1595 may, therefore, be plausibly ascribed undated warrants by which Robert Browne and Philip Kiningsmann receive appointments from the Landgrave, undertaking to do him service with their company in vocal
- ↑ Herz, 37; T. Coryat, Crudities, ii. 291. Cf. also Ein Discurss von der
Frankfurter Messe (1615):
Der Narr macht lachen, doch ich weht,
—Da ist keiner so gut wie Jahn begeht—
Vor dieser Zeitt wol hat gethan,
Jetzt ist er ein reicher Handelsmann. - ↑ Cohn, xxxiv; Sh.-Jahrbuch, xl. 342.
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 37.
- ↑ Cohn, xviii, lvii; Goedeke, ii. 522; Duncker, Landgrave Moritz von Hessen und die Englischen Komödianten in Deutsche Rundschau, xlviii. 260.
- ↑ Sh.-Jahrbuch, xiv. 361.
- ↑ Cohn, lviii; Herz, 13.
