A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare

In May, Shakespeare bought for £320, from the Combes, 107 acres of arable land in Old Stratford. The indenture was sealed and delivered in his absence to his brother Gilbert.

On July 26 the surreptitious Hamlet was entered on S. R., and on August 11 The Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell.

On 28th September, at a Court Baron of the Manor of Rowington, Walter Getley transferred to Shakespeare a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane, about a quarter of an acre with forty feet frontage, possession being reserved for the lady of the manor till suit and service had been personally done for the same.

Two plays were performed by the Chamberlain's men at Court this Christmas, one at Whitehall 26th December, one at Richmond 2d February.

1603

February 7. Troylus and Cressida, as performed probably in 1602 by the Chamberlain's men, not the play by Dekker and Chettle, was entered on S. R.

The Taming of the Shrew as we have it was probably produced in March.

March 24. The Queen Died.

On 19th May a license was granted to L. Fletcher, W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, A. Phillips, J. Hemings, H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Armin, R. Cowley, to perform stage plays "within their now usual house called the Globe," or in any part of the kingdom. They are henceforth nominated the King's Players. The functions of Fletcher are not exactly known: he did not act, and was probably a sort of general manager; the other eight were probably shareholders, among whom it will be noted that Shakespeare and Burbadge stand first. In the list of actors in Jonson's Sejanus, Cowley and Armin are omitted, A. Cook and J. Lowin appearing instead. This play got Jonson into trouble. He was accused before the Council for "Popery and treason" in it. When he published it next year he no doubt omitted the most objectionable passages, and put forth an excuse that a second hand had good share in it. This was his usual way of getting out of a difficulty of this kind. Even as the play stands there is abundant room for malice to interpret the quarrel between Sejanus and Drusus as that between Essex and Blount; and to see in Sejanus' poisoning propensities allusions to the Earl of Leicester. Whalley's curious notion that Jonson in his argument alluded to the Powder plot, ignores the fact that the play was entered on 2d November 1604 in S. R. It is Raleigh's plot that is intended.

The London Prodigal, and Wilkins' Miseries of Enforced Marriage, were written and perhaps acted (at the Globe?) this year.

The edition of Hamlet entered in the preceding year was issued in the autumn.

On December 2 the King's players performed at the Earl of Pembroke's at Wilton, and at Hampton Court before the King on December 26, 27, 28, January 1 [? December 29]; before the Prince, December 30, January 1; before the King at Whitehall, February 2, 18; nine plays in all. A much larger number of plays were acted at Christmas festivities at Court in James's reign than in Elizabeth's. Perhaps the Queen only cared for new plays. We know that James frequently ordered a second performance of any one that specially pleased him, and often had old plays revived.

On 8th February 1604, there occurs an entry in the Revels accounts which explains the small number of public theatrical performances, and the cessation of work of the principal author for the King's men in 1603. To R. Burbadge was given £30, "for the maintenance and relief of himself and the rest of his company, being prohibited to present any plays publicly in or near London by reason of great peril that might grow through the extraordinary concourse and assembly of people to a new increase of the plague, till it shall please God to settle the city in a more perfect health." From July 1603 till March 1604 the theatres were probably closed. Hence my doubt as to whether The London Prodigal and The Miseries of Enforced Marriage were performed in London till 1604. The King's company were most likely travelling in the provinces till the winter; but were disappointed at not being allowed to reopen at Christmas when the plague had abated.

1604

The King's men, like those of other companies, had an allowance for cloaks, &c., to appear at the entry of King James on 15th March.

The second Quarto of Hamlet was published in this year – "Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the new and perfect copy." This version was probably that performed at Court in the Christmas festivities 1603-4. We cannot suppose that among the nine plays then exhibited Hamlet would not be included. Of course on such occasions plays were always more or less rewritten. In this instance the remodelling is twofold; the Quarto version for the Court, 1603-4, the Folio for the public, of the same date. That the Folio does not merely reproduce the 1601 play, as it was acted in London, "in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford" (perhaps in going to or returning from Scotland in 1601), "and elsewhere," is clear for many reasons, one of which concerns us here. In the well-known passage in ii. 2 relating to the Children's company, an "inhibition" and "innovation" are mentioned in the 1604 Quarto of which there is no note in that of 1603. The only time at which we know of any contemporary inhibition and innovation was in January-February 1604. The inhibition on account of the plague, which was going on till nearly 8th February, I have already noticed; the innovation was either the political conspiracy of Raleigh or the attempt at reformation in religion by the Puritans. The Children of the Chapel, who under Evans, Burbadge's lessee, had satirised Shakespeare and other players in their performances at Blackfriars, were reappointed at this time to act in that same theatre under E. Kirkham, A. Hawkins, T. Kendall, and R. Payne, with the new appellation of Children of the Revels. The date of the warrant is 30th January 1604. The King's men acted at Court 2d February, and if Hamlet was then performed the passage in ii. 2 may have brought their grievance under the King's notice, and resulted in the gift of £30 by way of compensation. I do not insist on this, however, as it is omitted in the Quarto. No doubt they had expected to get rid of the children at Blackfriars at the end of seven years from the date of the original lease, 4th February 1596. At the end of another seven years they did so, but only by purchasing the remainder of the lease.

In this summer Marston's Malcontent was obtained in some indirect manner from these Blackfriars children, perhaps from one of the children actors who "left playing" at the time of the new license, and was played at the Globe, with an Induction by Webster introducing Sinkler, Sly, Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin on the stage. This was a retaliation for the children having in like fashion previously appropriated Jeronymo (The Spanish Tragedy), which belonged to the Chamberlain's men. The curious thing about the transaction is that the Malcontent was originally produced in 1601, containing satirical allusions to Hamlet; and that in 1604 both plays, revised, were acted on the same stage, by the same actors.

On 2d November Sejanus was entered on S. R.

On 18th December a letter from Chamberlain to Winwood contains the following notice. "The tragedy of Gowry, with all action and actors, hath been twice represented by the King's players, with exceeding concourse of all sorts of people: but whether the matter or manner be not well handled, or that it be thought unfit that princes should be played on the stage in their lifetime, I hear that some great councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall be forbidden." Shakespeare's work during this year is shown by the transcript of the Revels Accounts obtained by Malone. The King's men acted at Whitehall on November 1 The Moor of Venice; November 4, The Merry Wives of Windsor; December 28, Measure for Measure, and Errors; ["Between January 1 and January 5" in the forged copy of this entry still extant]9 Love's Labour's Lost; January 7, Henry V.; January 8, Every One out of his Humour; February 2, Every One in his Humour; February 10, The Merchant of Venice; February 11, The Spanish Maz; February 12, The Merchant of Venice again. I have given the full list as in the forged copy, but Malone is our safe guarantee for all the Shakespeare plays. It appears then that in this year Shakespeare must have written Measure for Measure and Othello, and, as we have already seen, produced a revision of Hamlet. How much of this work was performed in 1603 we cannot tell; but it is not likely that Othello was written till 1604. The only definite dates in this year relate to other matters.

In May Shakespeare entered an action at Stratford against one Philip Rogers for £1 15s. 10d., balance of account for malt.

In August the King had a special order issued that every member of the company should attend at Somerset House when the Spanish ambassador came to England (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 136). The Christmas Court performances have been noted above.

1605

On 8th May, the old play on Leir was entered on S. R.

On 4th May Phillips made his will, which was proved on the 13th. In it he leaves 30s. each to Shakespeare and Condell, and 20s. each to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cook, and Tooley, all his fellows; to Beeston, "his servant," 30s.; to Gilburne, his "late apprentice," 40s. and clothes; to James Sandes, "his apprentice," 40s. and musical instruments; to Hemings, Burbadge, and Sly, overseers and executors, a bowl of silver of £5 apiece.

On 3d July a ballad on the Yorkshire Tragedy was entered on S. R.; the play which has been erroneously attributed to Shakespeare was no doubt acted about the same time.

The London Prodigal was published, but not entered on S. R., this same year, with the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page.

Jonson's Fox was acted by the King's men; the chief actors were the same as those of Sejanus in 1603, except Phillips, who died in May, and Shakespeare, a most noteworthy exception.

On 24th July, William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, bought of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe for £440, subject to a rent payable to the corporation of £17, and £5 to John Barker. This, at the rate of interest then prevalent, was a dear purchase. In 1598 his "purchasing these tithes" had been mooted at Stratford.

As to Shakespeare's dramatic work during this year I have no doubt that Lear was on the stage in May, when the old play was published. I cannot otherwise account for the description of the latter in S. R. as a tragical history. Until Shakespeare's play this story had always been treated as a comedy.

Macbeth was probably produced in the winter, or in the following year. When James I. was at Oxford in August, he had been addressed in Latin by the three witches in this story, at an entertainment given by the University. No doubt James would be pleased by their prophecies, and desirous that they should be promulgated in the vulgar tongue. No more likely date can be found for the holograph letter which he is said to have addressed to Shakespeare. It may possibly be that that letter was a command to write this play. But, putting conjecture aside, Oldys says that Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, told Lintot that he had a letter from the King to the dramatist.

On October 9, Shakespeare's company performed before the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford. It may have been on this occasion that Shakespeare made the acquaintance of the Davenants, and stopped for the first time at the Crown, the license for which inn had only been taken out by Davenant in the preceding year. Enough has been written by others as to the scandal about Mrs. Davenant, and the tradition that William Davenant the poet, the godson of Shakespeare, was really his son. No foundation beyond a Joe Miller joke has been discovered for this report.

At Court, ten plays were acted in the Christmas season by the King's men; among them the revived Mucedorus, which, as we have seen, was an apology for Jonson's satire in Volpone.

1606

In this year, Shakespeare's portion of Timon of Athens, and that part of Cymbeline which is founded on so-called British history, were probably written.

A play called The Puritan (Widow), evidently by Middleton, was acted by the Paul's boys this year, in which we find direct allusion to Richard III. and Macbeth, both of which were probably on the stage. The same scene contains a palpable parody of the action of the scene in Pericles in which Thaisa is recovered to life. That play must then have also been on the stage. It does not follow that it was the play as we have it. It may have been, and I believe was, Wilkins' play before Shakespeare's improvement had been introduced.

During July or August, the King's men had performed three plays before the King of Denmark and his Majesty – two at Greenwich, one at Hampton Court; and at Christmas they performed at Court nine plays: on December 26, 29; January 4, 6, 8; February 2, 5, 15, 27. That on 26th December was Lear, as we have it in the Quarto version. The Folio is that used on the stage of the same date.

1607

Anthony and Cleopatra must have been acted about this time, as well as Cyril Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy.

On 25th June Susanna, Shakespeare's eldest daughter, married Dr. John Hall, an eminent physician at Stratford.

On 6th August Middleton's Puritan Widow was entered on S. R., and imprinted as by W.S.

Twine's Pattern of Painful Adventures, on which Wilkins' version of Pericles was founded, was reprinted in this year.

On 22d October Drayton's Merry Devil of Edmonton was entered on S. R. The entry on 5th April under the same title, in which the authorship is ascribed to T[homas] B[rewer], refers to the prose story, not the play.

On 26th November King Lear was entered on S. R.

On December 31 Shakespeare's brother Edmund was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, aged twenty-eight, "a player," "with a forenoon knell of the great bell."

There were thirteen Court performances by the King's men: on December 26, 27, 28; January 2, 6 (two plays), 7, 9, 17 (two plays), 26; February 2, 6.

1608

On February 21 Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's granddaughter, was baptized at Stratford.

The Yorkshire Tragedy was entered on S. R. May 20, as by William Shakespeare. The authorship of this play has not been yet ascertained.

On May 20 Anthony and Cleopatra, and Pericles (not as in the Quarto version with the three last acts by Shakespeare), were entered on S. R. Wilkins' prose version of the play was printed this same year. I take the order of events regarding this play to have been as follows. Wilkins wrote a play on Pericles in 1606, which was parodied in Middleton's Puritan that same year; in 1607 Twine's Pattern of Painful Adventures was reprinted; in the same year Wilkins left the King's company and joined the Queen's; in May 1608 the play was entered for publication, but not published; it may have been "stayed" by the Chamberlain's company; in the same year Wilkins issued surreptitiously (it was not entered on S. R.) his "true history of the play as it was lately presented by the poet Gower." Such a proceeding as this, a printing of a prose narrative founded on an unprinted play and by the same author, is unparalleled in the history of Shakespearean drama. It must be remembered that Wilkins was not even connected with the King's company at the time. Meanwhile Shakespeare had rewritten Acts iii. – v. In this new shape the play was acted in 1608, and was, as we know from an allusion in Pimlico, or Run Redcap (entered S. R. 15th April 1609), very popular. An edition of the play thus altered was issued in 1609, not by Blount, who made the entry in May 1608, but by Gosson, as the "late much-admired play … with the true relation of the whole history … as also the no less strange and worthy accidents in the birth and life of his daughter Marina," that is, of the part written by Shakespeare. This edition is very hurriedly and carelessly got up.

In August Shakespeare commenced an action against Addenbroke.

On September 9 Shakespeare's mother was buried at Stratford. Shakespeare's company had been shortly before travelling on the southern coast (Halliwell, who suppresses the exact date as usual). It is always dangerous to read personal feeling in a dramatist's work; but the coincidences in date of his King John and Hamnet's death, of his Coriolanus and his mother's death, justify, I think, my opinion that his wife's grief is apotheosised in Constance, and his mother's character in Volumnia. This is confirmed by the great change that takes place in his work at this time; his next four plays are devoted to subjects of family reunion after separation.

On 16th October he was godfather to William Walker at Stratford.

In this autumn Coriolanus was probably produced.

The Court Christmas performances by the King's men were twelve, on unknown dates.

1609

On January 28 Troylus and Cressida was entered on S. R., and published from a surreptitious copy, with a preface, stating that it had been "never staled with the stage." This preface was withdrawn before the close of the year, probably at the instance of the King's company. It has been, however, the cause of misleading many modern critics (myself included), as to the date of the production of the play. In the new issue the title states that it is printed "as it was acted by the King's Majesty's servants."

On February 15, a verdict for £6 and £1, 4s. costs was given in favour of Shakespeare against John Addenbroke for debt, and execution issued. This suit began in August 1608; the precept for a jury is dated 21st December, when an adjournment of the trial probably took place. After the final judgment Addenbroke was non inventus, and on 7th June 1609, Shakespeare proceeded against his bail, one Horneby. All these proceedings were conducted not personally, but through his solicitor and cousin Thomas Greene.

On 20th May the Sonnets were entered on S. R., and published with dedication to Mr. W. H., who, in my opinion, was some one connected with Lord Southampton, who had obtained a copy from him or his, and possibly may have given Shakespeare the hint to write them in the first instance, at the time (1594) when his friends were anxious for him to marry. Such a person was Sir William Hervey, the third husband of Southampton's mother: she died in 1607, and I conjecture that the delay in publishing the Sonnets was due to the fact that she wished them to remain in MS. at any rate during her lifetime. The copy used may have been found among her papers.

On 20th May 1608 had been entered Pericles, and Antony and Cleopatra, which were not published by Blount, who made the entry. Pericles, however, was printed surreptitiously in 1609 for another firm as we have it in the Quarto. This play was probably then continued on the stage, as we find another edition required by 1611.

Cymbeline was probably produced in the autumn. This year being a plague year there was little dramatic activity; even Jonson did not produce his Epicene for the King's men, but had it acted by the Chapel (or Revels) children. For the same reason there were no stage performances at Court at Christmas.

1610

On 4th January a patent was granted to R. Daborne, P. Rossiter, J. Tarbook, R. Jones, and R. Browne, to set up a new Children's company in Whitefriars. Their success was no doubt the cause that determined the Burbadges to take the Blackfriars into their own hands.10 Accordingly they arranged to purchase at Lady Day the remainder of Evans' lease of the Blackfriars (they had already taken the boys, "now growing up to be men," Underwood,11 Ostler, &c., to "strengthen the King's service"), and to place men players – Hemings, Condell, Shakespeare, &c., therein. Before the end of the year we accordingly find the boys alluded to acting as members of the King's company in Jonson's Alchemist. The chief players were Burbadge, Hemings, Lowin, Ostler, Condell, Underwood, Cooke, Tooley, Armin, and Egglestone. Of these Tooley and Cooke had been boy actors in the Chamberlain's company, Underwood and Ostler in the Revels children. Shakespeare's name does not occur; nor do I find any evidence except Mr. Halliwell's unsupported assertion (Outlines, p. 111), that he continued to act at this date. It is noticeable that there are ten actors mentioned; this is very unusual in these play lists, and suggests that the number of sharers may have been increased from eight to ten. There are certainly about this time allusions to ten shares scattered about in contemporary plays. If this be the case, Shakespeare would no longer be a shareholder: the whole question of his shares is involved in difficulty, and this conjecture is only thrown out to call attention to any allusions in writings of this date that may throw light on the matter.

The King's men performed fifteen plays at Court this Christmas.

In this year, in my opinion, Shakespeare having produced The Winters Tale and The Tempest, retired from theatrical work. Malone's hypothesis that Sir W. Herbert's mention of Sir G. Buck's "allowing" the former play implies a date subsequent to August 1610, is worthless; Buck had the "allowing" of plays in his hands from 1607 onwards. There is direct evidence that the Blackfriars Theatre was occupied even after 1611 by other companies. Field's Amends for Ladies was acted there by the Prince's and the Lady Elizabeth's men; and Charles could not be called Prince till after the death of Henry, 6th November 1612. The production of Field's play was probably in the spring 1613. By careful comparison of the dry documents concerning shareholders in 1635, with those of the Blackfriars property in 1596, we ascertain that J. Burbadge bought that property 4th February 1596; that in November the establishment of a theatre there was petitioned against, but carried out soon after; that a lease of twenty-one years was granted to Evans, either at Christmas 1596 or Lady Day 1597, most probably the latter; that at the end of thirteen years the Burbadges bought the remaining eight years of the lease, probably at Lady Day 1610, and took possession of the building; – but that they at the same time took the boys into the King's company or set up Hemings, Shakespeare, &c., in the Blackfriars is mere rhetoric of Cuthbert's. Underwood and Ostler had both left the Revels children before the performance of Jonson's Epicene in 1609, and Field did not join the King's men till 1618-19.

In June Shakespeare purchased twenty acres of pasture land from the Combes.

At Christmas the King's men performed fifteen plays at Court.

1611

In this year unusual efforts seem to have been made by the King's company to secure authors of repute to write for their playhouse. Jonson's Catiline was acted by nearly the same cast as The Alchemist, the only change being that Robinson appears in the list instead of Armin. The second Maiden's Tragedy was produced in October, most likely written by Tourneur, having been preceded by the first Maid's Tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, who also in this year brought out their Philaster and King and no King: in all we have five new plays of the first rank, acted by a company that hitherto appears to have almost entirely depended on about two plays from Shakespeare, and occasionally a third by some other hand, as sufficient novelty to attract a year's full houses. It is this quasi monopoly in writing for his company that explains Shakespeare's accumulation of property; and it is to me incredible that Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest should all have been produced in this year. Yet this seems to be the belief of practical critics who believe only what can be supported by what they term "positive evidence," the evidence in this case being that Forman, the astrological charlatan, entered in his note-book that he had seen acted Cymbeline, Macbeth, 20th April 1610 [1611]; Richard II., 30th April 1611; Winter's Tale, May 15. This evidence has, however, value of another kind, for it shows that a large number of revivals took place in this year; indeed, coupling this with the fact that at this Christmas and the next the unprecedented number of fifty plays were performed by the King's men at Court, it is likely that all Shakespeare's plays were revived immediately after his retirement from the stage. We cannot trace fifty plays to the possession of his company at this date without including them.