join the newly formed Lady Elizabeth's men. We may therefore place at some time before this date Barksted's completion of Marston's Insatiate Countess, which was published in 1613 as 'acted at Whitefriars'. The entry in the Stationer's Register of Field's A Woman is a Weathercock (1612) on 23 November 1611 shows that he also had begun to experiment in authorship. As this had been acted at Court, as well as by the Queen's Revels at Whitefriars, it probably dates back to the winter of 1609-10. The company returned to court on 5 January 1612 with Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge, and the Clerk of the Revels entered them as the Children of Whitefriars.[1] The travels of 1612 were under the leadership of Nicholas Long, and on 20 May another contretemps occurred at Norwich. The instrument of deputation was forthcoming on this occasion, but the mayor chose to interpret the patent as giving authority only to teach and instruct children, and not to perform with them; and so once again 'the Master of the Kings Revells' got his reward of 20s., but was not allowed to play. Between Michaelmas and Christmas 'the queens maiesties revellers' were at Bristol, and at some time during 1612-13 'two of the company of the childeren of Revells' received a reward at Coventry. Conceivably the provincial company of Reeve and Long was a distinct organization from that in London. Rosseter was payee for four performances at Court during the winter of 1612-13. On the first occasion, in the course of November, the play was Beaumont and Fletcher's Coxcomb; on 1 January and again on 9 January it was Cupid's Revenge; and on 27 February it was The Widow's Tears. In one version of the Chamber Accounts the company appears this year as the Children of the Queen's Revels, but in another under the obsolete designation of Children of the Chapel. In addition to the plays already named, Chapman's Revenge of Bussy had been on the Whitefriars stage before it was published in 1613; and it is conceivable that Chapman's Chabot and Beaumont and Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas and The Nightwalker may be Queen's Revels plays of 1610-13. They may also, indeed, be Lady Elizabeth's plays of 1613-16, but during this period the Lady Elizabeth and the Queen's Revels appear to have been practically amalgamated, under an arrangement made between Henslowe and Rosseter in March 1613 and then modified, first in 1614, and again on the addition of Prince Charles's men to the 'combine' in 1615. Yet in some way
- ↑ The Chamber Accounts record no payment to the company (cf. App. B, introd.).
