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SCOTT, JOHN. Interluders, 1503-28.

SEBECK, HENRY. Lady Elizabeth's, 1617.

SEHAIS, JEHAN. France, 1598. Possibly the John Shaa, who witnessed an Admiral's payment to Dekker, 24 November 1599 (H. i. 114). 'John' appears for 'Robert' Shaw, probably by an error, in a play warrant of 1600 as given in the P. C. Acts (cf. App. B).

SHAKESPEARE, EDMOND. The burials at St. Saviour's include, on 31 December 1607, 'Edmond Shakespeare, a player: in the church,' which is expanded in a fee-book as 'Edmund Shakespeare, a player, buried in the church, with a forenoone knell of the great bell, 20s. (Collier, Actors, xiv). Presumably this is the brother of William.

SHAKESPEARE, EDWARD. The baptisms at St. Giles's include, on 12 August 1607, 'Edward, sonne of Edward Schackspeere, Player: base borne' (Collier, Actors, xv; J. Hunter in Addl. MS. 24589, f. 24).

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. Strange's, 1592; Pembroke's (?), 1593; Sussex's (?), 1594; Chamberlain's-King's, 1594-1616; and dramatist.

SHAKSHAFTE, WILLIAM. Player (?) to Alexander Houghton, 1581 (cf. ch. ix, p. 280).

SHANBROOKE, JOHN. A 'player' buried on 17 Sept. 1618 at St. Giles's, where his children appear in the registers from 10 June 1610 to 4 June 1618 (Bodl.).

SHANK, JOHN, or SHANKS, for the name is variously spelt, describes himself to Lord Chamberlain Pembroke in the Sharers Papers of 1635 as 'beeing an old man in this quality, who in his youth first served your noble father, and after that the late Queene Elizabeth, then King James, and now his royall Majestye'.[1] Presumably the Pembroke's company in question was that of 1597-1600, and the Queen Elizabeth's men the travelling company of the latter years of the reign. Shank's account of his own career may be amplified from the records of his name in the 1610 list of Prince Henry's men and in the patent issued to the same company when they became the Elector Palatine's men in 1613. He lived in Rochester Yard, Southwark, in 1605, but the register of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, shows him later in Golden Lane, and records several baptisms and burials of his children between 1610 and 1629.[2] He had joined the King's men between 1613 and 1619, as his name is in the patent of the latter year. It recurs in the official lists of the company up to 1629, but occasionally only in actor-lists up to 1631, including that of the First Folio Shakespeare. Amongst his 'boyes' or apprentices were Thomas Pollard, John Thompson, John Honiman, and Thomas Holcome. Thompson cost him £40; for other boys he had spent by 1635 as much as £200. After the death of John Heminges, Shank bought from his son William, surreptitiously, as his fellows averred, two shares in the Blackfriars and three in the Globe, for a total sum of £506. It was these transactions, which took place between 1633 and 1635, that led to the petition of Benfield, Swanston, and Pollard to the Lord Chamberlain recorded in the Sharers Papers.

  1. Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 314.
  2. Collier, iii. 482; Rendle, Bankside, xxvi.