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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
In 1594, as stability was about to return to the London stage after several years of disruption, a company under the patronage of the fifth Earl of Sussex played two brief engagements at Philip Henslowe's theatre, the Rose. Historians of the Elizabethan stage have had little to say about Sussex's men, for although the company appears fairly regularly in performance records of the 1590s, and although Henslowe's Diary lists their day-by-day repertory for a few weeks in 1594, their plays do not seem to have formed an important part of the Elizabethan drama (only George a Greene survives as a piece attributable solely to Sussex's men), and their personnel do not seem to have aroused sufficient interest to leave any record of an actor's name after 1576. Yet there may be a story to tell about Sussex's men after all. If we look closely at their repertory of 1594, keeping in mind the affairs of other companies at this time, we can see that the Sussex company may have briefly included some of the most important figures of the Elizabethan theatre.
1 My account is based upon Chambers, E. K., The Elizabethan Stage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923) 2: 92–96Google Scholar, and William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930) 1: 46–48Google Scholar. The evidence is from Henslowe's Diary, ed. Foakes, R. A. and Rickert, R. T. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 20–21Google Scholar. Throughout I follow this edition's record of Henslowe's dates rather than the corrections attempted in Greg's edition of the Diary (1908).
2 Chambers, , William Shakespeare, 1: 46Google Scholar.
3 Chambers, , William Shakespeare, 1: 319–320Google Scholar; Cairncross, A. S., ed., 3 Henry VI (Cambridge, Mass.: New Arden Edition, Harvard University Press, 1948), xlviGoogle Scholar; Maxwell, J. C., ed. Titus Andronicus (Cambridge, Mass.: New Arden Edition, Harvard University Press, 1953), xxviiiGoogle Scholar. Henslowe marked the title,“ne” for Sussex's men, but this can hardly mean that the play was then “new.” The mark may have meant “newly revised,” as is possible in other cases, or, as Foakes and Rickert have suggested (Henslowe's Diary xxxxxxi), it might refer to the licensing of the playbook by the Master of the Revels.
4 Chambers, , Elizabethan Stage 2:129–130Google Scholar, Wilson, J. Dover, ed., 2 Henry VI (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952): vii–xivGoogle Scholar; McMillin, Scott, “Casting for Pembroke's Men,” Shakespeare Quarterly 23 (1972): 141–159CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and George, David, “Shakespeare and Pembroke's Men,” Shakespeare Quarterly 32 (1981): 305–323CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Chambers, , William Shakespeare, 1: 47–48Google Scholar.
6 It is usually assumed that Henslowe owned The Jew of Malta and supplied it to the various companies which acted at his theatre. The assumption is probably wrong. No evidence shows that Henslowe owned plays during the 1590s. The passage of The Jew of Malta from one company to another can be explained by the more likely assumption that its owner was Alleyn, who certainly owned other plays and who was famous for his performance in this one. I have further explained this point in “The Ownership of The Jew of Malta, Friar Bacon, and The Ranger's Comedy,” English Language Notes 9 (1972): 249–252Google Scholar.
7 The Friar Bacon played in the second run looks like another clue, for this title was included in Strange's repertory of 1592'93 and again in the later Admiral's repertory, a seeming parallel to the history of The Jew of Malta. But there were probably two Friar Bacon plays: the piece now known as John of Bordeaux (the Strange's-Admiral's play), and Greene's Friar Bacon (the Queen's play). See Renwick's, W. L. introduction to the Malone Society Reprint of John of Bordeaux (Oxford: The Malone Society, 1936), viii-ixGoogle Scholar, and McMillin, “Ownership of The Jew of Malta, Friar Bacon, and The Ranger's Tragedy.”
8 The quoted phrase is from Greg, W. W., Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses: Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931), 23, but the assumption passes current in all of the standard authoritiesGoogle Scholar.
9 Records of Earty English Drama: Coventry, ed., Ingram, R. W. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 341Google Scholar, and Greenfield, Peter, “Entertainments of Henry, Lord Berkeley, 1593–4 and 1600–5,” REED Newsletter 8 (1983): 15Google Scholar. Lord Strange became Earl of Derby in September, 1593, so the December records are for Derby's men. The possibility that the December records refer to a separate company of Derbyapos;s men is mentioned in footnote 11 below.
10 Orlando Furioso, which can also be connected to the Queen's and Admiral's companies, was played by Strange's men in 1592, and Alleyn's part for the title-role is among his papers in Dulwich. The case for abridgement is set forth in Greg, , Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements: The Battle of Alcazar and Orlando Furioso (Oxford: The Malone Society, 1922), 125–357Google Scholar. A Knack to Know a Knave was performed by Strange's men in 1592–93, and the 1594 title-page names Alleyn and Kempe. The play is short and can be played by eleven men and one or two boys. Studies forthcoming by Laurie Maguire will provide fresh interpretations of these short texts.
11 A few provincial records are usually assumed to indicate the continuation of Strange's men from winter to spring. None of these, however, is dated before May (Chambers, , William Shakespeare, 1: 47Google Scholar.) Chambers seems to have assumed that the dates of the records give the dates of performance—on what grounds it is not always clear. At any rate, we have no record of the company between December and May (I have checked the REED volumes published through 1990). The matter is further complicated by the naming of “Derby's men” in the records of May and thereafter. This would have been an appropriate name for Strange's men after 25 September 1593, but it is also possible that a separate company under the Derby title was acting in the provinces in the earlier 1590s, and they might have been the company of the 1594 records. An Ipswich record of 7 August 1592 for Derby's men, unless it contains an error, can only be explained in this way. Amid these uncertainties, the assumption that Strange's men continued intact has little foundation.
12 Reprinted in Henslowe's Diary, ed., Foakes and Rickert, 280.
13 I Contention does not name a company, but its circumstances are so close to those of The True Tragedy of York (1595; Pembroke's named) that the two plays probably had the same provenance. The company is named on the title-page of A Shrew.
14 2 Henry VI, xii-xiv.
15 Chambers, , Elizabethan Stage, 2:130, following a suggestion from Halliwell-PhillippsGoogle Scholar.
