1613, John Sigismund had entertained another company. Early in 1614 he engaged William, Abraham, and Jacob Pedel, Robert Arzschar, Behrendt Holzhew, and August Pflugbeil.[1] The names hardly sound English; but Jacob Pedel is probably the Jacob Behel or Biel who was travelling with Sackville in 1597, William Pedel appeared as an English pantomimist at Leyden in November 1608, and Arzschar, whose correct name was doubtless Archer, is also described as an Englishman at Frankfort in the autumn of 1608.[2] He was then in company with Heinrich Greum and Rudolph Beart. A Burchart Bierdt appeared as 'Englischer Musicant' at Cologne in December 1612.[3] Archer perhaps came from Nuremberg. He was at Frankfort again in the autumn of 1610, and at the Reichstag held by the Emperor Matthias at Regensburg in September 1613.[4] It must have been this new company under Archer which visited Wolfenbüttel in September 1614 and Danzig in 1615, styling themselves the Brandenburg comedians.[5] The only names given at Danzig are Johann Friedrich Virnius and Bartholomeus Freyerbott, and in fact the Pedels, Holzhew, and Pflugbeil left Berlin at Easter 1615. Archer himself remained with the Elector until May 1616. The field, then, was clear at Berlin for the enterprise of Spencer. On 17 March 1618 John Sigismund made a payment 'to one Stockfisch' for bringing the English comedians from Elbing. Further payments to the English are recorded in the following November, and in June 1619 for plays at Königsberg and Balge in Prussia, of which the Elector had become Duke on the death of his father-in-law Albert Frederick in the preceding August.[6] In July 1619 the Elector of Brandenburg's comedians are heard of at Danzig.[7] On 23 December 1619 John Sigismund himself died, and in 1620 Hans Stockfisch addressed an appeal for certain arrears of salary to Count Adam von Schwartzenberg, an officer at the court of the new Elector George William (1619-40), in which he claimed to have enjoyed the Count's protection for more than fifteen years. In reply George William describes the petitioner as 'den Englischen Junkher Hans Stockfisch, wie er sich nennet'.[8] There can be little doubt that Hans Stockfisch was none other than John Spencer, for the period of fifteen years precisely takes us back to his first appearance as a Brandenburg comedian in 1605. His fish name corre-*
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