Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 11
XI. FIRST RECORD OF SHAKESPEARE AS A LEADING MEMBER OF THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S COMPANY OF PLAYERS (1594/5).
Manuscript Accounts of the Treasurer of the Royal Chamber in Public Record Office.
1594 [i.e. 1595] March 15 To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage, servants to the Lord Chamberlain, upon the Council’s warrant dated at Whitehall xv die Marcij 1594 for two several comedies or interludes showed by them before her Majesty in Christmas time last past, viz.; upon St. Stephen’s day and Innocents’ day, xiij li. vj s. viij d., and by way of her Majesty’s reward vj li. xiij s. iiij d.: in all, xx li.
Note. This shows that Shakespeare had performed in plays before Queen Elizabeth on Dec. 26 and Dec. 28, 1594, the court being then at Greenwich Palace. For each play the company, for which Shakespeare was one of the three payees, received ten pounds, two-thirds of that amount being reckoned the proper price of the performance and one-third the Queen’s additional gratuity. (See Mrs. Stopes, ‘The Earliest Offcial Record of Shakespeare’s Name,’ in Shakespeare’s Industry, pp. 218 ff., where it is conjectured that one of the comedies presented was The Comedy of Errors.)
There is no earlier documentary evidence regarding the particular company with which Shakespeare was connected. It has been commonly assumed that he joined the predecessors of the Chamberlain’s company as soon as he reached London or even earlier. Recent investigators, however, have argued from circumstantial evidence that his first connection was rather with Lord Pembroke’s players. (See J. Q. Adams, Life of Shakespeare, 1923, pp. 180 ff., and R. Crompton Rhodes, Shakespeare’s First Folio, 1923, pp. 84 ff.)